Syracuse-Wawasee Journal, Volume 38, Number 6, Syracuse, Kosciusko County, 20 November 1942 — Page 6

>SADDLE J ’- , RIDf J> © By Ernest Haycox &

THE STORY SO FAR: Clay Morgan has decided to play a lone hand against Ben Herendeen, a rancher bent on running the cattle country his own way. The two men have been enemies for years, having first fought over Clay’s wife, Lila, who died hating him and believing she should have married Herendeen. Morgan is a solitary figure, devoted to his nine-year-old daughter, Janet. Although two women, Catherine Grant and Ann McGarrah, are in love with him, they know he cannot forget Lila. Os his former friends, only Hack Breathitt has not gone over to Herendeen’s side. Seen camping with Pete Borders, a rustler, he is a fugitive from Herendeen’s men. Gurd Grant, Catherine’s brother, hesitated about joining Herendeen, but became Morgan’s sworn enemy when he discovered that Catherine had been to his ranch. When he learns that Herendeen has sent a party out to find Hack and kill him, Clay starts out to find him first. He goes to Freeport, to Kern Case’s store, where he thinks he wiU find Hack. Herendeen arrives, and there is a free-for-all fight. In , the midst of the fight, Hack appears. Herendeen and his men are driven off, but not before they have set fire to the town. As Clay, Hack and Kern Case watch, the whole town, including Case’s store, burns to the ground. f Now continue with the story. CHAPTER XII It was beyond midnight when Clay reached home. Harry Jump, nighthawking around the yard, followed him into the kitchen and watched him strip down to the waist and wash. Morgan’s cheeks showed the battering of Herendeen’s fists. Morgan went up to his bed and lay there, his brain pulsing within its skullcap and strong pain traveling through his left arm from a broken finger. It made him remember the older fight. Both of them had been younger men, soon recovering from the misery of that beating. This one would stick, it would be buried physically in them as long as they lived, and the sting of it would never leave their minds. At two in the morning, his broken hand on fire, he dressed and went downstairs; he lighted a lamp in the kitchen and shaved himself for want of something better to do —watching the bruised patches on his face slowly change color. He stoked up the stove and put on the coffeepot; and sat on the porch in the moon-shot heart of night. Wind drifted across the flats, cold and sweet. Harry Jump appeared from the shadows, saying in his sleepy, irritable voice, “Well, if you’re goin’ to stay up I’ll turn in.” Morgan got up from the chair, unable to take the punishment of his hand by sitting still. He went in and drank his coffee, black and hot, and returned to the yard, pacing out through the long-thrown shadows of the poplars. The weathered juniper poles of the corral showed whitely in the moonlight; across the valley the outline of silence; even the night creatures at last grew still. And so he watched this land, his land, slowly turn through the night from glowing shapelessness to the first hard shadows of false morning. A streak showed over the eastern hills and the horses began to stir in the corral. At four he heard the cook cross the kitchen, asthmatically coughing; at five, drawn and wire-nerved, Morgan ate breakfast with the crew. He said to Jump, “I’ll be in town for a couple hours. Stick close to the house until I get back.” Afterwards, all his muscles sore and strained and ragged, he climbed the stairs to Janet’s room and stood a moment by her bed. She lay in a curled bundle, both hands drawn near her face. Her lips were soft, almost on the edge of a smile, as though her dreams were pleasant; and this way, unconscious of him, she showed Morgan a childish sweetness that held him there, longwondering and strongly moved. It. was that little-girl look, full of faith and belief, which struck him so hard. It would not, he realized, be with her much longer. He left the room reluctantly, got his horse and lined out for War Pass, reaching town beyond sunup and going directly to Charley Padden’s house. Charley was the only doctor in the country, a man turned rough and blunt by the kind of practice he had, somewhat profane and apparently calloused to pain in others. When he saw the broken finger and the bruises on Morgan’s face, he said: “The other customer came in before daylight. I took four stitches in his lip. This is going to make you squirm, Clay. Want a drink of whisky first?” \ “No,” said Clay, “go ahead and (don’t talk so damned much.” Rounding the bend of the trail, a few minutes later, he saw Catherine Grant dismounted in the trail, waiting. When Morgan dismounted before her her eyes showed him something that warmed him through and through: it was a swift personal interest, a little saddened by what she saw, as though his injuries hurt her heart. “Bones McGeen came by the ranch late last night and told us what happened." She watched him quite closely, one strong line of worry across her forehead. “1 was afraid you were badly hurt. I hope I you paid him back. I hope you smashed the lights out of him!” He managed a grin. “He’ll take no beauty prizes for a spell.” They had this power to be pleased with each other, to cover up seriousness with a light, touch-and-go humor.

