Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1914 — A Man in the Open [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Man in the Open

bg Roger Pocock

f Illustrations bg Ellsworth Young

SYNOPSIS. The etory opens with Jesse Smith relating the story of his birth, early life tn Labrador and of the death of his father. Jesse becomes a sailor. His mothet marries the master of the ship and both are lost In the wrack of the vessel, -esse becomes a cowboy In Texas. He marries Polly, a singer of questionable morals, who later is reported to have committed suicide. Jesse, becomes a rancher and moves to British Columbia. ■'Kate Trevor takes up the narrative. Unhappily married she contemplates suicide, but changes her mind after meeting Jesse. Jesse rescues Kate from her drink-maddened huaband who attempts to kill her. Trevor loses his life in the rapids. Kate rejects offers of grand opera managers to return to the stage and marries Jesse. CHAPTER IV.—Continued. Were there no clouds, would we realize that the sky is blue? If no little misunderstandings had risen above our horizon, would Jesse and 1 have realized our wedded happiness? How should I know when I rtad his pocket diary, what was meant by “one night out Took Matilda,” or "Matilda and Fussy tonight/' or "marched with Harem!” Matilda and Fussy if you please, are blankets, and the Harem is his winter camp equipment. What would you think if you found this in a book? * He says it means, "Eating-house woman chasing—Jesse galloping —home dead finish.” And some of it is worse! I dare not accuse my dear man of being narrow-minded. I have no doubt that he is quite satisfied in his intense antipathy to niggers, dagos and chinks—-indeed, he will not allow my Chinese servant on the ranch. But if I wished to uncork a choice vintage of stories, I alluded to his prejudice against the word "grizzly” as applied to his pet bear. "Now thar’s whar yo’re dead wrong.” He threw a log of cedar upon our camp altar, making fresh incense to the wild gods. "The landlord’s a silver-tip, fat as butter. Down in the low country, whar feed is mean, and Britishers around, the h’ars is poor, and called grizzlies. I’d be ashamed to have a grizzly on my ranch.” "Why is the landlord called Eph?” “Christian name. Most b’ars is Ephraim, but he's Ephrata which means ‘be open.’ I tried to get him te be open with me instead of stealing chickens. That's when the bad year come." ~ j “Were you in difficulties?” "Eph was. Them canneries down to salt .water, had fished the Fraser out, and the hatchery didn’t get to its work until the fourth year, when the new spawn come back to their home river. Yes, and the uarvls berries failed. So when the salmon and berries went back on him, he sort of petered out He come to the cabin and said, plain as talk, he was nigh quitting business.” “But Jesse! A starving gr—l mean b’ar. ,Weren’t you afraid even then?” "Why for? My partner attends to his business, and don’t interfere with my hawss ranch. He owns ths grubs, berries, salmon, Wild honey and fixings. I owns the grass, stock, chickens, and garden ms. When we disagreed about them cabbages, I shot holes in his ears until he allowed they was mine. His ears is still sort

of untidy. Ai to Mi eating Sarah, wall, I warned her not to tempt poor Eph too much/*'. “Sarah?" "Jones' foal. Being a fool runs tn' her family. Wall, Sarah died, and cabbages was gettin*, seldom, and Eph was losing confidence in my alm, although I told him I'm tough as sea beef.” "He did attack you then?" "Not exactly. His acts might have been misunderstood, though. Seemed to me It was time to survey the pasture, and see how much ,tn the way of grub could be spared to a poor widower. These people eats meat, but they like it butchered for 'em, and ripened. Down at the south end, 1 spared Eph a family of wolverines, one at a time, to make the rations

