Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1919 — Page 2

THE RANCH AT THE WOLVERINE

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THE STRANGER INTRODUCES HIMSELF AS WARD WARREN WHO HAS A CLAIM ON MILL CREEK—MEMORIES HAUNT BILLY LOUISE, HAPPY MEMORIES f 7. Synopsis.— Marthy and Jase Meilke. pioneers, have for twenty years made a bare living out of their ranch at the Cove on Wolverine creek in the mountain range country of Idaho. Their neighbors, the MacDonalds living several miles away, have a daughter, Billy Louise, now about nineteen years old, whom Marthy has secretly helped to educate. At the time the stoiT opens Billy Louise is spending the afternoon with Marthy.~A snowstorm comes up. and on her way home the girl meets an interesting stranger, who is invited to stay overnight at the MacDonald ranch.

CHAPTER ll—Continued. "Then the chores aren't done, I suppose." BiUy Louise went over and took a lantern down from its nail, turning np the wick so that she could light it with the candle. “Go up to the fire and thaw out," she invited the man. “Well have supper ip a few Instead he reached out and took the lantern from her as soon as she bad lighted it “You go to the fire youraelf,” he said. *TU do what’s necessary outside.” “Why-y"— Billy Louise, her fingers uttli clinging to the lantern, looked up at him. He Was staring down at her with that Intent look she had objected to on the trail, but she saw his mouth and the little smile that hid just back of his lips- She smiled back without knowing it. “I’U have to go along, anyway. There are cows to milk, and you couldn’t very well find the cow ■table alone." “Think not?” Together they went out again into the storm they had left so eagerly. Billy Louise showed him where was the pitchfork and the hay and then did the milking while he piled full the manger*- After that they went together and turned the shivering work horses into the stable from the corral where they huddled, rumps to the storm, and the man lifted great fork- * fnls of hay and carried it into their stalls. while Billy Louise held the lantern high over her head like a western Liberty. They did not talk much, except when there was need for speech, but they were beginning to feel a llttle glow of companionship by the time they were ready to fight their way against the blizzard to the house, Billy lx>uise going before with the lantern, while the man followed close behind, carrying the two palls of milk that was already freezing in little crystals to the tin. “I didn’t quite catch your name, mister," Mrs. MacDonald said after they Pad begun the meal. “But take another biscuit, anyway.” "Warren is my name," returned the man, with that hidden smile because She had never before given him any opportunity to tell it—“ Ward Warren. I’ve got a claim over on Mill creek." Billy Louise gave a little gasp and distractedly poured two spoonfuls of sugar in her tea, although she hated it

got to tell you why evenatttae price of digression. Long ago, when Billy Louise was twelve or so and lived largely in a dream world of her own, she had one day chanced upon a paragraph in a paper that had come from town wrapped around a package of matches. It was all about Ward Warren. The name caught her fancy, and tiife tert of the paragraph seized upon her imagination. Until school filled her mind with other things she bad built adventures without end in which Ward Warren was the central figure. Sometimes. when she rode in t the hills. Ward Warren abducted her and led her into strange places, where she tried to shiver in honest dread, often and often, however. Ward Warren was a fugitive who came to her for help. Then she would take him to a cave and hide him, perhaps, or she mount her horse and lead him < by devious ways to safety, and upon some hilltop from which she could point out the route he must follow she would bid him a touching adieu and beseech him in the impossible language of some old romancer to go and lead a blameless life. “Jase has got all gone feelings now, mommie,” Billy Louise remarked irrelevantly during a brief pwnre and relapsed Into silence again. She knew that was good for at least five minutes of straight monologue wlthnher mother fa that talking mood. She finished her ' supper while Warren listened abstractedly to a complete biography of the Mellkes and 'earned all about Marthy’s energy and base’s shiftlessneas.

