JOHN BRENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 102, 30 April 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

JOHN BRENT.

CHAPTER XIIL A LOVER.

SliC sobbed a little. I still held her hand. Two long hours I had kept Mr. Cli'thero in talk. For my friend's sake .1 would have prolonged the interview indefinitely. For my own too. He was a new character to me, this gentle soul, so sadly astray. My filial feeling for him differed momently. And as my pity grew more exquisitely painful; I shrank Btill from quitting him, and so acknowledging that the pity was hopeless. We approached the fort. The fiddlers three were dragging their last grumbling notes out of drowsy strings. The taints began to stream by toward their wagons. We turned away to avoid recognition. Miss Clitheroe and Brent joined us—a sadder pair than we. The stars showed me the glimmer of tears in her eyes. Bat her look was brave and steady. She left my friend, and laid her hand on her father's arm. A marked likeness, and yet a contrast more marked, between these two. A more vigorous being had mingled its life with hers. Or perhaps the stern history of her early days had taught her to forge the armor of self protection. She seemed to have all her father's refinement, but she used it to surround and seclude herself, not to change and glorify others. Godiva was not more delicately hidden from the Vulgar world by the mantle of her own igolden hair than this sweet lady by her veil of gentle breeding.

As she took her father's arm to lead him away to the camp, I could read in her look that there wore 310 illusions for ■her. But she clave to her father—the Iblinder and more hopelessly errant he might be, tho closer sho clave. He might reject her guidance; she: still stood by to protect him, to sweeten his life, and 'When the darkness came, which she luiiut not but foresee, to bo a light to Mm. However adversity had thus far failed to teach him self possession, it had 1 made her a heroine and a martyr—a 110----i bio and unselfish soul, such aa, one among the myriads, God educates to shame the base and the trifling, and to ftearten and inspire the true. '•Now, dear father," she said, "we Bust biu tht.se kind friends good night. Ye start early. We need rest." She held out her hand to me. "Dear lady," said I, taking her aside a oinent while Brent spoke to Mr, Clith3, "we are acquaintances of today; / campaigners must despise ceremony. ■| r father has told me much of your vy. I infer your feelings. Consider s a brother. Nothing can be done you?" I ur kindness and your friend's kind- '■■:■-, uch me greatly. Nothing can be sobbed a little. I still held her ling!" said I, "nothing! Will on with these people? You. a ith your fate staring you in the '■ ithdrew her hand and looked eadily with her largo gray eyes. •Oman to follow into the jaws ■ ~' c," she said, "can be no worse -1 common fate of death. That iy other defy. God does not .-.-:! i' orthy to shame." • ';■■.'i .- :o when we hope." • i .-.. ! id believe." ~.'.::■. len dear/ called her fa- ",..;•,-.• ilways between them, spoke, by finer gentle- ; vords of endearment, a . ,v old and close and ex,V«iS thuir union. Only when ~./ niu v.aS present at toa the tenderness, under that coarsening influence, passed away from the father's voice and manner, making the daughter's more nnd more tender, that she might win him back to her. "Gcodby!" she said. "We shall remember each other kindly." '•Yes, gentlemen," said Mr. Clitheroe; '' "this has' been quite the pleasantest episode of our journey. You must not forget us when yon are roaming through

I this region again." Ho said this with his light, cheerttu manner. They turned away. It seemed . as if death arose and parted us. We followed at a distance and watched them : cafe to their wagon. Tho night wind ; had risen and went sighing over the desert reaches, bringing with it the distant I howling of wolves. _ j "Do not speak to me," said Lrent, Will talk to you by and by." He left me and went toward our -■ horses " It had been imprudent to leave 1 th-»ir'so lous at night with bad spirits ! ' T looked into the fort again. The I dancers had gone. Bottery was fain- } Win" drunkenly over his riddle. A score '\ of liien were within the house carousing. I Old Briber's whisky had evidently ilowod freely. In one corner Larrap had If unrolled a greasy faro cloth and was P aeuliu:"' Mm-licr backed him. They I Nveiv winmaß- largely. They bagged I their winnings out of flight, as iaac as / they fell in. ' aizzum, rather to my surprise was a little excited with liquor ■ and playing recklessly, losing sovereigns by the handful. As he lost, he became \ fnrione. He struck Larrap in the face ' Recalled him cheat. L^apgav^him

