Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to You [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to You

By Larry Evans

OF .V r ‘ONCE TO EVERY MAN"

SYNOPSIS Ca’eb Hunter and his sister Sarah wel«ome to their home Stephen O'Mara, a homeless and friendless boy, starting from the wilderness to see the city. Stephen O'Mara catches a glimpse of Barbara Allison. The girl is rich. The O’Mara boy falls in love with her. She is ten, he fourteen, Xne boy and girl are in a party mat go to town. The old people watch with concern the youth’s growing attachment for the girl. Caleb Is much Impressed with the boy’s Meas on the moving of timber. He predicts a great future for the lad. O'Mara whips Archibald Wickersham In a. boyhood fight over Barbara. She takes Wickersham’s side, and Stephen leaves for parts unknown, saying, “I'll come back to you." Years later the boy returns as a man. He is a contractor. Sarah welcomes him. Barbara is a beautiful woman. O’Mara suspects there is a plot to prevent his successful completion of a rail--zoad and that Barbara Allison’s father and Wickersham are in it O’Mara meets Garry Devereau, with whom Barbara's closest friend is in love. O'Mara starts to reform him. O’Mara meets,, Barbara Allison on the road. There is a play of words in which both seek to conceal their feeling. Wickersham notices that Barbara and Stephen are together a great deal. Miriam Burrell, Barbara's friend, secs and understands the black rage that shadows CHAPTER XI. I Never Did Like to Be Beaten. IrEPHEN O'MARA found Hardwick Elliott lunching alone In the East Coast com- * • pany's main Morrison office, i big unpainted shack that stood half lost in a maze of high, piled ties, midway between the sawmills at the river

edge and the first snarled network of switches converging on one reddish streak of steel that lanced into the north. He rose and held out a finely tapered hand. . “Now. this is fine!'’ tie exclaimed. “This is really fine. Mr. O’Mafra. Rather odd, too —coincidence rind that sort of thing, I mean. Because.! was just this instant wondering whether I had better send for you or wait until you just happened down river again.” In many ways the president of the East Coast company reminded Steve of Caleb Hunter, even though there could be no two things more in contrast than the latter's calm and comfortable bigness and Elliott's thin and •wiry and extremely nervous exterior. It was a similarity due entirely to the Innate honesty of both men—such honesty as makes of every attempt at dissimulation an assured nonsuecess. And Miss Sarah had never anticipated her brother’s clumsiest finesse with greater ease than did Steve sense that afternoon the weight of worry behind his employer's first effort at jauntiness. He nodded hopefully, it seemed. "Somethii , else gone wrong?” Steve asked. "Or are you going to tell me that McLean is still having trouble •with that curve .of his?” "No.” he replied. “No. we’ve got that laid, or at least practically so No. it’s not the work itself. Yqu know the first few miles at this end afford pretty plain sailing, We figured on that or we wouldn't stand any chance of finishing th<? job. And we are quite

nicely- ahead of our schedule so far. But have you—l was wondering if you, by any chance, have noticed any signs of discontent in your own squad at Thirty Mile ?” . Elliott eased himself back into his chair at the finish of the question. Repugnantly he jerked a thumb in silent invitation toward a plate of sandwiches. It indicated most clearly the state of his appetite—that gesture—and Steve could , not help but smile a little as he refused. "No more than the usual disturbances,” Steve answered. “I have more or less trouble holding them—some of them —over the week ends, of course. But then that’s always to be expected. They aren’t the sort of

men that go to make up the general run of construction squads. One of my main reasons for wanting them was the fact that they were rivermen, hardened to swamping and white water work and that kind of thing? In a pinch they’re good for twenty-four hours a day over stretches that would take the heart out of most gangs. I don’t know of anything that can beat a lumberjack on a squeeze job once you get him to realize that he's up ■ against long odds. It’s this ten hour a day thing and too much ready money every pay day: it’s a town too tempi* ingly close that makes them a—a trifle temperamental, Mr. Elliott. Is that what you mean?” Elliott pondered for a moment. “That entirely duplicates what McLean said just a day or so ago.” On any other lips Elliott’s deliberate neatness of phrase might have sounded solemnly funny. “Thoroughly logical, of course—thoroughly possible. And yet somehow it doesn’t fit the case. We’ve had the usual Monday morning vacancies right along, as you know, but the delinquents always turned up before the 5 o’clock whistle blew or at least reported Tuesday morning. But this is the end of the week, and we’re short right this minute very close to thirty men. They aren't coming back, Mr. O’Hara. On the contrary, they continue to dribble away, a few every day. And, though they appear to do nothing but talk their time away in the saloons in the lower end of the town, they seem to have just as much money to spend as they did when they were getting their time checks from us.” “What sort of talking?” Steve wanted to know.