- w uyyW^" l ■■ r ' 1 -tm ■■j-rw wi® “Herendeen has sent over the mountain for the Byder boys.”

He said: “I’m glad I crossed your trail. What are you doing?” “I was coming your way. I wanted to see how you were.” “Did you tell Gurd you were coming?” “No.” “What’s the matter with him?” She lowered her head and drew patterns on the soft forest soil with her finger-point. Her hair glowed darkly in the morning’s light, it deepened the color of her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she said in a reserved voice. She wouldn’t look at him during these moments. “It is Herendeen’s influence, I suppose.” She lifted the soft earth in her hand and let it slide between her fingers. Her face was sweetly sober. Her long and fresh-colored lips expressively changed shape when she looked at him. “No explanations, no apologies. That is the way you’ve always been.” “What else can anybody do?” “Nothing, I guess. Only it makes it hard for people to understand you sometimes. To know what is in your head.” “You never had any trouble figuring me out,” he reflected. “Ah, but I have a special gift that way. I know you through and through.” They were silently laughing at each other, influenced by an undercurrent which always buoyed them up when together. She turned, lying back on the ground, her body full-shaped against the folds of her riding habit. She pillowed her head with her hands and watched the bright blue patch of sky showing through the pine-tops, speaking in a distant, dreaming voice: “Nothing ever changes, Clay. The earth, the wind or the sun. Or the things I want, or you want.” He remembered what Ahn McGarrah had so swiftly asked him: What had he wanted? Now, not knowing what it was, he asked Catherine: “What do I want?” She said in a faraway tone: “I wish I knew.” “What do you want?” She turned her head, so close to him now that he saw the gray flakes of color in her eyes. The dance of laughter was in them, and an inexpressible gravity was in them, both humors blended. It was the way she hid herself from him when she chose. “Never ask a woman’s age, never ask what she wants.” He said indolently: “I wish I had a steak, with onions. Maybe German fried potatoes and a piece of apple pie. Now that’s what I want.” She said: “Do you remember the night we rode to Freeport in the rain and ate Kern Case’s flapjacks and coffee, and played rummy until he got scandalized at our conduct and sent us away? It was awfully dark' in the Potholes that night. Clay.” “What ever happened to that brown dress?” She said in a wondering tone, “You still remember it?” Then she added quite gently: “Somewhere in the attic. Clay. It is up there with all the other things I outgrew and put away to forget—and never quite forgot. Would you want to go back to those times. Clay?” “No,” he said, “I guess not.” She said: “There’s something else I came up here to tell you. Herendeen has sent over the mountain for the Ryder boys. They’re gunmen, Clay.” He said, “Time to go,” and held out his hand. His fingers were warm and strong, they had a pressure as she pulled herself half-upright and for a moment, her shoulder softly touching his chest, she watched the dust dancing in a shaft of slanting sunlight, her eyes half-closed. “No,” she murmured, “I guess I wouldn’t either.” “What?” “Go back to old times. We’d do the same things, and make the same mistakes. Nothing changes.” She turned her head to him, her lips pressed in soft humor. But the expression on Morgan’s face sent the smile away and for this short heady interval of time they were remembering the same things, hard-touched by them, dangerously stirred by them. That old closeness came back, that old reckless, sweet wildness came back and shook