an ugly i(\o's, and tv en, assuming a, boozy indifference, caught..Site'tra by the hand and vowed he was his best friend. Murker kept si , .oof from the dir pUte. The game began ags in. Again Si zzum ay/i the Mormons lc et. Again S tzzum Euappod the dealer , and eatchi the faro clotli tore it in two. The 1 ,vo gamblers saw that they -, /ere in dan gJr. They had kept themselves sober anc , ,°p- o t the others drunk for sucb. .a crisis. ' They hurried out of the way. Sizzum. ar t'l hia brother saints chased them, but presently, losing sig-ht of then in the dusk., they staggered aJ± toward tuamp, : jinc-ij; <r uproariously. Their leader on tl zis fesi/U val had somewhat forgotte:a th& dignity of the apostle and captain. This low rioting was do , , ibly disgusting to me after the sad evening with. our friends. I found Sizzrun x acre offensive as a man of the vvorl d tJ tin as a saint. I say man of the world., because the gambling soenes of nominal, gentlemen are often just as hateful, if more decorous, than those of that i light. I walked slowly off toward camp j sorrowful and sick at heart. Baseness . and vulgarity had never seemed to m /• so base and vulgar till now. I suddenly beard a voice in ■' che bushes. It was Larrap. He was evidently persuading his comrade to so" oae villainy. I caught a suspicious word c a t>.vo. "Ah!" thought I, "you. want our horses. We will see to th?»t." I walked slowly. Brent was seated by the embers of a camp lire, cm jwered in a heap, like «■ cold In di:vn. He raised his face. AD. the light had gone 01 it of him. This trouble had suddenly won i into his being, like the shirt of Nessus, and poisoned his life. "John," said I. "I never knej.v you despondent before." "This is not despondency." "What then?" "Despair." "I cannot offer to cheer yon." "It is bitter, Wade. I have yearned to be a lover for years. AD at once I iind tho woman I have seen a sad thought of and known from ray first; conscious moment. The circumstances crowded nry love into sudden intensity. I made the observations and did t he work of months of acquaintance in these few moments while wo were ; it tea. My mind always acts quick. I f. tern always to have been discussing in y decisions with myself, years before the subject of decision comes to rue. Wl mi ever happi- us falls on mo with the force of a doom. 1 loved Miss Cliche jroe's voice the instant I heard its brave' tenderness answering her father. Ilov&l her unseen, iiud would have died for her that jnomont. When she appeared, and I saw har face and read her heart, I knew that it'was the old dream —the' Old dream time I never thought would be other than a dream. Tho ancient hope and expectation, coeval with my life, was fulfilled. She is the other self I have been waiting for aud seeking for." "Have you told her no':" "Can. a man stop the beating of his heart? Can a man not breatiie? Not in in words perhaps. I did u.ot use the lover words. But she understood me. She did net seem surprised. She recognizes such a passion as her right and desert/ , "A great hearted woman ca:n see how B man worthy of her can nullify time and {space, and meet her, soul to soul, in eternity from the first." "So 1 meet her; but circumstances here are stronger than love." "Can she do nothing with her father?" "Nothing. Shffl failed in England when this delusion first fell upon him." "Did she know what it xnea:at for her and him?" "Hardly. Sho even fancied that they would be happier in America than at home, where she saw that his old grandeur was always reproaching him." "Did he conceal from her the goal and object of his emigration?" "She knew he was, or sirpposed himself to be, a Mormon. But JVlormonism was little more than a name to her. She believed his perversion only a transitory folly. It is but recently, only since they were away from succor, off in the desert, that she has perceived her own risk. Sho hoped that the voyage from England would disenchant her father and that she could keep him in the states. No; he was committed; he vra.B impracticable. You have seen yourself how far his faith is .shaken. Just so far that Iris crazy cheerfulness has given place to moping; but he will hear nothing of reason." "What docs she anticipate?" "She says she only dares to endure. Day by day they both wear away. Day by day her father's bright hope dwindles away. Day by day she perceives the moment of her own danger approaching. She could not speak to me of it; but I could feel by her tone her disgust and disdain of Sizzum. Oh, how steady and noble she is! All for her father! All to guide him with the fewest pangs to that desolate death she knows must come! She gave me a few touches of their past history, so that I could see how much closer and tenderer than tho common bond of parent and child theirs had been." "That I saw from the old gentleman s story. Sorrow and poverty ennoble love." "She thanked me and yoai so sweetly for our society and the kind words we had given them. She had not seen her father so cheerful, so like himself, since they had left England." "What a weary pilgrimage they must have had, poor errant souls!" "Oh, V7;ide, Wnde! how this tragedy of theirs cures me forever of any rebellion against my own destiny. A helpless woman's tragedy is so much bitterer than anything that can befall a man." "Must we say helpless, John?" "Are we two an army, chat we can take them by force? She has definitely closed any further communication on our part. She said that I could not have failed to notice how Elder Sdzzum disliked our presence. I must promise her not to he seen with them in the momin" Sizzum would find some means to punish her father, and that would be torture to her. It seems tliat villain plays on the old man's religious superstitions, and can terrify him almost to madness." "The villain! And yet how far back of him lies the blame, that such terrors can exist in any man's mind when God is love." "I promised her not to see her again— for you and myself; to see her no more. That goodby was final. Now let me alone for awhile, my dear old boy; I am worn out and heartbroken." . He mummied himself in his blankets, and lay on the grass, motionless as a dead man. It was »ot his way to shirk

