time!"
He clapped the shutters fast and locked them with a wooden pin.
Presently he felt the pattering passage of her heels on the porch. She
was going off and leaving him alone. Let 'em all go off and leave him
alone.
He dressed slowly, climbing to the cold attic for his shoes. From the
mail sack he rummaged the key and opened the back door. As it swung
back, shrieking, a dozen vari-colored cats suddenly appeared from
different places of waiting and streaked eagerly into the house. Henry
clumped back, sopped bread in the sausage grease, congealed from the
night before, soaked it in sweetened tea and set out half a dozen
plates which instantly became the centers for a petal-like array of
flashing pink tongues.
Then he trudged through the brief strip of garden left to him, tossed
a handful of corn to a charging troup of guineas, and arrived at the
fence. Down the track he could see a line of blue-clad laborers. The
lift of their sledges and their flashing fall came to him soundlessly.
They were tearing up the old spur.
[Illustration]
He swung a leg over the fence and tramped on to the village, nodding to
people whom he met. Women smiled at him, men gave him friendly nods.
He was a personage. He had saved the Limited from a wreck. Something
which survived in Henry's queer, cramped old soul laughed aloud. He was
safe. Nobody in Elsie would suspect him. His war could go on. But now
he would have to think of something new--now that they were tearing up
the spur. He felt lost and empty. For eighteen years he had comforted
the thwarted vindictiveness in him with plans for that colossal wreck.
Now it was all ended. Days of toil which had gone into the sharpening
of that wedge were wasted. Nobody had been killed though. That was
something. He had never thought much about the people being killed. He
was glad that there were no awful bloody bodies lying around in Elsie.
Henry hated blood. He kept his chickens till they died of old age
because he could not slay them.
At the station he surveyed the new length of platform with grim
satisfaction. He had made the B. & A. a little trouble, anyway--paid
them back a trifle for the outraging of his bit of garden. He tramped
across the new planks marked the oozing pitch and the shining nail
heads with the avidness of lonely people for inconsequential things.
Then he felt eyes on his back. Deafness had made him supersensitive. He
turned quickly, and in the window of the little bay where the telegraph
instruments lurked under the green light, he saw the girl--the
red-headed girl.
She was smiling at him. Something in Henry's twisted old nature warmed
and thrilled. Women smiled at him often, the same smile they gave to
lame dogs or harmless half-wits. But the girl's eyes were different.
They held a frank friendliness which had no pity or evasion in it. She
waved a hand at him. She was bending over a table and her hair was
bound down by the elastic of a green eye-shade.
A freight pulled in then, and Henry moved off sullenly. But in the
afternoon he came shambling back, a votive offering in his pocket.
Grinning diffidently he laid this gift on the window sill, soothing its
protests with swift, stubby old fingers--a yellow kitten with rascally
circles of black about its eyes, a comical clown of a kitten which
until this hour had been the cherished member of Henry's huge feline
family.
"This here one's yours," he yelled, as the girl came hurrying to the
window. "If he gets the fits you lemme know and I'll fetch you some
catnip."
And he turned and sped away, his shoulders hunched, without a backward
look.
Began for old Henry Hornbone an amazing friendship.
Every morning he shambled down to the station at Elsie with some sort
of a present in his pocket. Sometimes it was a speckled guinea egg,
warm from the nest. Sometimes a brown twig softly threaded with new
pussy willows, and as spring warmed and the frost went out of the land
he brought little wild strawberry blooms like gold beaded stars, now a
single violet, once a white snail shell scoured to brilliance. And at
dusk, when the night trick came on, the girl operator, whose name was
Mary Hill, came often to the old house beside the track. Sometimes she
carried a paper bag warm and greasy with hot doughnuts. Sometimes her
offering was a piece of kidney for the cats. Often she brought only her
smile, which became the one bit of glow in old Henry's drab, baffled
existence.
She mended his socks, she impelled him by her frowns to scour his
floors, to shave every day in his eagerness to please, to keep the cats
off the table and his boots off his bed. He even bought a black necktie
and a new hat to replace the greasy old relic which had served him for
twenty years. Mary Hill, with her red head and her dancing eyes, which
penetrated the frozen barrier of the silence which had so long kept the
old man in desolate isolation, became to him a little of the mother
that he missed and something of the daughter he had never had. There
were people in Elsie who laughed. There were young men at Mary Hill's
boarding-house who teased her about old Henry Hornbone. But most people
understood. And Henry, toiling to make a cherry tree bloom beside the
fence, forgot in his present content, his vengeful war on the B. & A.
And then came the strike.
[Illustration]
To Henry the strike meant little. He sensed a little of it, through
the things that he read in the badly printed weekly paper at Elsie, he
understood the guards who tramped up and down the right of way warning
him back whenever he threw a leg over the fence. But as the trouble
grew more tense, as bridges went up in horrific explosions, as trains
were wrecked mysteriously and engineers intimidated, Henry saw the
strain of it reflected in the harassed eyes of Mary Hill. There was
a young marine in the station now, whenever he tramped down in the
mornings--a cocky youth with dark eyes and a proud scowl.
A day or two after that, Henry bought a heavy calibered revolver from
the black-smith. That night he nailed a tobacco can on his woodshed,
and when Mary Hill came by, he haled her in and made her practise
shooting at the can till she could hit it three times out of six--till
the palm of her hand was blistered by the heavy stock.
"They blew the bridge at Alapaha last night," she told him, as he
rubbed melted resin on the blisters. Henry could understand much that
she said by this time, if she spoke slowly and distinctly. He nodded.
"You keep this here and use it," he ordered, oiling the cylinder and
loading it deftly. "Gun ain't no good if you're scart of it. And if
that soldier down there gives you any sass you pop him over, too. I
don't like the look of him, no time--he's too blame' smart."
A slow color crept over Mary Hill's face at this, and with it a
crawling chill was communicated to old Henry's heart. There was a
rift--tiny, almost imperceptible, yet appalling to the lonely old man
to whom the friendship of this girl had come to be such a tremendous
thing. Her eyes avoided his for an instant, then the dancing laughter
came into them again. She laid the grim gun down on the back steps and
snatched at the old man's hand. Henry knew what she wanted--to see
that cherry tree. She had bought it for him from a fruit tree peddler
and they had watched the opening of every bud. It ought to be in bloom
today--every flower open. They hurried past the pie-plant row and the
humming beehives. At the fence old Henry Hornbone halted, aghast. He
wavered a bit, and then black, militant wrath darkened his face.
The little cherry tree was bent sideways, half stripped of its bark,
wilted, trampled. And beside it, driven grimly into the ground was
a very new white post, very blatantly lettered in black--"B. & A.
RAILROAD. RIGHT OF WAY."
Henry had not sworn an oath since his closing ears had shut from him
the sound of his own voice. But now he swore, shrilly, horribly. He
sprang at the white post, wrenching and tugging at it, but it had been
sledged into the soil by strong men. It did not budge a fraction. The
girl's face was a pained mask of wretchedness. She had known that they
were condemning a new right of way; that eventually, when the menace
of the strike was removed, that the division was to be double-tracked,
but she had not thought that it would mean this--the destruction of an
old man's pitiful little interest, the ruthless slaughtering of the few
simple things that made up life to old Henry, who was denied so much of
life.
"Oh--shame! Shame!" she cried aloud. But old Henry did not hear. He was
fairly dancing in his rage, he shook his fist at the blinking lines of
track, he breathed dreadful threats. War was on again--relentless war
against the B. & A. He hardly saw Mary Hill. He scarcely knew when she
went away. He was busy with mallet and sledge battering that intruding
post out of the ground. By dark he had loosened it and flung it over
the fence on the right of way. And next morning he did not go down to
the station. He worked doggedly all day, building a high barrier of
barbed wire across the back of his place.
[Illustration]
The road's lawyer battered at his front door in vain. The postman
brought a letter containing a condemnation notice and a check, but the
letter lay under the front door for three days before Henry found it.
Then he dropped it in the kitchen stove without opening it, and renewed
his grim vendetta.
The night the bridge at Hodges was destroyed he felt a gleeful
satisfaction, as though he himself had planted the charge under the
pillars. He tramped out to the wrecked bridge in the morning, avoiding
the right of way cannily, gloating over every twisted rail and fallen
cross-tie, grinning his grin which had taken on a warped and sinister
grimness. When he came back the fence he had built so laboriously was
down, flung carelessly over the beehives and against the shed. In his
garden--what little the road had left to him--stood a tall, narrow,
yellow building.
It was a block signal tower--two stories high, flashing red and green
target lights from its gables, looped about with wires, with glass
windows and a locked door and about its base a wide area of piled
cinders.
There was a tower like it at Hodges--but here--here in his garden!
Henry stared at it in incredible amazement, made numb by baffled
wrath. There was a light in the top of the yellow tower, which had
manifestly been built intact elsewhere, and set down on his ground by
a maintenance crew. At the bottom, slumped on the threshold, smoking a
cigarette, bulked the young guard whom he had seen in the station at
Elsie--the sleek-haired, insolent lad who had brought a shy, warm blush
into Mary Hill's face.
As Henry approached, this young soldier motioned him away, jauntily,
with the butt of an Army Colt. Henry burst into a shrill, cackling
invective. The young soldier laughed. Henry retreated, presently,
a long procession of cats trailing after. But for once he was too
troubled, too tremulous with fury to heed the purring friendliness
of his yellow-eyed family. The cats lingered in astonishment, but
Henry, sagged forward on his doorstep, his eyes fixed on that tall,
sulphur-hued intruder with the red and green eye in his garden, paid no
attention to them. For once a pampered tribe of feline pensioners went
supperless, offended and aloof.
Half the night, while the spring frogs came out and fiddled and the
switch-engines hooted up and down, unheard, Henry Hornbone sat at his
back door smoldering. Then a reckless idea leaped at him out of the
dark, making his slow blood tingle by its very audacity. The sight of
the switch engine, panting idly like a fat old hippopotamus with one
eye, on the siding beyond his outraged fence inspired a wild scheme for
vengeance which drove every vestige of sleep from his tired brain.
"I'll learn 'em," he said aloud. "I'll learn 'em so they'll stay
learnt! I got to get me a chain. I got to have a long chain and a wire
cable. And I've got to get that feller away from there. I've got to--if
I have to knock him in the head."