hold out. He oegan to get encouraged. Then this place was just humming with rattlesnakes, so Eph and me just went around together so long as the hunting was worth the trouble. I doubt if there’s any left” At that I breathed a sigh, of relief. "Then . Eph _gets sassy, wanting squir’ls and chipmunks. Now thar I was firm. Every striped varmint of ’em" may rob my oat sacks, every squlr’l may set up and cuss all day, but they won’t get hurt. Though they has enemies—foxes, mink, skunk, weasel, I fed that lot to Eph, saving thefoxes. Tell you, Kate, the landlord began to get so proud he wouldn’t know me." “Your great eagles, Jesse; they kill squirrels, too.” . .. “That’s a fact If I shot the eagles, them squir’ls would get too joyful. Eagles acks as a sort of religion to squir’ls, or they’d forget their prayers. The next proposition was cougars.” "Oh. I’m glad you killed them. At the old ranch I was so terrified I’d lie awake all night.” “I’m sort of sorry. Many’s the time, camped on your bench land, which I own is a good place for cougars, I’d set up half the night to listen. They sang love songs, big war songs, and all kinds of music. Fancy you bein’ scared! "Kill them? They’re hard to see as ghosts, and every time you fire they just get absent. That ain’t the reason though, for if the landlord wanted cat’s meat, I’d like to see the fight” “The’d never dare to fight that giant bear!” “I dunno. Eph ain’t lost no cougars. He treats them as total strangers. "But the real reason I fed no moun-tain-lions to Eph is mostly connected with sheep. Cougars does a right smart business in sheep, ’specially Surly Brown’s. Sheep is meaner’n snakes, sheepmen is meaner’n sheep, and if the herders disagrees with the cougars' give me the cougars. Sheepmen is dirt.” There spoke the unregenerate cowboy! “But, Jesse dear, are you sure that Eph won’t expect me to be 'spared' next time he’s hungry?" "Why, no. He was raised respectable, and there’s a proper etiquette for b’ars on meeting a lady. It’s sort of first dance-movements: —'general slide, pass the cloak-room, and whar’s my little home?’ ’’ Jesse’s Note. N. B. —Kate and me agree? that the next chapter has to be cut out, being dull. It's all about the barn-raising after we got home to the ranch. The neighbors put us up a fine big cabin connecting to the old one by a covered porch of cedar shakes. That’s where the fire-wood lives, the waterbutt, the grindstone, which Kate says is exactly like my singing voice, likewise the ax and saw. Of course our house-raising was a celebration, with a dance, camp-fire water-butt full of punch, and headaches. 1 bet five dollars I was the only semaphore signaler in our district, and lost it to Iron Dale, who learned signaling five years ago during the Riel rebellion. Cap Taylor put up a signal system for our use, of fires by night or big smokes by day. One means a celebration, twq means help, and three means war. After the celebration we settled for the winter, and I put all the ponies except Jones and the sleigh team down in the canyon pasture. ‘ That made the ranch sort of lonesome, but we’re short of hay on account of the wedding-trip. We're broke. . CHAPTER V. The Illustrious Salvator. Jesse’s Letter. Mother, I’m married. I thought I’d got bliss by the horns, but'seems I’ve not roped what I throwed for, and what I’ve caught is trouble. 1 wish you weren’t in Heaven, which feels kind of cold and distant when a fellow’s lonesome. Nobody loves me, and the mosquitoes has mistook me for a greenhorn. I can't smoke in the lady's home, and when it’s forty below zero outside, a pipe clogs with ice from your breath. Chewing is worse, because she cried. She don't need my guns, saddles, and me, or any sort of litter whar she beds down, and my table manners belongs under the table. Men, she says, feeds sitting down, so they won’t be mistook for animals, which stand up. I jest moved back Into the old cabin with Mick,—he’s wagging himself by the tall between my legs to say as this writing habit is a vice. If i’d only a bottle of whisky now I’d be good, but as It’s eighty miles to refreshments, he's got to put up with vice. Mrs. Trevor’s husband was an opera singer which mislaid his vocal cords, do settled here to be on his romantic lonesome, and spite his wife. He went loco, and mistook her for a bear: she broke her ankle stampeding; and I took an InterhsL he shoot-

lug me up considerable until he met with an accident. Then niq widow married me, and I’m plumb disheartened. IL I was cooking slapjacks, which gives quick satisfaction for the time invested, when Iron Dale rolled in on his way home. Says my high-grade slapjacks is such stuff as dreams are made of. With him quoting Scripture like that, I got suspicious about his coming around by this ranch, instead of hitting straight for Sky-line On that he owns up to something dam curious and disturbing to my fur. Thar’s a stranger at Hundred Mile House, claiming he’s come from London, England, to find my wife. On the stage sleigh from Ashcroft this person got froze, which mostly happens to a tenderfoot, who’d rather freeze like a man than run behind like a dog. So of course he comes In handy for poor Doc McGee. He's got a sort of puppy piano along, which grieves me to think our settlers must be getting out of date with such latest improvements, and other settlements liable to throw dirt in our face. Seems it's called harpsecord, .and this person plays it night and day, so that the ranch bands is quitting, and Cap Taylor charges . him double money for board. I wonder

