FOR FREEDOM'S SAKE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 35, 13 February 1900, Page 4

FOR FREEDOM'S SAKE

■* Aanvi FinaaoN. I

CHAR E» VII — Contmmd. johb BBOwtr or osawatomie. The gate wai reached; the gate was waged. Robert was opposite to where Both workpd, and at this moment Banchoi hoof struck a piece of stone and Ruth looked up. Obeying an impulse he could not restrain, though utterly against all his resolutions, Robert raised his hat and wished her "goodmoi-ning." Bathe received no nute now. Rath' drew herself together stiffly, gave him a grave silent now, and then returned to her work with redoubled energy. Robert crimsoned to the roots of his hair, replaced his hat, and Sancho received a 1 touch of the spar, which caused him to plunge, rear, and then bound forward at a gallop, and carry his rider oat of sight of the White House in a few minutes. In the inteival Mrs. Elmore had strolled down the garden j walk, and found Ruth leaning absently' on her hoe. " That was Robert Holdenough?' "Yes." " Did he speak to you T " not.' Mrs. Elmore looked at the girl out of the cornera of her eyes. "He 'pears to be in haste. Where's he bound, I wonder?"

Ruth made no ieply, and seemed absorbed in some other train of thought. She placed her hand in her aunt's arm and accompanied her back to the house. " Of course I should not think of speaking to him," she said suddenly. " How well he looks on horseback; I did not know New England men could ride." Robert had an eighteen mile journey before him. The day was cloudless, and as toe sun rose higher the aiv became sort and oppressive. It was perfect "growing weather," but incline! to be eneivHing fo: h»"nan beings, and after being an hour under the hot sun, he began to frel languid and di-owsy. His spirits became depressed again, and an intense irritability tormented him. Had he not been a lover of animals, and of horses in particul??, he might have vented some of his mental discora"o< fc upon Sancho; but, es it was, he allow-d his feelings to forwent iawadly, and the only vent he gave t'wja ws to picture various imaginavy intei views with Captain Howlett, of which began dinVenlly b'-t somehow ended the same way, n<-_uiely by a severe castigation of the Captain by Eobert with a new Mexican " quirt."—a whip presented as a parting gift by Isaac Snappett. Reflections of this nature, en'ivened by the hope that the day might really come when he would meet the Captain face to face, occupied the time to some purpose, and Robert • presently found himself approaching the village of Osawatomie, some two miles from Brown's " i un." All this ground was to .iccome as familiar to him as the streets of Boston. He noticed now that the face of the coiiiiuy was changing. He crossed a deep and swiftly-running stream, the MaraisdesCygnes river. The prairie road, dull and monotonous, gave way now to a path up the hill, winding betwem broken plantations of scrub cedar, and oak. Osawatomie was about a mile from the river side, a cluster of log huts " cleared " from the plantation. Women in sun bonnets •were busy here, washing clothes outside the houses, nursing babies in the sun, or working at patches of vegetable garden. As Robert went on he caught glimpses through the trees to the left of the Marais des Cygnes below, and found he was travelling almost parallel with the river. On his light the country was broken up with ravines —sharp hills and dales bare of human habitation, aud thickly clothed with tnnber. In such contrast was this scenery to the tame prairie round Santone that he felt as if he had stepped into a new country. The very atmosphere was different; cooler and more bracing, and permeated with an aroma of cedar and pine most refreshing and invigorating to the system. All around him reigned silence —the silence of a new world. Now and then a chipmunk darted with a rustle and a flash of grey fur alone the bough of a tree. Once he saw <m eigle leisurely sailing jn great circles overhead, and made out its nest at the head of a dead pine standing straight and bare, high above its neighbours in the ravine, like the mast of submerged ship.

It was now nearly noon, and Robert began to feel hungry, and thought with some inward misgiving, of what, Bhappett had said about John Brown's Spartan fare. He noticed with satisfaction that the road was more open; that here and there a dead tree had been cut down and carted away, probably for firewood. Glimpses of prairie became visible again between the ravines, and once, where there was a gap in the timber, he saw to the left a broad piece of water where the Marais dp Cygnes joined the Pottawatomie river. Meadow land in long stretches bordered this river, only waiting for the plough to blossom into the most fertile land in America. (To be continued.)