He remembered then where he had seen a tangled length of cable--down at
Hodges where the bridge had been destroyed. It would be risky business
getting it; there would be guards and they were touchy and apt to
shoot. But somehow he'd work it. A stout wire cable, fastened swiftly
around that block tower, a chain reaching to the tender of the switch
engine--and the B. & A. would move that offending building from his
land themselves!
It was a wild, fantastic plan, but the very difficulties it involved
served to rouse old Henry from his lethargy of shocked rage. He pulled
his hat low over his ears and slipped out the front way, following the
right of way toward Hodges. He knew where the cable lay, tangled in the
bottom of a ravine, where it was dark and propitious. Getting the young
soldier away from the tower would be the problem. Henry considered
various expedients, from setting his own house on fire to cold-blooded
murder. He neared the scene of the wreck, where he could see the
dangling ruin of the bridge bristling like a ship with lanterns. He
could feel the down thud of hammers, as the hastily drafted maintenance
crews attacked the wreckage. He crept close through a damp tangle of
last year's grass, and it was then that he discovered the two men who,
like himself approached cautiously. They kept just ahead of him, heads
down, bodies low in the weeds.
He crawled after them, keeping back out of hearing, watching in the
darkness to discover what they were up to. Strikers, he decided, since
his over sensitive nose brought him no evidence that they were common,
unwashed hoboes. They smelled clean--like tobacco and soap. A bit
greasy, but without offense. Henry wriggled through the dry grass on
their trail. They were making for a tool chest, set beside the track,
he noted, and one of them presently stood boldly upright, walked to
the chest, lifted something out of it, walked casually toward a group
working about a flare, while the other waited, hidden.
In a few minutes the first marauder came sliding back, prone, and Henry
lifted his head to see what it was they had pilfered. From the gingerly
way they handled it, the caution with which they wormed back to the
road, he knew--dynamite!
Forgetting his own errand, avid with childish curiosity, he followed
the pair, keeping always out of sight, trailing them back to
Elsie--back to his own street, back to his own house!
[Illustration]
And here an amazing melodrama was enacted before his staring eyes,
almost before he could think. He saw the sinister two slink through
his garden, saw them hurl themselves upon the young guard, beheld a
waving chaos of arms and legs, heard a thrown pistol clink upon the
cinders--heard with his tense nerves and his straining faculties,
though his sealed ears denied him tidings of the fight. Then he saw
that one of the strikers held the guard prone, and that the other was
burrowing swiftly under the yellow tower. It was at that moment that
Henry saw another sight which turned him cold and numb and made him
forget every grievance he had ever known against the B. & A. He saw a
glint of red hair at the upper window of that block tower. He saw Mary
Hill standing there--her body poised in terror. In one hand she held
the pistol he had given her. In the other she clutched a frightened
yellow kitten.
Like a wild old warlock Henry Hornbone hurled himself into the mélée.
The dynamiters were strong men; they were desperate and they were armed
with deadly brass knuckles and coupling pins. But Henry was armed with
primitive rage, which goes a long way in a pitched battle. His head was
barked, a fist had crashed into his teeth, a knee had found his stomach
and he was feeling a strange lightness in his head--a sort of airiness
which persisted in lifting him into the ether, persisted in weakening
the dogged grip he had on a tough, whiskery neck. He felt himself
giving in; he rallied and snatched great, aching breaths into his
bursting lungs, pounding monotonously on a confusion of struggling legs
with his stout old hobnailed boots, when he realized that another force
had entered into the fray. A red-headed harpy, screaming and dancing,
brandishing a big black pistol was circling the fight, dragging at the
vindictive person who was endeavoring to choke the young soldier's
breath out, battering futile fists upon unfeeling backs, sobbing in
impotent wrath.
It was then that Henry dragged out of the tortured thinness of his
throat a terrible, curdling scream.
"Bean him!" he yodeled, the yell cutting the air like a knife, "Bean
both of 'em--with the gun."
And Mary Hill obeyed.
She beaned both of them with such efficiency that when the young
soldier had struggled up and spit out his broken teeth and righted his
outrageously disarranged apparel and found his gun, the whiskery pair
of malcontents were still sprawled, unconsciously content, in the damp
gloom of Henry's pie-plant row.
Henry himself sat up, conscious that certain very vital localities on
his person had been woefully maltreated, sure that he would never be
able to get a whole breath again, and if by chance he did, it would
sure jolt his tortured ribs loose. But he grinned. The grin was jagged
and a bit gory, but it persisted. And Mary Hill gave him a wavery,
slightly tremulous smile. She still held the pistol, but Henry saw with
admiration that she held it muzzle down, harmless but ready. She was a
good one! And she might have been killed--blown to pieces like those
ragged cross ties at Hodges! Henry struggled up.
"You better fetch somebody," he shouted at the young soldier, who was
still a trifle bewildered. "You better fetch a gang to look after them
two. I'll stay here till you get back."
The guard departed, having first carefully tied the dynamiters with
Henry's clothesline. Mary Hill sat down beside Henry, the big gun
balanced on her knee. Her cold, small fingers crept into his palm. She
was little and dear, she might have been the mother that he missed or
the daughter he had never had. The old man patted her wrist gently and
a slow ache swelled within him, made up of loneliness and weariness.
Then a new thought comforted him. She'd be there every day--in that
tower, in his garden, the green eye-shade binding down her rebellious
hair. He gave a tremendous sigh and his age-old war against the B. & A.
perished in lusty middle age.
At this minute two-thirds of the village of Elsie surged into his
garden.
Henry shambled up, jerked his suspenders straight, hunted his hat. Men
were crowding round him--he saw mouths moving excitedly, hands waving.
They beat him on the back, they shook his hand. But Henry pulled away.
"Lemme alone," he yelled at the curious who milled about him. "You
lemme alone. I've gotta feed my cats!"
GRAINS SEND ROOTS MANY FEET INTO EARTH
Investigators for the Carnegie Institution of Washington have reported
some interesting discoveries about the depth to which food plants send
their roots. Trees and other perennials send tap-roots to a great
distance into the earth, but that cereals, which start new from the
seed each season, do the same, has not been generally understood.
Professor John E. Weaver reports that in Nebraska wheat and oats were
found to send roots down to a depth of from six to eight feet, while
corn roots were found eight feet deep. New agricultural methods may
result from these investigations.
HELICOPTERS MAY MAKE AIRPLANES OBSOLETE
The next big forward step in aviation will be the helicopter. Run
to your Greek dictionary and look it up. "Helicon" means spiral or
screw and "pteron" means wing. Get it? Orville Wright invented the
word and predicted years ago that someone would invent the machine.
An airplane--though it wouldn't be a "plane" at all and we'd have to
call it a "flying machine" or something like that--which was able to
rise into the air by means of "screw-wings" or devices like electric
fans placed horizontally, could ascend from a space no bigger than the
spread of its wings, and descend, if the machinery worked properly,
in a similar space. Instead of a big landing field away out in the
country, such machines could start out from a city roof or a suburban
back yard. Both the British and the French governments, which pay
much more attention to aviation than does ours, have offered prizes
for helicopters capable of doing certain "stunts." The British
specifications call for a machine that will rise 2,000 feet, carrying
a pilot and fuel for an hour's flight; hover stationary in the air for
half an hour, and fly horizontally at 60 miles an hour. Louis Brennan,
the monorail inventor, claims to have built a machine covering these
requirements. Pescara, an Argentine inventor, made a helicopter that
would rise six feet carrying a passenger, and sold it to the French
government.
[Illustration]
FROM ONE TO ANOTHER
BY EARL C. McCAIN
_Author of "Desert Justice," etc._
THE PONY EXPRESS IS NO MORE; BUT THE WEST STILL PRODUCES HORSES OF
THAT NEVER-DIE BREED, AND MEN WHO DO NOT KNOW WHEN TO QUIT. HENCE
THIS RACE OVER THE SANTA FÉ TRAIL HAS ALL THE THRILLS OF THE OLD
DAYS--AND A FEW NEW ONES
John Dillon's first knowledge of the Pony Express Relay Race had come
from reading the newspapers. It was to be held in celebration of the
old Pony Express, and the horses taking part in it would follow the old
Santa Fe Trail from St. Joseph, Mo., to Santa Fe, N. M., a distance of
approximately eight hundred miles.
While the race was to be run by picked relay teams of horses, the real
rivalry would be between the five big express companies, which had,
in a way, sprung from the old Pony Express when it had been succeeded
by the more modern methods of handling express and mail. Each of the
express companies was organizing a team, and the honor of winning would
go to the team that first delivered a registered package of express at
Santa Fe.
The entire country was interested in the race, not only because of
the traditions connected with the Pony Express, but because it was a
sporting event of a different type. Dillon's interest was deeper than
that. He was the owner of Sagamore, a magnificent black stallion
that had already won fame as a long distance runner, and he had been
expecting an offer to enter his horse in one of the teams ever since
the race had been announced.
The day before he had received a telegram from John P. Hammond,
president of the Dell-Argo Express Company, and he had come in from his
foothill ranch to meet Hammond at the Brown hotel in Denver.
A casual observer, watching the two men as they shook hands in the
hotel lobby, would probably have been struck by the similarity between
them--even though they represented vastly different spheres of life.
Hammond was the typical man of big business, well-groomed and modestly
attired, his appearance even more distinguished by a faint tinge of
gray in his hair.
Dillon was no larger than Hammond, yet he possessed the same marks of
character strength. His weight would have been guessed at one hundred
and forty pounds, and his eyes were steel-blue and sharp, surrounded by
fine wrinkles--something that distinguishes the man who has lived on
the sage-dotted mesas or the desert. The movement of his lithe body, as
he stepped forward to meet Hammond, marked him as a man accustomed to a
life in the saddle.
As might have been expected, Hammond came straight to the point.
"I represent the Dell-Argo Express Company, Mr. Dillon," he began,
"and we are particularly anxious to win this race because our company
was really the pioneer express company of the West. I understand you
have a great horse, and my purpose in coming here is to offer you five
thousand dollars to handle the Dell-Argo team and enter your own horse.
The company will pay all expenses, and in addition, you will have a
chance at the five thousand dollar purse."
"What other horses have you?"
"None, at this time. That will be in your hands. It is only fair to
tell you that you may have trouble securing suitable horses for the
race. Dan Mortley, who, I understand, bore a shady reputation in
racing circles before he was made a superintendent of the Continental
Express Company through the influence of a wealthy uncle, is managing
their team. I'm sure that the Continental company wouldn't permit any
crookedness in the race if they knew of it, but they're letting Mortley
handle their team because he understands horse-racing, and are allowing
him plenty of money. Frankly, I think Mortley intends to win by fair or
foul means. He has already prevented us from getting several horses we
wanted."
