Show FEAT OF LITTLE ELLEN by JOINER copyright 1901 ty hatty story sh a everybody said when the darleys adopted her that they were mad hopelessly mad she was the child of some circus people her father had been killed by a fall from a trapeze aad her mother at the time had I 1 died from the shock she herself had t appeared many times in the ring she had acted on the trapeze had a ked the tight rope high above people s heads and had been cheered to the echo when she rode the won darful horses the manager felt that she might easily become the s I 1 most famous bare backed rider and get her picture put up in every vil lage in the country but then he real iced that there were loftier ambitions than that and when dr darcey of to take the child and provide tor her he hesitate about iv ing her up and that s how little ellen was lost to james simpson s ten big shows she grew up in a quiet little alabama town without doing anything more scandalous than yielding to a very natural desire to astonish her playmates by performances on the clotheslines in the back yard or on the rafters of the old fash boned barn or on the h gh garden fence she was dearly beloved by the goob old doctor and his wife and at eighteen might have passed for the daughter at an earl jt was then that phillip rogers came home from college saw her and fell in love with her ana then it was that everybody said he was mad hopelessly mad she was pretty she was well educated she was lovable she was altogether charming but the daughten daugh tel of circus people and such people f but because she was the oe o e woman in the world for the young heir he married her and took her to a golden paradise in the rod mountains far up n idaho on the bosom of the lie the marvelously rich forget me not gold mines called now hovi ever by the name of little ellen the name was changed after abo big strike and this is how it happened philip represented his father s large interests there and when the strike came on as the embodiment of capi tal labor put his name on the fated lists and he was set apart from the first he and ellen had been at the mines but a year and the union men looked on him as a southern tender toot who ought to be easily managed but at the end of the first week of dealing with a man whose courage were was commensurate with his strength whom neither threats nor bribes influence all was quiet in the valley below but ellen s heart her As for philip he knew that it was the calm before the storm for to morrow at nine george Mor larty the leader of the strikers and philip rogers the representative of the company were to confer together by the request of the stal ers the conference was postponed until the afternoon and it was not until after sunset that phillip and met in the latter s one room cabin within reach of Mor larty s voice were union men phillip looked out at a light up on the hillside and remembered that there was none save appeared many times in the r ng himself to help her therefore he was reasoning most patiently and erinest ly heavens what is ti A flash a terrific explosion mo airty was lying in a heap before him splotches of blood and bra n on his clothes a smoking pistol at his feet it was phillip s voice that called to the ers and when the came bod save any man atom such a mon ent it was in lain that phillip declared declai ed that the shot bd b d ben fird from cuts de from the alado v ud that 1 e had even seen the assess t availed noth ng A ropo around his neck and death on the th n ave amut s the r i t i author ty to mo art e r 1 as afy tw plan of more site s it was decreed that their prisoner was to keep watch alone all night over the dead body the rude cabin being guarded on the outside by a dozen of their number and the next day he was to bang over a slow fire kindled on conarty s grave they agreed and finally withdrew and that night the kochies echoed to such shouts of carousal as the for get me not had never heard before phillip sat alone with the dead watching through the s agle window tl e light on the hillside he 1001 ed at it with an unfaltering eye though he 1 neti that six cruel guns were po nt ed at that window and six at the conarty s ghost opposite door who committed the cowardly deed for which he was to aay the penalty he never knew what wrong was avenged what crime was atoned for by Mon artys death he neer discovered indeed so well did the assassin lay his plans that he was never detected meantime the news had been broken to ellen in the most brutal way two hours after the killing hamilton the new leader was told that the wife of the prisoner wished to see him and ellen was led in to hear coarse jests receive gross in suits and suffer what was almost death to a tenderly nurtured woman she asked tor only five minutes and as she knelt in the agony of her soul her helplessness and beauty kindled a momentary warmth in hamilton a heart let her see him for five minutes boys then gruffly five minutes remember and natch the interview how could one little woman thwart the purpose of four hundred mena the most poignant moment of phil lip s trial came when he saw ellen led away it was maddening to think of what might be in store for her but he pr served his calm and dagni fled mien sat down by the lamp took some letters from his pocket and be gan to read his captors 1001 ed in at him curiously As phillip lead not a muscle of his face quivered though his heart stood still within him for these were the words when you hear the hip poor will come to the window the second call blow out the light the coast will then be clear you must escape dear run to the little gulch for my sal e it had come to him bv ellen s hand and the reading of it threw him into the most horrible doubts and fears she was going to attempt some es cape it would be worse than tolly it would be madder than madness he must cry out and save her from such a sacrifice but some unreason able hope sealed his lips and the weary hours dragged toward two in the morning A hush had come oer the valley but the sentinels without every now and then gave grim tokens of sleepless suddenly there came the whip poor will s call a whistle ho himself had taught to ellen he was at the win dow in a quarter of a second there was no moon but a continuous play of lightning relieved tho darkness in the weird 1 ne saw a figure in white in midair comus slowly to ward the cabin an exclamation fell on bla uncomprehending brain and he knew that one of the men saw it also then came a brighter flash and he saw one of the guard tall prone to the earth and three ansh headlong bovard the valley the other two of the si gave short inarticulate cries alen god was good for as the re bainder of the guard ran around the house a vivid flash revealed the white figure swaying f teen fee in the air with its 1 baard its hag gard face its hair monar ty s ghost en made a simul tadeous rush for the shelter of tho cabin at that moment the 1 gl t was ex tegu shed and the storm burst over the forget m not avery new 11 the country tol 1 the story of how these lovers fled away into the storm and all the west rang with admiration of ellens dar ing exploit her plan was at once the simplest and most natural she attacked the great weakness of thi enemy super and as conarty s ghost she conquered the rope on which she walked was one of wire stretched from the trestle of an ore track to a tree near conarty s house in the west trestles are often partly strengthened in this way how she ever planned the escape how she man aged to pass the guard unobserved how she 1 ept her footing on the rope and how she dropped unhurt to the ground she could never tell and the only explanation epla nation is that all things are possible to a woman who loves faith may remove mountains hope may bu id castles but love love ah that accomplishes all things the little ellen gold mines are the richest in idaho but all the wealth that 1 es waiting there Is not half so prec ous to phillip who will one day own so much of it as Is the loe of his wife |