Show THE MAN j by B 1 4 I 1 i I 1 U i I 1 rl 41 11 r I 1 I 1 ar I 1 I 1 14 t I 1 4 T I 1 0 t J I 1 I 1 I 1 1 11 0 fa A I 1 I 1 I 1 4 I 1 I 1 P I 1 I 1 I 1 71 A 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 t ne I 1 I 1 f I 1 1 z 1 I I 1 i i 1 take care of old ou fellow goodby Go odb len take care of oV old fellow lets hear from you ou when you pet get I 1 home 11 I 1 dont forget us no danger of that boys and I 1 it f any of you ever come to old richmond remember I 1 live there and my mother will be as glad to see you as I 1 shall the speaker is a young man hardly thirty and as he lie sits in the buckboard bucl board taking leave of the little crowd of men who have assembled to bid him goodby his handsome face and well knit form are such as to attract attention at once after an absence of years ears len hawley is going home to him as well as to the men who surround him the parting means a great deal even though ough they strive with that intensely american dislike of exhibiting any emotion to conceal their adieus adicus under an air of everyday unconcern after ono one hag has seen tha the days lays lengthen into weeks the weeks into months and the months into years with one set of comrades when it cornea comes to parting the d dis ays long past bring up their memories to pass in in rei view lew and while no one speaks of them all are conscious that they are present oh be back again len you cant stay away aw ay bays ea s one of the men to whom he his has been speaking more to break the silence that is becoming uncomfortable than for any other reason the tile oung young man merely shakes his head he ile as well as all the rest knows that after years ears spent together this parting will for the most of them thein bo forever lotof out of the little frontier mm ing town many another comrade has gone just as he lie is going never to return many another who day after day had dreamed aimed of going as he be now is going lay resting under the sod in tha mountains around whose crests are just beginning to be gilded with w ith the rays ra s of the early summer sun well everything is is on board jose and you can drive around and pick up mr and his wife and then tile turn yourself loose it is the stage agent giving ins his last commands to the driver I 1 As the team of four halt half broken bron chos swings into the street the young mans face smarts and burns at the words he lie had just heard and in the embarrassment barras they cause him he almost forgets to respond to the farewells shouted after him he feels almost like I 1 jumping from the buckboard and rejoining his comrades he lie has left ho hag has hardly recovered hia his self possession as jose stops his team at a house in front of 0 which are already waiting a man of hia his own age and a woman some years younger the manewith man with much domineering at last has the trunk of which lie seems so solicitous placed to his satisfaction is in the buckboard aud and with the lady takes the rear of the two tw 0 seats with a crack of the whip jose turns his team into the road and the weekly mail between prescott arizona and san diego california has begun it il it ix hundred miles of travel trai el over ov er mour monr s and across deserts to meet the 6 ere ers of the pacific whether or not the mass of letters and papers piled in the bottom of tha the vehicle will all reach there or whether any of it will is a question while it U the boast of the contractors that they nm run strictly on schedule time they give gh e no guarantee assuring the safe del delivery ivory of anything even of the passengers they carry all they pretend to do is to run the gantlet it if they get through they will bring the mail in in on time and after waiting without avail an hour for its arrival when it is due it is useless to aspect expect it another week will elapse and then a new driver driving a nev nevi team will come in in and explain just where and when the tile indians jumped and took in the missing asing mail a and ud in confirmation of what he says aa as likely as not he will turn overt over to tho the postmaster a mass of rifled letters eo so stained and black with blood that the readers will have to puzzle long over them before they can decipher their contents it is la a standing rule though one that all drivers are urged to observe strictly that if absolutely necessary to lighten the load in order to escape from an indian attack the mail bags containing papers are to be saarif sacrificed iced first and those containing letters are to bo be thrown off only in extreme emergencies such ia is human nature that constant with danger brings at last a callousness and while all the passengers who ho have taken seats on this particular In morning orning may have thought of the dangen dangers gen in a general way not one his has conceived it possible that his or her fate MAY be the same as liaa has met those whose graces graves they so often encounter close by the j roadside Oad side each fach of the men has prepared for a possible attack by arming himself two at least of the passengers len hawley and mrs Duns mier aiu ard thinking how hov unfortunate tho the coincidence that lias has thrown them together to make this long trip in company As for mr Duns mier he merely thinks bow how unfortunate he lie is to be forced to make