"How about the other express companies?"
"Oh, they will have teams entered, but it is generally believed that
Mortley's team will make a walk-away of the race, since he already
has engaged many of the best endurance runners in the country. Do you
happen to know of any other horses that you can get?"
"Yes, two," Dillon stated, then with a smile added, "and that reminds
me that I had better accept your offer at once."
"Good," Hammond replied. "I'll leave for St. Joseph tonight, to
complete arrangements, and to secure some more horses for you. Get
those two you mentioned, and better ship them as soon as possible. The
race is to begin Thursday morning, April 3, the anniversary of the
first trip of the Pony Express."
They discussed plans a few minutes longer, then with a Dell-Argo check
for one thousand dollars in his pocket, Dillon left Hammond and
hurried out to send a telegram.
[Illustration]
Dillon had tried not to appear eager when accepting Hammond's offer and
check, but the truth was that he was elated. For the first time in his
life he was seriously in need of money and the offer had come at an
opportune time.
A few months before he had happened upon what seemed a splendid buy
on a herd of cattle--one so good that in order to close the deal he
had mortgaged his ranch for ten thousand dollars. He had considered
himself lucky in getting the cattle at such a price, and had planned on
borrowing enough money on the herd to take up the note when it became
due. Then had come a sudden epidemic of the foot and mouth disease that
had wiped out most of his herd, and caused the Government agents to
kill the remainder to prevent the disease from spreading.
Dillon had expected no trouble in renewing his mortgage when that came
due, but to his surprise, the bank had refused this. In a final effort
to save his ranch, Dillon had been forced to give another mortgage on
his most valued possession--Sagamore. Two more efforts to raise money
had failed, and now, unless he could take up the mortgage on Sagamore
when it fell due, he would lose the horse. Under the circumstances,
Hammond's offer was providential.
In telling Hammond that he knew of two horses for his team, Dillon's
first thought had been of Patsy, a game little cow-horse that had
raced Sagamore to the very finish in a former race. Patsy was owned by
Laramie Jones, at Laramie, Wyoming, and Dillon sent a wire to Jones a
few minutes after accepting Hammond's offer.
The second horse was Imperator, a great white stallion owned by Gus
Workland, of Denver, and Dillon made a prompt visit to the Workland
stables. Imperator was getting old, but he was dead game, and he had
the ability to hold a good speed for a long distance. Dillon lost no
time in making arrangements with Workland to ship the horse in plenty
of time for the race.
Early the next morning Dillon received an answer to his wire to Jones,
accepting his offer for the little cow-horse. Satisfied with the start
he had made in gathering a team, Dillon returned to his ranch that
noon. The following day he loaded Sagamore into the express car that
was to take them to St. Joseph.
Hammond met Dillon and his horse upon their arrival in the city where
the race was to start, but he brought disappointing news. In spite
of his efforts, he had secured only two horses. One of these was
Speedaway--one of the fastest horses of the year--but the other, a big
bay called Pathfinder, was a horse that Dillon knew well. The bay horse
could run for a time, but he simply lacked the endurance to match his
courage in a long race.
"I have wired or seen at least twenty owners," Hammond stated, "but
Mortley has beaten us to most of them. Besides the horses he intends
to use, he has taken options on most of the other horses that would be
suitable for this race."
Dillon nodded quietly, and Hammond, in a more optimistic tone, went
on, "We'll have a chance, however, even with only five horses. The
Continental is the only company that will have more than ten horses
in their string, and the rest of the express companies have made
arrangements with the railroads to move the horses and riders along the
route as they finish each lap of the race."
Dillon couldn't exactly share Hammond's enthusiasm. He knew that very
few horses can recover their strength and endurance while traveling in
an express car. But he didn't mention his doubts. Instead, he talked
with Hammond a few minutes longer, then went to see that his horse had
been properly cared for.
Jones, with his little roan horse, arrived in St. Joseph that night
and came to the hotel just as Dillon and Hammond had finished dinner.
The same old quizzical smile that had won Dillon's friendship during a
former race was on the Wyoming rider's face as he shook hands and was
introduced to Hammond.
"I'm with you, all the way," Jones said, when Dillon had told him of
the race and the handicap under which their team must run. "But we'll
sure have to keep an eye on that Mortley gang. Mortley's crooked, even
if he has got the confidence of the Continental officials. He had the
nerve to try to bribe me to throw the race to their team in case we are
near them at the finish."
"What did you say to him?" Hammond asked.
"I told him to go to hell."
Hammond and Dillon both smiled, then Jones continued.
"That ain't the worst of it, though. He found out you had leased
Imperator, and he's taken the horse away from us. Workland's a hog for
money, and Mortley offered him twice what you did and agreed to run the
horse only the last lap of the race. Mortley boasted that he may not
have to use Imperator at all, but he's willing to pay that money just
to keep us from using the horse."
That news was a bitter disappointment to Dillon. He had reasoned that
of his string only Sagamore, Speedaway and Imperator were capable of
any great speed. Pathfinder might make a good showing, and he might
not, while Patsy, while fast and game to the core, was, after all, only
a cow-pony and hardly to be expected to more than hold his own against
the Continental thoroughbreds.
Pathfinder and Speedaway arrived the day before the race was to begin,
and Dillon began carrying out his plans. He sent Jones to Valley Falls
with Patsy, a distance of fifty miles, and Pathfinder on to Topeka. He
intended to start the race with Speedaway and hold Sagamore until the
contest was well under way.
[Illustration]
The starting time of the race had been set at seven o'clock the next
morning, but Dillon was awakened long before that time by the ringing
of his telephone. A voice over the wire told him that one of his horses
had been injured, and he finished dressing as he ran to the stables
where the horses were being kept.
He found several men gathered about one of his stalls when he arrived
and learned that it was Speedaway the message had been about. The horse
was limping from pain each time he stepped, and his right foreleg was
badly swollen. Speedaway's rider, who had volunteered to sleep near the
horse that night, exhibited a small piece of blood-stained piano-wire
as he tried to explain.
"They must have got to Speedaway some time yesterday, because I rather
thought he was favoring that foot a little when I exercised him last
night. He woke me up by kicking his stall a little while ago, and when
I examined his leg, I found this drawn tight around it, just under
the fetlock. It had cut into the hide and caused the tendon to start
swelling."
The anger that every lover of horses feels at seeing a noble animal
injured--perhaps ruined for life--surged through Dillon as he examined
Speedaway's leg. But he said nothing. The horse was out of the race for
several days, he knew, but he realized the impossibility of finding
the guilty person before the start of the contest. He found Sagamore
uninjured, then called a veterinary to care for Speedaway and returned
to his hotel to alter his plans.
Hammond was dismayed at the news of Speedaway's injury, and after
breakfast, went to report the matter to the race officials. Dillon
settled his account at the hotel, then returned to the stable and
walked Sagamore to the open space surrounding a stone monument from
which the race was to start.
Through the iron bars surrounding the memorial, Dillon read the
inscription it bore: "Dedicated to the Pony Express, which started from
this point April 3, 1860."
As Dillon dismounted in front of the railing Hammond came forward to
meet him, carrying a small express pouch which bore a figure "3."
This bag was to contain the registered parcel of express and would be
passed from rider to rider of the Dell-Argo team, Hammond explained,
and the figure would identify the team. Dillon, glancing at the other
riders, noticed that each carried a similar pouch, though the bags bore
different numbers.
"There's Mortley," Hammond remarked, indicating a sharp-faced,
heavily-built man who had walked over to a slim sorrel horse. Dillon
studied Mortley as the Continental team manager stood talking to the
rider of the sorrel, and he decided that Jones' summary of Mortley had
been correct. Mortley's face showed cunning and cruelty--the kind of a
man who might injure a horse in order to win a race.
The contest had aroused nation-wide interest, and Sagamore, because
of his great size and beauty, drew the attention of the crowd that
had gathered to witness the start. The horse towered above the other
animals waiting to enter the race, but his great body was evenly
proportioned--the withers high and the muscles long and clean--hinting
of the speed and endurance of which he was capable.
The mayor of the city and a grizzled old man, the latter once a Pony
Express rider himself, had been selected as official starters of the
race, and a hush fell upon the crowd as they arrived. The mayor
climbed to the top of the monument, then called the express company
officials and the riders closer as he made a short address, dealing
with the history of the Pony Express and the significance of the
occasion.
Outside the iron railing a clerk was seated at a table on which lay
an open ledger, and in this, Dillon and the other riders wrote their
names and the names of their horses. Then each rider was given a small,
registered parcel, the horses were lined up before the railing, and at
a signal from the old express rider, the race was on.
All five of the riders were experienced men, so there was no bolting of
horses at the start. Instead, they cantered down the city streets to
the outskirts, then picked up a bit more speed as they swung out upon
the historic old trail. Realizing that Sagamore's great strength would
probably be tested to the utmost before the race ended, Dillon held the
big stallion back a trifle, though he could easily have taken the lead.
The great highway extends almost due west from St. Joseph for some
distance, then dips gradually to the long bridge that spans the
Missouri River. Sagamore's hoofs beat a lone rhythm as he followed the
other horses across the bridge, then Dillon allowed him to lengthen
his stride sufficiently to follow them closely. Near the outskirts of
Atchison, the first change station, Dillon spoke to the big horse and
let him speed up so as to reach the station on even terms with the
other horses.
[Illustration]
The other teams changed horses and riders at Atchison, but Dillon was
to ride on through. He swung from the saddle to register his package
and secure a drink for his horse, then resumed his ride. The rider
of the Interstate team had been slow in getting away from the change
station, and Dillon overtook him a few miles from the outskirts of the
city.
A mile farther on Dillon and the Interstate rider came upon a bay
gelding that had loosened a shoe and was striking his leg when he
stepped. This horse belonged to the Overland team. The rider carried
no tools, but Dillon did, and it required but a moment to remove the
horse's front shoes. The bay, once the dangerous shoe had been removed,
had good speed, and the three horses traveled together into Valley
Falls, overtaking the National Express Company rider just before they
reached the city limits.
Jones was waiting at the Valley Falls station with the game little
roan and Dillon transferred the Dell-Argo package to him. Dillon stood
watching a moment, as Jones, cowboy fashion, twisted in his saddle to
wave, then he turned to Hammond, who had been waiting at the station.
