Geoffrey's Victory by Mrs Georgie Sheldon — page 173: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~ x JACEK’S STORY CONTINUED. 169 “ As soon as he was well enough,” Jack went on, “‘I felt that we ought to be gettin’ out of that place; it was too near home to be safe, and the police were liable to get on my track any day. So I began my roamin’. First we went to Texas, where I got work on acattle and sheep ranch. Aftera timelI scraped together a little money, and started out to raise sheep for myself. It wa’n’t easy to be with any one, lest somebody should come along who had heard about what I’d done, and I might get snapped up. The bey and me lived ina cabin by ourselves, away from everybody else, but I never let him out of my sight, and I grew that fond of him I would have died rather than let harm come to him, and I’d vowed I’d do the best i could by him as long as I lived, and get together some- thing handsome to leave him, to make up as faras I could for the deadly wrong I’d done him. As soonas I could get enough together, I meant to take him to some place where they care for them that have lost their mind. “My sheep turned out wonderful; in five years money began to come in right fast, and I might have kep’ on an’ beén a rich man by this time, if it hadn’t been that a _ man I knew came down that way about that time. I saw him first at the village, where I went to lay in a stock of provisions. He didn’t see me, buf I heard him say he was goin’ to buy out a cattle ranch ten miles away, and that was enough to give me a scare and unsettle me. I feared I'd be recognized and seized as the murderer of my girl, and though life wa’n’t much to me with the heavy con- science and the grief I had to carry around with me all the time, yet, for the boy’s sake, I wus bound to stick to it as long as I could—there was nobody else to take care of him, and I knew he’d fare hard without me. — “Phe man who owned the ranch next to mine had offered to buy me out the year before, soI went to him and told him I’d made up my mind to xo North and see if the doctors couldn’t do something for the boy, and if he’d take everything off my hands I’d sell out cheap. | “He took me up quick asa wink, and in less than a week the money wasin my pocket and the boy and me were on our way to New York. I bonghtasmall farm just across the riverin New Jersey. There wasa good ~ house and barn on it, and I stocked it well, hired a good strong woman to do the inside work and aman to help me outside, and then settled down to a quiet life; for I al believe anybody would think of lookin’ for me ere. GOMmIiGcoDoo SECE(e) =}