Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1919 — Page 2

RANCH at the WOLVERINE

by B.M.BOWER

err yTTLC.

CHAPTER X.—Continued. “Sorry I can't stay to see you off,” be told Huck maliciously; 'Tve decided to let you go alone and take your oWh time about starting? As long as that cayuse stands where he is you're safe as a church. And you’ve got the reins. You can kick off any time you feel like it Sa be?” He studied Buck's > horror marked face pitilessly. ...... 1 “You’ve got about one chance In a million that you ran make t hat pin to stand there till some one comes along.” be pointed out impartially. “I’m will-| ing to give you that chance, such as it j Jfc—And If you’re lucky, enough to win ' out on it—well. I'd advise you to do some going. South America is about .. dose as you'll be safe. Folks around here are going to know all about you. old-timer, whether they get to read what's on your back or not. “And, on the other hand, it’s a million to one shot you'll land where your ticket reads. I’d hate to gamble on that horse standing in one spot for two or three days, wouldn't you?” He wheeled Rattler unobtrusively, his eye on the pinto. “I hope he don’t try to follow,” he said. “I want you to have a httle time to think about the things I said to you. Well, so long!” Ward rode back the way he had come, glancing frequently over his shoulder at Buck, slumped in the saddle with a paper pinned to his back like a fire warning on a tree and his own grass rope noosed about his neck and connecting him with the cottonwood limb six feet above his hat crown. Ward had not ridden a hundred yards before he heard Buck Olney scream hysterically for help. He grinned sourly, with his eyebrows pinched together and that hard, atrained look in bis eyes still. “Let him holler awhile!” he gritted. “Do him good, hang him!” Until distance and the intervening hills set a wall of silence between /Ward, heard Buck, screaming in fear of

Ward Rode Back the Way He Had Come.

death, screaming until he was so Hoarse he could only whisper, screaming because he had not seen Ward take his knife and slice the rope upon the limb so that it would not have held the weight of a rabbit CHAPTER XL 2 Fortuna Kicks Again. rwas past noon when Ward rode down the steep slope to the creek bank just above his cabin. He was | sunk deep in that mental depression which so often follows close upon the heels of a great outburst of passion. Mechanically he twitched the reins and sent Rattler down the last shelf of bank, —and he did not look up to see just’ where he was. Rattler was a well trained horse, since he was Ward’s. He obeyed the rein and stepped off a two foot bank into a nest of loose piled rocks that slid treacherously under his feet Sure footed, though he was, he •tumbled and fell, and it was sheer instinct that took Ward’s feet from the otirrups in time. 7 ■ _ ' - among the rocks, dazed. The shock of the faU took him out of his fit of abstraction and he palled away from Rattler as the horse scrambled up and stood shaking before him. He tried to scramble up also. Ward sat and stared stupidly at his left leg where, midway between his knee and his foot, it turned out at an unnatural angle. He thought resentfully that he had had enough trouble for once without having a broken leg on top of it all. •Now this Is one deuce of a fix!” he stated dispassionately, when pain had in a measure cooled his first anger. He lodked around him like a man who 4s (taking stock of his resumes. He was

