Chapter XXXV: Stray Locals

Of the six correspondents who contribute to the "Sharptown Sun," an influential paper with a circulation of more than 500 copies, I am by the editor considered second in merit. He told me confidentially that, although perhaps two of my brother scribes excel me in style, not one of them has as keen an instinct for news as I. This indisputable excellence in newspaper work, an excellence which is shown by my connection with the Sun for three years, induces me to arrange some of the latter part of this history in the form of a correspondence.

Alf Boyle was killed while resisting the officers who were sent to arrest him.

Mrs. Boyle, refusing to change her place of abode, continued her ministrations from her home in the wood. Sick people, needy children and her sabbath-school class received her special attention.

Hiram B. Durgenson will not again defraud the farmers. He was convicted of being accessory to the murder of William Boyce, an Illinois farmer, and sentenced to the Joliet prison, where, two years later, he died.

A watch was placed on Julia Wallace's movements. She was observed to take water to the barn at night. Her watchers, concealing themselves in the mow, saw her open a trap-door covered with hay and descend to the excavation which had been made in the spring. With a lantern, which they procured after her departure, they explored the underground stable. At first they thought they had discovered the recently-stolen horse, but a nearer approach showed them that this one was light, and the one for which they were looking had been dark. The next day, summoning a crowd, they returned to the barn. The victim of the late theft said that in size and form this animal was exactly like his Prince, but Prince was not of a dirty mouse color. A peculiar whinny and a pawing of the beast for grain settled his doubt at once. He was quite certain that the lost was found. In the stable where a huge rubber blanket, some bottles and papers containing chemicals, and a kettle in which some substance had been burned. The riddle was laid before some doctors and druggists, who declared it to be their belief that the horse had been covered with the rubber blanket, the chemicals burned under him and his color changed by the imprisoned smoke. A jury decided that Wallace and Ab were guilty of horse-stealing, but Julia was allowed to go unmolested.

Nora's grief over the fate of Montcalm, though sincere, was not of very great duration. In one of her visits to her Michigan relatives she met Fred Loomis, whose attentions she received and whom she subsequently wedded.

Ratke's men, who believed they had contributed to his great disaster, which was now repaired, worked with tolerable faithfulness, but Brown and Archer would occasionally shirk duty. The major's churn, to the astonishment of every one except the philosopher, proved a success. Its proceeds enabled him to repay John for the liquidation of the mortgage, an act which, in the face of the most vehement protests, he insisted on performing.

An evangelist came to Break o'Day, and Philetus Takum was converted. Philetus remained a devotee of his faith, until Lyman Sparks procured a superior breed of cochins with immense thighs and full breasts, when he yielded to the tempter. He was one of those who received the word on stony ground.