Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1917 — Then I'll Come Back to you [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Then I'll Come Back to you

By Larry Evans

AUTHOR OF ONCE TO EVERY MAN

SYNOPSIS Ce’eb Hunter and his sister Sarah welwoe 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 df Barbara Allison. The girl Is rich. The O’Mara boy falls in love with her. She 4a ten, he fourteen. Tne boy and girl are in a party tiiaX go to town. The old people watch with concern the youth’s growing attachment for the girt Caleb 1b 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 » boyhood fight over Barbara. She takes Wickersham’s side, and Stephen leaves fOr parts unknown, saying, “I’ll come back to you." - - Tears later the boy returns as a umu. 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 Stephen are together a great deal. Miriam Burrell, Barbara’s friend, sees and understands the black rage that shadows hla sane O’Mara daily becomes more convinced that some one is trying to stir “tip trouble .among his men.

Wickersham and Allison have a conference. They agree that Harrigan, their tool, has messed things trying to stir up trouble among the men. CHAPTER XIII. A Girl Like T was the night of that ISI * J secon( t day, when Stephen O'Mara came quietly up to O p en door of his own lighted shack and stopped for a moment to gaze in at the two men. whose faces were touched by the glow of the lamp on the table. There had been more than one moment in those forty eight hours which had elapsed since He had lifted that black robed, inert fig lire from the floor in which Steve had wondered whether--Garry Devereau would even await his return to Thirty Mile. Save for a short and casual “See you In the morning,” Stephen O’Mara turn ed without a word that night to leave the improvised sleeping quarters in the storehouse shack. He looked at Garry nodding drowsily on a bunk and then at Fat Joe seated near him. Their eyes held for a moment before Steve turned again toward the door. And perhaps his manner was a little too unconcerned that even ing, a little too carefully careless, for almost before he had lifted the latch Fat Joe stepped forward one quick, protesting step and then stopped on -second thought. “You ain’t goin’he began, and suffered that spoken protest also to remain uncompleted. “it’s not late.” Steve’s voice was thoughtful. “It's not late, but it's surely veer quiet.” He stood gazing out into We gloom. “Maybe I’d best run down and see what ails our visitor of the other night Somehow the more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve come to fear that he is temperamental, Joe, too temperamental for such a wearing proposition as this one is like ly to be. And you haven’t slept much since I’ve been gone, bh, that was easy, just from your eyes’ So you'd better turn in. I’ll just stroll down and let them know that I’m back home." It is odd how much of finality there ■can be in the quietest of statements. Eyes narrowed, Joe stood in the middle of the floor and watched him depart without further objection. But the moment the blackness had swallowed him up he to the bunk, fumbled for a gun which Steve had tossed npon the blankets and followed out into the dark. Stephen O’Mara stood a long time outside the door of the workmen’s bunkhouse that night, fingers upon the latch, before he made any move to enter. But neither a wish to eavesdrop nor a desire to frame experimentally the words he meant to speak was the reason behind that pause. It was In itself a new thing to find the long, low building lighted at that hour, even though, as he had himself put it to Joe an instant before, it was hours from being late. That night the almost absolute silence beyond the closed door was an even more unusual state •of affairs. The voice of one man only was audible, the words he spoke indistinguishable altogether. But sudden bursts of laughter, punctuating the recital which be could not clearly follow, were indication enough to the man outside of what manner of tale was holding the ears of that roomful of rivermen. Stephen O’Mara, who had long ceased to wonder at the discovery in them of new and impulsive finenesses which bordered close upon inherent nobility, knew fully as well how utterably and unspeakably gross Cbuld be the premeditated coarseness of those same men. There was no movement to mark his