I not far from the cabin. He could get I there by crawling. But what then? Ward looked at Rattler, standing docilely —within reach -of bis. hand. —He Considered getting on—if he could, and riding—well, the nearest place’Was fifteen miles. And that was a good, long way from a doctor. He gla- eed again at the cabin and tried to study the situation impersonally. If it were some other fellow, now, what would Ward advise him to do under the circumstances? —— He reached down and feit his leg gingerly. So far as he could tell it was a straight, simple break—snapped short off against a rock, he judged. Ho shook his head over the thought of riding fifteen miles with those broken bones grinding their edges together. And still, what else could he do? He reached out, took the reins and led Rattler a step nearer so that hte could grasp the stirrup. With his voice he held the horse quiet while he pulled himself upright upon his good leg. Then, with pain hurried, jerky movements he pulled off the saddle, glanced around him “and flung it behind a buca. brush. He slipped off the bridle, flung that after the saddle and gave Rattler a slap on the rump. The horse moved away and Ward stared after him with set lips. “Anyway, y<m can look after yourself,” he said, and balanced upon his right leg while he swung around and faced the cabin. It was not far — to a man with two sound legs. A hundred yards, pe haps. Ward crawled there on his hands and one knee, dragging the broken leg after him. It was not a nice experience, but it served one good purpose—it wiped from his mind all thought of that black past wherein Buck had figured so shamefully. He had enough to think of with his present plight, without worrying over the past. In half an hour or so Ward rested his arms upon his own doorstep and dropped his perspiring face upon thru. He lay there a long while in a dead faint. After awhile he moved, lifted his head and looked about him dully at first and then with a certain stoical acceptance of his plight He looked into the immediate future and tried to forecast its demands upon his strength and to prepare for them. He crawled farther up on the step, reached the latch and opened the door. He crawled in, pulled himself up by the foot of his bunk and sat down weakly with his head in his hands. Like a hurt animal,, he had obeyed,, his instinct and had crawled home.

II is eyes went slowly around the cabin. measuring his resources and his needs and limitations. He pulled his one chair toward him—the chair which Buck Olney had occupied so unwillingly—and placed his left knee upon it. He managed to reach the cupboard where be kept his dishes, and took down a bottle of liniment and a box of carbolized vaseline which he happened to hare. He was Wr the two • big zinc water pails which he had filled that morning just to show Buck Olney how cool he was over his capture, and he bethought hirh that water was going to ; be precious in the next few weeks. He lifted down one pail and swung it forward as far as he could and set it on the floor ahead of him. Then he swung the other pail beside it. Painfully he hitched his chair alongside, lifted the pails and set them forward again. He did that twice and got them beside his bunk. He went back and inspected the teakettle, found it half full and carried that also beside the bunk. Then he rested awhile. Bandages! Well, there was a new flour sack hanging on a nail. He stood up, leaned and got it, and while he was standing he reached for the cigar box, where he kept his bachelor sewing outfit —two spools of very coarse thread, some large eyed needles to carry it, an assortment of buttons and u-pair of scissors. He cut the flour sack into strips and sewed the strips together; his stitches were neater than you might think. When the bandage was long enough he rolled it as he had seen doctors do, and fished some pins out of the cigar box and laid them where he could get his fingers on them .quickly. He stood up again, reached across to a box of canned milk and pried off the lid. ‘‘l’m liable to need you, too,” he muttered to the rows of cans, and pulled the box close. He took Buck Olney’s knife and whittled some very creditable splints from the thin boards and rummaged in his “warbag” under the bunk for handkerchiefs with which to wrap the splints. When be had done all that he could do to prepare for the long siege of pain and helplessness ahead of him he moved along the bunk until he was sitting near the head of it with his broken leg extended before him and took a last look to make sure that everything was ready. He felt his gun at bls hip, removed belt and all and threw it back upon the bed. Then be turned Iris head and stared, frowning, at the black butt where it. protruded from the holster suggestively ready to his hand. Be

THE EVENING 'REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

reached out and took the gun, turned it over and hesitated. No telling what insane impulse fever might bring upon him—and still—no telling what Buck Olney might do when he discovered that he was not in any immediate danger of hanging. Then he removed his boots by the almple method of slitting the legs with Buck’s knife, bared his broken leg*4n the same manner, braced himself*mentally and physically, gritted his teeth and went doggedly to work. A man never knows just how much lie can endure or what-he can do until he Is making his last stand in the fight' for self preservation. Ward bad no mind to lie there and die of blood pok son lug, for instance, and broken bones do not set themselves. So, sweating and swearing with the agony of it, he set his leg and bound the splints in place and thanked the Lord it was a straight, clean break and that the flesh was not torn. Then he dropped back upon the bed and didn’t care whether he lived or not. Followed days of fever, through which Ward lived crazily and lost count of the hours as they passed. Days when he needed good nursing and did not get

He Felt Hia Gun at His Hip.

