Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to you

By Larrg Evans

HOR OF ONCE TO EVERY MAN*

SYNOPSIS •O. Ca 1 eb Hunter and his sister Sarah welcome 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 ©’Mara boy falls in love with her. She ia ten, he fourteen. Tne boy and girl are in a party iiia.l 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 railroad 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 cStephen are together a great deal. Miriam Burrell, Barbara’s friend, sees ■ and understands the black rage that shadows hla face.

CHAPTER XII. That Woods Rat. ' |ETWEEN Dexter Allison’s m» I > nopoly of his time and the jtrrgffi; persistence with which Miriasaffij am Burrell clung to Stephen O’Mara Barbara Allison had opportunity for little more than a perfunctory word or two of greeting that afteiiioon during the first hour or two ‘.hat followed a jolting ride pn the fiat car which trundled them to the head of operations. Almost as soon as her feet touched the ground Miriam’s eager survey singled out a tall figure at the edge of the farthest embankment, and in spite of the fact that he was at the moment in sober conversation with white haired, white bearded McLean she crossed instantly to take hold of both of Steve’s arms and havelhis un •divided attention. Barbara, at Wickersham’s side, glancing now and then in tlieir direction, knew well what subject was engrossing them to the ex elusion of all else. But Allison's acceptance of that arrangement as time passed grew less patient. For a time Allison was content to stroll along with the rest—content with his facetious comments on Elliott’s explanation of this matter or that. Yet whenever his eyes strayed toward Miriam and that other figure whom a week or two before he had designated as “my man O’Mara” his jovially faltered a little, his manner grew restive. After a time he. too. detach 1 himself and sauntered in the direction •of that wholly preoccupied pair. “See here, my lady,” he accosted the girl, who turned extremely bright e. < - upon his approach, “this won’t do at all! How do you suppose 1 am going to getli minute, with Mn O'Mara he if you persist in clinging to his elbow? You’ll have to run along.- You nm over, and listen with the rest to Elliott's heroic tale of this scarring o: the face of nature. I've waited a good many days to talk business with O’Mara. I’m not going to lose hi: 1 now I’ve got him cornered.” Had Dexter Allison been less occr. pied with other thoughts the face whi • Miriam Burrell turned toward him would have surprised him if .only lie cause of the unusual color burning in her cheeks. At that he was vaguely aware that he had never before seen that quiet, self contained girl so puls ingly happy. She stood and gazed at him a moment, then made him a low and mocking obeisance. “Don’t flatter yourself that I haven't noted your covetous glances,” Miriam flashed at Allison. “I’ve been talking very fast because I knew this interruption was coming. But we've finished, thank you, so 4’ll leave you to—to bore him now!” She turned back toward O’Mara. “And thank you,” she murmured not very audibly. “Thank you more than I ever thanked anybody before in my life. You’ve made me very, very happy” No one could have missed the depth of real thankfulness in those last words. Even Allison stood astonish T ed at it, mouth open, following her rapid withdrawal toward the group fifty yards away. “Huh-h-h,” he snorted. “Huh-h-h. A mighty strange girl!” And then, as abruptly as he had interrupted their low conversation: “Well*how does it go, chief? How does it look to you as far as you’ve gone?” No man’s good humor could be more infectious than was that of this big. noisily garbed man. Steve smiled and met his cordiality more than halfway. “Not too bad,” Steve answered. “Not too bad.” He swept the ground before them with a short -gesture. “You are nut beginning to worry, too. are you?" “Worry?” Allison’s frown was bare ly perceptible. “Why should I ? I

never let anything worry me. Who is beginning to fret? You aren't, are you ? You don’t look—much disturbed-” “Not a pardclei” Steve still smil 'd “I never do. either, unless there i> something worth while to make me. I just thonght perhaps you might have contracted it from Mr. Elliott. „ He’s been botiu-red. you see, by : the way some of the men are acting. We’re short a lot of labor this week.” The big man wheeled and sqpimed at the droves of men sweating under the unseasonably hot sun. He peered keenly at each clump of laborers. se me of them scarcely distinguishable knots of humanity in tne distance. “Not very short,” he stated comfort ably. “I don’t claim to 1* a wholly competent judge, but it looks to me as though they would be in one another's way if there were any m-. re of them. What’s wrong?*’ The chief engineer’s answer was drawling in its deliberation. “I wish I knew,” he replied. “I wish

