Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1919 — Page 2

THE RANCH AT THE WOLVERINE

(Copyright, Little. Brown A Co.)

The trouble with so many Western stories is that they are pre pos tn reus. The hero is always young, handsome and a dead shot H« never has evsn a remote fear of anything, no matter what the circumstances, and he is a glutton for hardships. The heroine is never any thing less than beautiful. She ndes tike a goddess, handles a gun like a veteran, and possesses the wisdom of the ages, though she be not old enough to vote. In “The Ranch at the Wolverine".therc is a refreshing difference. The hero* the heroine, and the various and sundry other characters in the story, perform like regular human beingh The men seem to be the kind that cuss and chew tobacco when out o 1 'sight and sound of their wives. The women have crying spells and fits of temper and gossiping bees and so on, Just like women in retal life. There’s not a dead shot in the tale, and nobody is too handsome and good to be human. You will surely enjoy this serial. 8 theeditor.

CHAPTER I. —l ' Let Us Start at the Beginning. "TyjUR trail worn oxen, their necks bowed to the yoke of patient servitude, should really begin this story. But to follow the trail they made would take several chapters which you certainly, would skip—unless you like to hear the tale of how the : wilderness was tamed and can thrill at the stern history of those who did the taming while they fought to keep their stomachs fairly well filled with food and their hard muscled bodies fit for the fray. There was a woman, low browed, uncombed, harsh of voice and speech and nature, who drove the four oxen forward over lava rock and rough prairie and the scanty sage. I might tell you a great deal about Marthy, who plodded stolidly across the desert and the low lying hills along the Blackfoot, and of her weak souled, shiftless husband whom she called Jase when she did not call him worse. They were the pioneers whose lurching wagon first forded the singing Wolverine stream just where it greens the tiny valley and then slips between huge lava rock ledges to join the larger stream. Jase would have stopped there and called home the sheltered little green spot in the gray barrenness. But Marthy went on up the farther hill and across the upland, another full day’s journey with the sweating oxen. They camped that night on another little, singing stream in another little valley w hich was not so level. or so gteen or so wholly pleasing to the eye. And that night two of the oxen, im-. pelled by a surer instinct than their human owners, strayed away down a narrow, winding gorge and so discov. ered the Cove and feasted upon its rich grasses. It was Marthy who went after them and who recognized the little, hidden Eden as the place of her dreams supposing she ever had dreams. So Marthy and Jase and the four oxen took possession, and with much labor and many hard years for lhe woman and with the same number jof years and as little labor as he could manage on the man’s part they tamed the Cove and made It a beauty spot in that wild land. A beauty spot, though

their lives held nothing but treadmill toil and harsh words' and a mental narrowed almost to the limits of the grim, gray rock wall that surItMUMhailUieW. . ?. Another sturdy souled couple came afterward and saw the Wolverine and maae tor themselvesa home upon its banks. And in the rough little log cabin was born the girl child 1 want ■ —you to nc-et— a girl child wlien ; she should have been a boy to meet; her 1 father’s need and great desire; a girl child whose very name was a compromise between the parents. For they called her Billy for sake of the boy her. father wanted and Louise for the j girl her mother had longed for to light- j en that terrible loneliness which the' fa f frontier brings to the women who ! brave its stern emptiness. When Billy Louise was twelve she ' wanted to do something big, though she was hazy as to the particular na- ; ture of that big something. She tried to talk it over with Mart by, but Marthy could, not seem to think beyond the Cove. — ~ When she was thirteen, Billy Louise rode over with a loaf of bread she had baked all by herself, and she put this problem to Marthy: ■— '■< “I’ve been thinking I’d go ahead and write poetry, Marthy—a whole book of it with pictures. But I do love to make bread —and people have to eat bread. Which would you be*Marthy—a poet or a cook ?” . v - Marthy looked at her a minute, lent her attention briefly to the question and gave what she considered good advice. . _ ° Ise. Yuh don’t want to go and get notions. Your maw ain't healthy, and your pew likes good grub. Po’try is all foolishness. There ain’t any money in it” “Walter Scott paid his debts writing poetry,” saM Billy Louise argumentatively. She had just read all uibout Walter Scott in a magazine which a passing cowboy had given her. Perhaps that had something to do with her new ambition. “Mebby he did and mebby he didn’t I’d to see our debts paid off with # po’try. It’d have to be worth a hull ’ lot more’n what I’d give for it” “Oh! Have you got debts, too, Marthy?” Billy Louise at thirteen was ■till ready with sympathy. “Daddy’s got lots and piles of ’em. He bought •otM cattle and now be talks to mom-