so much as a drink of water except through pain and effort. Hours when he cursed Buck Olney and thought he had him bound to the chair in the cabin. Hours when he watched for him, gun-in hand, through the window beside the bunk. He had made a final trip to Hardup two weeks before and had brought back supplies for th® winter. And because his pay streak of gravel bank had yielded a fair harvest he had not stinted himself on the things he liked to eat He lay looking over the piled boxes against the farther wall and wondered if he could reach the box of crackers' and drag it up beside the bunk. He was weak, and to move his leg was agony. Well, there was a dish of prunqs on the window sill. Ward ate a dozen or so, but he wanted the crackers. He leaned as far as he could from the bed. and the box was still two feet from his outstretched fingers. He lay and considered how he might bring the box within reach. At the head pf the bunk stood the case of peaches and beneath that the case of canned tomatoes, the two forming a stand for his lantern. He eyed them thoughtfully, chewingTl coiner ofhis unjlerlip. He did not want peaches or tomatoes just then —he wanted those soda crackers. —He took Buck Olney’s knife—he was finding it a most useful souvenir of-the encounter —and pried off a board from the peach box. Two nails stuck out through each end of the board. He leaned again from the bed, reached out with the board and caught the nails in a crack on the upper edge of the cracker box. He dragged the box toward him until it caught against a ridge in the rough board floor, when the nails bent outward and slipped away from the crack. - Ward lay back, exhausted with the effort he had made and tormented with the pain in his leg. After awhile he took the piece of board and managed to slide it under the box, lifting a corner of it over the ridge. That was hard work, harder than you would believe unless you tried it yourself after lying three days fasting with a broker, leg and a fever. He had to rest again before fie took the other end of the board that had the good nails and pulled the box up beside the bunk. _ ~ In a few minutes he made another effort and pried part of the cover off tire cracker box with the knife. Then hKpulled out half a dozen crackers and drank half a dipper of water and felt better. He had held.himself aloof from the men of the country. He knew the Seabeck riders by Sight; be had talked a little with Floyd Carson two or three times' and had met Seabeck himself. He knew Charlie Tox in a purelyji>casual way, as has been related, and Peter Howling Dog the same. None of these men were likely to ride out “of their way to see him. And now that his mind worked rationally be had no fear of Buck Olney’s vengeful return. Buck Olney, he guessed shrewdly, was extremely busy just now pitting as many miles as possible between himself and that part of Idaho. Unless Billy Louise would come or send for him be would in all probability lie alone there until he was able to walk. Ward did not try to comfort himself with any delusions of hope. " As the days passed be settled hlmself grimly to the business of getting* th rough the ordeal as comfortably as possible. He had food within his reach and a scant supply of water. He worked out