"How's Speedaway?" he inquired, since Hammond had remained in St.
Joseph for a short time after the start of the race.
"Out of the race, except perhaps at the very end. The tendon is badly
swollen, but the veterinary hopes to have him in shape to run within
three or four days. By the way, I had a talk with John Bristol,
president of the Continental, before I left St. Joseph. He thinks we're
mistaken about Mortley having anything to do with injuring Speedaway,
but he assured me that he'll have the judges keep a close watch on
Mortley the remainder of the race. He says that Mortley has spent a lot
of company money and bet all the cash he could raise himself on the
Continental team, but it's a certainty the company won't back him in
any crookedness."
Hammond had arranged for an express car on the afternoon train, and
after caring for his horse and hiring the city marshall to guard
the car while he was away, Dillon and Hammond ate lunch at a nearby
restaurant, then returned to the depot. The afternoon train took
the car into Topeka on good time, and Dillon looked up Pathfinder's
rider, a slim youth by the name of Montauk, to make arrangements for
Pathfinder to run to Council Grove, a distance of three change stations.
It was late afternoon when the first horse, carrying an Interstate
rider, raced up to the Topeka change station and registered his
package. Jones came in second, smiling with satisfaction that his
little roan had outgamed three faster horses. Pathfinder at once set
out for Council Grove with the Dell-Argo package, and an hour later,
Dillon and Jones, with their horses, were asleep in the speeding
express car, resting while the opportunity offered.
Hammond had arranged accommodations for his riders and horses along the
route, but Dillon ignored the hotels when he reached Council Grove. He
had already experienced the underhand methods of Dan Mortley, so he
finished his night's sleep on a cot in Sagamore's stall.
The riders were expected in Council Grove about eight o'clock the
next morning, so Dillon took his time at breakfast. Then, making sure
that Sagamore was ready, he walked the horse to the change station.
Pathfinder was the third horse to arrive at the station, and after
instructing Montauk about shipping his horse ahead, Dillon and Sagamore
again took up the race.
The contest had developed into a steady grind by this time, each team
fighting to gain and hold the lead. The National rider had led out of
Council Grove--riding a trim iron-gray mare--but Mortley had now begun
to use his faster horses. When Sagamore's steady gait enabled him to
overtake one of the leading horses within the first ten miles, it
proved to be the National mare.
Sagamore was running easily, his long, free lope clipping off the
miles. It was twenty-six miles to Herrington, the next change station,
and he allowed Sagamore to show a bit more speed in the last five
miles. Even then, the Continental had already changed and sent its
package on ahead when Dillon reached the station.
From Herrington the trail swings south to Marion, another stretch of
twenty-six miles. South of Lincolnville, the halfway point, Sagamore
caught up with the Continental rider. Realizing that this rider would
not yield his place without a bitter race that might injure both
horses, Dillon was content to ride into Marion on even terms.
Another Continental horse was waiting at the Marion station--this one
a fine bay stallion that stood quivering with eagerness. Sagamore had
already run fifty-two miles that day, but Dillon knew the great beast's
power, so he clung steadily to the fast pace set by the bay. Mile after
mile the two horses galloped down the dust-swept highway, then the bay
began to weaken from the terrific pace and Dillon felt the elation of
knowing that he led in the contest.
The shaggy little cow-horse was waiting with a thoroughbred racer of
the Continental string when Dillon rode up to the station at Canton and
transferred the registered parcel to his team-mate.
"Somebody tried to get into Patsy's stall last night," Jones said,
patting a gun that swung on his hip. "I got a permit from the sheriff
here and strapped on my old hardware. The man that tries to hurt my
horse will be askin' St. Peter who won this race."
"Good," Dillon replied. "I'm packing a gun myself, and I'll use it
before I'll let anyone cripple my horse."
From McPherson, across the wheat fields of Kansas, the lead alternated
between the Continental and Dell-Argo teams. Patsy lost the lead in his
lap of the race, but his rider turned the package over to Pathfinder on
good time at Ellinwood. The lean bay horse surprised both Dillon and
Hammond by leading the race into Garfield.
Sagamore made the run to Dodge City that night and still held the lead,
but the faster horses of the Continental string forged ahead of Patsy
the next day. At Garden City, Pathfinder had cut down the Continental
lead to less than an hour. Dillon crowded Sagamore as much as he dared
that day, but Mortley was changing horses every twenty-five miles, and
he still retained the lead at Lamar, Colorado.
[Illustration]
At La Junta, where Dillon had to wait for a change of trains, he
received a telegram from Hammond, at Trinidad, that increased his
confidence of winning. Speedaway had recovered from his injury
and would arrive at Las Vegas that night. Dillon replied by wire,
requesting Hammond to send Speedaway to the last change station at
Glorieta, N. M., from where he could carry the package into Santa Fe.
Dillon had wanted that honor for Sagamore, but he thought it better to
let a fresh horse race against Imperator at the finish.
Jones brought the Dell-Argo package through Las Animas and La Junta and
swung southward toward the New Mexico boundary, ending a long, hard
ride at Timpas. Dillon was waiting with his big stallion at Trinidad
when the telephone brought news that seemed to end the Dell-Argo
chances of winning. Pathfinder had given out after leaving Hoehne, the
first town north of Trinidad, and was coming in at a walk. The rules
permitted a rider to go back to meet a crippled team-mate, so Dillon
quickly saddled Sagamore and rode back.
Montauk was heart-broken that his horse had failed after making such
a good showing earlier in the race, but Dillon blamed neither the
horse nor his rider. Pathfinder's condition showed that he had simply
collapsed. With a quick handshake that means much between good
sportsmen. Dillon took the package and turned back toward Trinidad.
He was an hour behind the Continental rider when he registered at
Trinidad, but he was still determined to win if possible.
From Trinidad, the trail enters the mountains, and here Sagamore was
at his best. Without urging and without holding back, Dillon let the
big horse set his own pace. Power is what counts most when a horse is
climbing steadily, and Sagamore's mighty chest was the main factor in
the long climb to Raton Pass--the long passage through the crest of the
mountains. About halfway through the Pass, Sagamore overtook and passed
the Continental horse--a fine animal, but one unaccustomed to such
travel.
Several airplanes had been following the running horses during the
latter part of the race, and Dillon had learned that these planes
were covering the race for newspaper associations and motion picture
weeklies. Just outside Raton, Dillon heard the drone of an engine
overhead and a shaft of light from an airplane caught and held the big
horse and his rider for an instant. Dillon merely supposed this was one
of the news planes, but he learned more of it when he arrived at the
Raton change station.
"See anything of an airplane as you came in?" the station man inquired.
"Yes, just outside Raton. Why?"
"Nothing in particular, only Mortley, the manager of the Continental
team, was seen talking to an aviator at Trinidad, and the judges have
noticed that one plane follows the horses at night."
Dillon gave the airplane no further thought as he registered his
package, and resumed his way. His principal worry was that Patsy, worn
out from his long run of the preceding day, would be unable to hold his
own against the Continental horses that day. He resolved to save the
little roan every possible mile and let Sagamore gallop freely as he
rode from Raton.
From Raton to Maxwell the highway passes no towns and few habitations.
Mile after mile slipped by as the big horse, with the same gameness
that had characterized the Pony Express carriers in bygone days, clung
grimly to his pace. Past Maxwell and on to Springer, Dillon rode,
turning the package over to Jones long after daylight had come.
Dillon had intended to relieve Patsy at Las Vegas that afternoon, but
he changed his mind when he saw the condition of the little horse at
Springer.
Hammond had chartered an engine to take their express car to Las Vegas
at once, but as Dillon led Sagamore into the car, he said, "I guess
I'd better stop at Watros. Patsy isn't much on speed, and he's about
gone his limit at fast running. Speedaway will be waiting to finish at
Glorieta, so I'd better relieve Jones as quickly as possible."
"But, good Lord, man, how about your own horse? He's carried the brunt
of the race so far, and he's just finished running all night long."
"I know," Dillon replied, a touch of sentiment in his voice, "but
that's our only chance. We must reach Glorieta on even terms or
Imperator will nose out Speedaway in the final stretch."
[Illustration]
As Dillon had predicted, Patsy lost time and the lead in the race
during the fifty miles from Springer, though Dillon did not know of
this until Hammond awakened him that afternoon. The airplanes and the
telephone were keeping a close check on the race and reports were being
sent ahead. At Colmor, Patsy had still retained the lead, but north of
Nolan the Continental horse had passed him and a fresh horse starting
at Wagon Mound had added to the gain.
Dillon, Hammond and a Continental rider were waiting at the Watros
station when an airplane swept over the crest of a hill and landed
in an open space near the change station. The pilot and a camera-man
climbed from the plane and selected a position from which to film the
arrival of the horses. Then a big black, with four white stockings,
rounded a turn and raced up to the station.
Dillon gave a start as he recognized the horse. It was August Long's
Conquest, one of the greatest racers on the American turf, and Dillon
realized anew the limits to which Mortley had gone in order to win.
The waiting Continental rider, mounted on a well-built sorrel, was on
his way almost as soon as Conquest's rider had touched the ground.
Then came an agonizing wait for Dillon. He knew that Patsy could not
be expected to cope with the speed of Conquest after what the little
horse had already done, yet it hurt him to think that each leap of the
sorrel was carrying the Continental package farther and farther ahead
while the big, patient stallion could only wait.
Ten minutes, then fifteen passed, while Dillon and Hammond stood
waiting. The watch-hands showed that the Continental rider had a
twenty-minute lead when the little roan, lathered with perspiration
and trembling in every muscle, yet still running, galloped up to the
station.
"We done our best," Jones said, stumbling as he climbed from the
saddle. "I nosed out their first horse, but that black devil was too
fast for us."
"We know that, Laramie," Dillon answered, and leaving Hammond to
explain further, he leaped upon Sagamore. His last view of the station,
as Sagamore swept round a turn in the street, was of a worn out little
horse standing with outspread legs and heaving sides.
Dillon knew that a twenty-minute lead meant miles to the Continental
team, and he determined to overcome that handicap as soon as possible.
Accordingly, he sent Sagamore forward at a fast lope. At Las Vegas,
which he reached just at dusk, the ledger showed that the Continental
had registered and changed horses twelve minutes ahead of him.
The gain encouraged Dillon and he left Las Vegas confident of
overtaking the rival team before reaching the next change station. But
he was doomed to disappointment. At Chappelle, he found that the other
team was twenty-five minutes ahead of him, and that a relief rider had
gone back on the trail to meet his team-mate.