entrance -when he finally pressed the latch and swung the door open, not so much as a single glance to indicate that his presence was noted. Under the yellow light of flickering oil lamps the eyes of alt those scores of gaudy shirted figures lounging against the walls were fixed eagerly upon the face of him who held the middle of their stage—him who talked from where he half lay, propped on one elbow, in his bunk at the end of the room. Harrigan, red shirted, red headed, was lounging at ease, waiting for the last gurgle of appreciation to subside before he gave them the close of the story, the last titbit, the savor of which already had set him noisily to licking his lips. And in the doorway Steve, rigid of a sudden, sensed what that climax w’as to be. “Her fi-an-say inside” —the droningly indistinguishable words were very plain how—“her fi-an-say Inside, consoomed with pride and anticipation, tellin’ all who had come to dance that she had pr-romised to be his for-river more. And her at that same minute outside -with him, and both av thim” — Harrigan did not hurry It in the telling. And if his portrayal of Archibald Wickersham was unmistakably deliberate, neither did he fall for want of sufficient detail to make the other picture clear. Vilely he gave them the complete imagery of his vile brain. A shout went up, a louder, hoarser outcry of applause which rocked the room. And then that rigid figure in the doorway had started forward. Between those lanes of suddenly silent men Steve passed in silence, to stand before him who had achieved his climax a breath before. And at his coming Harrigan slid from the bunk, started to reach within the blanket pack at the head of what had been his bed and then thought better of such impulse. Bravado intermingled with blank surprise, he came haltingly to his feet. The voices of few men have been as unhurriedly deadly as was that of him who faced Harrigan that night. “That was wise, Harrigan,” Steve told him slowly—far too gently. “That was wise to let your knife lie safe within your pack, for if you’d touched it I'd have killed you, as I ought to kill you now. But you’re drunk, Harrigan. You were drunk a minute ago ■when you lied your lie. You're soberer now. You're sober enough to start again and tell me you’re a liar.” They ■waited—the roomful of rivermen. Nothing stirred save the clouds of filmy blue smoke floating against the rafters—that and a bulky blot of shadow outside which shifted a little, noiselessly, just beyond the patch of light that streamed through the door. They waited, heavy breathed, while Harrigan began to recover from the disconcertment into which O’Mara's coming had flung him. Slowly the former’s lips twisted into a mocking leer; mockery rose and swam with the hatred in his inflamed eyes. He would have spoken, sparring for time, when Steve’s hand leaped in and made of the joking effort only a rattle in his throat. Beneath the stiff red stubble the flesh was livid where those fingers had been ■when he was able to draw breath again. “’Twas only a bit av a joke,” he gasped and gulped and swallowed hard. “ ’Twas only a bit av a joke I was tellin’ the bhoys about seein’ you an’ Steve’s voice bit in and cut hlnj short. “Your turkey’s ready, Harrigan!” He pointed at the pack toward which the

other had groped and then thought better of the impulse. “You were, going of your own accord, I see- Well, I’m telling you to go now! The door’s open. I left-it so for you when 1 came in. And I'm telling you, tbo, be-

fore you leave that you'll do well no* to come back. There’s not room for both of us, on this river any more, Harrigan!” “ The riverman’s eyes shifted. Furtively they flitted from face to face in thp(e rows of faces at the walls. But whatever he thought or hoped to findfleeting flash of support or encouragement—was hidden behind a common mask of astonishment as blank as had been his own. They were waiting for his answer. He knew they were waiting for that as he crossed- to the door. And when he paused there, to turn in sudden savagery, he realised that his tardiness had robbed him of his chance. It was too late to talk back then. •“You’re tellin’ me,” he rasped out, “and I was goin’—sur-re! But things ar-re not yet finished between you and me, for I’m pr-romisin’ you that I’ll be back. I’m pr-romisin’ you I’ll be wid ye again. I’ll be wid ye again, come spring!” He disappeared. And hard upon his going Steve wheeled and fronted those scores of silent men. His eyes leaped from point to point, as Harrigan’s had craftily flitted. Briefly, crisply, he accompanied the sweeping survey with a voice that was loud enough for all of them to hear. “Big Louie! Fallon! Shayne! This is your chance to say so if you’re going to be lonesome, now that your song bird has flown. . Speak up! I came down tonight just to hear you talk.” Nothing but an Indistinguishable murmur answered him, a low growl that was neither argument nor evasion. Rebellion was still a long way ahead for most of them. They had not yet had time to talk themselves to the pitch of open revolt. They had merely begun to listen to Ilatrigan, whose disciples in dissatisfaction they were. And now in his absence they stirred uncomfortably under the gaze of him who remained. They dropped their heads and searched fur matches. But Steve felt the weight of unspoken thoughts when he, too, faced back in the doorway. This time there was no naming of names. He embraced the whole room when he spoke. “They tell me," Steve continued, “that there’s talk among you of no more work on the river when we’ve put this railroad through. I’ve heard it said that some of you think you are cutting the ground out from under your feet with every shovelful of earth you lift. You ought to know better than that. You ought to know for yourselves that there’ll be need for more men In these woods than there has ever been before. But if you don’t, if you can’t see it that way, why not come around and let me have a fair chance to talk things over with you myself before you decide to turn on this job? I want you to remember that a man who is a liar in one thing is mighty likely to talk loose tongued, no matter what he preaches.” And there, without lifting his eyes from the floor. Big Louie cleared his throat and made answer. “Maybe,” he retorted—“maybe, and maybe not so sure either! I have listened to big words before now, me, that have put no food under my belt, no coat to mv back.” “If it's only food, and shelter and clothes for your back, Big Louie, you’ll not have to worry. But I’m not promising either, mind, that there’ll be easy monej' to blow on white whisky. Were you expecting any?” That brain which could cope with but one idea at a time was fertile ground for seed which such a one as Harrigan might sow. Big Louie failed to reply. He sat quiet, deep in thought, when Stephen O’Mara closed the door noiselessly behind him.