f it at all in the past when mrs duns wier inter was simply mamie manning the admitted belle of the little frontier settlement tl ement she and len ian hawley bad had been lover lovers that was before tb tbt man who now sat beside her had come into her life and as she and the man she bad had discarded sat eat together for the first time in months neither could refrain from thinking of the put of the quarrel so trivial in tta its beginning that had caused them to drift so wide apart that recon atlo nirna i IN il when be he bad had b beard F d of aj her I 1 engagement to another he b had determined t 1 I to forget her by gathering together the little property be he had and beginning life anew elsewhere it was hardly a year ear since the engagement that bound them together had been broken and already alread il read he lie thought bitterly che she had bad fallen into the tile arms of another somo some said that when mr Duns mier the lie rich mine owner had first exhibited nn an interest in her she had sought the opportunity to discard hawley much bluch as the tile latter may have felt his loss outwardly he lie appeared indifferent he lie could not believe that she had simply cast him aside for money and when the plainer spoken portion of the community in referring to the marriage intimated that after all it had been merely a matter of bargain and sale lie would have told them they lied had it not been for showing how deeply the wound still rankled of this woman lie could never think aught but good strive as he would ho he felt that he never could cease to love her he ile would not blame her for what she had done who could tell what her motives had been might she not have loved Duns mier as ehe she had in the past loved him perhaps even eden more inore he only wished that sho she would w donld be happy As tor for dunsinger Duns mier himself hims lf he lie had never liked him in fact there were very few who did selfish overbearing aring and unscrupulous Duns mier loved money as lie loved nothing else on earth to him it was a god to be deified delfied and worshiped at above ave all else it was his boast that with launey muney anything CO could uld najt be obtained obtain edo and when he lie had first begun to visit mamie manning during her engagement to haviley hawley his ar arrogant display of we wealth uth as well w ell ns its liis his ill concealed contempt of those of less lebs means had incense hawley haw ley so much that tile quarrel that broke the tile engagement ensued and mamie bad had been pleased to charge it to his jealousy after that it was easy for lier her to defend Duns mier and then the drifting apart had begun until she stood at the altar as Duns bride from that day hawley had bad determined to leave the country he ile had gone for the last time to look at the house which w aich during their engagement mamie and buring he lie ila had planned and of which they had superintended super intended the tile building As he went from room to room he lie thought of the many times they had gone through gli them together planning for the future and dreaming dreams that were never to be realized for the last time he had locked the door and taking tho the key from it had cast it from him somehow he lie could not bear the thought of giving it into the posses possession of another that had been months ago and tho the house still stood vacant As the buckboard passed it in in the early morning he unconsciously noted liow how the six months hid had changed it and ho lie wondered it if tho the woman behind him had noticed notice dit it it was wag to have been their home for nearly two years ears it had been tha the one themo theme of all others that pervaded their talk and now be he would not think of it though after all it might be for the best belt he ile would leave it behind him no as she was leaving it and in his old home in the east aas he lie would strive to forget it in the company of the tile dear old mother whom lie had d not seen for ears tho the memory of the woman who had entered his life only to mar it would in no tima time pass away how flow though would he explain to his mother that this woman of whom horn he lie had written so lovingly who herself had called her mother in her many letters during their engagement was now the wife of another that after all she whom he be had thought BO so true hid had proved false he ile could hardly bear to think of it somehow her presence this morning morn ingher ber blue eyes e es and brown hair which he lie had so often kissed and caressed had haa opened afresh wounds that th it he had thought healed heated and try as ha he would he waa wah unable to put from him the thought of the love that had once been theirs he strove to think of home would there be many changes to be seen how glad his mother would be to see him himl thank god after all the years ears of absence he lie was going back with enough to make her last days da s onea of easo ease and plenty he lie would never leave lier her she was the one of all the world who would understand what had be befallen fallett him and who would wohld know how to sympathize with him in his sorrow how good and tre hid had this old mother been to him so different from the woman who had given him up for the money of the man whose name she bore through all bis his