CHAPTER XXV.

AMONG STRANGERS.

The dark, calm, dewy night closed down presently, and Sheila Kelly

promptly finished her wicked work.

The reward was immediately paid into her hands, and she departed in

haste from Ellsworth to spend it in riotous living.

The night was warm and sultry, and few people strayed abroad; so out in

the road, on the grassy bank by a little purling creek, there lay for

hours the motionless form of a seemingly dead girl, by her side a bottle

of laudanum, and a pathetic little note detailing the reasons for her

suicide.

For awhile all was very still. The bending branches of the trees

stirred, and fanned the still, white face, the dew kissed it; the light,

airy wings of the summer insects brushed it in flying; the winds

caressed it with the sweet odors of clover and daisies, and the waters

murmured by with a soothing song, all alike unheeded by the beautiful,

silent sleeper.

"Softly!

She is lying with her lips apart;

Softly!

She is dying of a broken heart!

"Whisper!

She is going to her final rest;

Whisper!

Life is growing dim within her breast!"

Suddenly the sultry darkness was broken by a flash of lightning,

followed by a low rumble of thunder. Swift rain-drops flashed down

through the leaves upon that still, white face, and a summer storm broke

in startling fury on the heated earth, drenching the motionless form

with a steady downpour of water.

The wind howled through the trees, breaking and twisting branches,

tossing leaves about like feathers, and swelling the little creek to a

brawling stream.

All the while the blue sheets of lightning lighted up the sky with

splendor, and gleamed through the tossing tree-branches down on the

fair, quiet face seemingly locked in death's awful repose. For half an

hour the war of the elements raged, then ceased as suddenly as it had

begun, and the last faint gleam of lightning showed a startling change.

The lips of Dainty Chase were parted in long, gasping breaths; the blue

eyes were dilated in a blank and straining gaze. She rose slowly,

staggeringly, to her feet, and as the black clouds parted overhead, and

the full moon glimmered through, flooding the wet earth with splendor,

as though diamonds strewed every blade of grass, she stepped, slowly,

falteringly, down to the road, dragging her drenched body along

aimlessly toward the open country that lay beyond.

It would seem as if a miracle had been wrought, giving back life to the

dead.

But Dainty's draught of laudanum had been too small to induce death, and

the wholesome bath of rain and the electric elements abroad in the air

had combined to rouse her from a stupor that might otherwise have

terminated fatally. Life--feeble, and faltering, yet still life--stole

back along her veins to her numb heart, and set it beating again.

With a strength almost incredible after the terrible week she had

endured, she wandered slowly down the road, obeying blind impulse, not

reason; for her mind was yet clouded by delirium, and she had as yet no

realization of who she was or where she was.

Her mind was a pitiful blank, and her lips babbled vacant nothings as

she dragged herself on and on, further and further away from Ellsworth,

and into the lonely woods, unconsciously leaving the beaten track, and

pursuing a lonely bridle path that led her into the very heart of the

forest.

Now and then, when her strength failed, she would drop down and rest;

then start up and wander on again, aimlessly and drearily, until she

seemed to be lost in a maze of thick woodland that looked like the

haunts of savage creatures and crawling serpents, whose dens were fitly

chosen among these jagged gray rocks.

"And when on the earth she sank to sleep,

If slumber her eyelids knew,

She lay where the deadly vine doth weep

Its venomous tear, and nightly steep

The flesh in blistering dew,

And near her the she-wolf stirred the brake,

And the copper snake breathed in her ear."

She came staggering out at last from a great thicket of ferns and found

herself near a brawling mountain stream--one of those pellucid trout

streams dear to the disciples of gentle Isaak Walton. On its green,

sloping banks she sank down to rest, lulled by the low murmur of the

waters, and presently the gray shadows of dawn were pierced by the

sun's bright rays lighting the solitary wilderness with glory.

Higher and higher mounted the sun, and all the woodland dwellers started

abroad, while the mists of the night fled at the warmth of the advancing

day; but wearily, wearily, slumbered the exhausted girl, crouching on

the grass, with her pallid cheek in the hollow of her little hand, her

hair a tangle of glory glinting in the sun, as it shone through the

branches of the trees.

Heavily, wearily, she slept on as one too exhausted ever to wake again,

and presently the deep forest stillness was broken by the dip of oars in

the murmuring stream, while a man's voice cried, eagerly:

"Another speckled beauty for our string, Peters! Ye gods, what a royal

breakfast we shall have this morning! Is your wife a good cook, say? For

it would be a thousand pities to have these spoiled!"

The voice had the shrill twang of the commercial traveler, the daring

explorer who penetrates the depths of the forests as well as the heart

of the cities, and the answer came in the distinct _patois_ of the West

Virginian backwoodsman:

"Stranger, thar mought be better cooks than my Sairy Ann whar you hail

from up yon in New Yorrok; but, I swow, thar hain't another saw-mill in

West Virginny as can ekal the cookin' in my camp! Wait till Sairy Ann

br'ils these mountain trout and slaps 'em on to a pone of sweet corn

bread. See?"

"Yes, I see--in imagination--and my mouth waters! Let us go back to the

mill at once, Peters, and realize our anticipations. Hal-loo! what is

that--over on that bank, man?"

"Gee-whillikins! what, indeed?" roared the saw-mill man, rowing rapidly

to the bank and springing out so quickly as to almost upset his

companion into the pellucid stream.

Stooping over the sleeping form, the rough backwoodsman scrutinized

Dainty with amazement, ending by shaking her vigorously, as he

exclaimed, in wonder:

"Wake up, honey; wake up, and tell us whar in thunder you come from,

a-sleepin' here like the dead, your clothes all wet and drabbled, and

your little feet bare and torn and bloody with the rocks and briars!

Why, 'tis a sight to make that soft Sairy Ann cry her eyes out! What's

your name, chile, and whar'd you cum from anyway?" as the blue eyes

flared wide open and Dainty stared at his kindly, gray-bearded face with

a pitiful, unrealizing moan.

The commercial traveler fastened the boat to a tree and came on the

bank, too, full of curiosity; but all their efforts failed to elicit

anything intelligible from the sick girl, and at length they came to the

very intelligent conclusion that she must be some invalid strayed away

from home, and that the only thing to do under the circumstances was to

take her back to the saw-mill with them and await developments.

They did so, and thus our forlorn heroine found shelter in a rude shanty

deep in the forest, among a few sturdy toilers who were camping here for

the summer, a half score of rough but kindly men, the husband and sons

of a good soul, Sarah Ann Peters, who did all the household work for the

crowd, and accepted with open arms and heart this new claimant on her

sympathy.