Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1917 — Page 7

SATURDAY, JULY 2S, 1917

Then I’ll Come Back to You

By LARRY EVANS

SYNOPSIS Ca’eb Hunter and his sister Sarah weleocxe to their home Stephen O’Mara, a W r’‘-i and friendless boy, starting from C2to ; 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 tan. he fourteen. use- boy and girl are in a party that go to tcrxx The old people watch with concern the youth’s growing attachment for tie girt Caleb !s much impressed with the boy’s Meas cs the moving of timber. He predicts a great futura for tha lad. OTMar* meets Barbara Allison on the cod. 'there Js a play of words in which both seek to conceal their feeling. Wlekersham notices that Barbara and Stephen are together a great deal. MirInn Burrell. Barbara’s friend, sees and nsderstands th* black rage that shadows tsls fare °. O’Mara daily becomes more convinced that erne one is trying to stir up trouble nmong his men. ■Wickersham and Allison have a confer-sE-ce. They agree that Harrigan, their tncl has messed things trying to stir up - trouble among the men. O'Mara assures the men that as long as they work for him they need have no fear. He checks an incipient strike. O'Mara cheers Devereau with the inforthat Miriam Burrell, cares, for him iie his unhappy vast • OTMara .arranges d meeting between Garry and Miriam. Garry nd tonger is a drunkard. O’Mara has worked wonders with him. O'!'-.-. returns to End the reconciliation Of Garry and Miriam. Barbara, is present, at; her dhmments puzzle Stephen. nsrs.!! snys at r he regeneration or Garr— is o— things tsat v 2s made her life-most happy. Sarah plans a meeting betweoa Stephen and Barbara-- Womanlike, ehe is conwinged that, despite her engagement to Wickers':. m. Barbara cares for ©’Mara. CHAPTER XXL “You Cannot Leave Me Now,” * " OR .two days and two nights J the girl fought on alone against the outcry of hei tow to heart until she recognized the futility of it. and then she ordered Ragtime to be saddled. And Miriam Buried, sighting Barbara’s face as the latter wheeled toward the hills, flew. from her window to scratch off a note to Garry—her tjlird note that day. for she seemed always omitting must im portant things which needed saying. “It’s wiae.” she scrawled in delight ed haste. * * » When are we going tv .be marrife»ir” - ■ ....-■ Once before Barbara had ridden that road with him alone in her thoughts Now she realized that she had loved him then as she must have loved him always and marveled at such blind isess. Once. on that other day, she had told herself that all ignoble and unworthy comparisons of herself and him were done and gone. Now she did not need such reassurance, when her lips were tremulous. grew pensive at times. At times tn an abandon of gayety she chattered back at a quarrelsome squirrel in the thicket. She could rest later, and if she could not go to him immediately at least every step the horse took was bringing them for a little while closer together. And her tomorrow was only one twilight and one dawn away. Her tomorrow would be his as utterly as ■was she herself. Dusk came, and regretfully she told herself that she must be turning back borne. Two rifle shots, sharp and startlingly close, whipped through the quiet of that lazy afternoon, but they meant nothing to her. She had reached the height of land, where he had found her the day her roan mare strayed off whLc she sat mooning on a log. She was holding out both arms toward the spot where the valley of Thirty Mile must lie when a team of heavy horses broke around a turn in the road, glowed to a trot at the sight of her and came to an abrupt standstill. When the girl rode nearer to them, merely surprised and curious at first, they snorted and showed the whites of their eyes and'shied hack nervously, j Something chill clutched at Barbara’s heart while she spoke peremptorily to Ragtime who was dancing in sympathetic panic. There was nothing to tell her. but she knew that these were Big Louie's horses. And Big Louie was a dreamy incompetent. He had left them for a moment, that was all, and they had become frightened and bolted. But Big Louie never neglected his team —they were not wet—they had not been running far. And their fright became less when she dismounted and approached them, soothing them with her-voice until they let her touch their sleek sides without rearing away. Dusk had come and gone, for it was growing dark. Uncertain, more and more unnerved as she stood and gazed at the forbidding, black shadowed ridges beyond her* the girl had to fight suddenly against an impulse to turn and race back to the lower country and Morrison and home. Even then the rifle shots meant nothing to her — and pride would not let her run. She remounted and rode on a rod or two aid stopped to look back at the team