"Ward Warren!” Billy Louise was saying to herself. "Ward Warren! There couldn't possibly be two Ward Warrens; it’s such an odd name. Welir Then she went mentally over that paragraph. She wished she did not remember every single word of it, but she did. And she was afraid to look at him after that, and she wanted to dreadfully. She felt as though he belonged to her. Why, he was her old playmate! And she had savfed his life hundreds of times at immense risk to hers, and he had always beenther de-

An Interesting and Intimate Diew of Pioneer Days , on the Plains

voted slave afterward and never failed to appear at the precise moment when she was beset by Indians or robbers or something and In dire need. The blood Jie had shed in her behalf! At that point Billy Louise startled herself and the others by suddenly laughing out loud at the memory of one time when Ward Warren bad killed Enough Indians to fill a deep washoul so that he might carry her across to the other side! ' . “Is there anything funny about Jase Meilke dying, Billy Louise?" her mother asked her in a perfectly shocked tone. “No. I was thinking of something else.“ Sbe glanced at the man- eying her so distrustfully from across the table and gurgled again. It was terribly silly, but she simply could not help seeing Ward Warren calmly filling that washout with dead Indians so that he might carry her across it in his arms. The more she tried to forget that the funnier It became. She ended by leaving the table and retiring precipitately to her own tiny room in the lean-to where she buried her face as deep as it would go in a puffy pillow of wild duck feathers.

He, poor devil, could not be expected to know just what had amused her so. He did know that it somehow concerned himself, however. He took up his position mentally behind the wall of aloofness which stood between himself and an unfriendly world, and when Billy Louise came out later to help with the dishes he was sitting absorbed in a book. The next morning the blizzard raged, so that W’arren stayed as a matter of course. Peter Howling Dog bad not retumed. so Warren did the chores and would not let Billy Louise help with anything. “I wish we could get him to stay all winter instead of that Peter Howling Dog,” Mrs. MacDonald said anxiously after he had gone out. “I just know Peter's off drinking. I don’t think he's a safe man to have around, Billy Louise. I didn’t when you hired him. I haven’t" felt easy a minute With him on the place. I wish you’d hire Mr. Warren, Billy Louise. He’s nice and quiet”— “And he’s got a ranch of his own. He doesn't strike me as a man who wants a job milking two cows and carrying slop to the pigs." mommle.” “Well, I'd feel a lot easier if we had him instead of that breed. Only we ain’t oVen got the-brood half-tbe-tifee.-This is the third time he’s disappeared in the two months we’ve had him. 1 really think you ought to speak to Mr. Warren, Billy Louise.” “Speak to him yourself. You're the one that wants him,” Billy Louise answered somewhat sharply. She adored her mother, but if she had to run the ranch she did wish her mother would not Interfere and give advice just at the wrong time. “Well, you needn’t be cross about it Yon know yourself that Peter can’t be depended on a minute. There he went off yesterday and never fed the pigs their noon slop, and I had to carry it out myself. And my lumbago has bothered me "ever since, just like It was going to give me another spell. You can’t be here all the time, Billy Louise leastways you ain’t and Peter”——~

“Oh, good gracious, mommie! I told you to hire the man If you want him. Only Ward Warren isn’t”— \ Ward Warren pushed open the door and looked from one to the other, his eyes two question marks. "Isn’t what?” he asked and shut the door 'behind him with the ait of one who is ready for anything. “Isn’t the kind of man who wants to hire outtodochoreit,”Biiiy Louise finished and looked at him straight “Are you? Mommie wants to hire you.” “Oh, well, I was just about to ask for the job, anyway.” He laughed, and the distrust left his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I was going over to Jim Larson’s to hang out for the rest of the winter and get away from the lonesomeness of the hills. The old Turk’s a pretty good friend of mine. But It looks to me as if yefa two needed something around that looks like a a man a heap more than Jim does. I know Peter Howling Dog toi,a fare-you-well. You’ll be all to the good if he forgets to come back. So if you’ll stake me to a meal now and then and a place to" sleep I’ll be glad to see you through the winter or untll you get -some white man to take my place.” He took up the two water palls and waited, glancing from one to the other

