The bulletin. (Irwinton, Wilkinson County, Ga.) 191?-19??, May 10, 1912, Image 2

The bulletin., May 10, 1912, Image 2

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Newspaper Page TextCHAPTER I. The Young Lady From Philadelphia. Miss Enid Maitland was a highly specialized product of the far east I j say far, viewing Colorado as a point of departure, not as identifying her with the orient. The classic shades of Bryn Mawr had been the “Groves of Academus where with old Plato she had walked.” Incidentally during her completion of the exhaustive cur riculum of that Justly famous institu tion she had acquired at least a bow ing acquaintance with other masters \ of the mind. \ Nor had the physical in her educa \ tion been sacrificed to the mental. In \her at least the mens sana and the Torpore sano were alike in evidence. She had ridden to hounds many times ui the anise-scented trail of the West Chester Hunt! Exciting tennis and leisurely golf had engaged her atten tionXon the courts and greens of the Merlin Cricket club. She had buffeted "Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste” on the beach at Cape May and at Atlantic City. Spiritually she was a devoted mem ber of the Episcopal church, of the • variety that abhors the word “Protes ant” in connection therewith. Alto gether she reflected great credit upon her pastors and masters spiritual and temporal and her up-bringing in the three departments of life left little to be desired. v Unim her graduation she had been at once received and acclaimed by the "Assembly Set” of Philadelphia, to which indeed she belonged unques tioned by right of birth and position — and there was no other power under heaven by which she could have ef fected entrance therein, at least that is what the outs thought of that most exclusive circle. The old home of the Maitlands over looking Rittenhouse Square had been the scene of her debut. In all the refined and decorous gaities of Philadelphia’s ultra-fastidious society she had participated. She had even looked upon money standardized New ' York in its delirium of extravagance, ” at least in so far as a sedate and well born Philadelphia family could coun tenance such golden madness. During the year she had ranged like a con querer—pardon the masculine appella tion —between Palm Beach in the south and Bar Harbor in the north. Philadelphia was proud of her, and she was not unknown in those un fortunate parts of the United States which lay without. In all this she, had remained a frank, free, unspoiled young woman. Life was full of zest for her, and she en joyed It with the most un-Pennsylva nian enthusiasm. The second summer after her com ing out found her in Colorado. Robert Maitland was one of the big men of the west. He had departed from Phil adelphia at an early age and had set tled in Colorado while it was still in the formative period. There he had grown up with the State. The Phil adelphia Maitlands could never under- RS®?^ । -iQ dsW /®^w\ U<^S X—,o\ I -•JlkJlli^ ’ ’ W^-’-R^ WwWl'^^ F® .feW^ B-Wlag ß\ ■ A ^w< \ ® ■|||® llßl||v l |f|^^ BX. “Your Day Haa Pasted, Steve,” Returned the Younger Maitland. stand It or explain it. Bob Maitland I must have been, they argued, a rever sion to an ancient type, a throwback to some robber baron long antecedent to William Penn. And the speculation was true. The blood of some lawless adventurer of the past, discreetly for got by the conservative section of the family, bubbled in his veins unchecked by the repressive atmosphere of his home and Immediate environment. . He had thoroughly identified him self with his new surroundings and had plunged into all the activities of the west. During one period of his life he had actually served as sherlf of one of the border counties, and it was a rapid "bad man” irideed, who enjoyed any advantage over him when it came to drawing his “gun.” His skill and daring had been unques tioned, he had made a name for him self which still abides, especially in the mountains where things yet re mained almost as primitive as they had been from the beginning. His fame had been accompanied by fortune, too; the cattle upon a thou sand hills were his, the treasures of mines of fabulous richness were at his command. He lived in Denver in one of the greatest of the bonanza palaces on the hills of that city, con fronting the snow-capped mountain range. For the rest he held stock in all sorts of corporations, was a di rector in numerous concerns and so on—the reader can supply the usual catalogue, they are all alike. He had married late in life and was the father of two little girls and a boy, the old est sixteen and the youngest ten. Going east, which he did not love, on an infrequent btysiness trip, he had renewed his acquaintance with his brother and the one ewe lamb of his brother’s flock, to-wit, the