The unexpected gain puzzled Dillon. He knew that the Continental
horses were fast, and he began to wonder if, in his great desire to
win, he had overtaxed his own horse. He knew that days of hard, steady
running--with sleep broken by the swaying of railway cars--will wear
down the endurance of any horse. And yet, strangely, Sagamore seemed to
be running easily.
As a test, he spoke to the horse and the speed with which Sagamore
responded caused him to tighten the reins a trifle. Fulton was the next
change station, and Dillon found encouragement there. He had cut down
the Continental lead to thirteen minutes, and once past the change
station, he sent Sagamore forward at racing speed.
A few miles out of Glorieta and the sun began tinting the sky, making
the road safer, even if it meant no increase in Sagamore's speed.
Daylight showed the perspiration lathered about the horse's shoulders
and flanks, while the sound of his breathing told Dillon that the
strain of the race was showing on the horse.
Except for a little group of men about the change station, the town of
Glorieta was wrapped in slumber as the big horse thundered across a
plank bridge at the outskirts and came to a halt at the station.
Speedaway was nowhere in sight, and Dillon caught the station man's arm
as he asked, "Where's the other Dell-Argo horse?"
"We haven't seen any other horses--except the one belonging to the
Continental team, and he left here two minutes ago," was the answer.
Another man had brought a bucket of water and was holding it to
Sagamore's mouth. With a quick decision, Dillon checked the horse from
drinking, then scrawled his name on the ledger and leaped back into the
saddle.
"It's up to us, old fellow," he said to the horse as he turned into the
highway and rode from the town, followed by the cheers of those at the
change station.
Just outside Glorieta the trail swings in a great half-circle to pass
a mountain, then zig-zags between hills and gulches almost all the way
into Santa Fe. Through narrow passes and around sharp turns the black
horse raced, his sureness of foot saving himself and his rider time
after time.
The last few miles of the road is straight, stretching like a boulevard
to the city limits, and it was on this road that Dillon caught his
first glimpse of Imperator. The grand old horse was half a mile ahead,
doing his best as he had always done, and Dillon knew that the final
test of speed must come in that stretch.
He leaned over Sagamore's glistening neck, talking to him and urging
him to the utmost, realizing that the loss of this race would mean the
loss of his horse--a horse that he loved like a brother. The white
horse had courage, and he made a brilliant try in that last mile, but
the youth of Sagamore was too much for him. Up and up crept the black
head until it caught and passed the white nose, then Sagamore led the
way through Santa Fe's ancient streets to the judges' stand.
Hammond and Jones were both waiting when Dillon leaped from his horse
in front of the clicking cameras and the cheering crowd to deliver his
package to the judges.
Then, suddenly aware of his own weariness, he placed a hand on the
shoulders of Hammond and Jones and asked, "What happened to Speedaway?"
"His car was brought on through to Santa Fe," Hammond replied. "Either
the train crew mistook their orders and failed to leave it at Glorieta,
or Mortley bribed them to do that."
"Well, we've won anyway," Dillon said, smiling quietly.
[Illustration]
"We had already," Hammond stated. "The judges were suspicious of that
airplane following the horses at night and had the trail watched last
night. They found that Mortley had hired that aviator to take the
Continental package from his rider between Las Vegas and Chappelle
last night and carry it ahead to his next rider, who rode back to get
it. That forfeited the race, and ends Mortley's connection with the
Continental, because Bristol discharged him as soon as he heard of it.
You'd have won the race if you had walked Sagamore all the way from Las
Vegas."
And Dillon, as he stroked Sagamore's glistening mane, understood the
mysterious gain that his great horse had striven so hard to overcome
during the night.
SOME EASY TESTS FOR DIAMONDS
Here are half a dozen easy tests for diamonds. Real diamonds will stand
up under all of them, but no imitation can come through any of them.
First, try a file; if it makes a scratch the stone is an imitation.
Second, cover the stone with borax, heat it and drop it into cold
water; an imitation will burst, but a real diamond will not be harmed.
Third, drop a little hydrofluoric acid on it; this will dissolve it if
it is not genuine. Fourth, drop it into a tumbler of water; if real it
will still shine brilliantly. Fifth, put a drop of water on it; if the
water spreads it is not a real diamond, but if the drop retains its
globular shape the gem is real. Sixth, make a pencil dot on a piece of
white paper, with a lens focus the light upon the dot, hold the stone
near the paper; if the dot can be seen clearly through the stone it
is a diamond, but if the dot appears foggy or duplicated the stone is
false.
[Illustration]
DESERT DRIFT
BY JOHN BRIGGS
_Author of "The Last of the Kings," etc._
EAST AND WEST MEET ON THE TREACHEROUS SANDS OF THE PAINTED DESERT;
AND ONLY THE SANDS WHICH SAW THE MEETING CAN TELL OF THE FATE OF
THE BLACK OPAL, WHICH WAS THE HERITAGE OF AN ANCIENT DYNASTY
"One First Class Passage--Prince Yuen Ming Chu."
Thus his American Pacific Liner passport had read, thirty years ago.
The Chinaman halted his time-and-wind-worn outfit in the sickly shadow
of a smoke tree. He was clad in blue jumper and overalls. His gray
felt hat was peaked after the common fashion of the desert country.
With hands long accustomed to the task, he slipped his diamond hitch,
removed his bed roll, kiaks and canvas water bags, and after a few
final jerks with the cinches, he had uncovered a dust-hued beast so
diminutive that the revelation might have startled a casual observer.
After staking the little animal where it could enjoy some very
dry galleta grass, Prince Yuen Ming Chu accomplished a feat never
duplicated before his time, nor since, on the drifting surface of the
Painted Desert. He picked up a long roll of heavy pongee, from one end
of which projected a large bamboo stick.
Holding one hand under the end of the innocent-looking roll and
pulling down on the bamboo, there suddenly came into being a flowery
and dragon-festooned sun-shade of immense size. He gave another pull,
and the bamboo stick lengthened out several feet. The end of it he
stuck down into the sand, and then from the eaves of the contraption
he unfolded four stay rods. With these in position, he gave a pull
at a cord, and behold! the big umbrella divided itself at the peak,
and curtains dropped to the ground. Yuen Ming Chu parted the curtains
at one side and drew them up at the opposite side, allowing for air
circulation, whenever the air should decide to circulate.
Laying a grass mat down under his silken shelter and seating himself,
he proceeded to undo the rawhide thongs of his laced boots. One might
have noticed that the fingers so deftly engaged were very long and
delicately tapered. This Celestial son could not deny himself the
simple luxury of washing his feet, notwithstanding the scarcity of
water. That accomplished, he exhaled with deep satisfaction, slipped
his sensitive toes into loose sandals and went about under the smoke
tree gathering fallen twigs with which to cook his rice and brew his
tea.
For thirty years he had wandered under the far stretches of brilliant
skies and over the tinted dunes that had been as home to him for so
long. He had pitched his dragon tent under the lee of the purple and
vermilion cliffs and at the foot of God's Altar Stones, the needle
pinnacles of an old continent which seemed to pierce the riotous
sunset heavens. He had communed with eternal quiet and had become the
intimate of the stars by night. He had come to America on an Imperial
mission, and hopeless as it had seemed for years, he had pursued it
long after the fall of Imperial power in China; for his heart was in
the task.
[Illustration]
His quest was the recovery of the wondrous black opal, talisman of the
Ancient Tsins, pillaged by a band of smugglers from the old Palace
of the early Manchus at Mukden. Under disguise he had followed the
smugglers to their stronghold in Lower California. He had joined them.
By assiduous cunning, he had located the great jewel. And then, almost
successful, his plans to regain it had been suspected. A furious chase
had led him through the wildest regions into Arizona and on up into the
Painted Desert. One by one he had accounted for his quarry until one
alone remained. And then that one had perished in a sand storm which
had buried him and his fabulously precious burden without a trace.
The shifting face of the desert had altered with the long years of
Prince Chu's search, he was an old man now. He knew the arid region as
a parent knows his wilful offspring. He had witnessed the strange and
various vegetation creep slowly over the dunes which he had with his
own hands shoveled aside. He had seen old dunes melt and blow away,
and new ones rise. Now he was bound southward across the desert to
Flagstaff, thence homeward. He had found the ancient talisman of the
Tsins, the remarkable black opal, the most precious stone, at least in
his understanding, in the world. The silver-haired old Oriental could
hardly picture the changes which had taken place in his native land. He
could not fit his imagination to what he would find at the other end of
his long journey; but here he was leaving peace.
With a gesture almost of reluctance, he stood erect and raised his arms
in a simple obeisance before partaking of his last meal there. It was a
leave-taking of reverence and almost of sadness. His glance traveled to
the northwest and fixed itself on the far horizon meditatively. In the
distance the hazy cliffs were slowly being obscured by an undefined
cloud which seemed without dependence on the sky--a volume yellowish
and murky. The dunes were stifled in dead calm. Nothing moved. Only
the heat waves writhed upward as though to lick the still air in their
ravenous thirst.
"It will be another hour, maybe," speculated Prince Chu. "Then the
Twin Gods of Thunder Mountain will begin to sweep the desert." He had
learned the legends of the desert peoples, and he had found beauty in
their poetry. In his eyes smouldered a certain brilliancy--the look of
a dreamer. In his sensitive lips, in his long, thin-bridged nose, spoke
ages of refinement. Prince Yuen Ming Chu's family history stretched
back two thousand years, even to the ancient Tsins.
After eating, he carefully rinsed and packed his fragile porcelain rice
and tea bowls. Emerging from under his sun-shade, he righted one of the
kiaks, and was about to repack it, when some inner sense warned him to
straighten up and look back of him.
Staring at him, about forty feet away, were two individuals of the
genus homo and otherwise not easily classifiable. One was taller than
the other, and the shorter one seemed the most ragged of the two.
Their much-traveled appearance suggested that they had been somewhere;
but their lack of any equipment for a journey aroused Prince Chu's
suspicion that their destination might be "just anywhere to get away
from where they had been." He rightly guessed that their object was to
put a considerable distance between themselves and the Hopi Reservation.
He had been long enough in the country to recognize these two specimens
as a certain brand of unscrupulous white riff-raff, driven from the
city slums, which was given to preying upon the Indians, in one way or
another. It was evident that they were leaving the Hopi people under
circumstances of haste. In one swift glance he gleaned all of this, and
then continued unconcernedly with his packing.