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, ‘ RENSSELAER, IND.

with that repressed smile which Billy Louise was beginning to look for in his face. Now that matters had approached the point of decision her mother stood looking at her helplessly, waiting for her to speak. Billy Louise drew herself up primly and ended by contradicting the action. She gave him a sidelong glance which he was least prepared to withstand, though, in justice to Billy Louise, she was absolutely unconscious of its general effectiveness and twisted her lips whimsically. ••We ll stake you to a book, a bannock and a bed if you want to stay, Mr. Warren,’’ she said quite soberly; "also to a pitchfork and an ax, if you like, and regular wages." His eyes went to her and steadied there with the intent expression in them. “Thanks. Cut out the wages and I’ll take the offer just as It stands,” he told her and pulled his hat farther down on his head. “She’s going to be one stormy night, lay-dees,” he added in quite another tone on his way to the door. “Five o’clock by the town clock, and al-ll’s well!” This last in still another tone as he pushed out against the swooping wind and pulled the door shut with a slam. They heard him whistling a shrill, rollicking air on his way to the creek—at least it sounded rollicking the way he whistled it." ’TheOld Chisholm Trail* he’s whistling,” Billy Louise observed under her breath, smiling reminiscently, “the very song I used to pretend he always sang when he came down the canyoin to rescue me. But of course I knew all the time he’s a cowboy. It said so” —

The whistling broke, and he began to sing at the top of a clear, strong lunged voice an old, old trail song beloved of punchers the West over. “What hid you say, Billy Louise? I’m sure it’s a comfort to have him here, and you see he was glad and willing—” But Billy Louise was holding the door open half an inch, listening and slipping back into the child world wherein Ward Warren came singing down the canyon to rescue her. The words came gustily from the creek down the slope: “No chapa, no slicker, and a-pourln’ down rain. And I swear by the Lord I’ll never nightherd again, , . - Coma to yi youpy, youpy-a, youpy-a. Coma to yi youpy, youpy-a! “Feet In the stirrup* and seat In the saddle, I hung and rattled with them long-born cattle. Coma to yi"— “Do shut* the door, Billy Louise! W’hat you want to stand there like that for? And the wind' freezing everything inside! I can feel a terrible draft on my feet and ankles, and you know what that leads to!" So Billy Louise closed the door and laid another alder root on the coals in the fireplace the while her mind was given over to dreamy speculations, and the words of that old trail song ran on in her memory, though she could no longer hear him singing. HeFTgqtber Bilked on about Teter and the storm and this man who had ridden straight from the land of day dreams to tier door, but the girl was not listening. “Now, ain’t you relieved yourself that he’s going to stay?" Billy Louise, kneeling on the hearth and staring abstractedly into the fire, came back with a jerk to reality. The little smile that had been in he> eyes

The Whistling Broke and He Began to Sing.

and cm her lips fled back with the dreams that had brought it. She gave her shoulders an impatient twitch gnd got up. „ >“Oh, I guess he’ll be more agreeableto have around than Peter,” she admitted taciturnly, which was as dose to her real opinion of the man as a mere mother might hope to coma. • • ♦ * ’ ‘ * When spring came at last and Ward

