As if in answer to her half-spoken thought, there came the tramp of stumbling feet, somebody beat upon the door, and a voice called: “Mrs. Sarvice! Aunt Huldah! We’ve just found another body over by the railroad tracks. Can we bring him in here, or shall we take it over to the other house?”
Huldah hurried out, to turn down the blanket they had drawn over the stark form and look upon the dead gambler’s face. “Carry him to the lodgin’ house, pore feller,” she said, gently.
God had taken care of the colonel.
ELUSION
CLEAVAGE of sea and sky,
Ever elusive line,
Though I follow it far,
Far as the Ultimate Isles,
Never it seems more nigh,—
Shifting shadow and shine,—
Dim as a distant star
That beckons and beguiles
Dawn-dream of my heart,
Dusk-dream of my soul,
Though I follow thee long
Into the night’s deep shades,
Never attained thou art,
Never I gain the goal;
Thou art like a song
That ever and ever evades.
Clinton Scollard.