Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/455



HEN Gaston received her telegram in jail he was seated by a window looking out through the bars on Mt. Pisgah's distant peak looming in grandeur amid a sea of smaller blue mountain waves. He read the message and his soul was filled with a great peace.

"At last! at last! These prison bars, they are good! I could kiss them. I can never be grateful enough to my enemies!"

He had taken his prison as a joke from the first, sneering at the judge who had committed him. He knew that every day he stayed in that jail he was becoming more and more the master of the people. If McLeod had tried he could not have played into his hands with more fatal certainty. Five hundred citizens of Independence had wired him their congratulations and offered him any assistance he desired, from unlimited money for defence to a delegation to tear the jail down.

He declined any assistance. He knew the storm would break over their heads soon enough, and they would be delighted to get rid of him. In the meantime he gave himself up to his thoughts about the woman he loved, and wondered what change had suddenly come over her to send him that message. He felt sure the great crisis in their life had come. What would it be? A sorrowful surrender on her part to her father's iron will