afore mentioned Enid. He had been struck, as everybody was, by the splendid personality of the girl and had striven earnestly to disabuse her mind of the prevalent idea that there was nothing much worth while on the continent beyond the Allegheny except scenery. “What you need, Enid, is a ride across the plains, a sight of real moun tains, beside which these little foot hills in Pennsylvania that people back here make so much of wouldn’t be noticed. You want to get some of the spirited, glorious freedom of the west into your conservative straight-laced little body.” “In my day, Robert, ’ reprovingly re marked his brother, Enid’s father, “freedom was the last thing a young lady gently born and delicately nurtured would have coveted.” “Your day is passed, Steve,” re turned the younger Maitland with shocking carelessness. “Freedom is what every woman desires now, espe cially when she is married. You are not in love with anybody, are you, Enid?” “With not a ‘soul,” frankly replied the girl, greatly amused at the col loquy between the two men, who, though mothered by the same woman, were as dissimilar as what shall I I say, the east is from the west? Let it go at that. “That’s all tight,” said her uncle, relieved apparently. "I will take you out west and introduce you to some real men and —” "If I thought it possible,” interposed Mr. Stephen Maitland in his most austere and dignified manner, that my daughter,” with a perceptible em phasis on the “mj/,” as if he and not the daughter were the principal being under consideration, “should ever so far forget what belongs to her station in life and her family as to, allow her affections to become engaged by any one who, from his birth and upbring ing in the er—oh—unlicensed atmos phere of the western country would be persona non grata to dignified so ciety of this ancient city and—” “Nonsense,” interrupted the young er brother bluntly. “You have lived here wrapped up in yourselves and your dinky little town so long that mental asphyxiation is threatening you.” “I will thank you, Robert,” said his brother with something approaching the manner in which he would have repelled a blasphemy, “not tcTrefer to Philadelphia as—er—what was your most extraordinary word?” “ ‘Dinky,’ if my recollection serves.” “Ah, precisely. I am not sure aS to the meaning of the term, but I conceive it to be something opprobri ous. You can say what you like about me and mine, but of Philadelphia, no.” “Oh, the town’s right enough,” re turned his brother, not at all im pressed. “I’m talking about people now. There are just as fine men and women in the west as in New York or Philadelphia.” “I am sure y,ou don’t mean to be offensive, Robert, but really the asso ciation of ideas in your mention of us with that common and vulgar New York is er —un —pleasant,” fairly shud dered the elder Maitland. “I’m only urging you to recognize the quality of the western people. 1 dare say they- are of a finer type than the average here.” “From your standpoint, no doubt,” continued his brothen severely and somewhat wearily as if the matter were not worth all this argument. “All that I want of them is that they stay in the west where they belong and not strive to mingle with the east; there is a barrier between us and them which It Is not well to cross. To per mit any intermixtures of er—race or—” “The people out there are white, Steve,” interrupted his brother sar donically. “I wasn’t contemplating in troducing Enid ‘ here to Chinese, or negroes, or Indians, or—” • “Don’t you see,” said Mr. Stephen Maitland, stubbornly waving aside this sarcastic and irrelevent com ment, “from your very conversation the vast gulf that there is between you and me? Although you had every advantage in life that birth can give ■ you, we are —I mean you have changed so greatly,” he had quickly added, loathe to offend. But he mistook the light in his brother’s eyes; it was a twinkle, not a flasfi. Robert Maitland laughed, laughed with what his brother con ceived to be indecorous boisterous ness. “How little you know of the bone and Sinew of this country, Steve,” he exclaimed presently. Robert Maitland could not comprehend how it irritated his stately brother to be called “Steve.” Nobody ever spoke of him but as Stephen Maitland. “But Lord, I don’t blame you,” continued the westerner. “Any man whose vision is barred by a foothill couldn’t be ex pected to know much of the main range and what’s beyond.” “There isn’t any danger of my fall ing in love with anybody,” said Enid at last; with all the confidence of two triumphant social seasons. “1 think 1 must be immune even to dukes,” she said gaily. “I referred to worthy young Amer ! leans of—” began her father who, to do him justice, was so satisfied with his own position that no foreign title dazzled him in the least degree. “Rittenhouse