By B. M. BOWER

Warren rode regretfully back to bis, claim on Mill creek he was not at all the morose Ward Warren who bad ridden down to the Wolverine that stormy night in January. The distrust had left his eyes, and that guarded remoteness was gone from his manner. He thought and he planned as other men thought and planned and looked into the future eagerly and dreamed drekms of his own, dreams that brought the hidden smile often to his lips and his eyes. Still, the thing those dreams were built upon was yet locked tight in iris heart, and not even Billy Louise, whose Instinct was so keen and so sure in all things else, knew anything of them or of the bright hued hope they were, built upon. CHAPTER 111. Marthy Buries Her Dead and Greets Her Nephew. JASE did not move or give his customary, querulous grunt when Marthy nudged him at daylight, one morning in mid April. Marthy gave another poke with her elbow and lay still, numbed by a sudden dread. She moved cautiously out of the bed and half across the cramped room before she turned her head toward him. Then she stood still and looked and looked, her hard face growing each moment more pinched and stony and gray.Jase had died while the coyotes were yapping their dawn song up on the rim of the cove. He lay rigid under the coarse, gray blanket, the flesh of his face drawn close to the bones, his skimpy, gray beard tilted upward. Marthy’s jaw set into a harsher outline than ever. She dressed with slow, heavy movements and went out and fed the stock. In stolid calm she did the milking and turned out the cows into the pasture. She gathered an apron full of chips and started a fire, just as she had done every morning for twentynine years, and she put the coffeepot on the greasy stove and boiled the brew of yesterday, which was also her habit. She sat for some time with her head leaning upon her grimy hand and stared unseeingly out upon a peach tree in full bloom and at a pair of busy robins who had chosen a convenient crotch for their nest Finally she rose stiffly, as if she had grown older within the last hour, and went outside to the place where she had been mending 'the irrigating ditch the day before. _Sbe knocked the wet sand off the shovel she had left sticking in the soft bank and went out of the yard and up the slope toward the rock wait

On a tiny, level place above the main ditch and just under the wall Marthy began to dig, setting her broad, flat foot uncompromisingly upon the shoulder of the shovel and sending It deep into the yellow soil. She worked slowly and methodically and steadily, just as she did everything else. When she had dug down as deep as she could and still m inage to climb out and had the hole wide enough and long enough, she got awkwardly to the grassy surface and sat for a long while upon a rock, staring dumbly at the gaunt, brown hills across the river. / She returned to the cabin at last, and, with .the-manner of one wtrodreadsdoing what must be done, she went in where Jase lay stiff and cold under the blankets. , ’ Early that afternoon Marthy went staggering up the slope, wheeling Jase’s body before her on the creaky, homemade wheelbarrow. In the same harsh, primitive manner in which they both had lived Marthy buried her dead. And though in life she had given him few words save in command or upbraiding, with never a hint of love to sweeten the days for either, yet she went whimpering away from that grave. She broke off three branches of precious peach blossoms and carried them up the slope. She stuck them upright in the lumpy soil over Jase’s head and stood there a long while with tear streaked face, staring down at the grave and at the nodding pink blossoms.

Billy Louise rode singing down the rocky trail through the deep, narrow gorge to where the hawthorn and choke cherries hid the opening to the cove. From there to the pink drift of peach bloom against the dull brown of the bluff Blue galloped angrily, leaving deep, black prints in the soft green of the meadow. So they came headlong the yellow ■ clay of the grave from her irrigating shovel against the pole fefice of her pigpen. “Why, Marthy!” Once before in her life Billy Louise had seen Marthy’s chin quivering like that and big, slow tears sliding down the network of lines on Marthy’s . leathery cheeks. With a painful slump her spirits went heavy with her sympathy. “Marthy I” She knew without a word of explanation just what had happened. From Marthy’s bent shoulders she knew and from her tear stained face ’and from the yellow soil clinging still to the shovel in her hand. The wide eyes of Billy Louise sent seeking glances up the'slope where the soil was yellow; went to the long, raw ridge under the wall, with the peach blossoms standing pitifully awry upon the western end. Her t eyes filled with tears. “Oh. Marthyl'. When was it?” “In the night, some time, I guess.***