cur α-p duties. maeeci, .his .volunteer services hud left him in arrears. l put our firearms in ordt« in case of attack and extinguished Our lioK'es, too, I drove in and tethered close "!'• My old suspicion of Murker and Lairap had revived from -their mutterings. I thought that, after their great Winnings of tonight, they would feel that they could make nothing -more of the mail party and might seize tho chance to .stampede or steal some of the Mormon horses or ours. It was a capital chance in the sleepy hours after tho revel. Horse stealing, since the bad example of Diomed, has never gone out of fashion. Fulano and Pumps were great prizes. I knew that Larrap hated Brent for his undisguised abhorrence and the Ugly words and collision of today. The pair bore good will to neither of its. Their brutality had jarred with us from the beginning. I knew they would take personal pleasure in serving us a shabby trick out of their dictionary. On the ■whole I determined to watch all night. Easy to purpose; hard., to perform. I leaned against my saddle and thought over the day. How I pitied poor Brentl Pitied him the more thoroughly, since I was hardly less a, lover than he. I drowsed a little. A'perturbed slumber overcame me. The roaring night wind aroused me at intervals with a blast m ore furious, and I woke to perceive ominous and turbulent dreams flitting from my brain—dreams of violence, tyranny and infamous outrage. Suddenl/'-another sensation went creeping along my nerves. I sat bolt upright. There was a feeling of human presence, of stealthy approach coming up against the night wind and crushing its roar with a sound more penetrating. Brent, too, was on the alert. '•Some one at our horses," he whispered. We dashed forward. There was a rustle of flight through the bushes. We each fired a shot. The noise ceased. "Stop!" said my friend, as I was giving chase. "Wo must not leave the horses. They will stampede them while we are off."

"They? Perhaps it was only a coyote or a wolf. Why, Fulano, old fellow!"

Fulano trotted up neighing and licked nay hand. His lariat hud been cvt —a clean cut with a knife. Wβ were-only just in time.

"We must; keep watch till morning," said I. "I have been drowsing. I will take the first hour."

Brent, with a moan of weariness, threw himself down again on the gross. I sat watchful.

