Chapter VII.

COLONEL WARLOW'S STORY--CONCLUDED.

An hour later the party sat under the drooping boughs of an elm, near thickets of snowy elder and blooming wild-roses, which filled all the air with their delicious fragrance; the shallow stream murmured and gurgled along between its willow-fringed banks, glimmering like silver under the beams of the rising moon.

At the request of the group, the colonel resumed, as follows:--

"When the wool had been allotted to the captains, in equal proportions, the leaders divided the company in two parties. It was understood that the side first finishing its task of picking the burrs and other foreign matter from the fleeces of wool, should crown its captain and carry her in triumph around the room on a chair; then she should be awarded the honor of opening the ball, which was to follow in the wide kitchen.

"Mary and I were the last to finish, but were helped through our task by several smiling friends. Then our captain--wild, saucy Peg Sickle--bounded up with the cry, 'Crown the captain!' which was re-echoed by her noisy followers, who proceeded, with ludicrous ceremony, to carry the order into execution.

"The violins struck up a lively air, and the gay Peg, wearing her towering head-dress of wool, led off in the inspiriting quadrille; but the lively dance was watched ruefully through the open doorway by the other party, who still were at their unfinished task; but our hilarity was interrupted by cries of--

"'Fraud!--Shame!--Peggy has been hiding the fleece!'

"It transpired that the treacherous Peg had concealed nearly half the wool allotted to our party, and it had been discovered, in its hiding-place, under the bed; so poor Peg was dragged ignominiously from the unfinished set, and made to abdicate her woolly crown, which was quickly replaced by a diadem of cockle-burrs, with which her irate foes decked her brow, with the taunting reminder that 'uneasy _lies_ the head that wears a crown.'

"We slunk back to our unfinished task, as our opponents finished theirs, and re-enacted the mummery; but we toiled faithfully, notwithstanding their jeers, and soon were allowed to join the revelers.

"I noticed, with gratification, that Amy appeared to still be heart-free; and as we were dancing together, later in the evening, I told her of finding Roger at Acapulco, and when she almost cried with delight at his escape, I began at once to build 'castles in Spain,' but prudently omitted mentioning the incident of the picture.

"Dancing and singing continued until a late hour, relieved, however, by huge baskets of hickory-nuts and apples, with supplementary pitchers of cider. Of that ride home through the moonlight I'll say nothing, in deference to that lady by the camp-fire yonder; but suffice it that she was the heroine of that very happy occasion, and the 10th of May was set for our wedding, which, in view of my four years' probation, I thought an age to wait.

"Next day I bought the 'Nolan farm,' which was only three miles from Mary's home, and at once proceeded to put the place in thorough repair. The premises were rather tumble-down, and 'the bildin's a leetle shackelty,' as the fox-hunting squire remarked; but I put such a force of workmen on the old stone house and broken-backed barn that the place was soon completely transformed.

"The fences were the most demoralized and dilapidated that I have ever beheld. In fact, brother Dick asserted that the 'Nolan boys, Bill and Ike, were never known to open a gap,' but rode their horses at the rail-fence, knocking it down for rods; then half of the next day would be devoted to repairing the unpicturesque nuisance--said repairs consisting of a load of brush, dumped where the festive youths had made the floundering leap.

"Often I would come upon an unsightly place in the fields--the squire's 'barrier,' a great thornbush, spiked to the earth with brambles and thistle--and I would smile at the vision of the sport-loving farmer unhitching his team amid-field to chase the venturesome coon or stiff-legged deer that had caught his roving eye.

"My carpenters were finishing a stile and two large gates in front of the house, which was temporarily occupied by its former owner, when Master Dave Nolan, a scion of the old stock, came upon the scene. He viewed the improvements with great displeasure, and, crawling under one of the large gates, he said, as he wriggled out, lizard style:--

"'Gates is all nonsense; aint half as handy as a gap in the fence and a slick rail!'

"The 10th of May found the house thoroughly renovated and furnished newly throughout; so, after the wedding ceremony, when we had discussed the dinner, Mary and I took a 'bridal tour' by going to our new home, and in the evening our neighbors and relatives gathered in to give us a house-warming.

"Soon after, I wrote Roger an invitation to spend the summer with us, Mary and Amy adding a feminine postscript, in which they expressed their valuation of one who had proved so noble a friend in my distress, and earnestly begging him to give them an opportunity of thanking him personally.

"To which he responded that he would 'do himself the honor' of paying his respects in person the following July--a visit which terminated in a wedding between my old friend and sister Amy. On their bridal day I gave them the deed to the Maple Dale plantation, which adjoined our own, and as I handed the astonished pair the papers I remarked that it was in fulfillment of the contract which Roger and I had made at Los Angeles, and they might charge it to 'Profit and Loss.'

