The Syracuse and Lake Wawasee Journal, Volume 14, Number 6, Syracuse, Kosciusko County, 9 June 1921 — Page 3

--r - —' bLue noon ATALF OF THE FLATWOODS IhAVID ANDERSON,,?! A \ f COPYI2-IGHT L LL. COMPANY

SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I.—Never having known hla father, and living with his mother on a houseboat on the Wabash river, “The ; Poarihunter”—the only name he has—learns from her a part of the story of her sad life. The recital ip Interrupted by a fearfur\flt of coughing and he hurries ashore to peek a root that affords relief. Returning T with the root, he meets a young girl) whom he mentally christens the Rose." Sh» eludes him before he can jhake her acquaintance. ‘ CHAPTER II.—A vacant cabin on the shore has attracted the attention of the ailing woman, and they move into it. Their first meal is interrupted by a stranger who resents their presence. The youth drives the man from their home. His presence has strangely affected the mother. That night the youth finds within a mussel the largest pearl that has been found on the river, the “Blue Moon." a Returning exultant to the cabin, he discovers his mother dead, she having succumbed while endeavoring to leave a message revealing the secret of his par. entage. . CHAPTER III.—At the village of Fallen Rock, to which he takes the gem for safe keeping, the “Pearlhunter” meets the stranger who had disturbed hia iaother in their cabin, and insults him. They part as bitter enemies. CHAPTER IV. — In the village the “Pearlhunter” sees the girl who had at- £ acted his attention in the woods. She , annoyed by the stranger, and the •'Pearlnunter'’ rescues her from his unfcreleoine attentions. He accompanies her to her home. < CHAPTER V.—At the house he meets the father of his “Wild Rose,” known to the locality as the “Wild Man,” mentally irresponsible as the result of a wound received from a man wearing a red mask, a notorious desperado. The youth declares his intention Os devoting the money he is to get for the pearl to paying for a Surgical operation which will restore the old man’s reason. . CHAPTER Vl.—ln the cabin that night the “Pearlhunter” is aroused from sleep by the stealthy visit of a man who conceals a red mask in the wall and makes his escape. The “Pearlhunter,” mystified, and suspecting foul play, destroys it. Next day Louie Solomon, pearl buyer, purchases the gem for $5,000. Grhu as the three Fates, they stalked toward him. Two of them kept him covered, while the third plucked the revolver from his pocket and dropped It Into his own. After that he bent over the body of his master; touched his face; lifted a hand; laid It across his breast. He picked up the red mask and snarled around at the others. The others growled; swore; and the Pearlhunter fancied the revolvers pointed at him a little straighter, a little more vindictively. * It was not the first time these three had faced the Red Mask. He had long been their particular nightmare. It was the first time they had seen him with his mask off, and with empty hands. The one kneeling by the body geemed to be the leader. He felt carefully inside the pocket where the pearl had been pinned; searched the other pockets; felt carefully over the clothing. He rose after the fruitless search and faced the Pearlhunter. “Where iss it?” The Pearlhunter shook his head. With a snarled word of Yiddish, doubtless a curse, and a flourish of ( his clenched hand that came uncomfortably close to the young man’s face, the Jew began to search him: ■pockets; hems; waist-band; socks; even his hatband, ears and hair. Os course the search again proved fruitless. The Jew drew his revolver, cocked It, and thrust It into the Pearlhunter’s face. “Where iss it?’’ The bearded lips were drawn so tense that the yellow teeth were bare. The Pearlhunter knew the yellow teeth meant exactly what they seemed to mean. Louie Solomon’s three guardsmen had a reputation along the Wabash. The reward for the Red Mask was the same whether dead or alive. Still, his death would not bring them any nearer finding the pearl. He pinned his hope there, and shook his head. ‘Tm not the Red Mask. I didn’t kill Louie Solomon. And I don’t know where the Blue Moon Is." The answer was not convincing. Nothing he could have said Just then would have been. Whether the Jew believed It, or any part of It, his face gave no sign. He backed away two steps and leveled his revolver full at the Pearlhunter’s breast, like a man about to pistol another and deliberately planning to make a clean Job of It. The Instant came when the Pearlhunter believed the grimy finger was about to press the trigger and he was almost In the act of diving beneath the muzzle when the Jew motioned to one of the others and said something in Yiddish. The man spoken to darted away through the bushes toward the boat landing. The Pearlhunter breathed again. The man soon reappeared, carrying a piece of rope. One at a time, he took the Pearlhunter’s hands, drew them behind* his bat*, and bound them securely together. Even then, so great was their dread of the man he was supposed to be, that one of them constantly held a gun on him. With the knife still sticking In the dead man’s breast, they carried him down to the boat, driving the Pearlhunter before them. There they loaded them In, the dead and the living, and rowed back up the river to the village—the second time that day; the same trip; the same boat; the same five men. Then, a great day opening; the mattit trade ever made among (