the question of diet and of using hfs resources to the best advantage. He had nothing else to do and his alert mind seized upon the situation and brought it down tcj.a fine system. For instance, bapflid not open a can of fruit until the prunes were gone. Then he emptied a can of tomatoes into the bowl as -a safeguard aga Inst -ptomaine poisoning from the tin, and set the empty can on the floor. During the warm part of each day he slid open the window by his bunk and lay with the fresh air fanning tote face and lifting the hair from his aching temples.. He tried to eat regularly and to make the fruit juice save his water supply. Sometimes he chewed jerked venison from the bag over his head, but not very often; the salt in the meat made him drink too much. On the whole, his diet was healthful and in a measure satisfying. He did not suffer from the want of any real necessity, at any rate. He had his few books within reach. He read a good deal to keep frqm thinking too much, and he tried to meet the days with philosophic calm. He might easily be a great deal worse off than he was, he frequently reminded himsett — But he wad lonesome—so lonesome that there were times when life looked a bsol utely worthless; when the blue d evils made him their plaything and he saw Billy Louise looking scornfully upon him and loving some other man better: when he saw his name blackened by the suspicion that he was a r..stler —preying upon his neighbors’ cattle; when he saw Buck Olney laughItfcfF in flAriginri tvf. big IDQrCV 8.11(1 fixinSf fresh evidence against him to-confound him utterly. He had all those moods, and they left their own lines upon his faee. But he had one thing to hearten him, and that was the steady progress of his broken leg toward recovery. A long, tedious process it was of necessity, but as nearly as he could judge the bone was knitting together and would be straight and strong again if he did not try to "hurry-it too much. He tried to keep count of the weeks as they passed. When the days slid behind him until he feared he could not remember he cut a little notch on the window sill each morning with Buck’s knife, with every seventh day a longer and deeper notch than the others to mark the weeks. The first three days had been so hazy that he thought them only two and marked them so, but that put him only one day out of his reckoning. He lay there and saw snow slither past his window, driven by a whooping wind. It worried him to know that his calves were unsheltered and unfed while his long stack pf hay stood untouched —unless the cattle broke down his fence and reached it He hoped they would, but he was a thorough workman, and in his heart he knew that fence would stand. He saw cold rains and sleet Then there were days when he shivered under his blankets and would have given much for a cup of hot coffee; days when the water froze in the pails beside the bed—what little water was left —and he chipped off pieces of ice and sucked them to quench his thirst Days when the tomatoes and peaches were frozen in the cans so that he chewed jerked venison and ate crackers rather than chill his stomach with the icy stuff. Day by day the little notches and the longer ones reached farther and farther along the window sill until Ward began to' foresee the time when he must start a new row. Day by day his cheek bones grew more clearly defined, his eyes bigger and more wistful. Day by day his knuckles stood up sharper when he closed his hands, and day by day nature worked upon his hurt, knitting the bones together.

CHAPTER XII. —' < ' • ' .. ' - — L ~—- The Brave Buckaro®. Boise, Ida., Dec. 23. Brave Buckaroo—l wonder if you ever in your whole life got a Christmas present? I’ve been cultivating the Louise of me, and here are the first fruits of my endeavor—l guess that’s the way they say it. I’ve spent so much time sitting by. mommle when she’s asleep and I get tired of reading all the time, so a nurse In this ward—mommio has a room to herself, ofcourse, but not a special nurse, because I can do a lot of the little things. Well, the nurse taught me how to hemstitch. So I got some silk and made some nice soft neckerchiefs—one for. you and one for me. This one I made last. I didn’t want your eagle eyes seeing all the bobbly stitches on the first one. I hope you like it. Ward. Every stitch stands for a thought of the hills and our good times. I’ve brought Minervy back to life, and I try to play my old pretends sometimes. But they always break up into pieces. I'm not a kid now, you see. And life is a loti different when you get out into it. isn't it? Momrnie doesn't seem to get much better. I’m worried about her. She seems to have let go, somehow. She never talks about the ranch much or even worries about whether Phoebe is keeping the windows washed. She talks about when she was a little girl and about when she and daddy were first married. It gets on my nerves to see how sfie has slipped out of everyday life. The nurse say® that’s common, though, in sickness. She says 1 could go home and look after things for a week or so Just as well as not. She says mommle would be all right. But I hate to leave her. I’m awfully homesick for a good old ride on Blue. I miss him terribly. Have you seen anything of cove folks lately? Seems like I’m clear out of the world. I hate town, anyway, and a hospital is the limit for dismalness. Even the Louise of me is getting ready to do something awful If T have to stay much longer. Mommie sleeps most of the time. I believe they dope her with something. She doesn’t have that awful pain so bad. So T don’t, have anything to do but sit around and read and sew and wait for her to wake up and want something. And this is Christmas, almost. I wonder what you’ll be doing. Say. Ward, if vou want to be a perfect Jewel of a man send me some of that Jerky you’ve got hanging at the head of your bunk. I swiped some that last time I was there. It would taste mighty good to me now. after all this hos»»ital truck. ■ • 'Well, a merry Christmas, Pal o’-mine. and here's hoping you and mommle and I will be eating turkey together at the Wolverine when next 'Christmas comes. Nummy-num! Wouldn’t that taste good, though? . •_ Now rememhar and write a whole tablet fuU ts BILLY LOUISE.

