Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 156, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1918 — The New Call [ARTICLE]

The New Call

By R. RAY BAKER

per Syndicator) Earl Worden was not a gypsy- Hls hair was too near the * shade of hemp and the color of his eyes too closely resembled that of the ocean. Again, he had three freckles, one on the left side sf his neck, one on his chin and the other near the tip of his nose. They were faint freckles, but they and the hair and the eyes would belie any assumption that be belonged to the tribes of swarthy nomads. Nevertheless, Earl and gypsies had one pronounced trait in common. It =. was the wanderlust. He had traveled on five of the seven seas; he had killed crocodiles on the Amazon, kangaroos in Australia and inosquitoes in New Jersey. He had eaten salmon in Portland, Ore., rice in Tokyo, and prunes in France, as well as in Brooklyn. He was- a nomad. After seeing all the sights offered by 14 countries some strange whim of fate guided him to Gemport, a town in the state of Washington that the map makers forgot, and he took a job in the First, Second, Third, and only national or any other kind of bank to be found there. A whole year he spent at the desk, and he actually had begun to have that settled Sensation, when along came a letter from Edward Stevens. The letter was postmarked Wawason, Alaska, ana it had to do with nuggets and a sure-pay venture. If it had been from anyone else, Earl would have been exceedingly skeptical, but Stevens had been his companion in several adventurous rambles into strange climes, and his good Intentions and veracity were not to be questioned. The letter revived the longing to roam. It caused the old call of adventure to echo and re-echo through Earl’s mind. It was an irresistible call, which had only been lying dormant during the last year and was not silenced forever as he had comae to suppose. So he prepared to respond. There was only one drawback. The drawback was Elsie Webb, a diminutive, dark-eyed, attractive piece of humanity employed in the bank. Until the receipt of the letter Earl had considered her an Inspiration; but now she was in the way to his answering the call of adventure. He was fond of her to such an extent that he had asked her to marry him only two weeks previously —and she had consented ; but that was before this letter came offering him riches and red-blood-ed life in Alaska. It suddenly dawned on him that he had made a mistake. He could see now that he was in no financial condition to be married. The money he had saved was scarcely enough for the proverbial rainy day; trhlle this letter from Stevens offered an opportunity to obtain a fortune and pave the way to luxury. So he told her his intentions the night after he received the summons from the north. He broached the subject as carefully as possible and with as much consideration for her feelings as he*Could muster —which wasn’t saying much. She merely bit her lip and flickered her eyelashes and said: “All right, Earl. You know best. I would not stand in the way of your success for the world. We will consider the engagement at >n end." He left her home in a rather dazed condition. She had taken the matter very sensibly, he told himself, and yet he felt sure that she cared more than she showed. He could have felt pretty downcast himself, only he dared not permit it. The old call was sounding and he must answer. It was early in the evening and some late workers were just journeying homeward. One of them, a sturdy young man with a healthy face and steadfast eye, carrying a dinner-pail, stopped Earl and asked for a match to light his briar pipe. “Thanks,” said the laborer, as he puffed contentedly after Earl had furnished the article sought. “Nice evening.” The laborer walked off briskly. “Hurrying home to his family,” mused Earl. “It must seem rather nice— * But he must not let such thoughts intrude. They might deter him from his chosen course. So he. thrust them aside and the next day drew all his savings from the bank and resigned his job. Two weeks later he stepped off a boat at Sitka and clasped the hand of bls old pal, a robust, weather-beaten man of thirty, clad in fur-fringed * clothes. Earl was escorted to a hotel, where he was outfitted in apparel appropriate to a journey Inland. “It’s a regular bonanza —a sure thing,” said Stevens, as they sat in the lobby discussing the proposed venture. “All we gotta do Is to get the coin. There’s another young fellow In town that I’d have taken if I couldn’t ’a landed you. His name Is John Pierce, an’ he’s a regular scout, but o’ course Pd rather take my old chum; an’ two besides myself in the crowd is one unnecessary. It’s goin’ to be a tough trip, too, let me tell you. I’ve got twelve''huskies but I doubt if six of them will live to reach the end o’ the trip. Real adventure, ol’ top, right out of the wilds, an’ a new kind to you. Better’n wortin’ in any little ol’ bank, eh, ol’ man?” While they were talking Ear! no-