Square,” cut in Rob ert Maitland with amused sarcasm. “Well, Enid, you seem to have run the gamut of the east pretty thor oughly; come out and spend the sum mer with me in Colorado. My Denver house is open to you; we have a ranch amid the foothills, or If you are game we can break away from civilization entirely and find some unexplored, un known canon in the heart cf the moun tains and camp there. We’ll get back to nature, which seems to be impos sible in Philadelphia, and you will see things and learn things that you will never see or learn anywhere else. It’ll do you good, too; from what I hear, you have been going the pace and those cheeks of yours are a little too pale for so splandid a- girl; you look too tired under the eyes for youth and beauty.” “1 believe I am not very Ct,” said the girl, “and if father will permit—” “Os course, of course,” said Stephen Maitland, “you are your own mistress anyway, and having no mother Enid’s mother had died in her In fancy—“l suppose that I could not in terfere or object if I wished to, but no marrying or giving In marriage, pemember that.” "Nonsense, father,” answered the young woman lightly. “I am not anx ious to assume the bonds of wed lock.” “Well, that settles it,” said Robert Maitland. “We’ll give you a royal good time. I must run up to New York and Boston for a few days, but I shall be back in a week and I can pick you up then.” “What is the house in Denver; is it er —may I ask, provided with all mod ern conveniences and —” began the elder Maitland nervously. Robert Maitland laughed. “What do you take us for, Steve; do you ever read the western news papers?” “I confess that I have not given much thought to the west since I studied geography and —the Philadel phia papers have been thought suffi cient for the family since—” “Good tord,” exclaimed Maitland. “The house cost half a million dol lars, If you must know it, and if there gSW O ® He Crushed Her to Him and Kissed Her. is anything that modern science can contribute to comfort and luxury that isn’t in it, I don’t know what it is. Shall it be the house in Denver, or the ranch, or a real camp in the wUds, Enid?” “First the house in Denver,” said Enid, “and then the ranch and then the mountains.” “Right-O; that shall be the pro gram.” “Will my daughter’s life be perfect ly safe from the cowboys, Indians and desperadoes?” “Quite safe,” answered Robert, with deep gravity. “The cowboys no longer shoot up the city and it has been years since the Indians have held up even a trolley car. The only real desperado in my acquaintance is the mildest gen tle old stage driver in the west.” “Do you keep up an acquaintance with men of that class still?” asked his brother in great surprise. “You know I was sheriff In a bor der county for a number of years and—” “But you must surely have with drawn from all such society now.” “Out west,” said Robert Maitland, “when we know a man and like him, when we have slept by him on the plains, ridden with him through the mountains, fought with him against, some border terror, some bad man thirsting to kill, we don’t forget him, we don’t cut his acquaintance, and it doesn’t make any difference whether the one or the other of us is rich or poor. I have friends who can’t frame a grammatical sentence, who habitual ly eat with their knives, yet who are absolutely devoted to me and I to them. The man is the thing out there.” He smiled and turned to Enid. “Always excepting the su premacy of woman,” he added. “How fascinating,” exclaimed the ■ girl. “I want to go there right away.” And this was the train of events which wrought the change. Behold the young lady astride of a horse for , the first time in her life in a divided i skirt, that fashion prevalent elsewhere ■ not having been accepted by the best • equestriennes of Philadelphia. She ; was riding ahead of a lumbering moun ■ tain wagon surrounded by other rid < ers, which was loaded with baggage, l drawn by four sturdy broncos and fol- I lowed by a number of obstinate little burros at present-unincumbered with I packs which would be used when they > 1 got further from civilization and the ; j way was no longer practicable for any -11 thing on wheels. I Miss Enid Maitland was clad in a I i way that would have caused her father ' ! a stroke of apoplexy if he could have i been suddenly made aware of her dress, If she had burst into the draw ing-room without announcement, for instance. Her skirt was distinctly short, she wore heavy hob-nailed shoes that laced up to her knees, she had on a 'bright blue sweater, a kind of a cap known as a tam-o-shanter was pinned above her glorious hair, which was closely braided and wound around her head. She wore a silk handkerchief loosely tied around her neck, a knife and revolver hung at her belt, a little watch was strapped to one wrist, a handsomely