The night wind went roaring on. It loves those sweeps and surges of untenanted plain, as it loves the lifts and levels of the barren sea. The fitful gale rushed clown as if it had boiled over the edge of some great hollow in the mountains, and then staid to gather force for another overflow. In its pauses I could hear the stir and murmur of the Mormon cattle, a thousand and more. But once there came a larger pause; the air grew silent, as if it had never known a breeze, or as if all life and motion between earth and sky were utterly and forever quelled.

Iv that one instant of dead stillness, when the noise of the cattle was hushed and our horses ceased champing to listen, I seemed to hear the clang of galloping hoofs not far away to the southward.

Galloping hoofs, surely I heard them. Or Wiis it only the charge of a fresh blast down the mountain side, uprooting ancient jiines and flinging great rocks from crag to chasm?

And that strange, terrible, human, inhuman sound, ontringing tho noise of the hoofs and making the silence a ghastly horror —was it a woman's scream?

No; it could only be my fevered imagination that found familiar sounds in the inarticulate voices of the wilderness. I listened long and intently. The wind sighed and raved and threatened again. I heard the dismal howling of wolves far away in the darkness.

I kept a double watch of two hours, and then calling Brent to do his share, threw myself on the grass and slept soundly.

CHAPTER XIVARMSTRONG.

He pulled his horse hard upon 7iis haunches and glared at us. I awoke in the solemn quiet dawn of the next morning with my forebodings of ill gone, and in their stead what I could not but deem a baseless hopefulness for our new friends' welfare. Brent did not share it. Hia usual gay matin song was dumb. He cowered, chilled and spiritless, by our camp fire. Breakfast was an idle ceremony to both. We sat and looked at each other. His despair began to infect me. Tins would not do. I left my friend, sitting unnerved and purposeless, and walked to the mail riders' camp. Jake Shamberlain was already stirring about as merry as a grig—and that ia much to say on the plains. There are two grigs to every blade of grass from Echo canyon to the South pass, and yet every one sings and skips as gayly as if merriment would make the desert a meadow. "You are astir early after the ball, Jake," said I. "Ef I wait till the gals in the train begins to polky round I shan't git my men away nary time. They olluz burr to gals, like all young fellers. We'll haul off jest as soon as you're ready." "We are ready," l^aid. I made our packs and saddled the mustangs. "Come, Brent," said I, shaking him by the shoulder, "start, old fellow! Your ride will rouse you." Ho obeyed and mounted. He was quite cowed and help:(•.•«'. I did not know my brave, cheerful friend in this weak being. He seemed to me as old and dreary as Mr. Clitheroe. Love must needs have taken a very cruel clutch upon his heart. There was not one tnan outside of our own party to be seen.

"Where are their sentinels, Jake:" said I. ■•Too much spree for good watch," says lie. "Elder Sizzum ought to look sharper." "He's a prime leader. But he tnk dance, agree and faro last night with a perfect looseness. I duimo what's come over Sizzuni; bein a great apossle's maybe too much for him. But then he knows ther ain't no Utes round here to stampede his animals or run off any of his gals. Both er you men could have got you a wife apiece laat night, and ben twenty miles on the way and nobody the wiser. Now, boys, be alive with them mules. I want to be off." "Where are Smith and Robinson?" I asked, missing the two gamblers as we started. "Let 'em slide, cuss 'em!" said Jake. " 'Taint my business to call 'em up and fetch 'em hot water and black their boots. They moved camp away from us over into the brush by you. Reckon they was afeared some on us would bo goin navies with 'em in the pile they raked last light. Let 'em slide, the durn ripperbits! Every man for hisself, I say. They snaked me to the figure of a slug at their cheatin game, and now they may sleep till they dry and turn to grasshopper pie for me."

Jake cracked his long whip. The mules sprang forward together. We started.

I gave one more look at the caravan we had seen winding so beautifully down on the plain no longer ago than yesterday evening, liosy morning brightened on every wagon of the great ellipse. Not h soul was to be seen of all their tenants. I recognized Mr. Clitheroe's habitation at the farther end. That, too, had the same mysterions, deserted air, as if the sad pair who dwelt in it had desperately wandered away into the desert by night.