After their astonished survey of the dragon tent, the pair limped
nearer.
"Hey! Got any water?" croaked one.
In response, Prince Chu merely grunted and poured water from one of the
bags into the stew pan which he happened to have in his hand. Still
squatting on his heels, he handed it to the man who reached for it, and
the other, the shorter one, made a grab for the bag.
The old Chinaman drew it back and held up his hand in refusal. He was
particular about who drank from his water bags.
The bandy-legs growled a curse and reached lightning-quick toward his
hip, but as quickly checked the motion. "Wot'n 'ell d' yuh mean?" he
hoarsely demanded. "Can'tcha give uh man uh drink?"
"No savvy," responded Yuen serenely.
"Don't get too ripe, Shorty," cautioned the taller, bleak-nosed one
with red-rimmed eyes. "Take uh swig outa this."
After draining the tin, the ragged Shorty extended it for more.
Obligingly, indifferently, Prince Chu refilled it.
"Can'tcha talk English?" questioned the sun-blistered rogue.
[Illustration]
Yuen Ming Chu, the scholar, simply shrugged, shook his head and smiled.
Though granting them their needs, with a courtesy inherently his, he
desired speedy riddance of his unwelcome guests. An eye even less
discerning than his would have marked them as a cold-blooded pair.
A weapon bulged in the hip pocket of each, and their movements were
nervous and jerky. Obviously they were assassins and drug addicts. The
old Chinaman's only weapon, an antiquated shotgun, was still strapped
to his pack.
"The freak is uh Chink!" suddenly exclaimed the tall one. The speaker's
beak nose and pasty cheek points gleamed strikingly. Apparently the sun
had not affected the small area of his face which was exposed.
"Got anything to eat, John?" he questioned. Then, as an after-thought,
he performed the motions of consuming food.
"All li--all li!" acknowledged Yuen. He put more rice to cook, and
added his last piece of bacon. Covertly watching his guests, who had
stretched themselves out under the smoke tree to wait, he observed
that they were stealthily watching him also. Their conversation was
low mumbled. They evidently mistrusted that he might understand them;
but they were careless enough to let escape a few words which could be
caught by the ears so long attuned to desert stillness.
"Damn funny--Chink out here--Yeh, runnin' hop t' the Injuns--Got
it?--Sure 'eez got it. All Chinks uh got it!--Huh?"
They ate their rice with poor grace, frequently casting surreptitious
glances over his outfit. Yuen led the small burro in from its dry
grazing and readjusted the pack-saddle. He faced the burro so that his
gun would be on the opposite side of the saddle from the two thugs.
He perceived that they were suspicious. An astute reason counseled
him that their suspicion of him could arise only from their offensive
intentions. A deduction in which he was right.
His long, facile fingers were not quite quick enough to release the
straps holding the shotgun before the red-eyed one had sprung up on his
long legs and had covered him with a mean-looking automatic. Plainly
the man was a professional killer. His order to "Get 'em up in a
hurry!" was undebatable.
Prince Chu neither hesitated nor hastened. He simply accepted his
strategic defeat. The malign glint of the red-rimmed eyes behind the
black bore of the implacable-looking instrument of death, seemed
to project a cold eagerness along their line of vision; as though
hungering for the sight of a blood splash at the spot upon which their
stare was fixed. The tip of the man's protuberant nose quivered like
that of a beast scenting his quarry. The Chinaman dispassionately made
note that the drug degenerate would welcome an excuse to murder.
"No more stallin', Chink," the voice grated. "Yuv got the stuff
somewhere. Come through!"
Had the speaker known that he was addressing a man in whose blood
flowed the quality of blood which had ruled China for two thousand
years; and that governing the unaltered expression of the face he was
looking into, there was the kind of mind at work which is dangerous
to cross even when deprived of every vestige of defense, he would not
have hesitated to release the death which his taut forefinger begged to
deliver. But he was not yet aware of his mistake.
"Let's have it!" he barked again. "Show us where it is."
"No savvy," repeated Prince Yuen Ming Chu.
"Hey, Squint," interrupted the scalded-faced Shorty, "maybe the crazy
Chink don't savvy!"
"He savvies, all right," was the response. "Step around from behind
that donkey, there, yuh heathen. Quick!"
Yuen obeyed. He knew that the murderer would shoot if he did not.
The renegade laughed. "All right, John. Now yer commencin' t' learn
English. Where's the stuff?"
Prince Chu took his second discomfiture collectedly.
"I admit that I can speak your language," he said, "but you have not
made it plain what it is that you want of me."
"Holy fish!" the gunman exclaimed. "What next? Yuh can talk, can'tcha?
Whadda we want, huh? We want the hop, the snowflakes, er whatever kind
yuh peddle. An' we want it right now--get me?"
"You are mistaken," replied Yuen. "I do not peddle opiates. I have
nothing of the kind. If I had, I would gladly let you have it."
The Squint made only one response to this.
"Hell! He's stallin'. Go through 'im, Shorty. Try his pack first."
The short and ragged one tore the pack to pieces and left no space the
size of a lead pencil unsearched. He finished his fruitless task in
exasperation.
"Clean out His Nibs next," commanded the pasty-nosed ruffian.
[Illustration]
Panting from his exertions and the blistering sun, the plunderer
stepped up behind their victim, and keeping himself out of gun range,
he deftly felt through Prince Chu's garments.
"I have not what you want," stated the Chinaman calmly.
"Yuh haven't, hey! Then wot's this?"
The eager fingers were fumbling with the clasp of a long, flat pocket
case, black leather bound.
"It contains medicines, and certain chemicals, but nothing of value to
you. Yes--cigarettes. Help yourself."
The case opened suddenly. Viewing an array of little vials, the
searcher noticed one containing a white, crystaline powder, and his
glum expression lightened immediately. He jerked out the vial and
dropped the case to earth.
"Here's the snow, Squint!" he rasped excitedly, working at the cork.
The gun-wielder's drawn face relaxed in pleasurable anticipation.
"Mistaken again," remarked the measured voice of Yuen Ming Chu. "It is
an anti-venom, to be used in case of snakebite. Should you use that as
you would cocaine, without first having been bitten by a snake or the
black spider, it would kill you."
The blue-bearded gunman's face clouded with anger. "If that's uhnother
bluff, Chink," he threatened, "I'll croak yuh!"
"It is not a bluff," responded the silver-haired Oriental.
Sensing truth in the impassive words, the tall man ordered his partner
to further rifle the Chinaman's person.
Prince Chu's face was still steadily expressionless.
"You are wasting your time," he said.
"Well, wot in 'ell er yuh doin' in this country, anyhow?" peevishly
questioned Shorty, of the blistered face.
Before his question could be answered his exploring fingers encountered
a chain of heavy linked gold about the Chinaman's neck, and he yanked
at it.
"Wot's this?" he demanded.
For the first time, he might have seen a change come into their
victim's expression. Exultantly observant, his partner directed him
to snip the chain. When the chain had been removed by the practised
use of a small pair of sharp nippers, the two crooks beheld at its end
the most marvelous stone that they had ever seen. As large around as
the rim of a tea cup, it covered Shorty's palm, while the gold chain
glittered unheeded down from his hand. In the half-shadow of his hat,
the opalescent lights flamed from the great jewel with a rapidity of
changing fire which seemed alive--emerald, crimson, orange, pink and
blue; fascinating, benumbing.
"My God! It's worth a million!" gasped Shorty.
Prince Chu's stern old lips curled slightly upward in their irony.
"Do not make a second mistake, my friend," he said. "In your dollars,
it is worth ten millions. But if you should find it possible to dispose
of the jewel, it would be worth your life."
"Wot's that!" the two exclaimed, almost in a word.
The Chinaman shrugged and smiled enigmatically.
"'Nother one uh yer Chink bluffs," mumbled Shorty.
"I ain't so sure," joined his partner meditatively. "But we better get
movin'. Com' on! Stick 'er where she'll be safe, Shorty. Get that
shotgun. Get both them water bags. That's it--both uv 'em. It's hot an'
we'll need 'em," he added with a chuckle of grim significance.
"All right," announced Shorty, lowering his gun and grinning at the
Chinaman with lips that twitched. "We'll toddle on, Ole Timer. Sorry
can't have yer company."
"You may need it," tranquilly replied Prince Chu, commencing deftly to
pick up his scattered things. "I shall not be far behind."
The gunman laughed unpleasantly. "I guess yuh'll keep outa gun range,"
he retorted, backing away a few steps.
"Which way?" inquired Shorty, loaded with the appointed articles. They
contemptuously turned their attention from their late victim, now that
they had rendered him harmless, they thought, and disabled by lack of
water.
"Wait uh minute," the Squint interjected. "Let's see the rock. I wanna
look at it close."
Shorty dug the great black opal from an inner pocket and was about to
hand it to the other, when he halted suspiciously.
"Yuh ain't startin' nothin', Squint, are yuh?" he inquired.
"Com' on, yuh boob," protested the other. "How could I? We're t'gether,
ain't we? Ain't there enough in it fer both uv us, anyhow? I jus' wanna
see how the thing feels. Gee, she's some rock!" he exulted, as Shorty
released the great jewel unwillingly. He allowed his attention to be
consumed by the fascinating opal for a moment, and then he slipped the
stone into an inner vest pocket.
"Hey, you! Wot're yuh comin' on me?" challenged the ragged one.
"Yer pockets're apt t' have holes in 'em, Shorty----"
At this point they were interrupted by the even-toned, dispassionate
voice of the Chinaman. He had stood up from his patient reassembling,
and there was such a contempt, such an impalpable foreboding in his
voice, that both bad-men were impressed with a vague apprehension.
"Mr. Shorty, you have made your third mistake today," came the veiled,
slowly articulated words.
Then addressing them both, "You have never seen such a stone, before,
have you?"
"Com' on--cut it short," interrupted the squint-eyed.
"There is only one such stone in the world," continued Prince Chu,
unhastened. "It has ruled empires for ten thousand years. Before this,
thieves have stolen it; yet none have kept it long, except its rightful
owners." He paused impressively.
[Illustration]
Despite their callousness, the two thugs were getting a little nervous.
Each had been speculating on the almost impossible value of the jewel.
How could they dispose of it? Perhaps he was right. Maybe it wasn't
intended for such as they. Still they should be able to realize
something out of it.
