The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of ColoradoBrady, Cyrus Townsend
General
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado
Brady, Cyrus Townsend
Colorado -- Fiction; Love stories; Western stories
A rapid inspection of the other books confirmed her in the conclusion
that the man of the mountains was indeed the owner of the collection.
There were a few well worn volumes of poetry and essays. A Bible,
Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Tennyson, Keats, a small
dictionary, a compendious encyclopedia, just the books, she thought,
smiling at her conceit, that a man of education and culture would want
to have upon a desert island where his supply of literature would be
limited.
The old ones were autographed as the first book she had looked in;
others, newer editions to the little library if she could judge by their
condition, were unsigned.
Into the corner cupboard and the drawers of course she did not look.
There was nothing else in the room to attract her attention, save some
piles of manuscript neatly arranged on one of the shelves, each one
covered with a square of board and kept in place by pieces of glistening
quartz. There were four of these piles and another half the size of the
first four on the table. These of course she did not examine, further
than to note that the writing was in the same bold free hand as the
signature in the books. If she had been an expert she might have deduced
much from the writing; as it was she fancied it was strong, direct,
manly.
Having completed her inspection of this room, she opened the door and
went into the other; it was smaller and less inviting. It had only one
window and a door opening outside. There was a cook stove here and
shelves with cooking utensils and granite ware, and more rude box
receptacles on the walls which were filled with a bountiful and well
selected store of canned goods and provisions of various kinds. This was
evidently the kitchen, supply room, china closet. She saw no sign of a
bed in it and wondered where and how the man had spent the night.
By rights her mind should have been filled with her uncle and his party
and in their alarm she should have shared, but she was so extremely
comfortable, except for her foot, which did not greatly trouble her so
long as she kept it quiet, that she felt a certain degree of contentment
not to say happiness. The Adventure was so romantic and thrilling--save
for those awful moments in the pool--especially to the soul of a
conventional woman who had been brought up in the most humdrum and
stereotyped fashion of the earth's ways, and with never an opportunity
for the development of the spirit of romance which all of us exhibit
some time in our life and which thank God some of us never lose, that
she found herself reveling in it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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