I could he positive. And there aren't too many of them; they alt> ©ether too few. . We’re going to need them, and more, too, before we finish. Mr. Allison. Perhaps I d better figure on —perhaps if they continue to quit on us, by twos and threes, as they have in the last week. I’ll have to”— Uis pause seemed aim -st an invitation that the other suggest a remedy, and, whether it was vr not. .Dexter Al'k son was quick to ' seize "the' .epenuigHis- suggested solution was heartby bluff. “Import some more,” he said. "Wbea you've"employthese men as long as I have—the type of man wh ■ L.:s worked all his life on the' river—you il kn ovr as„ w. U as 1 do ■ just L< ~ --c tain and unreliahle they are... .Wb st you need is a gang tEatdoesnt want to think for.-itself. This crow-1 has t- ■ much imagination for a grind Lke this.”- - ' Steve hodded very thoughtfully. ”ls it is all ■'imagihativh,” be wandered. “But they're not merely discontented, you see. Mr. Allison. They—they are misleading themselves. They seem to think, from wijat I've gathered from McLean and a few with wh m I have talked, that they are workma themselves Ont of a job for g--od when they help to build this strip of railroad. They think so. They have been convinced that such' is the truth. Personally. however. I feel sure that between us we can correct that impression.” Ech though he was looking in the direction of a heavy smoke cloud that had followed a sharp blast to the north of them. Steve felt the weight of Allison's questioning glance. “We.” he echoed. “Where do I figure in it?” The younger man's upward glance was seemingly surprised. “You? Why. you're a stockholder. It means as much to you as it does to Mr. Ainnes’ey and Mr. Elliott.” Allison interrupted him. “Of course'” he exclaimed. “Surely! I see! What I mean was how in the world can I make them understand that such a fool idea is all wrong? So far as this constructive work is concerned. I'm not an active memter. I —I had that understood with Elliott when I went into this thing!” ' —< “Of course.” Steve in turn broke in. “I understand that. But they know you; they know that Morrison would Ite nothing more than a street of well kept lawns and cow pastures if you hadn't seen its possibilities. And so I’ve already tpld semeof them; Mr. Allison. I've gone even further and givenea lot of them my word tint you'll guarantee yourself that this is the biggest thing for the good of this section that has yet happened.” ’ The speaker smiled frankly into the bigger man's eyes. “And that was all they needed, was It?” Allison Queried, at length. “That fixed it, did it?” “Absolutely!" Steve's cheeriness

should have been Infectious. "AbsoMr. Allison. A lot of people have come to look on your.word as law fn Hits country, you know—a lot of them!” v: “Hum?m.” replied Allison. “Hum-m.” Both of them were quiet for a time Steve’s next remark brought Allison’s head up sharply. “I meant to bring some of my estimates and plans down with me when I came,” lie fold him. “You ?poke of wanting to run over the whole proposition with me, you’ll remember, the first day jr a nrr’vgd,” - r. Allison nodded shortly. “I remember.” “TH bring them next trip,” Steve finished. “1 came so near to losing them last night that Tin taking no chances until .they’re in duplicate.' We can m . <nisoh wheeled and gazed meditat ingly toward the group who were slowly moving .their way. His daughter, Barbara, with Wickersham at her side, was in the lead. “Any time.” he agreed. “There’s no particular terry.” And then .t moment later, just when she was Loginning to wonder whether he was purposely avoiding her, Barbara was surprised at the calm ease with which Steve took her away ffoni her tall escort. She had noticed that Wickers ham and Steve had not touched hands when they first met. an hour or two before, nor even hinted at such a salute. But now, as earlier in the day when her dash toward the stable* had left him standing rigid in the middle of the lawn, she failed to see the expression that settled upori Wickersham’s Jong face. It was Defter Allison this time who noticed it, and hours later, when he and Wickersham sat and faced each other in the downstairs room in the house on the hill which served as Allison’s office, he remembered and recognized it. “You wanted to talk with me?” Wickersham inquired as he entered the room that evening. Somehow Wiekersham’s unending politeness had always irritated Allisoii. That night his smoothly infectionless question nettled him. " “Your infernal fool, Harrigan, bungled last nightf’ he blurted out. “He messed rhinga up beautifully. He not only failed, but he failed to get away without being seen. That’s what comes of intrusting a job like that to a drunken sot.” Wickersham seated himself —sat and caressed a cigarette. Coolly he waited and blinked his eyelids. “My man?” he murmured. “My man?” “Ours, then.” Allison corrected sharply—“ours.” Then he seemed to recollect himself and his voice became less abrupt. “Listen. This afternoon I bad a talk with O’Mara—that is, I started to have a talk with him, but —but he beat me to it And in just about three minutes he told me that he’d caught Hfirrigan on the job—not mentioning any names, I don’t mean —but he didn’t need to. And he told me more than that. He as good as gave me to understand that he’u Enow where to place the blame if there was any more Interference with his men.” Wk-kersham crossed a long leg and blew a thin blue streamer of smoke. “Yes?” he intteed bodilessly. It brought a blaze to Allison’s eyes, that nerveless moii' syllrtble“Iliat doesn't interest you. eh?” lie snapped. “Doesn’t interest you at all! Well, it does me. Three months ago I bought into this affair because I was as sure as any man could be that I’d collect 100 per cent on my money next spring. Elliott and Ainnesley? Pah! Nice gentle old ladies when it conies to a game like this. They’re anachronists: they are honest business men twenty years behind the times. You’ve heard of taking candy from children? Well, that's what it looked like then. But it d*cesn't look that way any long er. Talk with you? Yes. I did want to talk. I wanted to tell you that if you’d like to switch I’m willing right now. I wanted to tell you that if you’d rather be a good little boy and get into line I’m willing, and more than willing.

