The Sheriff looked for directions to Brydges.

"Let her go," ordered Brydges with a glance back over his shoulder

towards the trail from Smelter City; and the winch creaked and groaned;

and the bucket fell with a bump; then a steady drop to the first vein.

When Matthews looked up, the slant of the shaft had cut off the sky.

Brydges didn't bother clambering out of the bucket. He was silent and

kept hold of the dependent cable. Suddenly, there was a rumble as of

the hoist flying backward, then the whip lash of a taut rope snapping,

and the cable whirled down in a coil round Brydges' head.

"Gee whiz! This is a pretty mess! The cable's broke; and we can't get

up!"

"What's that?" called Mathews. Wayland and the others were examining

the black wall of the shaft.

Matthews flashed his hand lantern in Brydges' face. It was ashen

doughy, with sagged lips. "Wayland, have y' on y'r mountaineerin'

boots, the boots pegged wi' handspikes?" cried the old frontiersman.

"The cable's broken; and A like t' see y' shin for th' top soon as

possible!"

Something in the voice must have caught the ear of the news editor; for

he turned back and flooded his lantern, first on Matthews' face, then

on Brydges'.

"You'll climb easier if you pull off y'r overalls and fasten y'r

lantern in y'r hat, Wayland," he said in the same cutting voice he used

in the hurry and rush of the composing room.

If Mr. Bat Brydges had been after a feature story, he had it then and

there; the tenebrous thick coal darkness; the drip-drip-drip of the

water-soak through the rock walls; Matthews' eyes blazing like coals of

fire in the dark, his lantern shining full on Brydges; the news editor

hatchet-faced, white of skin, with pistol point eyes, his lantern full

on Brydges; the downy-lipped youth white, terrified, chattering of

jaws, unable to speak a word, clutching to the edge of the bucket to

hide his trembling, his hat had fallen off, his lantern had fallen out

of his hand, and a great blob of black coal drip trickled from his

yellow hair down his cheek in front of his ear; and the handy man still

standing in the barrel, his face chalky and soggy like dough, with a

show of bluff, but unable to look a man in the face, gazing at his feet

in the bottom of the barrel:

"Gawd, Wayland! Don't risk it! Don't climb! Wait a little! They'll

wind her up and drop another rope down to us and--"

The Ranger had begun climbing. They could see the shine of the lantern

in his hat against the black moist rock wall; up and up, slow, sure and

light of foot, swinging from side to side for hand grip; hands first

finding foot hold; then a leg up; and another foot hold.

"Look out fellows," he warned once. "I might knock some of these small

rocks loose!"

Then, the light of the lantern disappeared at a bend in the shaft.

"It's a darned dangerous thing to do," pronounced the handy man thickly.

Not one of the men answered a word, and the silence grew impressive by

what it didn't say.

Once Wayland had turned the bend of the shaft, the rest of the way up

was easy. Daylight was above, and the climb was a gradual slant over

uneven ridged rock; and with the grip of the pegs in his mountaineering

boots, he ascended almost at a run on all fours.

"Hullo up-there," he called, "what's wrong?"

There was no answer. He ascended the rest of the way winged and came

out hoisting himself from his elbows to his knees with a deep breath of

pure air above the surface. At first, daylight blinded him. He threw

the lantern from his hat and blinked the darkness out of his eyes.

"It's all right fellows," he roared down the shaft, funnelling his

hands.

Then he looked.

Sheriff Flood was not to be seen. Neither was MacDonald. There seemed

to be no one. The day shift were going back in the tunnels below. The

windlass handle hung prone as a disused well. It had not flown back

broken. The cable had been cut. Then, he heard a groan. It was

Calamity lying on her face at the foot of the windlass, weeping and

reaving her hair. Stretched on the grass a few paces back from the

windlass with two bloody bullet holes full in the soft of the temple,

lay MacDonald, the sheep rancher, beyond recall.

Wayland stooped and felt for the heart.

It was motionless. The body was chilling and stiffening. He looked

back at the face. There was almost a smile on the lips; and one hand

hung as if fallen from the windlass handle. A suspicion flashed

through Wayland's mind. He could hardly give it credence. It was

preposterous, unbelievable, like a page from the lawlessness of the

frontier a hundred years ago! Yet hadn't this thing happened in

California, and happened in Alaska? They would never dare to murder a

man conducting an investigation ordered by the great Government of the

greatest Nation on earth! Yet had they not tried to assassinate

representatives of the great Federal Government down in San Francisco,

and shot to death in Colorado a federal officer sent straight from

Washington? And these murders had not been committed by the rabble, by

the demagogues, by the anarchists. They had been pre-planned and

carried out by the vested-righter, in defiance of law, in defiance of

the strongest Government on earth and up to the present, in defiance of

retribution.

