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Show The Stage that ITas Late. It's only a little tale of a great deal of woe and a heart wrenched and broken. The world moves on all the same, and the 6tages come and go at Fort Cummings. This story is about a stage that came, only rather late, and It is true, every word of it. Fort Cummings is like a hundred other army posts on the plains, a cluster of "A" tents and adobe huts, a sutler's store, and a mess-room. It has been asserted that Cummings Cum-mings is quite as near, if not a little nearer, to Hades than Camp Thomas is, and my experience ex-perience leads me to believe that such is the case; anyway, the temperature forces one to that conclusion. It would be romantic to have Fort Cummings Cum-mings situated in a forest, with picturesque scenery and babbling brooks; but this being a true tale, it will have to stay right where it is, in the midst of a sandy, scorching desert, des-ert, with no view save that of Cook's peak, an odd freak of nature haviug formed the apex ot one of the mountains into a cold, dead face, staring upward at the brassy sky, seeming to cast a shadow of death over the old post acd to tinge its history with blood. One day the overland stage brought a letter let-ter to a mother an officer's wife and the letter contained good news" for thatlonely woman. Her only son would arrive that night by the next stage, lie had iinishe his college course creditably, and was coming com-ing home. It was along, loving letter, full of boyish nonsense, and full of fondness for mother, full of plans for the future and talk of the past. How the good woman pored over it, red and re-read it. She was so proud of the boy, and that he 6hould have turned out so well almost compensated for of three other bright sons. She had borne more thau her share of trouble; driven almost to desperation by a faithless husband all that saved her had been her boys, and now ouiy one was left. He was cominff back. How the time drair- ged. Would night never come? The sun 1 beat on the glaring sands fiercer and longer than ever before, she thought. Often she went to tho door to see if day were not almost done. Once, far out on the plain, she espied a moving band of horsemen. She had seen the same many times, yet it made her tremble. Could it be Indians? Once again, when she looked out, Cook's peak met her eyes, and she shuddered. Why must that face look so deathlike ? It had no riffht to intrude its cold warning on her happiness, hap-piness, and she turned back and did not look out again till nishtfalL, when, perhaps, she would not see that fearful face. But when night came a new moon 6hone just above it, givin? to the features the whiteness of death. Pacing up and down she tried not to see it. Two hours before the stage was due she went to Jmeet it at the trader's. For two hours ahe walked up and down. How the minutes dragged! When the time neared she walked out on the road a little way, but the stage was not in sight; so she turned back. Her eyes fell on Cook's peak. Oh, the dreadful thing! Midnitrht, 1, 2, 3, 4 o'clock; the dawn broke slowly over the plain, and still the woman paced. One by one the distant objects became clear, the long nitrht of waiting was over, and far down the road the stage came In sight. Nearer and nearer it drew; the horses were easily aeen; a moment more and the occupants occu-pants would be discerned. The mother trembled with excitement. The wheels rattled rat-tled nearer. The empty stajje was spattered with blood. It told its own tale. Before the woman stretched a future ad barren and as blank as the alkali plainaround her as that plain on which the boy's body lay, hacked and mangled by the redskins. She looked up and saw Cook's peak; a cry of agony passed her lips; then she staggered hack to the desolate home, Gwendolen Overton. |