wliiclr was watching her. She’pressed on and rounded the curve. Ragtime reared and snorted’there, and she barely stifled the cry which his strange behavior brought to her lips. Because of her senseless panic she punished him the more severely ana sent him on. And then she saw what the horse had already seen. A blue shirted figure lay half in the road, half in tstie undergrowth that fringed it, one arm crooked under him and his face prone in the dust. A bulkier mass was stretched wholly within the trail—and she recognized him too. Big Louie’s face was upturned, and the. explanation of the two rifle reports and the driverless team was here, for Big Louie's hand still clutched the handle of a canvas pail. They had stopped to water, horses; they had been shot down from behind. And first of all, unable to move, while horror parched her lips, the girl remembered words which the limp one, half in the road and half in the underbrush, had spoken to her in a moment of sternness. “He has fired upon me from cover,” the man who loved her had said, “He has been taking money from a man who was bent on beating me at any price!” “Blood sickens me!” she whimpered aloud. “Blood sickens me!” - But she managed to turn him over upon his back. With brown head against his heart she listened—listened and would not believe that her tomorrow might come too late. And then she caught the slack pound of his pulse. From there on she was less panic stricken. She gained control of faculties shocked for a time into uselessness. Method marked her acts—deliberation mechanical, but sure. She was horribly afraid of Big Louie, but she finally disentangled the handle of the pail from those loose fingers and ran to the brook which babbled near at hand. Returning, she drenched Steve’s face with icy water. She lifted his head and propped it as comfortably as she might upon one thigh and opened his flannel shirt. The ball had-passed through, for back and front the shirt became immediately wetter with fresh blood. Blood sickened her, but she whipped off the Coat Of lifer boyish riding habit and wrenched the sleeves from her linen blouse. They were des perately scant, yet they provided pads with which to check that dreadful oozing. And when they were in place 4 sbe-turned again to bathing his forehead. A folded.sheet of paper came to view when she tried once to ease his heavy body from the position which was numbing her leg, and she seized upon it fiercely. It was only a brief line, bidding him come to her, but it bore her name. With instant, bodiless clarity which had marked all her mental processes So far, its purport was hers. She had not written—the hand that had traced her signature had been unstrung for once. She understood, though such knowledge seemed of little moment now. She kept the pads cold and wet. She went for fresh water and stumbled and fell more than once because of the treacherous footing in the deepening shadows. But she was no longer afraid of the dark. She had grown to fear Big Louie less, even though there was no help for Big Louie any more.It was the first time that Barbara had looked upon the.face of a man who had died in violence. Big Louie's face was growing indistinct now, but she knew that he was smiling—knew’ that his eyes were dreamy and mild. Death, like life, had been a quite incomprehensible puzzle to that slow’ witted one who had no name. But he had smiled seldom in life. In death his smile was almost childish, almost sweet and questioning beyond all else. Alone with him who still lived, the pallid girl sat and waited and wondered how long—or how soon—it would be. When she bade him wait until she could bring the team he nodded his comprehension. He was watching for her return. And he came to his feet with a readiness that made her heart leap with hope. But he fell twice before she lifted him, half with her hands, half with her voice, to the seat. She crawled in beside him. and the next moment she had to struggle ma<& ly to prevent his returning to Big Louie. , , “He will wait quiet until we come for him.” she protested. “There isn’t room for Big Louie—and he won’t mind”— Her logic made an impression upon him. for he smiled. There was no sequence in his acquiescence, however. “Big Louie never could find his way alone.” he mused, “and that is strange, too. for he was born in these hills. He was always getting lost”— And with that he must not desert Louie! She had even more trouble with him this time. "He will lose his head,” he expostulated mildly—his old, unfailing attitude of gentleness toward her. “He will lose his head and waste his strength in.running from things which do not e.’dst.” “Big Louie will find his way this time.” She was whimpering again iu her helplessness. “He is—already home.” ■ , There she learned that her voice could control him when her arms availed not at -all against even his dead weight And so she talked as steadily as she was able while she drove. Once lie lurched against her. When he pulled himself together he was so .sanely apologetic of a sudden that she searched his face With hungry eyes. But he was talking now to himself. “I must ndt touch her!" he stated firmly: And then, drearily: “I am sick. I have never been so sick—before.” With that he subsided, but his silence was far more dreadful than his wanderings bad been, and as fast as she dared she pushed the *bcavy team on. with Ragtime following behind like a dpg. He slipped back against her al

most Immediately, and this time he had not the strength with which to apologize nor lift himself erect With his head heavy in the hollow of her arm, they came at length to the open pasture hills. They topped the rise and faced the loops on loops of highway that ran down to Morrison “at the river edge. And so she brought him home. At the sight of his “city” she sobbed aloud, but he, sunken and slack,