braided quirt dangled from the other, a pair of spurs adorned her heels and most discomposing fact of all, by her side rode a handsome and dashing cava lier. How Mr. James Armstrong might have appeared in the conventional black and white of evening clothes was not quite clear to her, for she had as yet never beheld him in that obliterating raiment, but in the habit of the west, riding trousers, heavy boots that laced to the knees, blue shirt, his head covered by a noble "Stetson,” mounted on the firy restive broncho which he rode to perfection, he was ideal. Alas for the vanity of human proposition! Mr. James Arm strong, friend and protege these many years of Mr. Robert Maitland, mine owner and cattle man on a ‘much smaller scale than his older friend, was desperately in love with Enid Maitland, and Enid, swept off her feet by a wooing which began with pre cipitant ardor so soon as he laid eyes on her, was more profoundly moved by bls suit, or pursuit, than she could have Imagined. Omne ignotum pre magnifico! She had been wooed in the conven tional fashion many times and oft on the sands of Palm Beach, along the cliffs of Newport, in the romantic glens of Mount Desert, in the old-fashioned drawing-room overlooking Rittenhouse Square. She had been proposed to In motor cars, on the decks of yachts and once even while riding to hounds, but there had been a touch of same ness about it all. Never had she been made love to with the headlong gal lantry, with the dashing precipitation of the west. It had swept her from her moorings. She found almost be fore she was aware of it that her past experience now stood her in little stead. She awoke to a sudden realiza tion of the fact that she was practical ly pledged to James Armstrong after an acquaintance of three weeks in Denver and on the ranch. Business of the most important and critical'nature demanded Arm strong’s presence east at this juncture, and will-he-nill-he there was no way he could put off his departure longer. He had to leave the girl with an un easy conscience that, though he had her half way promise, he had her but half way won. He had snatched the ^ZZ^ZZ » 4r P tL H/Wsn ■ t l( -WMWri'OII ' ^- nr® I.R T k?^L« • /MM^O jr) / 8 J J 1 &C / V ) ft L SWoR^ • W& JI , * I x r * 5 Mr. James Armstrong Wss Desperately In Love With Enid Maitland . * ' ultimate day from bls business de mand to ride with her on the first stage of her journey to the mountains, CHAPTER 11. The Game Played In the Usual Way. The road on which they advanced Into the mountains was well made and well kept up. The canon through the foothills was not very deep—for Colorado—and the ascent was gentle. Naturally it wound in every direction, following the devious course of the river, which it frequently crossed from one side to the other on rude log bridges. A brisk gallop of half a mile or so on a convenient stretch of com paratively level going put the two in the lead far ahead of the lumbering wagon and out of sight of those others of the party who had elected’ to go a horseback. There was perhaps a tacit agreement among the latter not to Sreak in upon this growing friendship, or, more frankly, not to interfere in a developing love affair. The canon broadened here and there at long intervals and ranch houses were found in every clearing, but these were few and far between and for the most part Armstrong and Enid Maitland rode practically alone save for the passage of an occasional lumber wagon. “You can’t think,” began the man, as they drew rein after a splendid gallop and the somewhat tired horses readily subsided into a walk, "how I hate to go back and leave you.” “And you can’t think how loath I am to have, you return,” the girl flashed out at him with a sidelong glance from her bright blue eyes and a witching smile from her scarlet lips. “Enid Maitland,” said the man, “you know 1 just worship you. I’d like to sweep you cut of your saddle, lift you to the bow of mine and ride away with you. I can’t keep my han*ds off you, I —” Before she realized what he would be about he swerved his horse to wra her, his arm went around her sud- y denly. Taken completely off her guard she could make no resistance, indeed she scarcely knew what to expect un til he crushed her to him and kissed her, almost roughly, full on the lips. "How dare you,” cried the girl, her face aflame, freeing herself at last, i and swinging her own horse almost to . the edge of the road which here ran . on an excavation some fifty feet above - the river. i “How dare I?” laughed the auda cious man, apparently no whit abashed by her Indignation. “When I think of my opportunity I am amazed at my moderation.” ’ “Your opportunity; your modera tion?” "Yes, when I had you helpless I I took bijt one kiss; I might have held t you longer and taken a hundred.” I . (TO BE CONTINUED.)