Wayland tore open the coat and felt for the notes. They were gone. He

looked at Calamity. A darker suspicion came. Then, he caught the Cree

woman by the shoulder and threw her to her feet.

"Calamity who did this?"

"Th' trunk man, O'Finnigan! Flood, he lead heem up; an' t' trunk man

shoot, shoot quick close--lak dat," she said snapping her fingers round

behind Wayland's ear against the soft of his temple.

Wayland's suspicions became a certainty.

"They will blame you," he said, "do you understand me? They will prove

_you did_ it; and hang you! Ride for your life! Ride for Canada; and

hide!"

Was he thinking of Calamity or Eleanor? But where was Flood; and where

was the drunken man?

He fastened a stone to the end of the cut cable, and with a shout began

dropping it down and down from the windlass.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE AWAKENING

By all the tricks of stage-craft and book-craft, of the copybook

headlines and platitudinous lies which we have had rammed down our

throats since childhood, virtue should have triumphed in the person of

the Ranger, because he fought regardless of consequences for right.

MacDonald, the sheep rancher, who went out of his way to enforce the

fair deal and the square deal, when he could very much more easily have

remained safely at home, a fire-insurance, bread-and-butter,

safety-guarantee Christian of the quiescent kind, MacDonald by all the

tricks of the-be-good-and-you-will-prosper doctrines, ought not to have

been shot down as he stood guard at the head of the mine shaft.

A very great many years ago, a very great Man, in fact, the very

greatest moral teacher the world has ever known, declared that the

milk-and-water, neither-hot-nor-cold, quiescent, safety-guarantee type

of Christianity was a thing to be spewed out of the mouth; but that was

a very great many years ago. Time has softened the edge of that

passion for right. Perhaps, He didn't mean it! Perhaps, we have

permitted sentimentality to sand-paper down the fighting edge of

militant righteousness that goes out beyond the Safety Line! To be

sure, bread-and-butter goodness is an easier matter than risking hot

shot beyond the Safety Line; and perhaps, a sentimental Deity may be

persuaded to allow us a little jam on our bread and butter if we sit

tight on the safe side with a fire-insurance policy in the shape of a

creed! Personally, I wonder when we all take to joining the sit-tight,

safety-guarantee brigade, who is to stand on the outside guard? Or is

there any modern Fighting Line? Or does the Fighting Line belong to

the old Shibboleth legends of Canaanite and Jebusite and Perizzite and

God knows what other "ite"? I hear these ancient gentry preached about

and the heroes who smote them hip and thigh extolled. Personally, I am

a great deal more interested in the modern tussle for a promised land

than in those old time frays for a fertile patch in a sterile

wilderness; and I see the same call for the hero's fighting edge; and I

like the MacDonalds, who jump out from behind the Safety Line to fight

for right, though it bring but the bloody bullet holes in the soft of

the temple; and I like the Waylands, who take up the game trail to run

down crime though it bring the sword of dismissal dangling over their

own heads; and I like best of all the Matthews, who throw aside their

"skin-dicate contracts" to take up the game of playing as joyfully for

right as they have for wrong, "rich" (I wish you could have heard the

full way in which he said that word) "rich" on "thirty dollars a year

for clothes," spending self without stint, joyfully, unknowing of

self-pity, for the making of right into might, for the making of a

patch of human weeds into a garden of goodness. Only, I would put on

record the fact that each man's reward was not the hero's crown of

laurel leaves, but the crown that their great prototype wore upon the

Cross.

Eleanor could not understand why she had been formally notified to

attend the coroner's inquest till the drift of the questions began to

indicate that this investigation like many another was not an

investigation to _find out_ but an investigation to _hush up_, not a

following of the clues of evidence but a deliberate attempt to throw

pursuit off on false clues. In fact, there were many things about that

inquest which Eleanor could not fathom. Why, for instance was the

local district attorney not present? Why had the Smelter Coking

Company a special pleader present? Why was the great Federal

Government not represented by an attorney of equal ability, instead of

this downy-lipped silent and incredibly ignorant youth? Why was the

first session of the inquest adjourned till the burial of her father?

Why did the sheriff act as a mentor at the ear of the chief coroner?

Why did the justice of the peace acting as coroner listen to all

suggestions from the Smelter Company's attorney and the Sheriff, and

reject all suggestions from her father's friends? Why was the

stenographer instructed to erase some evidence and preserve other?

What was the ground of discrimination? If you doubt whether these

things are ever done, dear reader; then, peruse with close scrutiny the

first criminal trial that comes under your notice; and see if you think

that the term of the Old Dispensation 'wresting the judgment' has

become obsolete? You don't suppose those long-whiskered old patriarchs

openly took the bribe in hand and right before the claimants, tucked

the loose shekels into the wide phalacteries of holy skirts--do you?