what he wants with my wife, anyhow. The missus wants me to take the sleigh and collect him. I dunno but seems to my dim Intellects that would be meeting trouble half-way, besides robbing the doctor and Capt Taylor who done me no harm. 111. This morning, after rigging a lifeline 'to the stable because of this continuing blizzard. 4- went to the lady’s home. She showed me a letter Dale brought, in eytallan, which says the swine proposes to kiss her feet, and wallow in divine song, etc. His name is Salvator, so he’s a dago. She. being white, can’t have any truck with such, so that’s all right Seems the puppy piano is for her from her beloved maestro, another swine from the same litter. She’s singing and it goes through my bones. Her voice Is deep as a man’s, strong as Fraser Rapids, and I own that puppy piano appeals to my best Instinks. As for me, my name’s mud, and she treads it IV. The wind went chasing after the sun, leaving peace and clear stars, so this morning it must be sixty below zero by the way the. logs are splitting. At noon Tearful George transpires, dumping the puppy piano, and the swine with his nose in a muff. Tearful had capsized the sleigh over stumps to make his passenger run Instead of arriving here like frozen meat but appears it hadn’t done the harpsecord no good. He said he’d roll bis tail before any more music broke out so didn’t stay dinner. Kate’s pleased all to pieces. Seems this gent in the paper collar has wrote an opera, and there’s a party goes by the name of Impress Arlo, song and dance artist, putting it on the stage at London, England. The leading woman sings base, and that’s why Kate is wanted. To the only woman on earth who sings base enough, they sends this dingus and the organ-grinder. She says it’s a business proposition with money in it, and wants me to come along to the Old Country. She’d have me in a collar and chain with a pink bow at my off ear, promenading in Strand Street • , . She’s been having a rough time here, mostly living on wild meat, without money or servants. I’d like well to see her happier; I know her music belongs to the whole world, and I’ve no right to hold her for any selfishness. If it’s up to her to go, it’s agin me to look pieseed, and she shall go the day I believe in her calL V. I made the dago bed down in here, but he flopped over to breakfast and they’ve been at It hammer and tongs ever since. "Tinkle tankle ping ping pee-chee-ree-ho-O! Oh! Oho! me-catamiaou-ow-yow.” Cougars Is kittens to it but l*m durned ignorant.

and I noticed that the signor looked on while she washed up. I didn’t sorrow with Kate persuading me to drive them as far as Hundred Mile. The sound of her voice stampedes me every time, but when the dago tries to stroke my ears, he was too numerous, so I held his head in the bucket until he began to subside. I don’t take to him a whole tot. From when I’d finished the horses, till nigh on sundown, the music tapered off, and I got more/and more rattled. At last I walked right in. She'd a black dress, indecent round the shoulders, and a bright star on her brow. She stood with the swine’s arms around her, until at the sight of me he shrank off, guilty as hell. There was nary a flicker of shame or fear to her, but she just stood there looking so grand and beautiful that my breath caught in my throat. “Why, Jesse,” she said, her voice all soft with joy, "I’m so glad you’ve come to see. It’s the great scene, the renunciation. Come, Salvator, from ‘Thy people shall bo ’ ” I twisted him by the ear into my cabin, he talking along like a gramophone. I set him down on the etool, myself on the bunk, Inspecting him while I cut baccy, and had a pipe. If I let him fight me with guns, she'd make a hero of him. If I hoofed him into the cold or otherwise wafted him to the dago paradise, she’d make a villain of me. “You wrote an opery,” says I. He explains with his tongue, his eyes, and both paws waving around for the time it takes to boil eggs. I’m not an egg. “You give the leading woman a base voice?” He boiled over come more. “So you got an excuse for coming.” He spread out over the landscape. "Thinkin’,” sez I, “that she’d nothin’ more than Trevor to guard her honor.” More talk. "But you found her married with a man.” He wanted to go alone to civilization. "You stay herd," I says, “and Salvator, you're going to earn your board.” VI. I ain’t claiming that this Salvator actually earned his grub this month. He can clean stables now without being kicked into a curry hash; he can chop water holes through ice, and has only parted with one big toe up to date; he can buck fire-wood if I tend him with spurs and quirt; but hie dishwashing needs more rehearsals, and he ain’t word perfect yet at scrubbing floors. He’s less fractious and slothful since be was up-ended and spanked in presence of a lady, but on the other hand, there’s a lack of joy, cheerfulness, and application. I sent a cable message by Tearful George to the song and dance artist who’s running the swines’ opery, just inquiring if he’d remitted Salvator to collect m-y wife. The reply is indignant to say that the swine is a liar. Likewise there's a paragraph in the Vancouver papers about the illustrious young composer, Salvator Milan!, who’s disappeared, it seems, into the wilds. His wife is desolated, his kids i« fran tic, the Sdlvatori. a musical society, is offering rewards, which may come in useful, and the rest of mankind throws fits. This paper owns up that the departed is careless and absent-minded, and I juet pause to observe that he hasn’t made my bed. • He’ll have some quirt for supper. As to my wife, she'd never believe that the swine wasn’t sent to fetch her, or that he's deserted his wife and family. She thinks he’s a little cock

