Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/33

Rh faces, clutching hands, shadows half seen. Something of all this death was to him, yet it was a terror that he could not fully explain.

"Once as a boy he fought another, but that was because the other was bearing a story to the boy’s father, and he was afraid of the father.

"Once as a man he fought again, and that was because there was no possible escape without deadly shame, and he fought like a child mad with terror. This nobody knew, and he won—his foe was the smaller.

"Then he married the woman.

"For three years they lived together, and nothing happened to try his courage. Such is the calm of life. The much-dreaded possible battles of boyhood were now no more. He was a man.

"But it happened he had to move from his quiet village into a desolate part of the country. Why does not matter. His was the only house for miles around, and it stood on the edge of a great cattle ranch. Behind it, some distance off, was a railroad, and on one side a strong river, often swollen to twice its natural size by heavy rains. Over it was