Argosy, Vol. 1 (December 9, 1882) — page 387: what you’re looking at

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

380 THE ARGOSY. past. I’ve got more’n my life or your’n to think of now, an’ Jeth Baxter, I say agin—an’ sw’ar it—you don’ leave me for Sue Oaks or no otheh woman as long as I live.” The man stood for a moment looking down and grinding his heel into the mossy sod. At last, shrugging his shoulders, he broke the silence. “T ain’t neveh bin afeared of any man thet walked, an’ I don’t ’low to be skeered by a woman now. If this is the end of it, good night,” and he strode off up the mountain side. The girl stood motionless looking in the direction he had taken, and the evening glow revealed a look of wild, tender yearning which showed that, even now, her woman’s love was gaining a victory over her woman’s hate. At last her despair and misery swept over her like a great overwhelming wave, and she sank to the ground moaning. For a few moments she crouched there in the darkness, going over and over each pleasant incident in her life with which Jeth Baxter was connected. whe recalled her suffering on that day, a few weeks before, when it had first flashed upon her that Jeth was growing indifferent, then the feelings of wild jealousy and despair when it began to be whispered in her ears that he had transferred his affections to Sue Oaks. Sue Oaks! At the thought of that name all the hate and malice of her wild nature came to the surface. Had she been weak enough to wish this man would return that she might beg his forgiveness? ‘That she might crouch at his feet and beg him to forget the harsh threats of a few minutes before? No!a thousand times, no! She hated him for loving another,,she hated that other for being loved by him, and, when she recalled his indifference to her suffering and tears, and thought how he would leave her there to be shunned by all, to be the jest of rough men and the scorn of heartless women, her longing for revenge seemed to swallow up every other desire. She only knew that she hated as fhercely as she had loved, and prayed more fervently for revenge than she had ever prayed for forgiveness. “ Oh, if I could kill ’em both!” she hissed. “ If I could kill ’em both; her first, an’ him next! ”’ | She was startled by the sharp click of a horse’s hoofs on the rocky road. As the horse and rider came under the tree where she was crouching, she rose . up so suddenly that the animal snorted and shied and the man’s hand instinc- tively sought his revolver. “Ts that you, Mr. Brainard? ” said the girl. “Yes; and is that you, Miss Bascom?” was the reply. “Yes; an’ I want to talk to you a minute.” “ All right, as long as you like; ” and Brainard dismounted and stood be- side her. “ Are you one o them guv’ment men?” asked the girl abruptly. “ One of them what?” he cried, considerably taken aback. A question of that nature addressed to him by a woman whom he more than half suspected of being in love with a moonshiner was not, to say the least, reassuring, in a country where the mere suspicion of a man’s being a government detective GOHMGOOO YN| CO