THE ANGEL OF LONESOME HILL
A STORY OF A PRESIDENT

by Frederick Landis
Author of "The Glory of His Country"

1910

[Illustration: Those who passed by night were grateful for the lamp]


It was a handful of people in the country--a simple-hearted handful.
There was no railroad--only a stage which creaked through
the gullies and was late. Once it had a hot-box, and the place drifted
through space, a vagrant atom.

Time swung on a lazy hinge. Children came; young folks married;
old ones died; Indian Creek overflowed the bottom-land; crops failed;
one by one the stage bore boys and girls away to seek their fortunes in
the far-off world; at long intervals some tragedy streaked the yellow
clay monotony with red; January blew petals from her silver garden;
April poured her vase of life; August crawled her snail length; years
passed, leaving rusty streaks back to a dull horizon.

The sky seemed higher than anywhere else; clouds hurried over this
place called "Cold Friday."

A mile to the east was "Lonesome Hill." Indians once built signal
fires upon it, and in this later time travellers alighted as their horses
struggled up the steep approach. At the top was a cabin; it was