Phoebe put that letter on the mantel over the fireplace the day after Christmas. ' ■ —— • ——j Billy Louise refrained from expecting any . reply until after New Year’s; then she began to look for a letter, and when the days passed and brought her no word her moods changed oftener than the weather; ' _ Ward’s literary efforts along about that time consisted of cutting notches in the window sill beside his bunk. On the day when the stage driver gave Billy Louise’s letter to Phoebe Ward cut a deeper, wider notch, thinking that day was Christmas. Under the notch he scratched a word with the point of his knife. It had four letters, and it told eloquently* of the state of mind he was in. The letter gathered dust upon the mantel down at the Wolverine. When the postmark was more than two weeks old another letter came, and Phoebe laid it on the first dng with fingers that trembled a little. Phoebe had a letter of her own that day. Both were thin, and the addresses were more scrawly than usual. Phoebe’s Indian Instinct warned her that something was amiss. - This was Ward’s letter: Oh, God, Ward.- mommte’gdead. She died last night. I thought she was asleep till the nurse came in at 5 o’clock. I’m all alone and I don’t know what to do. I wish you could come, but ypu don’t get this right away. I’ll see you at the ranch. I’m coming home as soon as I can. Oh, Ward, I hate life and everything. BILLY LOUISE. Please Ward, stay at the ranch till I come. I want to see you. I feel as if you’re "the only friend I’ve got left, now mommie’s gone. She looked so peaceful when they took her away—and so strange. I didn't belong to her any more. I felt as if I didn’t know her at^all—and there .is such an awful gap in my life—maybe you’ll understand. You always do. The day that letter waa written Ward drew a plan of the house he meant to build some day, with a wide porch on the front, where a hammock would swing comfortably. He had no presentiment of Billy’s need of him, which was just as well, since he was sßwalutely powerless to help her- *••• ' • • • Billy Louise, barti< arrived unexpectedly on the stage, pulled off her fur lined mittens and ptX her chilled hands before the snapping Maze in the fireplace. Her eyes were tUvd and sunken, and her mouth drooped pitifully at the corners, but aside fre«n that she did not seem much changed from the girl who had left the ranch two months and more before. “I’ll take a cup of tea, Phoebe, but I’m not a bit hungry,” she said. “I ate just before I left town. How have you been, Phoebe?” “We been fine. We been so sorry for you”— “Never mind that now, Phoebe. I’d rather not talk about it.’ Has anybody been here lately?” “Charlie Fox, he come las’ week—mebby week before las’. Marthy, she got rheumatis in her knee. Charlie, he say she been pretty bad one night I guess she’s better now. I tor I wash for her if he brings me clo’es, but he says he wash them clo’es hisself. I guess Charlie pretty good to that old lady. He’s awful p’lite, that feller la.” “Yes, he is. I’ll go up and see her when I get rested a little. I feel tired to death somehow. Has Ward been around lately?" "Ward, he ain’t been here for long time. I guess mebbe it’s been six weeks 1 ain’t seen him. Las’ time he was here he wrote that letter. He ain’t come no more.” Billy Louise in the last few months had tried to picture herself alone, wun mommie gone. Her imagination was

“Has—Anybody Been Here Lately?"

too alive and saw too clearly the possibilities for her never to have dwelt upon this very crisis in her life. But whenever she had tried to think what it would be like she had always pictured Ward beside her. shielding her from dreary details and lightening her burden with his whimsical gentleness. She had felt sure that Ward would ride down every week for news of her, and she had expected to find him there waiting for her after that last letter. Whatever could be the. matter? Had he left the country? , * (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Mean Query.

He (pompously)—l have many sek einn thoughts to be read in my mind, She (sarcastically)—Bound in calf? . —r . About 70,000 church bells in Ger many have bee© melted for must Uons of war.