penrT fishers along the Wabash in | prospect; now, the day nearly done; I the pearl lost; one of the men dead; another likely soon to b%! I What a difference in the crowd that met them at the wharf! Again driving their prisoner before them, the three grim henchmen carried the dead man up the hill to a small plot of open ground west of the Mud Hen and laid him down upon the grass. ! For the second time that day the village emptied Its houses to meet them. Women came this time —old women with seared faces; girls with blooming cheeks; and children. Hard men that had drunk to the Pearlhunter barely two hours ago came out of the Mud Hen and stood staring at him In sullen silence. Men from the stores and shops came running. Men that had neither stores nor shops straggled in from every quarter of the village and jostled about in the ever- | growing, ominously muttering circle. | Suddenly, and unexpectedly, two of the henchmen caught the Pearlhunter and held him while the third tied the red mask over his eyes. Bound as he , was, he had flung them loose in an Instant and raked the mask off against bis shoulder. But that one brief moment was enough. The mischief was done. Women screamed; men mut- , tered and swore; but all shrank back, widening the circle. Who started it, who said it first, will never be known. Nobody knows how the mob forms—a low mumble; a quick flare into frenzy; mild eyes grown wild; stolid faces afire; a rabble; a clamor; reason down, blood lust up. I “Hang ’lm! Hang ’itn!” Even the women took up the cry. so great was the terror of his name—the Red Mask —a name that might have stampeded the village. The mob charged him. Bound as he was, he dashed at them. A butt of his shoulder caught the foremost man. a burly blacksmith, on the jaw. He went down like a beef under the mallet. A drive of his head to the pit of the stomach crumpled up another. A welldirected kick laid out a third. He fought as the men of his blood had always fought. But what can one man, with his hands tied, do against many? They had his* House ripped .off, his shirt la shreds, and a hundred hands still Itching to get at him. They beat his face; his body—wherever a fist or a club could reach him. A stick of stove wood in the hands of a lanky woodchopper laid open an ugly gash across his head. Half-dazed, he was trying to wink i tbp blood and mist out of his eyes

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I truer! Ti TOffT w®s heard on the outskirts of the crowd, and the stocky form of the old Boss was seen fighting bls way into the circle. He had probably gone up to Fallen Rock, as he had promised the night before, missed the Pearlhunter, and come on to the village. He fought well, and opened ■ narrow swath, half-way through the circle to his friend? But just there somebody struck him above • the ear with the flat of a barrel ilave. The ripple subsided: the swath closed. The Pearlhunter’s last friend was down and out. The rope was flung over a limb. Half a hundred hands, some of them women's hands, stretched up ready to pull. Half a hundred hands did “pull. The rope tightened—slowly. A hush fell on the mob; a hush so deep that the creak of the tightening rope could be distinctly heard. That Inst final scene, the last stroke that stops a life —it is a solemn moment: even to a moh. The Pearlhunter was lifted; the last light tips of his toes left the grass; flames ran up and down his spine; the world turned black. There came a sudden dash of hoofs, and a man rode straight at the mob. It takes a hardy person to withstand the charge of a horse. The crowd parted. The horseman reached the dangling man, and with one slash of a huge Jackknife, cut the rope. The stroke came barely in time. The Pearlhunter, only’ saved from crumpling down to the grass by the arm of the horseman, drooped limp and gasping against the side of the horse. Slowly the world-quit reeling; the light came back; he raised his t eyes; caught the glitter of a sheriff’s , star upon the vest of his rescuer. It Is marvelous how one brave man. I with' the law behind him, can uwe a mob. j “Who Is this man?” yelled the | sheriff. A man, whose mouth had been mashed by a butt of the Pearlhunter’s ' if lam ! ’ |!j f 1 Ji ! I ml ’ wTOf “Who Is This Man?" Yelled the Sheriff. J t head, clawed the red mask up from < the ground, trampled and soiled, but I Still unmistakable, and. held it high. ’

