The child dies.
Crazed with grief, Jack gets drunk and shoots the town Marshal.
Leaping astride his horse, he escapes into the desert. Far out on a
sandy plain, he comes across the dead body of a young Apache squaw,
who has been bitten by a rattlesnake. By the side of the lifeless form
he finds a child who has nursed from its mother's breast and imbibed
the poison.[14] Jack thinks of his own child and his heart goes out to
the little one. Jack has eluded his pursuers and his horse has
dropped from exhaustion. He knows that he is free to escape. He
hesitates, but determines to save the little papoose by doubling back
on his tracks and meeting the posse, of which the doctor-sheriff is
the leader. On rounding a curve in the canyon, he comes upon his
followers, who cover him with their weapons. Holding out the child to
the doctor, he begs him to do something for it. The sheriff examines
it and discovers that it is dead. Jack, with tears in his eyes, stands
ready for his capture, conscious that inasmuch as he did it for one of
God's little ones, he has not done it in vain.
[Footnote 14: The scientific inaccuracy of this statement need not now
be considered.]
Mr. Epes Winthrop Sargent has well epitomized some important
principles in synopsis writing when--in _The Writer's Monthly_ for
April, 1918--he says that "the good synopsis:
"Starts with a 'punch' fact.
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