HAPPY IN POVERTY

Former Theatrical Star Ends Restless Search. Kaleidoscopic Career of May Yohe, Once Petted Favorite of Two Continents) Bids Fair to Have Unconventional Ending. _ . ' V ) ; - ■ ,-, ..... . : —r —-—“ Searching for - happiness, conventionally and unconventionally, along the gilt edges .of rhe world. Madcap May .Yohe, once darling of royalty, has found it at last as the wife of a workingman amid humble surroundings. herself st janitress. She has found it In work, in service and in selfitjffacemjfnt. ■•>*,» . It Js as Mrs. John Smuts that the tempestuous theatrical . star of yesterday has added a bright chapter to the life that led the American girl to an English peerage at eighteen. Into tiumblesotne days of escapade, throughheartbreaking years and decline of fame, into marriage again and adven- . tures in far lands All in the restless search for love. At the end of her kaleidoscopic career she is now in Seattle, knowing poverty and the meaning of toil, and she says she’s found what she’s hunted for a lifetime in the man who loves her and is good to herTwenty years ago May Yohe had the' theatrical wo r ld at her feet. She became Lady Francis Hope, mistress of the great blue Hope diamond. Jewel of ill omen. As such she was the petted favorite of aristocracy and of King _Ed ward VIL. Then she listened to the blandishments of Capt. Putnam Bradlee Strong, son of the then mayor of New York, and seeking happiness unconventionally went away with him. The adventure brought only sorrow ancH disappointment. Striving to regain her lost glory, she stood again before a London audience in 1913, and London forgave her and took her back into its heart with a roaring welcome as in the older days of song and dance and youthful allurements. Having accomplished that she became the bride of Capt. John Smuts, cousin of Gen. Jan Smuts of Boer war fame, and himself an officer in that war. She quit the stage and accompanied him to South Africa, to Singapore. to India, Chinh and Japan. Coming to America a year or so ago. In the hope that he would get a commission in the British army. Captain Smuts went to work in a Seattle shipyard when his application was turned down svd ready funds were not - aval table. ———— It was there he developed influenza and the woman who had once swayed the footlight world went to work as janitress to earn their daily bread. As worker and nurse she battled desperately for his life —and won. “Won the greatest happiness I haveever known,” she said, “as well as the life of my dear husband.” When Captain Smuts resumed work In the shipyards after his illness he “banished” May Yohe to keeping house in their one-room apartment, where they are living today. Their financial straits were explained by Mrs. Smuts as due to red tape that prevented access to estate moneys, and to the fact that Captain Smuts, a judge and barrister in South Africa, knew no one in America. “When Jack became ill they asked me jokingly at the shipyards if Twanted a job. I accepted it seriously. The only place open was for a janitress, and I took it. “Things are brighter now. I still have my Jack, we’re going to get some money soon, a#d if we don’t go to England we‘ll start a little chicken ranch near the city here. Meantime, what more could one wish for?”

The Day Came at Lass.

Special permission to accompany the French armies into Strassburg was asked by Captain Danner, grandson of Baron Pron, prefect of Strassburg during the war of 1870. At the time of the old city’s bombardment the cathedral belfry was struck, and from the'' debris the prefect secured a piece of granite, and Instructed his children that whenever She day of liberation came they should take the stone hack and present it to "the of •the town. Carefully kept during the 48 years, it was to be returned to Strassburg by Captain Danner on the very day of the entry of the French troops.—Christian Science Monitor.

How U-Boats Were Trapped.

One of the novel devices adopted by the British for the co-ordination of the efforts of trawlers and submarines has just been divulged. A trawler would drag a submarineby a cable and maintain communication with It by telephone. When the trawler sighted a German D-boat the British submarine would slip Its cable and attack th* German boat before the surprised mans could submerge or prepare far give fight.

Attire.

"Is your boy Josh particular about his clothes?” "1 should say he Is,” answered Farmer Corntossel. “/Since he put off his uniform he’d rather wear overalls than one o’ them bigh-waisttd overcoats.” ■ \ ' v ' ’: . ■

The Worse the Better.

Grocer—l can’t guarantee those 00cent eggs, madam. Customer —No matter' 1 want ’em for when the neighbors come' borrowing—Boston Transcript.