Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/194

 INCE my last letter, we have passed through such a terrible experience that I scarcely know how to describe it. I shudder as I write. Think of it!—in this quiet out-of-the-way place, where we felt so safe, so secure! Though this awful tragedy occurred three nights ago, my nerves are still quivering. I feel so weak and unstrung that I fear I cannot write calmly or coherently about it.

The wretched affair happened in the ball-room,—most incongruous of places! We find that entrance to the room was effected by way of the roof, which the intruder must have reached by climbing a large alder tree standing near the corner of the house. We now believe him to have been secreted there when we went to our beds. My blood runs cold when I think of it— But it dawns upon me that I am not telling this story in the right way. How do the reporters manage these things? I believe the tragedy should have come later,—that I should have led up to it more gradually, describing the events preceding it, the scene of the conflict, with a diagram of the room showing the position of each piece of furniture, the hole in the roof, and all that sort of thing. Now I’ll have to begin again, I fear, and do it all over.