angel, and me a eeek devil. Shell have to find him out tor henelt vn. My wife has ran away with him. VIII I could pick stars like apples. Here’s me with my pipe and dog in my home, and my dear wife content. The Do&k of London hae no more, except frills. I hardly know whar to begin, ’cept whar I left off without mentioning how they run away. The illustrious didn’t have the nerve, so it was my lady who stole over to stable in the dead of night, and harnessed the team so silent I never woke. She drove off with her trunks, the puppy piano, and her swine, on a bitter night with eighty mile ahead before she’d get any help if things went wrong. She has the pure grit, my great thoroughbred lady, and it makes me feel real good to think of the way she followed her conscience along that unholy trail through the black pines. By dawn ehe put up for breakfast at O’Flynn’s. The widow had broke her leg reproaching a cow, and sent off her son to the carpenter at Hundred and Fifty Mile House to get the same repaired. Her bed was beside the stove, with cord-wood, water, and grub all within reach. It was real awkward though that the stove had petered out, and the water bucket froze solid while she slept, so she was expecting to be wafted before her son got home, when Kate arrived in time to save her from Heaven. The signor volunteers to make fire and cook grub while Kate fed and watered the team, so my wife has the pleasure of chopping out a five-foot well at Bent Creek, while this unselfish cavalierio stayed in the house and got warm. Naturally he didn’t know enough to light the stove, until the widow threw things, and he got the coal-oil. Then he dlsremembercd bow to soak the kindlings before he struck a match, so he lit the fuel first, then stood over pouring oil from the five-gallon can. When the fire lep’ up into the can, of course he bad.to let-go, and when he seen the cabin all in fiamee, he galloped off to the woods, leaving the Widow O’Flynn to burn comfy all by herself. By the time Kate reaches the cabin, the open door is all flames; but, having the ice ax, she runs to the gable end, and hacks in through the window. The bed’s burning quite” brisk by then, but the widow has quit out, climbed to the window and gone to sleep with the smoke, so that Kate climbs in and alights on top of her sudden. The fire catches hold of my wife, but she ewings the widow through the window, climbs out, lights on top of her again, then takes a reH in the snow. When the illustrious comes out of the woods to explain, d’ye think she’d listen? I can just see him explaining with dago English, paws, shoulders, and eyes. She leaves him explaining in front of the burning cabin. My wife humped this widow to the barn, and got warm clothes from her trunks for both of them. She fired out her baggage and the puppy piano, bedded down the, widow in clean hay, hitched up the team, and hit the trail for home. She hadn’t a mile to go before she met me, and what with the smoke from O’Flynn’s, the widow in the rig, and the complete absence of the swine, I’d added up before she reined her team. She would want to cry in my arms. z . So she’s in bed here, her burne dressed with oil from a bear who held me up once on the Sky-line trail. It’s good oil. The widow’s asleep in my cabin, and I’m right to home with this letter wrote to you, Mother. I guess you know, Mummy, why me and my pipe and my dog are welcome now, which you've lived in your time and loved. So hoping you’re in Heaven, as this leaves me at present. Yr. affect, son, JESSE. ' (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Twisted Him by the Ear Into My Cabin.

She Swings the Widow Through the Window.