ticed a tall man carrying a cane and dressed in exceptionally good clothes for this dty of non-pretending, roughgoing, big-hearted folk. The stranger walked up to the desk and asked the cleric for a key. When he turned around to mount the stairs his face was in plain viovz, and Earl saw that it was sallow, with a fixed expression of cynicism and lines of dissipation. “We’ll start for the mainland day after tomorrow,” announced Stevens, discarding his half-smoked cigar. “An’ we’ve got a whole lot to attend to tomorrow, so we’d better get to bed.” They climbed the stairs to their room, which contained two beds. Earl was tired and he lost no time about getting under the covers. There was little conversation, but before settling himself for the night Earl inquired casually: “Say, who was that prosperous, sickly looking person that walked into the hotel and got a key from the clerk while we were talking downstairs?” Stevens pondered a moment before replying: “Oh, yes, I know who you mean. I didn’t recollect at first who it was you referred to, but I remember seeing Caldwell Hurst come Ip during our palaver. Yep, that was Caldwell Hurst an’ he’s just as prosperous as he looks. But he squanders his cash like it was water, mostly for booze. He’s got plenty of it, ’cause he struck it rich three years ago; but they say he lost his girl back in' the States while he was hunting gold in the Klondike, an* he’s been tryin’ to drown his sorrow ever since. He hasn’t any home ’cept this hotel and the saloons.” Earl turned over and closed his eyes. Into his mind flashed a picture of a contented laborer, puffing placidly at a pipe, a dinner-pail on his arm, hurrying home to a loving wife and cheerful fireplace. Earl was drifting to sleep when he het\rd Stevens remark philosophically : “He’d better: have kept the girl and enjoyed peace of mind than to have all the wealth of all the kingdoms of the earth. You can bet if I had a reg’lar girl who cared for me I wouldn’t be chasin’ nuggets. Not me.” "Good night!” said Earl. . “Good night,” Stevens responded, with less emphasis, failing to catch the hidden significance in his companion’s expression. Back in Gemport a dark-eyed girl tossed restlessly in bed, her. brain racked by a fitful fever that would not permit sleep to come. At last she got out of bed and went to the window, which faced the north. The aurora borealis was flittering phantomllke across the sky, presenting to her mind’s eye a picture of icebergs heaving and tossing, surging back and forth, as restless as her own soul. A coot breeze swept in through the window and enveloped her in a draft, but she did not notice it. Standing there, with her eyes fixed on the arch of oscillating ghost-columns of light, she stretched out her arms to the north and Issued a silent, soul-inspired call to the man she loved. Up where those phantom armies moved, the man heard the call. While he slept his lips formed the name, “Elsie,” and a smile wreathed his face, Her picture formed in his mind, but it lingered only a moment. Then his thoughts ran rampant, and a dream fantasy caught him and whisked him about like a chip in a whirlpool. He gripped something, he knew not what, and succeeded in steadying himself. He found that he was in a theater watching a screen play, in which a laborer with a dinner-pail and a tall, expensively-garbed man, carrying a cane on his arm and a sardonic expression on his face, were the leading characters. The play ended when the laborer saddled and bridled Caldwell Hurst and rode the latter toward a deep canyon, applying a whip mercilessly. At the edge of the precipice the laborer suddenly leaped from his mount and steadied himself on the brink, while the gender galloped into space and droppW into the abyss. Early in the morning Earl and his friend dressed and went down to the lobby. “What’ll you smoke?” Stevens suggested, as they stood before a cigar stand after eating a substantial breakfast “I want to buy a briar pipe and some tobacco,” said Earl. - Stevens took an expepsive cigar and both lighted from the same match. Earl drew slowly on the pipe, thinking hard. “Say, Ed,” he finally remarked, “is that John Pierce where you can reach him?” Stephens’ teeth wrenched some tobacco from the end of a cigar, and he spat In a cuspidor. “Why, yes,” he replied, arching his eyebrows. “Why?” “Well, it’s this way,” said Earl deliberately, “you’d better see him and take him with you. I thought the spirit of adventure was still alive in me, but I was mistaken. I’ve got enough money to take me back to Washington, and I’m going to be a piker for the first time in my life and get passage on the first boat”