A tale of the wild outdoor life of pioneer days that called forth all the cour- y age and resourcefulness of men and women inured to danger and hardship

mie all the time about debts. Mommie wants me to go to Boise to school next winter, to Aunt Sarah s. And daddy says there's debts to pay. I didn't know you had any, Marthy.” ■ •'Weil. I have got We bought some cattle, too. and they ain't done 'a well's they might. If 1 had a man that was any good on earth I could put up more hay. But I can’t git nothing outa Jase but whines. Yout paw oughta send you to school, Billy Louise, even if he has got debts.” ‘‘He says he wishes he could, but he don’t know where the money’s coming from.” . “How much *s it goin’ to take?” asked Marthy heavily. “Oh. piles.” Billy Louise spoke airily to bide her pride in the importance of the subject. “Fifty dollars, I guess. I’ve got to have some new clothes, mommie says. I’d like a blue dress.” “And your paw can’t raise fifty dollars?" Marthy's tone was plainly belligerent. “Got to pay interest,” said Billy Louise importantly. Marthy said not another word about debts or the duties of parents. What she did was more to the point, however. for she hitched the mules to a rattly old buckboard next day and drove over to the MacDonald ranch on the Wolverine. She carried SSO in her pocket, and that was practically all the money Marthy possessed and had Tjeeh saveJ forthe debts that harassed her. She gave the money to Billy Louise's mother and said that it was a present for Billy Louise and meant for “school money.” She said that she hadn’t any girl of her own to spend the money on and that Billy Louise was a good girl and a smart girl, and she wanted to do a little something toward her schooling. A woman will sacrifice more pride than you would believe if she sees a way toward helping her children to an education. Mrs. MacDonald took the money, and she promised secrecy—with a feeling of relief that Marthy wished it. She was astonished to find that Marthy had any feelings not directly connected with work or the shortcomings of Jase, but she never suspected that Marthy had made any sacrifice for Billy Louise, ' ; So Billy Louise went away to school and , never knew whose money had made it possible to go, and Marthy worked -harder and drove Jase more relentlessly to make up that SSO. She never mentioned the matter to any one. The next year it was the same. When in August she questioned Billy Louise clumsily upon the subject of finances

“D’you Turn Them Calves Out Into the Corral?”

and learned that daddy still talked about debts and interest and didn't know where the money was coming from she drove over again with money for the schooling. And again she extracted a promise of silence. She did this for four years, and hot a soul knew that it cost her anything in the way of extra work and extra harassment of mind. She bought more cattle and cut more bay and went deeper into debt, for as Billy Louise grew older and prettier and more accustomed to the ways of town she needed more money, and the August gift grew proportionately larger; ~ The mother was thankful beyond thg point of questioning. An August without Marthy

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN- RENSSELAER, INJ. - j *■

and Marthy’s gift of money would have been a tragedy, and so selfish is mother love sometimes that she would have accepted the gift even if she had known what it cost the giver. At eighteen, then, Billy Louise knew some things not taught by the wide plains and the wild hills around her. She was not spoiled by her little learning. which was a good thing. And when her father died tragically beneath an overturned load of poles from the mountain at the head of the canyon Billy Louise came home. The Billy of her tried to take his place and the Ixiuise of her attempted to take care of her mother, who was unfitt cd bottr by nature anOabitlolake care-of herself. Which was, after all. a rather big thing for any one to attempt. Jase began to complain of having “all gone” feelings during the winter after Billy Louise came home and took up the whole burden of the Wolverine ranch. He complained to Billy Louise when she rode over one clear, sunny day in January. He said that he wts getting old, which was perfectly true, and that be was not as ablebodied as he might be and didn’t expect to last much longer. Billy Louise spoke of it to Marthy, and Marthy snorted.