thoughts though ran the memory of their courtship he could smell above the sweet scent of the pine BO so h heavy on alie mountain tain air tho the samo saino faint perfume that had always been her favorite and which he had grown to love and regard as almost apart a part of her existence he w wondered how bow after all that had passed it could still find favor with her to him bim it brought out only y pain in avaiu lie strove to forget it all by listening to the oba hurled by joso jose at his horses whence whenever er that individual thought be detected any disposition to shirk on the part of any of them II 11 I 1 lulas y vacas mules and cows would joaa joso exclaim in in bis his most withering sarcasm at what he conceived to bo be derelictions derelict ions of his team will you not lot return anything for tho the care and love I 1 have lavished on goulf yon whatever the delinquencies joso jose proclaims against may be they are more imaginary than real the mountains have bave been left behind and the road is now in the valleys where the spanish bayonet the flat green leaves leav essof of the prickly pear and the sagebrush havo aabye taken the place of the pines and the oaks oaks of higher altitudes tho the travelers have only stopped twice to change horses and aud to eat the noonday lunch the sun run baa has passed the meridian and Is beginning to sink toward the west the occasional cas caa ional cracking of josea joses whip and 1 the b muffled tall fall of the horses feet in th the heavy dust as they trot along are the only sounds which break the stillness of tho the desert far up in the deep blue of the heavens above a vulture floats lazily without an apparent effort it seems so graceful na as it circles that one cannot refrain from watching it although the tile upturned eyes ache and burn wit with hithe the glare of the summer sun heat and thirst and silence everything ever thing is parched and brown and the yellow ellow earth where it la is not covered by sand or duit is baked and cracked in every diorec direction tion thirstily waiting for the winter rains that ara are yet efa in months away even the rocks rough and jagged pieces of lava are black aa as it if burned with I 1 the I 1 all pervading heat tho the three passengers bit sit in silence Ignat ng bortha 8 I 1 I 1 0 I 1 1 il 1 att ctt f vt 1 aure at 1 limn R 11 acu icu lu T es 6 V ay at will at t least let bo a relief io reach it if only to refill tha the canteen that have become so warm that the water they contain has ceased to bo be refreshing suddenly jose rises in his seat sent and looks long and earnestly off to tho the left lefts where halt half a dozen clouds of dust are rising in the air they are so light that be lie cun can hardly tell whether they are only the whirlwinds whirl winds peculiar to the desert or men on horseback As he looks though in each of the little clouds of dust occasional glimpses disclose a group of horsemen riding at full speed he looks again all are looking in the came same direction and as its he drops to his seat and says simply indies In dios all till know that he la Is confirming their worst fears he stops the horses and handing tho the lines to hawley jumps from the wagon drawing his knife ho lie steps to the rear of the wagon where tho the heavy trunk placed there in the morning by anns mier is lashed As he lie starts to cut the ropes that tie it to the buckboard duns mier ier divines his intention and turns on him fiercely no no you throw that theres bullion in it he lie says and leaning in over goyer lie catches hosoa hand to prevent cutting the ropes that hold hot 1 I it los indies eon son apachese Apa Apac chesl liesl the indians are apaches says jose his face growing paler as lie notes how rapidly they are approaching i ng while the buckboard delays 1 I cant help it but you losa my trunk avys Duns mier cant yon make inake him understand I 1 cant speak Span spanish he asks in a pleading voice turning to hawley it Is the first time they have spoken sinco since before the marriage and eying him contemptuously hawley interprets into spanish what he has said and jose thinking that he lie too is asking for the preservation of the trunk leaves it and jumping into the wagon takes the reins once more into bis his hands and begins to ply the whip 1 lootus to see gee ihal vis ns rifle is in order and as he be does so he lie glances at the palo pale faces laces of the husband and wife behind him As for himself he is indifferent Duns mier lias has begun to throw into the road the mail bags his wife looks at liim him as if to urge him to cut loose the trunk but remains silent as if afraid to ask it he would sacrifice even her to save his gold hawley thinks bitterly how the horses jump under the lash I 1 they too have scented the danger and seem to know that the race is one of life and death tho the smooth straight road stretches far ahead toward where it begins to climb the narrow pass through u gh which it crosses the tile mountains it is at that point that the indians ar are e trying to intercept them how they ridel the cruel rawhide quirts buirts with which they are cutting their horses seem to be always in the air while the tile long IOD g black hair of each streams out far behind they are slowly gaining hawley raises his rifle and fires at an indian in the |