It was minutes after Steve had gone back up the hill before Garry Devereau reached out a hand in the darkness and touched, experimentally, what had seemed to be only a shapeless black blotch at the edge of light, a rod or two from the door. And instantly at his touch the shadow was galvanized into life. It reared and plunged and enveloped the slighter man in a crushing embrace and bore him over backward. With the muzzle of a revolver chafing his ear Garry managed to worry his head high enough to free his mouth and nostrils from dirt. “Get off me! Get’ off me, you fat romancer, you!” he whispered fiercely. An explosive grunt of dismay answered him before Fat Joe let him rise. In a thin and profane tenor he was bidden to explain bls presence there. “I couldn’t sleep,” Garry replied, his voice still peevish, “so I came out for a breath of air. I saw him start this way—saw you following him with that gun in your hand. I just slipped over, too, in case there might be doings. What’s the row, Joe?” Joe took him ungently by the elbow, turned him about and started him up the rise. • “An old grudge,” he deigned an ungracious explanation. "It’s years and years old. Steve licked him once. Once when they were boys the folks that live down next to Allison’s dressed Steve up like a picture book, the nearest I can make out, and sent him to town a-shoppin’. Harrigan, be”— “I know! I remember!” Garry’s eager whisper interrupted. “That is, I didn’t know that Harrigan was one of the mob Steve whipped that day. But that wasn’t what I meant. Who was the —the girl Harrigan was talking about when Steve—when Steve”— Joe's fingers tightened a little as the other evinced a tendency to lag. “Hurry a bit, will you?” he urged complainingly. “Show a little speed! I’m supposed to be up there asleep.” And then, gruffly, “It was the Allison . girl, of course.” In spite of the hand upon his elbow Garrett Devereay stopped short in his tracks. “Barbara!” he stammered. “Barbara Allison? Joe, was that the Kiri he

meant tonight when he said he was going to ‘marry one of those women himself?”’ •Joe peered at him, trying to make out the expression upon his face. •’Why not?*’ he wanted to know. “Why "not? Ain't he "good enough for her?” There came a pause; then Garry's stunned rejoinder. “Good enough:*’ he repeated senselessly. “Good enough?” lie laughed half wildly, as though he had suddenly hit upon a very funny thought indeed, “That man in love with a girl like her—good Lord!” And Fat Joe, who had failed to understand, swore again beneath his breath because* there was no time left in which to argue the matter. His face was still very red from his struggle for self restraint and his whole mental balance so disturbed that he forget entirely to conceal the blued revolver dangling in one hand when he re-entered the cabin a moment later.

The latter object ruined the effect of his insouciant rendition of “Home, Sweet Home.” “Thought you were going to retire, Joe?” ‘Steve was already undressed and crawling into bed. His question was slow worded and a trifle stifled. “I was,” Joe assured him hastily. “I was. I just stepped out to see that everything was tight and tidy for the night; that’s all.” Quizzical eyes contemplated the revolver now. “Taken to carrying a weapon, after all, eh’ Wpll, perhaps that’s wisest And blow out the light, will you, Joe? I'm tired. You'll have to undress in the dark.” Then Steve buried his face In his pillow. But sundry sounds, escaping, were unmistakably hysterical. Joe's mouth opened and closed, fisblike. He Stood and stared down at his side in beautifully eloquent profanity, if a stare can be both eloquent and profane. “You need a nurse,” he stated sulkily at last. He finished the light with a vicious blast. “You need a chaperon !” But once again, just before he slept, Steve beard him mutter to himself less injuredly as he heaved over in his bunk. “This has been a very busy evening,” he opined. (To be continued.)

“There’s not room for both of us on this river.”

“Get off me! Get off me, you fat romancer, you!”