Alone With Hun Who Still Lived, the Pallid Girl Sat and Waited.

was conscious neither of distance cov cred nor change of country. He climbed down from the seat, however, in response to her urgings when the team halted before Caleb Hunter’s white columned house. He turned .and started stubbornly back the way they had (wte. T§he ran after him and clung to his arm.. “You promised that you would come back to me,” she cried up' at him. “Oh. you cannot leave me now!” That halted him momentarily. “I must go back to my bridge,” he explained, plainly nonplused. “Bus then I’ll surely come back to you.” She pleaded with him—raged at him. “I must go back to my bridge,” he reiterated, gruffly now.' Her arms went around him in desperation, and then, with one swing, he had swept her yards away, reeling before his blazing wrath. “Take your fingers from my eyes, Harrigan,” lie gasped In sudden agony. “I am going to kill you now, and she is looking on!” The girl was afraid of him. She dared not try to hold him. She screamed wildly for help and screamed again. And he had gone on and wavered and crashed over upon his face when Caleb Hunter and her father came running heavily across the lawn in answer to her shrieks. Between" them they lifted him and carried him into thejiouse. (To be continued.) ■

EDITOR’S FATE IS UNKNOWN

Texas Newspaper Man Gives His Patrons a Few Truths. Dallas, - Texas, July 26. —A west Texas editor got tired of- being called -a “liar” because of an occasional typographical error or slight disarrangement of the facts in publishing a commonplace news item. In his wrath he announced in boldface Jjlack type as follows: “A lot of people in this town fall out with the editor and brand him as a liar when the ordinary human mistakes of life show up in a newspaper. You have a little charity and fellow feelin’ for every man in town but your editor. You 'claim that you want the_facts, and d—d if I don’t give ’em tn you. Read the next issue of. this, sheet and vou’ll see same facts with the bark .off. I’ll admit that I have been a liar, an editorial liar, ever since I have been editing this sheet, but I have never printed a lie in these columns except to save somebody’s feelings from being hurt. I’m not afraid of any of you, and' I’ll be dad-blamed if I don’t print the truth from now on, or until you get out of the hajtyt of -calling me a liar every time I make some little unavoidable typographical error. Watch my smoke.” Here are some paragraphs culled from the next issue: “John Coyle, our groceryman, who voted with the Republicans in 1 896 and consumes more” mail order whisky than any other member of the Baptist church in this country, is doing a. poor business. His store is dirty and dusty. It is a wonder he has any business at alj.” “The Rev. Sty preached last Sunday night at the Christian church. His sermon was -punk and uninteresting except some stuff he quoted from Bob Ingersoll, for which he failed to give Bob any credit. He also recited a few passages from one of William Elbert Munsey’s sermons and had the gall to palm it off as his own.’’ “Dave Chartier died at his home two miles north of this place last Thursday night. Dock Holdernes, who is an old friend of the family, attended him a few minutes, before he expired. He gave rit out that Dave died of heart failure. That is a lie. Dave died from drinking too much of a verv poor grade of mail order licker. This paper prints, the f rnth. - “Tom Spadlin married Miss Cordie Meador last trades’ day at the countv seat. It ain’t generally known, but the marriage was brought about mainly by a Remington shotgun manipulated by the Bride’s father. Tom concludin’ that marrying was the healthiest thing he could do until other arrangements could be made.” “Roger Lloyd, cashier of the State bank at Willow Grove, died Wednesday evening and. was buried Fridav by the Odd Fellows in Pleas, ant Mound cemetery. He had been .taking this paper seven years and so far. hasn’t paid us a cent, we thinking that he, being a banker, wnii’j pav some time. We will sell the account for two bits’ worth lof fresh greens.”

TWICE-A-WEEK DEMOCRAT

“Married: Miss Susie Scruggs and Horace Guffin last Saturday at the Methodist parsonage, the Rev. James C. Williams officiating. The bride is a very ordinary town girk who flirts with all the -traveling men she. and never, helped her mother three days all ppt together in her whole life. -. She is anything but a beauty, resembling a gravel pit in. the face and walk’s like a duek. The bridegroorh is*a natural-born loafer and bum. He never did a lick of work uptil his step-daddy run him off from home last fall. He went to tjie jcpiinty seat,' and -.tust before starving tb death accepted a job as chambermaid in a livery stable. As Soon ,as his ilia found out. where he waS she went and go’t him’and-brought him home. He no-w resides at the home of his wife’s , father, and ,shys. tllat he has no definite plans ' for the future. Susie will, have- a hard row to hoe.'.' ’ - \

CAN LUSITANIA BE SALVED?