“He’s ablebodied enough at mealtimes, I notice.” she retorted. “I’ve heard that tune ever since I knowed him. He can’t fool me!” Jase maundered in at that moment, and Marthy turned and glared at Jase with what Billy Louise considered a perfectly uncalled for animosity. In reality, Marthy was covertly looking for visible symptoms of the all-gone-ness. She shut her harsh lips together tightly at what she saw. Jase eertainly was puffy under his watery, pink rimmed eyes, and the withered cheeks above his thin graying beard really did have a pasty gray look. “D'you turn them calves out into the corral?” she demanded, her voice harder because of her secret uneasiness, “I was goin' to, but the wind’s changed into the north, ’n’ I thought mebby you wouldn’t want ’em out." Jase turned back aimlessly to the door. His voice was getting cracked and husky, and the deprecating note dominated pathetically all that he said. “You’ll have to face the wind goin’ home.” he said to Billy Louise. "More’n likely you'll be facin’ snow too. Looks bad off that way.”

“You go on and turn them calves out!” Marthy commanded him harshly. “Billy Louise ain’t goi»’ home if it storms. I sh’d think you’d know enough to know that.” “Oh, but I'll have to go anyway.” the girl interruptM- “Mommie can't be there alone; she’d worry herself to death if I didn’t show up by dark. She worries about every little thing since daddy died. I ought to have gone before —or I oughtn’t to have come. But she was worrying about you, Martby. She hadn’t seen or heard of you for a month, and she was afraid you might be sick or something. Why don't you get some one to stay with you? I think you ought to.” She looked toward the door, which Jase had closed upon his departure. Jasw 'Should—get sick or anything”— “Jase ain’t gotn’ to git sick,” Marthy retorted glumly,- .“Yuh-don’t .want to let him worry yuh, Billy Louise. If I’d worried every time he yowled around about being sick I’d be dead or crazy by now. I dunno but maybe I’ll have somebody to help with the work, though,’’ she added after a pause, during which she had swiped t£e dishrag around the sides of the pan once or twice autbbad opened the door and thrown the water out beyond the doorstep like the sloven she was. “I got a uepliew that wants to come out. He’s been in a bank, but he’s quit and wants to git on to a ranch. I dunno but I’ll have him come in the spring.”

“Do,” urged Billy Louise, perfectly unconscious of the potentialities of the future. “I hate to think of you two down here alone. I don't suppose any one ever comes down here except me — and that isn’t often.” “Nobody’s got any call to come down,’’ said Marthy stolidly. “They sure ain’t going to come for our comply, and there ain't nothing else to bring ’em.” "Wei?, there aren't many to come, you know,’’ laughed Billy Louise, shaking out the dish towel and spreading it over two nails, as sbe did at home. “I’m your nearest neighbor, and I’ve, got six miles to ride —against the vVlnd at that I think I’d better start We've got a half breed doing chores for us, but he has- to be looked after or he neglects things. I’ll not get another chance to come very soon, I’m afraid. Mommie hates to have me ride around much in the winter. You send for that nephew right away, why don't you, Marthy?” It was like Billy Louise to mix, command and entreaty together. “Really, I don’t think Jase looks a J>it well.” . i “A good strong steepin’ of sage ’ll’ fix him all right, only he ain’t sick, as I see. You take this shawl.” Billy Louise refused the shawl and ran down the twisted path fringed with long, reaching fingers of the bare berry bushes. At the stable she stopped for an aimless dialogue with Jase and then rode away, past the orchard whose leafless branches gave glimpses of the low, sod roofed cabin, with Marthy standing rather disconsolately on the xcegh doorstep watrhlog hear gu.

