Argosy, Volume XXIII — Index Page, 1897 — page 174: what you’re looking at

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

wad PRAIRIE VOICES, A little later, when the wounded hero was resting easily in the arm- chair of honor, with Hetty by him and Rob asleep in his trundle bed, the male Darkes, moved by curiosity, started to go to the scene of the tragedy. Before they reached the swamp, a glare of light through the trees told them ” the hut was in flames. It had no doubt caught on fire from the blazing brands on the hearth that had been scattered over the floor during the struggle between Brock and the negro. The resinous pine logs burned like tinder. The hut was nearly consumed when the Darkes reached the place. Next day the ashes were searched, and the bones of the negro found and cofined. In the center of the burned spot was discovered the oblong pit, in which little Jimmy, and afterwards Rob, had been hidden. Baby Jimmy had died of fright and suffocation before Sam was ready to restore him to his home, as he declared, when dying, he had intended to do. In the pit, buried a foot below the surface, was found a tin can half full of small coins—the proceeds of the swindle the reputed conjurer had practised upon the farmers, whose property he had stolen and concealed, then restored by night after the owners had paid him for mysteriously dis- closing where it could be found. The negro’s remains were buried, and his hoardings were by common consent given to a poor widow, who had suffered more than once from his hoodoo tricks. Hardy Brock did not go to California. He married Hetty and lived with her in her Florida home, where she continued to keep house for her father and to look after the adventurous Rob. Mary EF. Bryan. PRAIRIE VOICES. WInD of the prairie, you speak to me With the siren voice of the mighty sea ; You whisper and sigh in chant-like swells, Like the melodies locked in your pearly shells ; Your tempest tone is the clarion blast That shatters the rigging and tears the mast ; You moan like the wail of a long lost soul— ’Tis the sea nymph’s spirit that mourns for the roll And the plash of the waters that used to flow Out to the West in the long ago. Oh, prairie winds, you’ve a voice for me Like the siren voice of the mighty sea! Tis only an echo, like memory, But I hear it calling and calling away, And I long with you for the sea today. Emma Playter Seabury. © =D EComicbooks.com ~