Excerpt from Historia, Vol. 8: October 1, 1921

One day Fritz made his pony ready in the buckboard and asked his new housekeeper if she would not like to go with him to the city, where he wanted to do some trading. After a slight hesitanoy she decided to go; hence with little Veva they left for town only a couple of miles away. There they took lunch at a restaurant, in the midst of which a tough bronzed seedy - looking hobo entered and leaning over the counter asked for a hand-out. Just at this moment he happened to glance toward Fritz and his companions. Meantime she had already caught sight of the tough-looking individual, at which there was a shrinking back, with a frightened stare that alarmed Fritz who sought to console. The amaze was soon smothered by a forced smile of dis sembling. The hobo again leaned over the counter and with a mean and savage side-glance made some inquiry, and with a sandwich ambled out, to the visible relief of Trola, hoping that he had not recognized her. It was-don Carson. The home-going was all but a serene one - so far as the woman was concerned, as she kept glancing back until safely within the cabin; and even here there might have been noticed by anyone less diffident than Fritz, a slightly uneasy manner.

It was that hour darkest before day when Trola was awakened by what sounded like soft foot-pads. On arous ing the light turned down was suddenly snuffed out - not by the wind, because none was stirring. Just as she slipped from bed and drew the curtain a dark shadow darted from the open door. With mother instinct backed by her own suspicions she immediately rushed back to the bed. The little nest was still warm, but Veva had disappeared.

Hurrying to the shed young Moro was nervously shaken and on arousing was told what had happened; but not given the suspicions of the mother. There was a frantic two-and-fro search without avail in the hour before day. On the first peep of light Fritz mounted his pony and started off in search, the mother in wild yet intuitive darted for the city. Here she learned that a man in a spring wagon had passed through there, only a few minutes previous; that he was holding a small child in front of him that he had started to cross the Arkansas which at tha t point is near a half mile wide, but with scarcely any water except when some sudden wall would come rumbling down in a roll carrying everything before it. And just then a roaring sound indicated that the avalanche was sweeping down the river; that an attempt to cross meant certain death in the engulfing flood which subsided never under a week or so.

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