SYRACUSE WAWASEE JOURNAL f

them; and for a moment he was shocked alive by the things her nearness did to him. The past rushed up and he saw her as he had once seen her—a girl holding him away with a gay insolence even as her eyes pulled him on. He saw now the faint freckles at the base of her nose and the curve of her eyebrows and the close texture of her skin, gently browned by the sun —and the reflection of himself in her pupils. She rose and stepped away from him and did something then that told him of her thoughts; she lifted her chin, her face tightening against a flare of excitement, and pulled her hands behind her back as she had done in those old days when she was afraid of what was to come. “My boy,” she said, breathlessness in her throat, “it is time to go.” “Back home?” She shook her head. “I’m riding with you. There’s something on Long Seven I want to find out. You don’t mind, Clay?” He had his awkward moment in mounting with his bad hand. They traveled single-file up the trail to Mogul’s plateau, and afterward rode abreast across the dun-yellow surface of the high meadows, beneath a half warm sun. High on the tawny ribs of the Mogul ridge cattle grazed; a puff of dust rose from the bounding flight of an antelope. Catherine said: “It is a beautiful world, Clay.” Turning the foot of the Mogul Mountains, they came upon the Long Seven yard. Janet was waiting in the doorway, her hands primly folded in front of her dress. Harry Jump and Cap Vermilye were near the corral talking to the nester from Salt Meadow, Fox Willing. These three moved toward Morgan but he ignored them for this moment, caught by this scene of Catherine facing his daughter. Catherine walked forward, tall and pleasant in the sunlight, not smiling but near to a smile. Janet’s small hands remained locked across her dress. Her face held its precise gravity, its unmoved reserve; her eyes were quite cool yet Morgan, who knew his daughter thoroughly — the shaded meaning in her various degrees of silence and politeness—recognized an odd restraint in his daughter at the moment. It was a mirrored resentment, the cause of which he understood at once. Somewhere along the last year or two his daughter had absorbed the viewpoint of Ann McGarrah. Somehow Ann McGarrah had mysteriously instilled in Janet her own dislike of Catherine. These were the ways by which women sent their feelings intuitively across space to other women. Janet was Ann’s partisan Qnd her small clear face, so exactly neutral, could not quite hide her jealousy. He stood by, quietly angered at Ann McGarrah for what she had done to Janet, knowing he had no way of changing Janet’s expression. She was no longer a child to listen implicitly to him. In her own mind, in that shadowland between childhood and wisdom, were beliefs she held by her own judgment. Catherine was at the porch. She said: “I haven’t seen you for a very long while, Janet.” Janet’s voice was slow and cool. “Thank you. Would you like a cup of coffee?” “No,” said Catherine, and settled on the steps of the porch. She looked at her hands a moment, drawing a deep breath; she was sober and restrained. “No, but thanks. That’s a pretty dress. I had one once, almost the same color. I wore it to a lot of dances.” “Were you my age then?” asked Janet. “I was older. But at your age 1 used to dance by myself when nobody was watching.” “I do, too,” said Janet. “How long did you have to wait before you could-go to dances?’ She spoke it and then, remembering her father’s presence too late, threw him an embarrassed look. Catherine noticed it. She said immediately: “It will seem long, as it did to me, but it really will be so short a time!” Fox Willing moved around to face Morgan. He said, “Mr. Morgan, I rode over to tell you something . . 1 (TO BE CONTINUED)