Blue was climbing steadily out of the gorge, twitching an ear backward 'with flattering attention whenever his lady spoke. The horse went on, calmly stepping over this rock and around that as if it were the simplest thing in the world to find sure footing and carry his lady smoothly up that trail. He threw up his head so suddenly that Billy Louise was startled out of her aimless dreamings and pointed nose and ears toward the little creek bottom above, where Marthy had lighted her campfire long and long ago. A few steps farther and Blue stopped short in the trail to look and listen. Billy Louise could see the nervous twitchings of his muscles. under the skin of neck and shoulders, and she smiled to herself. Nothing could ever come upon her unaware when she rode alone so long as she rode Blue. A hunting dog was not more keenly alive to his surroundings.

“Go on, Blue,” she commanded after a minute. “If it’s a bear or anything like that you can make a run for it; if it’s a wolf I’ll shoot it. You needn’t stand here all night, anyway.” Biue went on, out from behind the willow gfpwth that hid the open.. He returned to hik calm, picking a smooth trail through the scattered rocks and tiny washouts. It was the girl’s turn to stare and speculate. She* did not know this horseman who sat negligently in the saddle and looked up at the cedar grown bluff beyond while his horse stood knee deep in ’ the little stream. She did not know him, and there were not so many travelers in the land that strangers were a matter of indifference. Blue welcomed the horse with a democratic nicker and went forward briskly. _ And the rider turned his head, eyed the girl sharply as she came up and nodded a cursory greeting. His horse lifted its head to look, decided that it wanted another swallow or two and lowered its muzzle again to the water.

Billy Louise could not form any opinion of the man’s age or personality, for he was encased in -a wolfskin coat which covered him completely from hat brim to ankles. She got an impression of a thin, dark face and a sharp glance from eyes that seemed dark also. There was a thin, high nose, and beyond that Billy Louise did not look. If she had the mouth must have reassured her somewhat. Blue stepped nonchalantly down into the stream beside the strange horse and went across without stopping to drink. The strange horse moved on also, as if that were the natural thing to do—which it was, since chance sent them traveling the same trail. Billy Louise set her teeth together with the queer little vicious click that had always been her habit when she felt thwarted and constrained to yield to circumstances and straightened herself in the saddle. “Looks like a storm,” the fur coated one observed, with a perfectly transparent attempt to lighten the awkwardness. - Billy Louise tilted her chin upward and gazedat~thegray" Weep“ofTlouffs‘ moving sullenly toward the mountains at her back. She glanced at the man and caught him looking intently at her face. He did not look away immediately, as he should have done, and Killy Louise felt a little heat wave of embarrassment, emphasized by resentment. “Are you going far?” he queried in the same tone he had employed before. “Six miles,” she answered shortly, though she tried to be decently civil. •‘l’ve about eighteen,” he said. “Looks like we’ll both get caught out in a blizzard.”

Certainly he had a pleasant enough voice, and, after all, it his fault that he happened to be at the crossing when she rode out of the gorge. Billy Louise, in common justice, laid aside her resentment and. looked at him with a hint of a smile at the corfters of her lips. ‘•That’s what we have to expect when we travel in this country in the winter.” she replied. “Eighteen miles will take you long after dark.” - “Well, I was sort of figuring on putting up at some ranch if it got too bad. There’s a ranch somewhere ahead on the Wolverine, isn’t there?” “Yes.” Billy Louise bit her lip, but Jiospitality is an unwritten law of the “That’s where I live. We’ll be glad to have you stop there of course.” The stranger must have felt and admiredthe unconsciousdignity-of her tone and words, for he thanked her simply and refrained from looking too intently at her face. Fine sittings of snow, like meal flung down from a gigantic sieve, swept into their faces as rode on. The man turned his face toward her after a long silence. She was riding with bowed head and face half turned from him and the wind alike. “You’d better ride on ahead and get in out of this,” he said curtly.' “Your horse is fresh. Tt’s going to be worse and’s more of It long. This cayuse of mine has had thirty miles dr so of rough going.” ■ “I think I’d better wait for you,” she said primly. “There are bad places where the trail goes dose to the bluff, and the lava rock will be slippery with snow, and it’s getting dark so fast u that a stranger might go over."