Yet, there were certain features of that inquest which awakened strange

hope in her breast. It was held in the county court room; and the

crowd gathering to listen and hear somehow gave her a different

impression from the unwashed rabble that usually infests public courts

to feast on the carrion of criminal proceedings. Men predominated, of

course; but they were decent men, men of standing, not idlers and

blacklegs. As she passed up the aisle with Matthews and Mrs. Williams

to the front row of chairs where the news editor and Wayland and

Brydges and the youth from Washington were already seated, she heard a

man's voice say, "They've gone too far this time, by Jingo! It will

take more than wind-jamming to win next fall's elections with this

against them."

"You bet there's an awakening," returned another voice.

"The-dyed-in-the-woollies don't realize yet; but they will waken up

after election day!"

The news editor had only finished giving evidence; on the whole

immaterial testimony; for suspicions do not pass with juries and

coroners.

"How was it you attended the examination of this mine?" was the last

question asked him.

Considering the Smelter City lots, for which the news editor had yet to

pay and the "kiddies" which he had to support, it would have been an

easy matter for him 'to slink' that question. "A newspaper man's

pursuit of a good story" would have been answer enough to satisfy any

coroner; but the news editor did not give that answer. He took off his

glasses and polished the lenses with his handkerchief. Then, he put

them back on his nose and looked straight at the gentleman presiding.

"May I answer that question in my own way, taking plenty of time?" he

asked. "I take it this inquest is being held to get at the real truth."

The coroner said, "Go ahead!"

The attorney for the Smelter City Coking Company sat up and whispered

something to Brydges. The handy man turned lazily round. "Yes," he

said, "one of our staff."

The news editor cleared his throat, and a little sharp intersection of

lines bridged above his nose.

"For some little time, it has been known in the Valley that a quiet

contest has been going on."

The attorney for the Smelter City Coking Company jumped to his feet.

"The witness should keep to a strict recital of fact, not rumors," he

interjected; and the downy-lipped representative of the Federal

Government said nothing about the privileges of a witness, or the

impropriety of a special pleader opening his mouth at an inquest.

"Confine yourself to facts," ordered the coroner heavily.

Wayland and Eleanor suddenly leaned forward. The news editor rubbed

his glasses and resumed in a low clear tense voice. How many of the

listeners had the faintest idea of what the recital cost him?

"I take it the object of this inquest is to ascertain facts. If I am

to relate facts, I must repeat that for some little time it has been

known in the Valley that a quiet contest has been going on between the

people and certain interests which I do not need to name. It was well

known in our office that the miners on Coal Hill had openly boasted no

Washington man was going to get away with any facts about mining

operations. O'Finnigan of Shanty Town had boasted he had been brought

down from the Ridge for 'a surprise party' as he called it. For some

little time, as news editor I had been dissatisfied with the reports of

this whole struggle: they struck me as exceedingly biased and

untruthful; in fact what the reporters call 'doped news'; 'news doped

by outsiders for special reasons of their own.'"

Bat's boot came down with a clump on the floor. The attorney was up

again, glaring at the coroner. The news editor cleared his throat.

"So I determined to go and see this thing for myself--"

"With the result," roared the attorney, "that you saw every facility

afforded for the most thorough examination of the mine."

There was a shuffling of feet among the men at the back of the room.

More men seemed to be crowding in.

"That," said the news editor aloud, sitting back beside Wayland, "That

effectually cooks my dough! See that you fellows do as well!"

Eleanor was next questioned, most considerately and courteously. Twice

she was interrupted. The first time was when she repeated that her

father had said he expected no trouble whatsoever.

"I would call your attention to the fact, Mr. Coroner, that the

deceased gentleman assured his daughter he expected no trouble

whatsoever," called out the attorney.

The Sheriff leaned over and whispered to the coroner.

"Did the half-breed woman known as Calamity leave the Ranch House the

night before the examination of the mine?" asked the coroner.

It was when Eleanor was describing the mad look of Calamity that the

attorney again interrupted:

"Mr. Coroner, out of respect to the memory of the deceased gentleman

and to the member of his family present, I ask that the stenographer

strike out the record of the insane woman's babblings! The fact is

established on the word of Miss MacDonald that the Indian woman set out

with the express intention of seeking her employer. What she intended

to do when she found him, we cannot know; for the woman was plainly

insane and her word is worthless."

Bat wore a tallow smile. The attorney's expression became inscrutable.

Sheriff Flood's face shone as a new moon. The other faces were a

puzzled blank.

"You want to check that," whispered the news editor to Wayland.