“That’s just it,” Elliott exclaimed. “Their talk leads nowhere. I went down and attempted to find out what their grievance might be, but they close up like clams whenever I come within earshot They stare at the ceiling, rub their chins and laugh when there’s nothing to laugh at This morning, however. I finally convinced McLean' that something was radically wrong. So he took one of them who had Just decided to quit and pinned him up against the embankment—but you Know McLean and his methods — he shoved his jaw up within an inch of the other’s nose and invited him to talk, and—well, he found out eiiougk to make .him begin to worry too. Somebody’s been talking to them, Mr. O’Mara. Somebody has put the fool notion into their heads that this strip of railread will mean the- end of all lumber operations in this country—the old time river drives-, of course. And some of them are beginning to believe, whoever was responsible for that statement. “You know and I know how absurd it is. We knbw that this road will mean work for every riverman in this section, as often as he wants to work But it isn't going to help us any if t hex can’t see it that way. It isn’t going to replace the men who quit. I've been deliberating one point. Don’t you suppose we might import a regular squad of construction men now, before it’s too late?” “It’s too late now,” Steve told him, his words none the less final for all that they were absently quiet. "It was too late the day we began operations. And yesterday at this time I wouldn't have given much worry to this particular brrind of trouble: They’re an odd lot. They're the hardest working. hardest living crowd of big men that ever failed entirely to grow up. But since yesterday—since yesterday—who. did you say, was re sponsible for that statement, as you call it?"

“I didn’t say. And” if I—if I bad to guess”— The hand passed across his eyes now. “O’Mara, do you know how deeply Mr. Aihnesley and myself are involved in this prospect?” T don’t believe I have ever given it much actual thought.” Steve replied. “I never viewed it as any of my affair. But I haven’t forgotten'the last time we talked the plans over, that you couldn't go into it to lose.” “Of course,” Elliott answered quickly. “Of course—yof course!” He sedmed groping for a fresh beginning, then gave up suddenly all attempt at circuity and blurted it out much as though he had lived with the thought too long to endure it longer alone. “I’m in up to my last dollar,” he stated. “And Ainnesley—why, Ainnesley wouldn’t have a roof over his head if we failed in our obligations’ You must know as well as I do why the banking interests took our paper to those amounts which made it possible sos us to drive the first spike.” When he failed to go on Steve understood that the last sentence had been a question. “Mr. Allison, I suppose.” His voice became utterly impersonal. “Without doubt-yen mean Mr, Allison.” “They would have laughed at us,” the older man came back Instantly. “And, what is more, they did! They wouldn’t touch the proposition until Allison came in with us. , And then—but you know what Dexter Allison has done already in this country, I don’t

snow what he started with. I do know that all that Ainnesley and I had scraped’ up between rs looked like a shoestring to him. “We couldn’t move until he, of his' own accord, expressed his enthusiasm for the plan and asked for a share in the holdings. You know, perhaps how he can laugh too. Well, he laughed that way and confessed that we had just beaten him to it. He said it would tap a gold mine—this ‘strip of steel,’ as he called it. He even told us that he’d parallel our road with- a competitor, jokingly to be sure, if we hadn’t tied up,the only available and practicable right of way. “He came in. He opened up. merely through his own name arid all there is behind it, loan possibilities for which we might have struggled uselessly the rest of our lives without his help. Between us Mr.. Ainnesley and I just managed to hold the balance of stock control and—and that’s how deep we are in, Mr. O’Mara.” Both men sat and smoked, each avoiding elaborately the other's eyes. After a long pause Elliott cleared his throat laboriously. “This morning,” he continued slowly—“this morning I am In receipt of a communication from Mr. Ainnesle.v himself advising me that another right of way has been applied for for a single track road hero in the north. The gossip which chanced to come his way was rather obscure. Little could be learned about the whole affair save that it was being put forward with a view to tapping the ore and timber lands all the way to and beyond the border. But as nearly as he could ascertain the southern terminus of such a road would seem to be about—about at the mouth of that valley southernmost in the Reserve company's timber holdings. Rather a remarkable choice for a railroad terminus, Mr. O’Mara, wouldn’t you say so?” “Do you mean that they’ve thrown out your earlier application for just such a grant?” “That would be a rather harshly definite way of putting it,” Elliott smiled wryly. “Ours is apparently just ta bled —oh, tabled pending certain Im material changes In the form! You asked me a moment ago—or did I offer to guess?—who might be responsible for the report which is costing us our men. I wonder if I need to tell you who controls this new northern route?” “Maybe you’ve been telling me,” Steve came back coolly. “You have already mentioned”—

