Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 253, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1913 — FOUND MISS WILDFIRE [ARTICLE]

FOUND MISS WILDFIRE

By CLARISSA MACKIE.

Frank Churchill had had the briefest glimpse of her, but her face haunted him for months afterwards. As agent for ah eastern land company he had stopped for a night at her father’s ranch in Montana. Tlie girl had appeared shyly in the living roofn of the house and her father had caught her sunbrowned little hand and drawn her affectionately to him.* “Come Bess, I want you to. meet the man from New York who wants to build sky scrapers on the side of Money Mountain.” Bess Delorme had laughed merrily and placed her hand for an instant in -Churchill’s; with a few words of encouragement concerning his venture Bess had slipped away and he had J|#ver seen her again. But her face haunted him always with its charm of sweet expression and the pretty curve of cheek and chin. The thick dark lashes that shaded her soft black eyes, and the curling tendrils of her jetty hair, were set In his memory like a painted pictare. The next year he returned to- find her parents dead and the motherless home broken up. Bess Delorme had gone further west, someone said to relatives in California. No one knew definitely. So Churchill nursed Ills secret love and looked always for the face of the girt he, had seen but once. He became a traveling salesman and his business took him over much western territory. In every town or city he visited his first Inquiry was for someone by the name of Delorme', but so far he had never found trace of her. It jvas a cool sweet, night such as California knows often, and Churchill lingered on the steps of his Los Angeles hotel wondering how to spend the evening hours before bedtime. He lighted a cigar and wandered down the street until he came to an open air moving picture theater. He paused before the gay posters outside the entrance, studying the pictures of the western play “Miss Wildfire.” Suddenly he bought a ticket and went inside. He sat patiently through several reels until finally there was flashed on the white screen the title of the next play: "Miss Wildfire, a story of love and hate on the plains.” - Churchill settled back In his seat. It would be something to look on the familiar country where Bess Delorme lived. At the very first scene his interest was aroused. Surely there was the Delorme ranch house, and the girl dressed Ln corduroy skirt and flannel shirt with broad brimmed hat on her dark curls was Bess Delorme herself. The play proceeded; cowboys rode madly hither and thither; rival lovers appeared for the hand of, the rancher’s daughter; the rancher was a man who was strange to Churchill and Bess was the only familiar face among the characters. The characters came and went, made love, disagreed, hated each other, fought and died—and Frank Churchill saw only one face through it all. When the play was over he went dizzily around to the office of the manager and asked questions. “Miss Wildfire —why that part 1b taken by Lillian Delorme, one of the most popular players; let me see, that’s a Goodenuf film. Miss Delorme Is one of the Goodenuf players, you know. Sorry, that’B all I know about it. Write to the film company in San Francisco, they’ll give you her adflress.” Churchill thanked him and went away only to return and view the “Miss Wildfire” film again. When the doors were closed for the night he went to his hotel and studied the telephone directory. The Goodenuf Film company could not be expected to be doing business at midnight, therefore his long distance call to San Francisco was unanswered. He went to bed stirred by a thousand hopes and fears. “It must be that I’m going to meet her again somewhere or I wouldn’t have chanced on that film tonight when my thoughts are full of her,” he told himself time and again during the Bleepless night. At nine o'clock the next morning he got the Goodenuf Film company by telephone and to hiß chagrin learned that Mlbs Delorme had left the company the week before and gone east Iler destination? Oh, New York, I suppose, they all go there,” sighed his informant as the interview was closed. “East” waß indefinite —New York was a clew that Churchill clung to as he finished his business ln Los Angeles and prepared to leave for -Chicago on his homeward trip. And everywhere he went he kept his eyes wide open for some glimpse of his love and whenever he was ln the vicinity of a moving picture show he dropped in hoping to see Miss Wildfire once more. Again and again he raw the play in different cities until he knew it by heart He grew Intensely jealous of the big cowboy hero of the play who made such romantic lore to the charming little western girl and he would have slain the villain singlehanded every night If he h&d been flesh and blood. At last he -reached New York and reported to the sales manager. Mr. Robinson was very busy that morning and be sent word out to Churchill to wait a couple of hours for him. ’Til borrow a stenographer then and dictate a few letters,” decided Churchill and he spoke to the chief clerk. Five minutes afterwards he was seated In a small office his feet •lavated to a table and bis mind busy

over the correspondence that had accumulated during his absence. Someone opened the door behind him jand slipped into a cjxair. He turned his head slightly, saw a dark, curly head the outline of*a white clad shoulder, and arm and a slim brown hand poising a pencil over a fresh notebook. Churchill’s feet came down from the table and his hat flew Into a corner. “Good morning,” he said crisply. “Are you ready?” “Yes,” was the low-toned reply. - “Please take this letter: The Goodenuf Film Company, San Francisco, California. Gentelmen: —Referring to my several inquiries concerning the whereabouts of Miss Lillian Delorme until recently a member of your company of players, may I not impose upon your courtesy a little further and ask you to institute some inquiry, in whatever direction you may deem advisable, concerning the destination of Miss Delorme she, left San Francisco. I am very anxious to find her present whereabouts and —” “Oh, excues me!” cried the stenographer breathlessly. “Going too fast for you?” he asked kindly. “No —but, please, Mr. Churchill!” He whirled around in his -chair and stared with unbelieving eyes into the blushing startled face of —Miss Wildfire herself. He sat there with parted lips for an absurdly long time but it was rather disconcerting to search the west for a trace of Bess Delorme and come back to the east to find her prosaically established ln his firm’s business office! It took. Frank Churchill two hours to explain to Bessie Delorme why he wanted to see her and to hear from her lips that she had decided not to be an actress after all and that she had taken her dying father’s advice and gone east to seek work in New York; her only aid had been one of Churchill’s business cards found among her father’s effects. “Weil, Churchill,” said his sales manager when at last he Interviewed the traveling man. “You can fc put mourning band on your sleeve —I’m going to change your territory.” “Not New England?” asked Church delightedly. “Yes. I thought you’d kick a lot over It —you-ve been so keen for the west. “I was looking for something out there but I’ve found it now. I say Mr. Robinson, fix it up so I can have a month off in October, will you?” “Not getting married?” asked the other: • “Perhaps,” returned Churchill guardedly, but in his heart he knew that Miss Wildfire and he had not crossed the continent in search of each other in vain. “Then Til see that you get a pass over the line to Niagara Falls,” grinned his chief. (Copyright, 1913, by the McClure Newar paper Syndicate.)