kAJ ORRW PEARSON I • — Washington, D. C. CAPITAL CHAFF Bernard Baruch, who has been commuting from New York whenever the President desired his ices in Washington, is now looking for permanent quarters in Washington. Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish has rented the old Robert E. Lee house in Alexandria, suburb of Washington. When a New York banker came to Washington on a government job, he wanted to rent a Georgetown home belonging to Mrs. Lionel (.Atwill, ex-wife of both General MacArthur and actor Atwill. But the banker balked at the rent. “I can’t pay that much,” he said. “I gave up a $45,000 job to come here.” . . . “That’s nothing,” retorted Mrs. Atwill, “I gave up a $50,000 husband!” Once when Mrs. Atwill was asked if she didn’t regret divorcing MacArthur, thus losing the limelight of a great hero, she replied, “Which is the greater figure—Josephine or Marie Louise?” • * • STEALING THE STARS Washington is full of movie moguls all worried about the fact that their big stars are leaving them. Trouble is the $25,000 ceiling on incomes. Hollywood stars figure this is an opportunity to jump their contracts, and everybody is now out stealing each other’s stars—or trying to. The ins and outs of the new income ceiling are difficult. . But in brief, here is how it affects Hollywood. The total salary which can be paid under the new ruling is $67,000, which, when tax deductions are made, gives a net income 1 of $25,000. ’ Certain other deductions also are allowable, but the treasury regulation specifically states that additional money to care for these deductions cannot be paid out by the companies. If they do pay them, the government may require them to make good the outlays. This is what gripes the movie stars. Some of them have been getting salaries running up into the $200,0005, so to come down to $67,000 is quite a plop. Furthermore, movie contracts are for one picture, with an option taken on the next and then the next. So with the companies unable to pay high salaries, the options on their stars are automatically broken. • • • HEROES WITHOUT HEADLINES You don’t hear much about them and their names don’t get into the headlines, but some of the boys doing great jobs in Egypt are the tank repair crews of the U. S. ordnance corps. When a tank is damaged in action on the Egyptian front, an American crew goes out at night with a big auto-transport truck, not unlike those which used to carry passenger cars from Detroit to retail auto dealers. They load the crippled tank on board, haul it behind the lines where mobile machine shops have been set up, and in almost no time it is repaired. U. S. SOLDIERS—U. S. FARMERS Forthright Sen. Charley McNary comes from Oregon, where the farmers have had a lot of trouble this year getting men to pick their fruit and harvest their wheat. So McNary wrote to Secretary of War Stimson pointing out that there were two army cantonments in Oregon, that it might be an excellent thing for the nation’s food supply and for national co-operation generally if some of the soldiers were given furloughs and allowed to help Oregon farmers with their crops. Secretary of War Stimson wrote back rather tartly that soldiers of the U. S. army had to work at war, and that the idea was preposter,ous. A little later Senator McNary noticed newspaper accounts of the way American soldiers in England had taken time to help English farmers harvest crops. So he wrote Stimson again. “The work of our men in training for war must be shot to pieces in England,” McNary said, “in view of the fact that American soldiers are working in the harvest fields.” The secretary of war replied a little lamely that if American troops in England were working in the harvest fields, they, were doing it on their own time. But he welcomed no more suggestions about helping farmers here at,home. * ♦ ♦ MERRY-GO-ROUND Undersecretary of State Welles has made it clear that Chairman Ed Flynn of the Democratic national committee will be appointed to a Latin-American diplomatic post only over his dead body. The President, always an optimist, will make one more attempt to bring the AFL and CIO together by inviting Bill Green and Phil Mur-, ray to the White House. Labor leaders say privately, however, that there will be no agreement. Both sides will patch up a jurisdictional truce and agree to refrain from membership raids for the duration. Navy department communiques are short and sweet In the navy department’s press section, answering queries from newspaper offices, are two young officers, Lieut. Short and Lieut. Sweet.

ON THE .' ft HOME FRONT WOfexSRUTH WYETH SPEARS

H —l 2"' —H hook burlap ■<> SQUARES ItAvCir* HEM AMD THEN IkjCuL sew TOGETHER * * — l-J ERE is a hooked hearth rug *■ that may some day grow up to room size. The turquoise flowers and red cherries in the alternate squares are from dyed pieces of the old cream colored wool blankets. Twelve-inch squares of burlap overcast around the edge made the foundation pieces. Patterns for the repeat design were cut from paper and the burlap was marked by drawing around these with wax crayon. Loops of fabric strips were drawn through with a steel rug hook. Red was used for the curved lines shown at the upper left. Tones of brown for the flower and gray for the cherry background. Mixed colors for the rest of the design. * • • NOTE: Mrs. Spears has prepared a special pattern for the rug in today's sketch with detailed directions for begin-

’ ANOTHER * \ ? A General Quiz ? The Questions 1. How much water does an inch of rain give to the acre? 2. What building is known as the “Cradle of Liberty”? 3. How many pairs of walking legs has a spider? 4. In court procedure, if a tales is issued, it means what? 5. A cross shaped like a plus sign is called what? The Answers 1. One hundred tons. 2. Faneuil Hall. ‘ 3. A spider has four pairs of walking legs. 4. Additional jurors are summoned. 5. A Greek cross.

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ners. So, even if you have never made a hooked rug. you can, start now making squares for a rug. of any size you wish. Book 7 in the series of -homemaking booklets contains 31 of .those sketches with instruction text; also descriptions of the series. Send your' order to: MRS. RUTH WYETH SPEARS Bedford Hills New York Drawer 10 Enclose 10 cents for Book No. 7 and 10 cents for Rug Pattern. Name Address. If you have ahy doubt at ail what to give that fellow in the service, send him a carton of Carnal cigarettes for Christmas. According to latest surveys, cigarettes, top his gift list, with Camel his favorite cigarette, accordingdqactual sales records from Post ( l&'char>ges and Canteens. If he sinbkes a pipe, send him a pound of Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco — the National Joy Smoke. Local dealers are featuring Camels in the Christmaswrapped carton and also in a holiday box of four “flat fifties’* (either way you give 200 Camels). Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco in the pound canister is handsomely gift-wrapped making other gift wrapping unnecessary.,—Adv.

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