Secret plaWare being made to recover the tr.easut'e which sank with the Lusitania. lr is- believed 4hat the* money, jewelry and other valuables are worth at least $5.000.000. Even the possibility of salving the Lusitania herself is being considered, but no definite plans for this bold enterprise can be-niade until divers have examined her condition. The .position of the ship, eight miles off tbe . Old Head of Kinsale, has bediT charted and she

Form-a-Tmck^^>-.? Y :< i~i .Ji - -~i - Ji/ --- ■■ ■—Lj J® < > i_ i‘ J r-j —Hi SS ZZZj m 4 _ ’ V - ■'■ t ' '' * "■' ■ "—I I ./& /s/ =_ -^--—-31 --^—- H-—-i i> ~ * - nrwi ■ it^iJ M| Bw ... wwri ' ! H!» •2 ~ ' J " f G Bl • • ’”* “1 § One Smith Form-3-Truck $J •J will haul as much as your b iij Two Best Two-Horse Teams., •$ TVTOW sell all your horses —except those you need for work Jl if? -v in the field. If you use horses for hauling, you are losing ) J money—delaying farm work. One Smith Form-a-Truck will 14 tJJ haul twice as much as two teams. And at half the cost. Yet Smith Form-a-Truck costs no more than a team and harness —$350.

Save Like This Use it for hauling milk —grain— and farm products to town. Haul manure, hay, fertilizer, feed, crops, lumber, coal—everything. In Less Time Make your trips to town In onethird the time of horses. Save two to three hours time of .two drivers every day in the year. 1200" hours —l2O days—s24o pay. Costs Nothing While Idle Your horses are devouring profits in feed whether they work or not Sundays and holidays are feast days for them. Smith Form-a-Truck costs nothing while idle. The minute the engine stops, its cost stops. < 8c Per Ton-Mile 12 to 18 miles per gallon of gasoline—l 2 to 15 miles per hour—

Iles 270 feet down. Such a depth a few years ago would have rendered salvage work practically unthinkable, but modern improvement in diving apparatus has made it possible for divers to work at that and even greater depths for considerable periods of time at a stretch. This was demonstrated in ' raising tbe 'United States submarine F-4. which sank outside of Honolulu harbor last year, “and was floated .and towed into the harbor "five ,nipnt-h< ..later,\ She lay on a slop;? Of the ocean bed. her bow. 2S& feet, below the surface and her stern reel; yet divers work, .1 in fair comfort at these depths, and thereby established a world’s record.

PHILOSOPHY OF WALT MASON

I logged along a country road. in my large choo-choo dragoil. and met a farmer with a load of pump-, kins in his wagon. "Go back, go back*" the granger said, through whiskers long and ruddy: you'd’ best turn round —the road ahead is) dangerous and muddy." • "*F- never yet have seen the pike" j said, "that scared this auto, and I'll go on. so help me Mike, for 'Gel There' is iny motto." 1 drove into a marshy hole, when I had gone some distance, and farmers took away mv roll for giving me assist-

CENTRAL GARAGE RENSSELAER, INDIANA

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ance, We toiled and wrought a night and day, |to remedy my folly, and when again I took tny way, T reeked with melancholy. The road of life is much the same,\the road we blithely follow; we ’re warned by men who’ve played the game, to shun the swampy hpjllow. They tell us wheiu? the way is worst, and where the bridge is . rotten, and when we've got a half a verst their co until is f orgott.en. We will t ot learn from sage and seer who’ve walked the path before us; we greet the prophet with a sneer and wise men only, bore us. And every day we pay the price, the cost this course engenders; we stick in mud and break through ice, and bust our best suspenders.

PROTECT YOUR BUILDINGS FROM LIGHTNING by having them properly nodded. Sixteen years’ experience tn th* business and never have had a building damaged from lightning that I rodded. Best and heaviest rods used. Call and see me or 'phone 135 or 568.—F. A. BICKNELL, Rensselaer, Indiana. ts When you want a real good lead pencil—something better than you can get elsewhere —fry the pencils for sale in the fancy stationery department at The Democrat office.

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