Because I can promise you, since I talked it over with O’Mara this afternoon. that we haven’t any, nice, dead suiv tiling on our hands any longer. “Oh. you can sit there and smile your cold blooded smile! And if you think I'm experiencing pangs of conscience you're mistaken. All I have I got from other men who —who weren’t strong enough to hang on to it- There isn't any friendship in business, or if there is I never played it that way. Tm just telling ydu that now is our one opportunity if we want to join hands and hurrah with the rest of them for the completion of this job by. next May. We lose a railroad at a bargain, perhaps, but we’ve still got a mighty gyod right of way to the border that will insure our welcome in the ranks. Maybe we lose and—and maybe—welL I never did like to be beaten! Nor do I say that such an argument will have ally weight ■'svith you. but it’s a chance to be on the dead level for once. What do you say ? Do we switch?”

“Switch,”; Wickersham snarled. And he leaned forward, face bloodless, and beat upon a chair arm. “Switch now!”, lie laughed shrilly. “Why. I’m going to beat that blanked woods rat in his matinee idol costume so bad between now and next May thflUieH.be walking the roads for his Switch? I’m going to brand him as the worst Incompetent that ever dragged two poor fools down into pauperism. I 'll see him broke. I’ll wipe that Infernal smooth smile from his lips if I have Wickersham gasped. He came to bls feet panting all in an instant with the rage that sot his dry lips vh’iWiing. But at that point he, too,.remembered himself. ’ lie swallowed and faced Al- - and the latter, sitting pop eyed before his outbreak, gaped now at the change that came back over that twisted face. Wickersham smiled. Once more his bearing was the very essence of perfect poisf and self control. “If you—if you are afraid”— he in ferrod. “If you"— Allison’s laugh was big and booming for all that the astonishment had not yet left his eyes. “Cold feet,” he rumbled. “Cold feet! Me!” And suddenly his gust of mirthless laughter made petty the other’s insolence. “Wickersham, I’ v o broken better crooks than you’ll ever be. A man has to hate a big heart to be a big crook, and you—and you—well, sometimes I wonder whether there wasn’t some sort of an oversight in that line when they put you together. He couldn’t have explained why the thought came to him at that moment any more than he understood his swiftly malicious impulse to use it. but all in a flash there came back to him a recollection of that day when he and Caleb had burst through the hedge to find the boy Stephen O’Mara puinmeling a bigger prostrate boy who shrieked under the earnest thoroughness of that pummeling. Allison, too, rose to his feet. “I only wanted to give you a chance,” Allison continued. “I reckon 1 can take care of myself. I always could. And you—well, you know as well as I do what sort of scrap that—that woods rat can put up, or you ought to. He gave you a sort of a demonstration once, if I remember correctly. I stick! I never was overly squeamish. But don’t fool yourself, Archie; don’t fool yourself. If we tight we’re fighting with a regular guy, your insinuation to the contrary. I merely wanted you to realize what I know now. We’ll think we’ve been in a battle before we come to a finish!” His hand was on the door knob when the door itself flashed open. Dexter Allison’s daughter hesitated, surprised, on the threshold. Her eyes, brilliantly alight, leaped from her father’s face to that of the man half toward her and back again.

“Oh,** she exclaimed uncertainly. didn’t know you were-lmsy.J saw-th© light. I’d been over to Uncle Cal's just for a minute. I want to tell you. Good night!” (To be continued.) '*

“You’ve made me very, very happy.”'

“I’m going to beat that blanked woods rat."