Sheridan High School - Bronc Yearbook (Sheridan, WY)

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7 THE OCKSHEPER1DA tered his false dream. In such a blind rage that he hardly understood his own words, he said angrily, “Why do you follow like a dog at my heels when I would be alone? Go! Let me not see thy dark face again!” He thrust her from him and turned back to the lake. He called aloud upon the beautiful face to return to him, but only the rumbling thunder answered. The camp behind was dark and silent now, but still he paced along the shore and sent his sharp cry out across the waters. At last he was driven to his lodge by the blinding rain that suddenly emptied itself out of the darkness upon the breathless land. The morning broke clear and bright, with not a trace of yesterday’s hazy warmth. There was a chill in the wind that made the old men shake their heads and say: “The winter is close at hand. It is well that we are nearing home.” The squaws bustled about breaking comp and getting things in readiness for the last day of the trip. Running Wolf stood sullenly bv and watched the preparations. He was thinking how best to reconcile Starlight for his behavior of the evening before, for in the clear sunlight he saw that his fancy had deluded him. Rut Starlight was nowhere to be seen. No one else noticed her absence, and so they set out across the hills in the early morning. Running Wolf lingered in the rear looking back often in the hopes of seeing ger slim, brown figure coming after them, and so it happened that he was last to come along the trail winding toward the base of a huge rock. There the party had halted in a circle and were talking and jesticu-lating wildly. He pressed himself to- ward the center and there he saw upon the brown, wet earth the crushed and lifeless body of Starlight, lying where she had' hurled herself from the top of the rock. Kneeling beside her and caressing her bleeding face and thick matted hair, was her blind old father. Presently he stood up and stretched his wrinkled hands upward, he called upon his gods to curse the one who had brought this grief upon him? “It is the false young chieftain, Running Wolf,” he cried. “He hath wooed and then repulsed her. I call upon the tribe of my fathers to revenge this wrong.” All eyes turned toward the erect, stalwart form and grim, ashen face of the young warrior. The old chief of the tribe straightway called a council and after a long debate, during which the culprit stood stolic and silent in the midst of his guards, he pronounced the judgment. “Running Wolf,” he said, “you have disobeyed the laws of your fathers, and for this you shall be stripped of your weapons and your blankets and bound to the rock overlooking the grave of the rejected Starlight.” The command was quickly executed. The body of the dead girl was laid in a fissure of the rock and heaped with boulders. Then Running Wolf was bound on the rock exposed to the biting wind and where he must close his eyes or look directly upon his sweetheart’s grave. Then the procession moved on ucrtlward leaving the warrior a prey to the prowling beats and the cruel elements. So now when the wind goes moaning down across the lonely lake, hark you, for it is the voice of the false warrior mourning for his lost love.