By B. M. BOWER

“If that’d the case the sooner you are past the bad places the better. I’m all right. 7 You drift along.” Billy Louise speculated briefly upon the note of calm authority in his voice. He did not know evidently that she was more accustomed to giving commands than to obeying tnem. Her lips gave a little quirk of amusement at his mistake. “You go on. I don’t want a guide." He tilted his head peremptorily toward the blurred trail ahead. Billy Louise laughed a little. She did not feel in the least embarrassed now. •Do you never get what you don’t want?” she asked mildly. "I’d a lot rather lead you past those places than have you go over the edge,” she said, “because nobody could get you up or even go down and bury you decently. It wouldn’t be a bit nice. It’s much simpler to keep you on top.” He said something, but Billy Louise could not hear what it was. She sus-

“You’d Better Ride On Ahead and Get In Out of This.”

pected him of swearing. She rode on in silence. “Blue’s a dandy horse on bad trails and in the dark,” she observed companionably at last “He simply can’t lose his footing or his way.” “Yes? That’s nice.” Billy Louise felt like putting out her tongue at him forthe cool remoteness of his tone. It would serve him right to ride on and let him break his neck over the bluff if he wanted to. She shut her teeth together and turned her face away from him. So, in silence and with no very good feeling between them, they went precariously down the steep hill (the hili'' up which Mart by and the oxen and Jase had toiled so laboriously twentyseven year» before> arid across-thu tlay flat to where the cabin window winked a welcome at them through the storm.

CHAPTER 11. A Book, a Bannock, and a Bod. BLUE led the way straight to the low, dirt roofed stable of logs and stopped with his nose against the closed door. Billy Louise herself was deceived by the whirl of snow and would have missed the stable entirely if the leadership had been hers. She patted Blue gratefully on the shoulder when she unsaddled him. She groped with her fingers for the wooden peg in tho wall where the saddle should hang, failed to find it and so laid the saddle down against the logs and covered it with the blanket “Just turn your horse in loose,” she directed the man shortly. “Blue won’t fight and I think the rest of the horses are in the other part And come on to the house.” It pleased her a little to see that he Obeyed, her without protest, but she was not so pleased at his silence, and she led the way rather indignantly toward the winking eye which was the cabin’s window. > At the sound of their feet on the wide doorstep her mother pulled open the door and stood fair in the light, looking out with an anxious look. “Is that you, Billy Louise? Oh, ain’t Peter Howling Dog with you? What makes you so terrible late, Billy Louise? Come right in, stranger. I don’t know your name, but I don’t, need to know it. A storm like this is all the interduction a fellow needs, I guess.” “What about Peter?" Billy Louise asked. “Isn't he here?”

“No, and he ain’t been since an hour or so after you left. He saddled up and rode off down the river, to the reservation. I reckon.” • ’ ’

The stranger introduces himself as Ward Warren, vtho has a claim oh Mill creek. Billy Louise has had many day dreams about a man bearing that name. I „ U'v 55

“CROSSED WIRES”

By HAZEL B. CUMMINGS.