"It has this peculiar faculty," continued the smooth, unruffled voice,
"that when it falls into the hands of one who is not entitled to it,
the unlawful possessor will enjoy good fortune as long as he retains
it; but if he should relinquish it from his person, it becomes his fate
to meet a violent death, very shortly afterward."
Prince Chu allowed himself the shadow of a smile, then his inscrutable
eyes searched the faces of the ruffians to note when the significance
of his clever invention should have penetrated their heat and drug
crazed brains. He knew that superstition was not peculiar to his own
race. It was the common penalty of all killers of men. Murder had
stamped itself on the faces of these two, for such eyes as his to read,
and fear now swept into the features of the one called Shorty.
"Gimme that back!" he shouted, his voice rising to a strained pitch and
breaking. "Wot'd'ya have t' take it for, anyhow? Com' on, Squint, lemme
have ut back," he begged.
The pasty-nosed Squint laughed sneeringly, and his lips twisted in a
simulation of pity.
There came a low whine over the distant dunes. The disputing pair had
not noticed that the sun's light was fading out. The air was stifling.
"Don't be uh boob," gibed Squint. And there was a crackling edge to his
laugh. "The Chink's tryin' uhnother shindy on us." But his tone carried
no confidence in his words. There seemed to be an insidious, occult,
inexorable something about this Oriental who had communed so long with
the desert.
The badgered Shorty twitched his gun hand instinctively, then
discreetly checked himself.
"Yeh--yeh, damn yuh!" he wailed in terrified anger. "Now yer scared to
let go of it, yerself!"
Neither of them had noticed why their words had to be shouted. They
were too wrapt in their argument to perceive that the dull whine had
risen to a distinct roar.
Swiftly the Chinaman had gathered up his outfit, and he was cinching it
into place on the burro. The cut-throats had taken about twenty paces
from him when he had halted them with his recital of the black opal's
mythical qualities. Still in verbal conflict, they moved on.
A wind puff swished over the low dunes, driving loose sand through
the crackling branches of the brittle salt bush. An incessant rush of
suffocating air followed. Little rivulets of sand began to lift and
worm along the ground and spill over the rolling dunes. Dust cloud
blanketed the desert.
Prince Chu picked up the lead rope of his abbreviated burro and
commenced to plod southward, with his back to the swirling, wind-driven
dust. A hundred yards ahead of him the fleeing pair were trying to take
note of their position and were traveling undecided as to direction.
In the south distance, before the dust had filled the air, there had
been visible the jagged outline of the San Francisco Mountains. Now
nothing was visible save the immediate wind-swept surface of the earth,
the troubled dunes, and the higher desert ridges. Yuen Ming Chu had no
intention of letting his despoilers beyond the range of his vision. And
he was obliged to shorten the intervening distance; for the hot wind
rose into a hurricane.
[Illustration]
He rapidly overtook the two wobbling, stumbling men. They were letting
themselves be swept directly with the drift of the storm, hunched over,
running, scurrying up the ridges, sliding down.
They were not concerned with their pursuer's presence. They had shorn
him of harm. He looked down at them, as they picked themselves up under
the leeward of a sand drift.
"You are drifting with the storm," shouted Ming Chu. "It is blowing a
west angle to our course. You must walk so that it strikes first the
point of the left shoulder."
"You lead out," faintly responded the authoritative one of the pair.
"Move on ahead, there. We'll follow. But no damned monkey business,
Chink!"
Prince Chu looked back at them as he brushed by with his burro, and he
interrupted a significant exchange of glances between them. Steadily
he bore ahead, and the very surface of the earth seemed to be lifting
up to bear them all down into smothered oblivion. He was fully at the
mercy of these plunderers who followed him six paces in the rear.
He had read the meaning in the look which they had exchanged. They
intended to coolly shoot him down when they had done with his guidance.
The drifting sand would do the rest.
"Such as it is to be, so it shall be," meditated this silver-haired son
of the Great Ancients.
They were not following him easily. The driven sand cut through their
ragged clothing. Occasionally one of them fell headlong. Neither tried
to assist the other. The shorter one seemed to be the sturdier of the
two. The long-legged one stumbled more frequently. One or the other of
them frequently called on him to wait for them. He perforce obeyed.
When they were close behind him, Ming Chu could see contortions of fear
at work in the pallid face of the gasping Shorty. Each time that his
partner went down he registered a look of satisfaction.
Prince Chu smiled inwardly. The prospect of violent death was
fermenting in Shorty's brain. His features portrayed a fixed terror
born of the alleged fate dependent on his losing possession of the
marvelous opal. His mind was caught in the dread that the prophesy's
fulfillment was bearing down upon him.
The surface of the desert was moving, shifting; slow rollers rose and
sank, and drifted on. The earth picked itself up and rushed whither
the mad wind drove. Small dunes melted away, where they were not
rooted down by the stunted growth. New ones swelled up before their
eyes--swelled up and burst and crawled ahead. Flat rivulets of sand
ran, riffled, spumed against the rifted cholla trunks. The wild dry sea
tumbled, rushed and roared on, relentless, insatiable. The three men
and the beast were pounded, blasted, blown tumbling with the drift.
There was no longer any tacking against its drive. The slipping sand
sucked them down. Each step made a whirlpool into which they sank,
straining to tear free, while the awful volume of the wind drove down
upon them.
The high outline of a sand ridge loomed suddenly before them. It was an
elevation which had built itself up year after year, by reason of its
resistant creosote bush and other tenacious growth. It was halting the
rushing flood of sand, banking it back against the terrific current.
They were swept toward it. Its base seemed swelling, crawling to meet
them, and its outline was mounting higher and higher. They were driven
up with the piling earth. The thundering volume frayed at them, pressed
the breath from their lungs, tumbled them, carried them with it. A
mountain was being formed. They shot across its summit and dropped as
though from a cloud. They slid and rolled and lodged under the lee of
the ridge.
His face bleeding, his hands shaking, the ragged, short man stepped
backward from the creeping pile and laughed. The sound made the other
jump and whirl around on him. It was a sharp, strained cackle--a mad
expression of release from the immediate clutches of death.
The man's pasty face was pale green and drawn into lines of pain. He
cursed the laughter.
"Laugh when we get outa this," he snapped, "er that damn Chink'll get
us yet." He made a threatening step toward the shorter one.
"Yer scared yer goin' t' croak, ain'tcha?" he snarled. "Yuh wanna see
me croak first, don'tcha? Well, don'tcha try t' start nothin' with me!
I'm uh live man yet, by God!"
The smaller man stepped backward again. The sand sucked in around
his shoe-tops. He stood still a moment, and then a curious, pained,
questioning look came into his face. He advanced a step, hastily, and
whirled about. Looking down at the spot where he had stood, he saw two
black-spotted coils, one above the other, partly buried, and a flat,
fanged head protruding from the sand. He had felt three sharp stings in
his half-deadened leg, before he had moved.
Almost forgotten by the battered twain, the harmless Yuen Ming Chu had
also observed the mottled coils and the venomous puffed head of the
diamond rattler.
On recognizing what had befallen him, the stricken man's screech
mounted to the whistling roar overhead.
"Wot'sa matter? Bit--hey?" interrogated the Squint.
"I'm croakin': now I'm croakin' sure!" gasped Shorty.
"Hey, shut up! Can the racket! Ain't the Chink got some stuff fer that?
Sure he has.
"Hey, John--come through with yer snake dope. Bring it here!"
Prince Chu was standing about fifteen feet from the pair. Now he drew
from his inner pocket the little flat case of medicines. Selecting the
vial of white crystals, he replaced the case in his pocket and drew the
cork from the bottle. Before he made any move toward the distressed
Shorty, he emptied the contents of the vial into the palm of his hand.
Sufficient wind yet stirred within their shelter to disturb the light
pulverized stuff. So he closed his fingers over it. Holding it thus, he
waited, while the flicker of a smile touched his impassive features.
The smitten Shorty caught the inkling of some subtle purpose back of
the Chinaman's pause.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Wot'sa matter?"
He tried to draw his gun. It was packed solid in his pocket with sand.
Frantically he dug it out, while his partner stood by, half-amused.
"No tricks, Chink! Come through with it!" he frenziedly commanded. He
drew the pistol finally.
The old Chinaman maintained his distance. "Why should you shoot me?" he
questioned. "If you should do that, the powder would spill from my hand
and be lost in the sand."
A startled look overspread the features already terrified.
"If you come any nearer," was the mild assurance, "I will let the
powder scatter."
"Hell!" articulated Shorty, deadened in his tracks.
"I will give this to you when you have returned the black opal to me,"
stated the scion of the Ancient Tsins.
These words acted as a spring releasing the afflicted man's action. He
wheeled about to his partner.
"Now, will yuh gimme that?" he shrieked.
But a mortal terror had at last entered the face of Squint. He saw
his partner dying a violent death, and he had no mind to release the
uncanny stone which he was now convinced would work the same fate with
him, if he should let it go. With the most desperate speed he had ever
achieved in his lifetime, his hand flashed for his gun.
There followed a streak of flame and a report against the twilight
and the din of the storm. The tall, squint-eyed man sank first to
his knees, and then crumpled down into the sand. Death caught the
horrified expression in his red-rimmed eyes and held it until he
pitched forward, face down, his right hand still wedged in his hip
pocket by the sand which had prevented him from drawing the gun.
With fingers shaking out of his control, Shorty turned the limp
form over and clawed into one of the inner vest pockets until he
triumphantly drew forth the smoldering black opal at the end of its
shimmering chain. Half-crawling, half-stumbling, he started with it for
the extended hand of Yuen Ming Chu. He had dropped his short weapon
behind him, and the troubled sand was crawling down over the upturned
form of his victim.
He did not reach the outstretched hand, even though Prince Chu was
coming to meet him. His face purpled in blotches, his breath choked,
and the grip of convulsion tore him down.
The old son of the Tsins and the Mings stooped over him for a moment
and examined the purpled veins and the black, contorted features. He
shook his head.
"Too late," he murmured.
And again opening his little, flat case, he extracted another vial, and
from it he let a few drops of the amber liquid trickle down between
the gasping lips. Soon the movements relaxed and calm wiped out the
tortured lines. The sand sifted down and the moving mountain crept on.
There was as nothing where the two men had stood and fought, and
enacted the latest chapter in the history of that great, black, lambent
jewel; more precious even than life, outlasting death; which had ruled
empires for ten thousand years.