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THE OGKSHEPERIDA 6 test. Starlight’s eyes followed him wistfully but warily, as he made his way out of the circle of light to one of the wigwams. Presently she slipped away to her father’s lodge, and pausing near the flap, listened to the voices within. Running Wolf was asking for something with all power of his stately eloquence. She heard her own name mentioned and she well knew for what he had come to ask. For a while her father smoked silently within the dusky lodge. She could smell the pungent fragrance of the burning kennikinek. At length he spoke. “She is all that I have left,’’ he said. “She has been my. very eyes since this darkness came upon me. But I will not need her always. I know what I shall soon see the Happy Hunting Grounds.” He sat silent for a moment. “When we reach again the land of the Crows, then you may take my Starlight,” he said at last. Starlight’s heart gave a happy throb, but she turned to slip away into the darkness. A hand upon her arm detained her. “Why do you run away, little Starlight?” a passionate voice whispered in her ear, I have something to tell you.” Starlight knew what he wished to tell her but a certain shyness and a desire to put off the expected happiness yet a little longer made her plead an urgent errand to a friend’s lodge. Running Wolf reluctantly loosened his hold upon her arm. “Promise to meet me then upon the shore of the lake,” he pleaded, “promise to come there for the message.’’ Starlight promised softly and darted away from him only to turn a short distance away and watch him as he strode away, into the darkness. While he waited, pacing up and down at the trysting place on the shore of the lake, he thought he saw a bit of moss floating over the waters toward him. He stepped nearer and strained his eyes through the semi-darkness, caused by the gathering clouds and the gleaming fires behind. He stopped, startled, half-fascinated, when he saw a maiden’s face gleaming up at him through the dark water. It was a face white and beautiful like none he had ever seen before, and it rose and sank in a cloud of misty waving hair on the gentle waves just beyond his reach. He stood motionless gazing at it, until it began to throw a subtle charm over his senses. He tried to speak and ask her who she was and whence she came but his moving lips made no sound. A sudden cold fear touched his heart. Then the vision in the lake smiled and beckoned with a gleaming white hand, and Running Wolf forgot the darkeyed girl for whom he was waiting. He stepped nearer and stretched out his arms toward that tantalizing face. It floated a little farther away and beckoned again. A wild intoxication flooded his brain. He poised his life-body to plunge into the deep, black waters after the foolish vision. A timid, but warm and restraining hand touched his arm and brought him back to realities. He paused for a moment and scowled down at Starlight, who had come at last to hear the message. Then he looked again into the lake, but the face had disappeared and the water looked inky black where it had floated. He turned savagely upon the shrinking girl who had shat-

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8 THE OCKSHEPERIDA Cupid in the Faculty For three weeks prior to the holidays the actions of Mr. Leo “Parenthesis” Sherman were such as aroused the curiosity of the pupils and thoroughly excited the teachers. As soon as the football season was over, Mr. Sherman began to spend nis evenings in consultation with real estate agents. Night after night he traversed and re-traversed the streets of Sheridan with a bunch of keys in his hand, prying into and investigating, “Houses to Rent.’’ Occasionally he slackened his pace to listen to the wise counsel of John Timothy Hawkes, who strode beside him. If asked why they were looking at empty houses, Mr. Hawkes would reply that he was going to move, or more commonly Mr. Sherman would say in an unconcerned way: Oh, another fellow and I are going to batch: gets pretty lonesome living alone.” Or sometimes he would assert that he was going to bring out his mother from Vermont. As the days passed by, his actions became more suspicious and more open to comment. Two of the Sheridan High school girls saw him “pricing” a Garland range, while the same evening he was heard to ask a clerk how a certain kitchen cabinet “worked.” Such proceedings continued to excite the pupils of Sheridan High school, and consequently they watched him more than he realized. During the next few days he was found to be investigating the comparative value and prices of: Rugs, buffets, dressing-tables, heating stoves, Morris-chairs, sewing-machines dish-pans, patent mops, flour-sifters, egg-beaters, pie-pans, skillets, pots, kettles, tea-strainers, soap-dishes, percolators, brooms, coal-scuttles, washing-machines, boilers, etc. His conversations were apt to turn t ward the subjects of coal, whether Monarch, Owl Creek, O. K., Storm King or Black Diamond, was preferable, and whether Dutch Cleanser, Bon Ami, Sapolio, or Sunny Monday soap gives the best satisfaction. However, he found it unnecessary to purchase many of these things, as the teachers of the Hill and High schools gave him a tin-shower Friday morning before his departure for the east, after his mother. In this tin-shower were many articles suited to the occasion. Anyone wishing to see what they were may find them by opening the east door of the physics desk. Friday noon Mr. Sherman suddenly disappeared on his “March to the Sea.” Then the wires began to hum. One boy would be heard to remark to another: “Say, kid. heard the news? Sherman’s going back to the Vermont bills to get tied up.” Nothing else was heard until articles began to appear in the Post and Enterprise copied from the Suffock Echo, the Hartford Gazette. Chicago Record-Herald, the London Times, the Paris Temps and the Dietz Review. The Ocksheperida would b«‘ glad to quote these in full, but. biiefly, they related the beauty of the bride and the nervousness of the