'.Copyright. McClure New»paper Syndicate.! They hail been married two months. and the secret was “out of the bag” now—the secret that often has a string of tragic results tied to it —cooking. Or more specifically in Mabel’s case, baking. * She knew perfectly that the tiling Jimmie adored, next.to herself, was good cooking, and so there fol towed in sa< 1 succession apple pies, spice cakes and many kinds of mvsterlQiiSi war breads. But as the weeks passed the disappointment in Jinmfie’s eyes gradually resolved itself into open resentment. ’ —— One crisp Wednesday morning he arose with a rare grouch. A broad strip of sunligr t fell across the breakfast table as he stirred his coffee, casting a glance of« antagonism at the heaping plate of corn muffins and the brown flapjacks.” “No eggs?” he queried briefly. . “Why, iny dear. L thought—well ynnare rather late this morning and I was afraid you might miss your train if She hesitated and fingered the tablecloth. nervously. ' He selected a muffin sullenly, bit into It, and then the long-dreaded declaration of War came. “Mabel! What did you put in these things?” And rising from the table he continued angrily: “Do you expect ine to go in and do a morning’s work on those salt buns? I’ll be a hopeless case from indigestion in another week.” He strode into the hall, calling back with cold significance: “I won’t be home for supper.” Then the front door slammed and the tragedy in Mabel’s »yp° ajjfaffe recalled thaf*fQr the first time since their marriage he had not kissed her good-by. She sat there for a long time: the flapjacks had grown cold. The passing hours and a good lunch had the effect of greatly subduing Jimmie’s wrath, and bite afternoon found him thinking regretfully of his harsh words at the breakfast table. He began to wonder what Mabel was thinking and was forming a resolution to atone for his unkindness by calling her up and telling her they would take supper in town, when the phone rang sharply. He answered it. There were voices on the wire. ’‘Hello-hello]’’ repeated Jimmie impatiently, and then the disorder of voices died away and a man spoke quickly: “Hello! —thought I’d better call you _arul-te.il-you that your wife left here awhile ago and forgot her umbrella ; we were delivering a small quantity of arsenic to her, but she was in a hurry and left—” the line was cut off abruptly. Terror was flashing in Jimmie’s eyes. Arsenic I He signaled the operator wildly: “You’ve cut me off,” he fairly shouted.

“What number were you talking with?” came the leisurely inquiry. “I—l—Oh, I don’t know.” his voice sounded like a low cry, as he replaced the receiver. - He felt strangely weak as a few moments later he found himself being borne in a mud-splashed taxi —at the highest rate of speed allowed by the law. to the suburbs. Every moment of the journey increased his agony of suspense—arsenic!! Bitter regrets for his heartlessness and ill-humor of the past couple of weeks crowded his mind, and "air an who had tried so hard and was perhaps even then lost to him forever Pvmwht a mist to -hi* eyes, Twilight had long set in when he finally arrived. Then an odd sound reached his ears, there -wasa peculiar odor, and turnings he saw a thi n ray of light under the, door leading to the kitchen. He flung it open, and there in a blaze of light, with a background of pans and measuring tins, stood Mabel, in a big apron, her cheeks rosy with the heat from the stove. She was just lifting a cake from the oven —not one of the flat, pale variety, but a beautiful, delicately browned one! Jimmie stood dishev-5 elled ami wide-eyed in the doorway. “Why, Jim! You’re early —” she began, but in a second he strode toward her and caught her in his arms, to the evident peril <*f the freshly baked cake.

"Thank heavens you’re here —you’re all right?” Jile looked at her keenly -and kissed her again and agaln. She drew away from him in puzzled astonishment at his odd words. “Of course I’m all right, Jimmie — what’s the trouble?" He tried to laugh lightly. * “I—I — nothing! Were you out this afternoon shopping? Did you—er—forget your umbrella. Leave it in a store —?” “Yes, dear, I was out, but I brought my umbrella back all right. Next morning Jimmie stood waiting for the elevator to carry him to his office <»n the sixth floor. As he stepped Itj somebody followed him. “Njce wet morning," remarked the cheerful voice of the chemist upstairs. “Right!” agreed Jimmie, viewing his dripping companion sympathetically, “you look liipe and wet yourself.” “Yes. thanks to the dear, thoughtful wife,” replied the .chemist. “Had her go over to the laboratories yesterday and get some arsenic and other stuff that I was in. special hurry so busy to stop myself—and she comes back and leaves hey umbrella there—had tn give her mine this morning—” Jimmie’s eyes suddenly grew/bright with mirth, but just at that moment the elevator girl said: “Sixth!” sq he stepped <wt anti as soon as the elevator had passed up he laughed long and heartily to htmself. ‘ :