Marthy’s voice had a harsh huskiness. “He was—gone —when I woke up. Well —he’s better off than I be. I diinno what woulda becomp of him if I’d went first.” There, at last, was a note of tenderness, stifled though it was and fleeting- “Git down, Billy Louise, and come in. I been kinda lookin’ for yuh to come ever sence the weather opened up. How’s your maws "What are you going to do now, Marthy?” Billy Louise was perfectly capable of opening a conversational door even when It had been closed decisively In her face. - "You can’t get on here alone, you know. Did you send for that nephew? If you haven't you must hire somebody till —” “He> cornin’. That letter you sent over last month was from him. I dunno when he’ll git here; he’s liable to come m<?st any time I ain’t going to hire nobody 4 . u Charlie Fox, his name is. I hope he turns out a good worker. I’ve never had a chance to git ahead any, but If Charlie ’ll -jest take holt I’ll mebby git some comfort outa life yit.” “He ought to, I’m sure. And every one thinks you’ve done awfully well, Marthy. What can I do now? Wash the dishes and straighten things up, I guess.” ------ "You needn’t do nothin’ you ain’t a mind to do, Billy Louise. I don’t want you to think you got to slop around wasbin* my dirtv dishes. I’m goin’ on down into the medder and work on a

She Sat Down on the Rock Where Marthy Hath Rested.

ditch I’m puttin’ in. You jest do what you’ve a mind to.” She picked up the shovel ancT went off down the jungly path, herself the ugliest object in the cove, where she had created so much beauty. Billy Louise sat down on the rock where Marthy had rested after digging the grave and, with her chin In her two cupped palms, stared out across the river at the heaped bluffs and down at the pink and white patch of fruit trees. She was trying, as the young will always try, to solve the riddle of life, and she was baffled and unhappy because she could not find any answer at all that pleased both her Ideals and her reason. And then she heard a man’s voice lifted up in riotous song and she turned her head toward the opening of the gorge and listened, her eyes brightening while she waited. Ward came Into sight through the little meadow, riding slowly, with both hands clasped over the born of the saddle, his hat tilted back on his head and h' i whole attitude §ne of absolute content with life. He saw Billy Louise almost as soon as slie~~fflmpsed him, and she had been watching that bit of road quite closely. He flipped the reins to one side and turned, from the trail to ride straight up the slope to where sha was. Billy Louise, with a self reproachful glance at the grave, ran down the slope to meet him —an unexpected welcome, which made Ward’s heart leap in his chest “Oh, Ward, for heaven’s sake, don’t be singing that come-all-ye at the top of your voice, like that Don’t you”— "Now I was given to understand that you liked that same eome-all-ye. Have you been educating your musical taste In the last week, Miss William Louise?” Ward stopped his horse before her and with his hands still clasped over the saddle horn looked down at her with that hidden smile —and something else. “No, I haven’t I don’t have to educate myself to the point where I know the ‘Chisholm Trail’ isn’t a proper kind of funeral hymn, Ward Warren.” Billy Louise glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice instinctively, as we all do when death has come close and stopped. “Jase died last night; that’s his 'grave up there. Isn’t it perfectly pitiful? Poor old Marthy was here all solitary alone with lilm. - And—Ward,. she dug that grave her ownself and took him up and buried hlmT And, Ward, she —she wheeled him up in the -—wheelbarrow I She had to, of course. She couldn’t carry him. But isn’t it awful?” Her hands were up, patting and smoothing the neck of his horse, and her face was bent to hide the tears that stood in her eyes and the quiver of her mouth. , ,L,u Several minutes they stood there talking, while Billy Louise patted th, horse absently, and Ward looked down at her and did not miss one little light or shadow in her face.,

Charlie Fox arrives on the scene and helps Marthy run the place after the death »f Jaae. Along cornea a mystery. "(TO BE CONTIKVKDJ

A SCRAP OF PAPER

By ESTELLE M. TIDD.