[Illustration]
The STORY TELLERS' CIRCLE
THE PONY EXPRESS
One of the most picturesque and thrilling institutions of the Old
West, now given place to train, automobile and aeroplane, was the Pony
Express. All too little fiction has been written around these hardy
riders and sturdy mounts, all too little recognition taken of the
sterling feats of courage and endurance they performed.
We are glad to publish Earl C. McCain's story, "From One to Another,"
in this issue; and glad to learn that tentative plans have been
made to have the government issue a limited number of the old pony
express stamps for use in the pony express relay race planned as part
of the Portola festival in San Francisco this year. One hundred and
twenty-five horses and twenty-five riders will take part in this race
from St. Joseph, Mo., to San Francisco, following as nearly as possible
the old Wells-Fargo route of the early days.
Mr. McCain, who is a Westerner himself, has investigated races of this
sort, and in regard to the events of his story says, "There has never
been a race of this exact type held. The nearest to it was The Denver
Post Endurance Race, from Evanston, Wyo., to Denver. Twenty-three
cowboys on broncos took part in this, Charles E. Workman finishing
first and F. T. Wykert second, arriving neck and neck in front of _The
Post_ building.
"This summer an endurance contest of a different type was held at
Colorado Springs. The horses were to travel sixty miles each day and
return, and at the end to be judged by condition as well as the time
made. The sixty miles had to be covered in from nine to eleven hours.
Twelve horses participated, the winner being Norfolk Star, a cavalry
horse from Fort D. A. Russell, ridden by Captain H. E. Watkins.
"The contest continued for five days, three hundred miles, and
Norfolk Star's time was 47 hours, 37 minutes. Jerry, a horse from
Fort Sill, Okla., made slightly better time than Norfolk Star, but
lost out by finishing in poor condition. Two cow ponies were entered
in this contest, but both were eliminated early in the race. Rabbit,
a three-quarter thoroughbred, finished second, and Fox, a horse of
unknown breeding, owned by Ed Pringle, of Colorado Springs, beat out
Jerry for third place.
"One of the old-timers here states that a contest slightly similar to
the race described in my story was held back in the 60's, when the Pony
Express was in operation. It is his belief that express parcels were
started from St. Joseph and San Francisco at the same time, the race
depending upon which reached the opposite destination first."
"EAST!"
You remember the scheme which we began talking about more than a year
ago for boxing the compass with complete novels representative of the
various points of direction? There was James B. Hendryx with "North!"
which has just been published in book form at $1.75; and there was
Charles Alden Seltzer with "West!" which was published in book form at
the same price last season. At that time we asked you, our readers,
who should complete the four major points. H. Bedford-Jones was almost
unanimously chosen as the man to write the story for "East!" We are
glad to say he has done so, and a ripping piece of work it is, too.
In "East!" this author, whose Chinese stories fairly breathe the
mysterious atmosphere of the Orient, takes us into the interior of
China with a young American engineer who sets out to solve the secret
of the Mountain Paradise of which no Oriental would speak and of which
the Americans and Europeans heard the wildest rumors. Even its location
was a mystery. Yet it did not take this Bedford-Jones hero long to find
it, nor to solve the puzzle as to the identity of the goddess Si-wu who
was reputed to reign over this ideal kingdom. The story, replete with
action and adventure, leads the issue for next month.
Of the major points in the compass, it only remains now for some one
of the best writers to give us "South!" Who shall it be? What sort of
story do you suggest to complete the swing around the circle?
Robert Pinkerton will be with us again, in the next number, with
"Downstream," a novelette of the Canadian bush country. And E. S.
Pladwell, a newcomer for SHORT STORIES, will be on hand with a
realistic and engaging Western novelette.
Among the short story men will be Edwin Hunt Hoover with another story
of Dutch and Blue Danube--of how Dutch sang cowboy songs to a fetching
young lady, and played detective--and how they all danced to the tune
of the tenderfoot who "looked like a wise old bronc"; Robert S. Lemmon,
back with another of John Mather's adventures in Ecuador, this time
among the Jivaro head-hunters; Herbert Louis McNary with one of those
railroad telegraph stories many of you have been asking for--only this
tale will be equally enjoyable to those who haven't the slightest
interest in railroad or telegraph affairs.
READING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
Short Stories travels to some queer corners of the earth and is read
under trying conditions, but it seems that Major Altizer's experience
wins hands down:
Editor, SHORT STORIES,
Dear Sir:
I have long intended to send you a testimonial of my enjoyment of
SHORT STORIES. I have been reading the magazine for years, and I
must confess that it does not fail to hold my interest. The style
of stories you use can certainly be nothing else than beneficial to
those who enjoy a life of out-doors and adventure.
There are numbers of your stories which recall to me times I
spent right at the scene where the plot is laid, perhaps one of
the reasons why I enjoy SHORT STORIES. I think one of my greatest
disappointments was during the Great War. As you know, magazines
were then prohibited from being sent by individuals to the soldiers
in France. But I had a plan to overcome that. A friend back home
would pick out the best stories, cut them from the covers, and mail
them to me in letters. It happened that I had to spend several days
and nights in a particularly exposed observation post, a letter had
just been sent to me which contained a story from SHORT STORIES.
Several hours later I was trying to read it, when, Wham; along came
a high explosive and the debris entirely buried my short story, for
I took the usual "duck" without consideration for anything else.
With best wishes for the continued success of your magazine, I am,
MAJOR C. S. ALTIZER,
Cambria.
Danford G. Britton, author of "North Wind's Message," in this issue, is
another who has run across SHORT STORIES in an out-of-the-way corner.
In this case the wandering copy of the magazine was the gem from which
Mr. Britton's fine poem sprang. As he tells it:
Something over two years ago I made one of my annual outing trips
up into Canada. We were delayed in making our return journey by a
real old blizzard and were holed up in our cabin for about three
weeks.
The cabin had evidently been built for some time and among other
odds and ends it contained an old copy of SHORT STORIES. I read
the magazine through several times and one short article or verse
on the North interested me especially. As there was nothing to do
except tend fires, to pass away the time, I tried my hand at a
little verse of my own. A few days ago in going through my camping
togs I came across it.
Have you encountered SHORT STORIES under unusual circumstances? If
so, let us hear about it; the members of the CIRCLE are no doubt
interested in hearing of the queer adventures and experiences of the
magazine--many of them no doubt more startling than anything that ever
gets between its covers.
THE MAIL BAG
So many interesting letters are arriving from members of the CIRCLE
lately, that it is a temptation to crowd everything else out to give
them room. The more the merrier--and the better for SHORT STORIES--so
keep right on sending them.
Here is one from a former South African, who will be pleased to know
that there are several more of Greene's "Major" stories on the press
right now:
Editor, SHORT STORIES.
I am a South African by birth, having been born in Johannesburg,
South Africa, during the time Oom Paul Kruger ran the Transvaal
Republic. Have been in America about twelve years and am proud to
say that I am an American citizen; nevertheless, I have the kindest
thoughts and remembrances of my native land and I certainly enjoy
the "Major" stories. They are well written and the author must know
his South Africa, which is a good field for good stories.
THEO. BEHR.
THE READERS' CHOICE COUPON
The Readers' Choice Coupons are beginning to flow in; keep it up! Cut
out the coupon below, fill it out with the names of the stories in this
issue that pleased you, and let us have it. It is your chance to get
the kind of stories you want.
Chas. A. Beck was the first to send in his Coupon, and the good letter
he sent with it is worth printing:
"Readers' Choice" Editor, SHORT STORIES:
As far as I am concerned you'll have to wait a few more issues in
order to get my opinion of who writes the best stories. Just as I
said on the Coupon _all_ of the stories in the ---- issue of SHORT
STORIES are fine and dandy. I know what I am talking about for I am
a reader of about ten different adventure and short story magazines
and the stories in your March 25th issue are some of the best I
ever read. I have read Short Stories for the last seven years and I
never read a bum story yet.
CHARLES A. BECK.
What is your opinion of this issue?
READERS' CHOICE COUPON
"Readers' Choice" Editor, SHORT STORIES:
World's Work (1913), Ltd., 20 Bedford St., London, W.C. 2.
My choice of the stories in this number is as follows:
1 ____________________________
2 ____________________________
3 ____________________________
4 ____________________________
5 ____________________________
I do not like:
______________________________ Why? ________________________
NAME __________________________ ADDRESS ____________________
_A Selection of Popular Titles from_
HEINEMANN'S THREE & SIXPENNY LIBRARY
Robert Hichens _Bella Donna_
Jack London _Martin Eden_
Joseph Conrad _Typhoon & three other Stories_
_The Nigger of the Narcissus_
W. Somerset Maugham _The Moon & Sixpence_
The author of "Pam" _Yellowleaf_
Richard Dehan _The Dop Doctor_
_That Which Hath Wings_
_Between Two Thieves_
_The Man of Iron_
_The Eve of Pascua_
Frances Hodgson Burnett _The Shuttle_
Maurice Hewlett _The Fool Errant_
_The Little Iliad_
Marie Conway Oemler _The Butterfly Man_
_A Woman Named Smith_
_The Purple Heights_
E. F. Benson _Account Rendered_
_Mammon & Co._
_Juggernaut_
Sarah Grand _Adnam's Orchard_
Flora Annie Steel _The Gift of the Gods_
_A Sovereign Remedy_
[Illustration]
_Wm. Heinemann, Ltd._
Short Stories Twice-a-Month
_THE NEXT NUMBER_
EAST!
A complete novel, wherein a young American, breathing the spirit of
action, of the West, meets a secret of the ever mysterious Orient, and
realises his desire for high adventure.
H. BEDFORD-JONES
_=and in the same Number=_
DOWNSTREAM
A novelette of the North, and of the forces abroad in the mighty
stretches--were they caused by the mind of man, or by the gods of the
Indians?
ROBERT E. PINKERTON
THE HIGH TRAIL
A grave choice confronted Rob Macdonald, lately come to the
cattle-country. The high trail was the hardest to follow, but counted
most in the end among the barons of the ranges.
E. S. PLADWELL
THE HEAD HUNTERS
John Mather, Naturalist, to whom adventures were all in the day's work,
meets a fellow scientist not so lucky as himself.
ROBERT S. LEMMON
AND OTHERS
Printed by Richard Clay & Sons, Ltd., The Chaucer Press, Bungay,
Suffolk. Published twice monthly by The World's Work (1913) Ltd., at
the Registered Offices of the Company, 20, Bedford Street, London. Sole
Agents for South Africa: Central News Agency, Ltd.