Brent would not turn. He kept his haggard face bent eastward toward the horizon, where an angry sunrise began to thrust out the quiet hues of dawn.

I followed the train, doggedly refusing to think more of those desolate friends we were leaving. Their helpless fate made all the beauty of the scene Wily crueler bitterness. What right hud dawn to tinge with sweetest violet r.nd with hopeful rose the shelters of that camp of delusion and folly!

Wo rode steadily on through the cool haze, and then through the warm, sunny haze of that October morning. Brent hardly uttered i>, word. He left me the whole task of driving our horses. A difficult task this morning. Their rest and feast of yesterday had put Pumps and Fulano in high spirits. I had my hands full to keep them in the track. We had ridden some eighteen miles when Brent fell back out of the dust of our march and beckoned me. "Dick," said lie, "I luivo had enough of this. -. Ho grew more like himself as he spoke. "I was crushed and cowardly, last night and this morning," he continued. '■For the first time in my life my hope and judgment fail me together. You mast despise me for giving up and quitting Miss Clitheroe." "My dear boy," said I, "we were partners in our despair." "Mine is gone. I have made tip my mind. I will not leave her. I will ride on with you to the South pass. That will give the caravan a start, so that 1 can follow unobserved. Then I will follow, and let her know in some way that ehe has a friend within call. She must be saved sooner or later whether she will or no. Love or no love, such a woman shall not be left to will herself dead, rather than to fall into the hands of a beast like Sizzum. I have no mission, you know," and he smiled drearily. "I make one now. I cannot fight the good light against villainy and brutishness anywhere better than here. When I get into the valley I will camp down at Jake's. I can keep my courage up hunting grizzlies until she wants me. Perhaps I may find Biddnlph there still. What do you say, old fellow? lam bound to you for the" journey. Will you forgive me for leaving you?"

"You will find it bard work to leave me. Igo with you and stand by you in this cause, life or death,"

"My dear friend! my brother!" We took hands on this.

Our close friendship passed into completed brotherhood. Doubts and scruples vanished. Wβ gave ourselves to our knight errantry.

"We will pave her, John," said I. "She is my sister from this moment." His face lighted up with the beauty of his boyish days. Ho straightened himself in his saddle, gave his fair mustache a twirl, and hummed, for gayety of heart, "Ah non giunge!" to the beat of his mustang's hoofs.

We were riding at the bottom of a little hollow. The dusty trail across the unfenced wilderness, worn smooth and broad as a turnpike by the march of myriad caravans, climbed up the slopes before and behind us. like the wake of a ship between surges. The mail train had disappeared over the ridge. Our horses had gone with it. Brent and 1 were alone, as if the world held no other tenants. Suddenly we heard tho rush of a horseman alter us. Before we could turn he was down the hillock—he was at our side. He pulled his horso hard upon his haunches and glared at us. A fierce look it was; yet a bewildered look, as of one suddenly cheated of a revenge he had laid finger on. He glared at us, we gazed at him, an instant, without a word. A ghastly pair—this apparition—horse and man!" The horse was a tall, gaunt, white. There were the deep hollows of age over his bloodshot eyes. His outstretched head showed that he shared his masters eagerness of pursuit. Death would have chosen such a steed for a gallop on one of death's errands. Death would have commissioned such a rider to bear a sentence of death. A tall, gaunt man, with the loose, long frame of a pioneer, but the brown vigor of a pioneer was gone from him. His face was lean and bloodless. It was clear where some of his blood had found issue. A strip of old white blanket, soiled with dust and blood, was turbaned askew about his head, and under it there showed the ugly edges of a recent wound. When he pulled up beside us his stringy right hand was ready upon the butt of a revolver. He dropped the muzzle as he looked at us. For what horror was this man the embodied Nemesis! "Where are thfiv?" [TO BE CONTINUED.] ~