TUliiilllllllllllllllllllilllllillliiillllllliillK * Copyright. McClure Newspaper Syndicate.? The first time the' telephone rang that morriipg young Mrs. B picked up the receiver and heard the following: “That.you, Nell? Say, did you notlee a little'folded pleee of paper on the hall floor after I left? Didn’t? Well, will you look, please; and say, Neil, If, you find it, dbn't look at it„ please, do -you hear? It's a little bit private. I'll hold "toe line. Hurry back.” The paper was quickly found and' Nell rushed hack to inform her husband of her success. “Good! I don't want to lose that,” was the reply. “Put it in the little drawer in my desk, and you won’t look at it, will you, Nell? Promise.” "Awfully private, it seepis to me, but you needn't worry, I won’t look at your precious paper. Good-by.” She sat for a moment, regarding the bit of paper with hostile eyes. “Pretty fussy to call it a folded piece of paper,’ ” she mused indignantly. “Hooks to me hke a fidtC—a regular note.” Presently there rushed in upon her Julia D , her best and frankest friend. “Have you heard the latest?” she demanded. “Sue B is here —came Tuesday; she’s going to stay a month. She’s looking magnificent. Funny she hasnjt visited in town, since your-en-gagement to Harley was announced over Two yrs ago. .She used to be crazy about him, They made the most stunning pair—everybody turned to look. I wonder- she paused abruptly, then rattled’ on: “Say, Nell, I wouldnf dare t o marry a handsome man —you never can tell —Goodness, Nell, don't ever wear that” shade-of-blue again. You look five years older in it.” Julia had just whirled out when the telephone rang again. Harley's sister Lou wanted Nell’s new recipe for eggless cake, and after hearing it she contributed her share to the morning’s budget. “Whose car were you out in last ifight at Pinetree Heights? After you had whizzed by, breaking every speed law ever made, I realized that one of the men was Harley. It was so near dark I couldn't recognize anyone else, but I suppose you were along, YOU certainly had a reckless person at the wheel.” ——— —; —■ “I —i’ll tell you all about it later, Lou. I —l think there’s something burning on the stove. Good-by." She hung up the receiver. Out at Pinetree Heights last night, and he had told her it was a business engagement that had kept him until 7 :3b. He had been unusually high-spirited duringthe evening, and then alternately absorbed in thought. What could it mean? Miserably she went about her work. She thought incessantly of that arch-charmer. Sue B t and the mysterious note, and though she felt a wholesome distaste in doing so, still she kept wondering whether Sue B —- and the note did or did not belong together. “No, I won’t look at it,” she assured herself. “I said I wouldn’t, s and I won’t—l won’L” , .. . ■ But before she had finished speaking her hand reached straight to the drawer, opened it and drew out the paper. “All the rest of the day, ’ she choked, “I’ve got to live with this aw TutrfOte^— —-—— Springing upv sim-erumpled it.“I know what I’ll do. I’ b burnup the horrid thing. Harley shan’t have it—nobody shall have it, and if it’» burned up I can’t read it.” Lighting a match, she knelt before the grate. She had just thrown down the flaming ‘‘Scrap when the front door banged and her husband entered the room, going straight to the desk in the

corner. “Building a fire, Nell? Say, where s that paper I ’phoned about?” His voice was edged with excitement. “That’s important.” “Yes, o*f course—very Important— to you. Oh, I know all about it. “What’d you look at it for? By George, you said you wouldn’t. I like that!” “I didn’t look at it!” she flamed. I had some degree of honor, but I’ve burned the horrible thing, ami I didn’t have to read it to find out a few things —joy riding way out to Pinetree Heights last night, for instance—and “What!” broke in Harley. “lou burned that paper—you silly—and little you know what I was out to Pinetree Heights for. That peachy little bungalow out there, you know, Nell, that we later, perhaps. We can have a gardni and chickens and help out on our bit. I was out there again this afternoon, looking the place over, and have come back now to take you there. And, listen here. I’ve just bought another Liberty bond, my biggest yet, for you this time, and the ‘horrible thing’ you just saw fit to burn up was the receipt for 'fhO first payment. I was going to give you a pleasant little bunch of surprises, -and that was why I told you not to look at it.” “Oh. Harley, how awful!” Sha wailed. “You can’t ever forgive me.” There was such distress in her face that Harley’s annoyance vanished. "There now. partner, don't you care, * he southed. “Nothing’s really lost; the bank’s got the record, but see here, Nell, don't ever go up in the air over shadows again. I shan’t ever play any game without you for a partner.'*