"The newly-wedded pair left the plantation in charge of an overseer, and returned to Acapulco; but Roger resigned his position after a few months, and returned home to the quiet life of a planter.

"We enjoyed a long period of uninterrupted prosperity; but when the War of the Rebellion began, I raised a company and joined the Southern army. At the close of that terrible conflict all that was left me was my title and family, with the wreck of my once comfortable fortune.

"I shall hurry over the history of the struggling years that followed; how on returning from the war I found Mary and the children had fled to the city, and how I gathered them once more together on the farm, where the dear old homestead lay, a blackened ruin. But earnestly we tried to retrieve the lost years.

"The county in which I lived was 'reconstructed,' and from the bonds issued by the officers, and the taxes levied to run the costly, corrupt machine, there followed wide-spread financial distress.

"A treasurer had been appointed to finger our money. He was a hawk-nosed, black-haired little reprobate, named Toler, and the way he tolled all the grists which came to his tax-mill led us to believe that he was well named indeed. It was reported that he had once held the post of sutler in a regiment of Eastern troops. Whether that was true or not, he was undoubtedly the most subtle villain that ever sold scabby sheep or slipped a flag-stone into a sack of bacon. Finally, this 'patriotic' officer, having stuffed his 'grip-sack' with county funds, one dark night took an excursion for his health, considerately leaving the county, which he only refrained from stealing from the fact that it was not portable.

"The reckless extravagance of that class of men, cursed and abhorred by both parties, led eventually to wide-spread ruin and bankruptcy; but out of the wreck of my once comfortable fortune I saved a few thousands, and, hearing favorable reports from the fertile Kansas prairies, we turned our steps westward toward the setting sun. Fate seemed to lead me here; so I will begin the life-struggle over again on the spot where I lost my friends and the gold doubloons here, near the shadows of the Old Stone Corral."

* * * * *

When the colonel had finished the long and eventful history of his past life, a silence fell on the group--a silence tinged with sadness as they thought of the fate of Walraven and his wife; and as the camp-fire mingled its flickering light with the pale moonbeams, throwing an uncertain, wavering shimmer over the tangled vines and milk-white elder-blooms, a sense of their lone, isolated position slowly dawned upon them. They were far out on the verge of an untried, mysterious land, no evidences of civilization for miles around, and all the future, with its trials and struggles, looming grimly on the morrow. Is it any wonder that a feeling of dread, awe, and fear stole over the stoutest heart at the thought of the direful, tragic past haunting the spot with its painful memories, and the black veil of futurity hovering over them--hiding the joys and fears, the tears and graves, that lay beyond?

The colonel sat gazing, sad and thoughtful, out toward the knoll, where, resting in the moonlight, the victims of that horrible tragedy now slept their sleep of eternity in the lone, grassy grave.

The winds whispered softly among the trees; a song-bird twittered drowsily in its nest; then a long, mournful howl from a wolf on the distant hills broke the silence of the summer night. Maud, looking wistfully out to the west, where the great planets, those mute sentinels of time, kept their watch in the sky, repeated the sweet, pathetic "Dirge" of Tennyson:--

"Round thee blow, self pleached deep, Bramble-roses, faint and pale, And long purples of the dale,-- Let them rave; These in every shower creep Through the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave.

Chanteth not the brooding bee Sweeter tones than calumny?"

A wild cry from Mrs. Moreland startled the group from their reverie and broke in abruptly upon their musing. As they lifted their eyes or sprang to their feet in dismay, she pointed, with trembling finger, to where the uncertain moonlight flickered through the willows, and there they beheld a sight which froze them with horror, and haunted them with its mystery for long months thereafter.

But a few paces from where they sat stood the form of a strange, gray figure, in a loose, long robe, its locks and flowing beard of snowy white, its wildly gleaming eyes and snaggled fangs, showing dimly in the spectral light. With a long, bony finger pointed at the group, the figure stood for a brief moment; then, with a blood-chilling scream, it faded away amid the shadows.

Clifford Warlow and Ralph Moreland sprang after the vanishing figure, unheeding the wild shrieks of Maud and Grace, who begged them not to follow the frightful apparition. As the young men disappeared among the trees, Mrs. Warlow fell prone upon the earth with a low moan; and while all of the party that remained forgot their terror in their efforts to restore her from the death-like swoon in which she had fallen, the young men returned, reporting a fruitless search.

It was now proposed, as Mrs. Warlow had revived, that the boys--Clifford, Ralph, Scott, and Robbie--should make a more extended search with the three dogs; but they could not force the terror-stricken animals to leave the camp-fire, where they cowered trembling with fear. So the search again proved unavailing.