LAKE WAWASEE AND SYRACUSE JOURNAL

The sheriff started;' glared t hard ""at the Pearlhunter. “An’ so It’- you they’ve roped!" he growled. “Damned if 1 hain’t a notion to let ’em finish the Job.” A snarl ran through the mob. They surged forward. The sheriff drew his revolver again, and cursed them back. “Red Mask or red devil!” he stormed, “he’s entitled to a trial under the law; and a trial he’ll git.” The mob muttered ominously hut fell back, leaving some little space about the horse. The Pearlhunter was the tallest man there. His height ' enabled him to see with tolerable , clearness to the outskirts of the | crowd. He swept his eyes over the j heads of the others like-a man looking for something he fully expected to find. He was not disappointed. In ’ the outer edge of the crowd, leaning carelessly against n hitch rack, stood the man he was expecting to see. He had come out of the Mud Hen at the beginning of the upronr but hiid taken no part in rhe lynching. He didn't ; need to. He had a whole town to do It for him. —y The Pearlhunter was not surprised to see him there. Why shouldn’t he he there, a very much interested spectator at the final working our of 'his well-laid plot, a plot that had worked out so Infinitely bettor than he hail planned? Why shouldn't a man come to see himself hanged? ’ And there the . Pearthnnter stood, with the rope afbund his neck —the wrong neck —and no proof to put it around the right one. Something swelled under the rope: something, that surged up to his eyes and struck out a splinter of fire. He turned to the man on the horse. “Sheriff, if you’ll stick my gun hack 3 and cut my hands loose, I’ll rope you J the real Red Mask.” It was an unwise thing to say. He knew iL.the jaioment he’d said it. It

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was unlike him. The man leaning in appar nt carelessness against the hitch rack was probably quite unaware that he was suspected. It might prove a costly mistake to let him know that he was. Besides, it was extremely unlikely that he would have the pearl still on him. W’lth the pearl gone, the proof would be gone. The Pearlhunter’s usual slow caution should have brought a good many considerations to his mind before he said that. But a rope around a man’s neck makes a prodigious difference In the look of things. One cannot help won1 dering what would have been the outj come had the sheriff heeded the re- • quest and cut loose the hands of his prisoner. Things would have hap' pened—and they would have happened fast. The sheriff laughed; a hard, raspy laugh. A good many things in that laugh: the jangle of handcuffs; the grate of keys In stiff locks —but never a mite of mirth. “He’s roped now." I “He’s not.” was the Pearlhnnter’s , incautious answer, “but he’s handy." He had purposely raised bls voice. But. the man for whose ear it was Intended never shifted his position; never changed, even In the slightest, bis easy smile. He did slip his hand down the front of his frock coat and loosen it against his side, but that was all. | The sheriff swore; turned slowly In his saddle and glanced the crowd over. “Ladies nn’ gentlemen.” he snhl. raising his voice, “as I said before, this man Is entitled to a trial, an’ a trial he’ll git. He’ll hang—but it’ll be the law that hangs ‘lm, an’ not yon. I advise you to break np thts damn fooli Ishness an’ go home.” T It could be seen with half an eye j that the sheriff was in no humor to stand any back talk. The crowd didn’t trv it; they obeyed—many sullenly.

Milne grumliTlng openly. A Tew stayed. The man leaning against the hitch rack went back to the Mud Hen. The village 'of Buckeye straggles for a quarter of a mile along the river rond. The road Is n bigger institution than the town. It formed the principal street. The vitliwre lockup, or jail, stood in plain sight a short way to the west on the north side of the road. The sheriff dismounted, picked np the slit and trampled blouse, threw It about the shoulders of his prisoner and untied the severed rope end still knotted about his neck. With a muttered command, he made a slight motion toward the jail with his Revolver. The Pearlhunter, still with bound hands, his shirt so tattered that It left him half-naked from hl? waist up. the blood upon his face and body fast stiffening Into clots, obeyed the command. Inside the lockup the sheriff cut his hands loose, and Immediately stepped outside and locked the door, seeming to have no fancy to tarry after his prisoner’s hands were free. Turning ' 1

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Kack to his’prisoner" he pointed out his house and told him he would bring over some sunner later on. (TO BE CONTINUED) GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH Rev. Wm. Boatman. Pastor Sunday School 9:30 a. ni. Services 10:45 a. m. Holy Communion. Special offering for benevolences. —o : ANNOUNCEMENT There will be a Chiropractor in Syracuse every day, contmeucing Saturday, Jane 11. H. B. Holloway, Chiropractor, will be at the Grand Hotel hi Sy racy every day, except Sundays, from <> to 8 p. in., and by appointment.