“Wickersham!” Hardwick Elliott corrected. “Wickersham —that is, through allied interests which he represents or controls. O’Mara, I doubt if I would even insinuate this to any one else; I haven’t even intimated it to Ainnesley as yet. Wickersham is reputed to represent huge moneyed foreign interests. But have you ever stopped to wonder whether he might not represent big local interests as well ? I’d like to ask you—what do you think?” “Yesterday,” Steve answered, “yesterday—well, I couldn’t guarantee just what I might have thought twentyfour hours back. But doesn’t one fact remain unchanged still, no matter what we think? Suppose we admit that some one else does want this stretch of track we’re laying. Suppose somebody is figuring on picking it up cheap at a bankruptcy price if we forfeit to the Reserve company. You know yourself that you would never have begun it simply for the-profit there will be in moving the Reserve logs and the millions on millions of feet of lumber, both to the east and west, which can't be touched at anything but a prohibitive figure without this road. We were going through to the border too. And if some one else is betting that we don’t, if some one else is betting that we can’t yank a train load of logs down to this erid of the line before the Ist of May, that doesn’t alter our case any, does it ? Even though we srispect that some man is playing us to lose, db we -have to know exactly who he is?” Slowly, but, very surely, the older man’s face began to smooth. “Once or twice,” he stated, “I've thought'to auticipate you, perhaps be cause I have it on you a little, as they say, in the. matter of years. I'm not going to attempt it any more, for I thought that this conversation would be at least a surprise to you. gqu sit there arid take it very quietly for a man who has been badly startled.” “Fat Joe has been preaching it for a month.” Oddly enough, Stephen O’Mara chose that point at which to laugh softly. “And I, for a irionth, have been ridiculing him. That’s one of Fat Joe’s pet diversions, you know. When all other excitement fails Joe invariably falls back upon an imagination too totally vivid to be wasted ou technical things. I laughed at him until last night/ ’Do you—but, of course, you know Garry Devereau?” he finished. • “Knew his father,” Elliott answered succinctly. “Know him well. Good blood, good brains, big heart! Why?" And then for the second time that day Steve related the salient points of that episode which had ended with the first gray streaks of returning day. During the recital the expressions which chased across Elliott’s face were as varied as they were full of concern. “Then I wasn’t merely hysterical was I?” tie brooded after Steve had finished. “Who—who did you say you thought might be behind the man who would have had your plans had it not been for Mr. Devereau?” “I didn’t say,” replied Steve, and for the first time since his entrance there was mirth in the unison of their laughter;. „ “It all brings us back to the point from which we started,” the younger man went on when they were grave again. “It’s a plain enough issue so far as we are concerned. We’ve got to be at the mouth of that lower valley by May. We're going to be! And as I see it. wasting time and energy in

—Shall we call it sleuthing, Mr. Kiilott? —won’t help us much. ' We. thought that lack of .time and the general nature of this country were going to be handicap enough. But now your money Is In and I—l never did like to bs beaten. Can't we let It stand like that, at least until some one else makes a plainer move? We know-the cards, we hold. If others eare to sit in perhaps we’ll all come to a showdown next' spring at Thirty .Mile. It'll be easy enough to explain just how we did it Alibis based on veiled opposition would not interest the Reserve people mu ii if we left their timber there to rot. % * * Ami I'm trying not to overlook any bets, Air.. Elliott." Hastily the iron gray man thrust his hat back from his forehead. He came to his feet and crossed and clapped one hand upon Steve’s shoulder. “Next May!” he barked. "O’Mara. I’m glad you came down this-morning. I’ve been carrying a lot*Of those ideas around in my head until they had become nightmarish, Rut I’m through, now. You won’t hear me croak again. I staked what I had on you months -ago. I'd do it again this minute. What's the odds, after all. who it is that's playing us to lose? It’s only the fact that somebody may be fight ing ns that needs to occupy our attention. I’m done worrying. Do you hear? But what about those men who are quitting us? You are sure it would be unwise to import labor? It’s cheap er, you know.” Steve, too, had risen. “We'd have the prettiest kind of a scrap on our hands the first day we tried to use them,” he explained. “It would be dead enough before we got through. I guess I’d better run right out and have a talk with McLean. He knows these men even better than I do, and I’m almost one of them, y°u know. And I’ll get a line on some of these delinquents who are crying calamity for the countryside. I’d better, because we’ll need them. They simply haven't become thoroughly inter ested yet; that’s all. It will take something to jolt them, something to set them on fire. And then—then just watch my plaid shirted boys go! They’ll eat up your sledge swingers!” Something of that promised fire was reflected now in Hardwick Elliott’s eyes. “By Gad,” he exclaimed; “by Gad. if it wasn’t for Ainnesley, I'd say the thing was worth it, win or lose, just for the game itself! You go ahead and see McLean. I’ll be out there later myself. I promised Allison that I'd show the works to some of the young folks up there on the hill. His daughter —but I keep forgetting that you've known her longer than I have. There’s quite a party of them. She announced her engagement to Mr. Wickersham last night I believe. Heard that this

morning- Was itoo busy to g » tip last night myself. Maybe you’ll find time to help me play the bast.** Steve turned toward the door. “So I heard,’’ he replied, without facing around. "I’ll try to be on hand.” , (To be continued.)

McLean Pinned Him Up Against the Embankment