Matthews was being questioned.

"Before A proceed t' answer y'r verra civil inquiries, Mr. Coroner, A

wud ask the privilege o' puttin' three questions!"

"Go ahead, Sir!"

"Why is the man O'Finnigan not here?"

"Still drunk," answered the Sheriff.

"Then, if A commit a crime, if A cut y'r throat, Mr. Coroner, all A

have t' do t' avoid awkward questions, is t' fill up? Verra well! Why

is the woman Calamity, herself, not here?"

"Can't be found," called Wayland.

"So that if A'm accused of a crime A know no more about than th' babe

unborn, all A've t' do t' rivet that crime on myself for life is not to

be found? Verra well--"

"Sir," interrupted the coroner.

"A wud ask why is that little Irish lassie not here?"

Mrs. Williams explained that Lizzie, having exhausted the Indian

children with her boastings in two days, had lost interest in life and

run back to the slums.

"A always did say if y' took a pig out o' a pen an' putt it in a

parlor, 'twould feel lonesome for its hogwash," exclaimed the old

frontiersman running a puzzled hand through his mop of white hair.

Matthews also was twice interrupted in his testimony. He was

explaining that he anticipated trouble about the mine from what had

already happened on the Rim Rocks when Wayland trod forcibly and

sharply on his foot; and all reference to the pursuit across the Desert

was omitted. The coroner, it seemed, did not want any details about

the Rim Rocks. The second interruption came when he began to quote

Mistress Lizzie O'Finnigan's words those afternoons on the Ridge. The

attorney sprang up:

"As the child is an incorrigible liar and her father an incorrigible

drunkard, Mr. Coroner, I think it only fair to the Company that their

aspersions and reference to us be stricken off the records;" and the

coroner instructed the stenographer to erase all reference to Lizzie's

babbling.

The old frontiersman sat back with a dazed feeling that while he had

expressed anticipation of trouble at the mine, he had failed to give

proof or reason for that anticipation.

Brydges' evidence was innocuous to the very end. The Sheriff had

whispered something to the coroner.

"Is there any reason why anyone in the Valley might harbor a grudge

against the sheep rancher?" asked the coroner.

Brydges hesitated as one who could say much if he would. "Yes, there

is," he answered lowering his eyes and flushing dully.

It was the attorney again who was on his feet.

"Mr. Coroner, the dead cannot defend themselves. Out of respect to the

deceased gentleman and the member of his family present, I think that

line of enquiry ought not to be recorded or pursued."

"The second time they have said that; what do they mean?" Eleanor asked

Mrs. Williams in a whisper.

Matthews was hanging on to his chair to hold himself down and the news

editor had leaned across Eleanor to speak to Wayland: "Good God,

Wayland! Don't you see the drift? Can't you head that off?"

"Leave 't' me," muttered the old frontiersman gripping his chair.

"But you have given your evidence: Wayland is our only chance left.

Don't you see how they'll clinch it?"

"Hold y'r head shut," ordered Matthews.

Wayland was giving his evidence, as little as he could possibly give,

it seemed to Eleanor, from the time he had telephoned down to her

father to come and take corroborative proof of the value of the coal

mines.

"You did not anticipate any trouble about the examination?"

"None whatever," answered Wayland. He had described the examination of

the two tunnels and the preparation to go down the shaft when the

Sheriff again whispered to the coroner.

"When MacDonald seemed to change his mind about going down the shaft,

was there anyone visible except the Sheriff?"

"Not that I saw," answered Wayland; and he went on to describe the

cutting of the cable and the climb up the side of the shaft.

Eleanor became suddenly conscious that tense stillness reigned in the

county court room. Some man standing behind the back benches shuffled

his feet and cleared his throat with an offensive "hem." The roomful

of people looked back angrily. The attorney had pencilled a line on a

scrap of paper and shoved it across in front of the coroner. Through

the open windows, Eleanor could see that a great concourse of people

was gathering outside.

"When you found the body, was anyone else present at the top of the

shaft?"

For the fraction of a second, Eleanor wondered if they meant to cast

suspicion on the Ranger.

"Yes," answered Wayland, "the woman, Calamity was lying on the ground

sobbing to break her heart. No one else was visible."

"You say the wound was such that it could not possibly have been

self-inflicted?"

"You determined that for yourselves, when you examined the body,"

answered Wayland.

"Was the woman's position such that she might have shot him?"

"The shot was in the right temple, close; close enough to scorch the

face! You have the record of that! The woman was kneeling on the

ground a little to the left facing him."

"Did she carry a weapon?"

"She did not."

"How do you know she had not one concealed?"

"Because I caught her by the shoulders and lifted her up and shook her

and said, 'Calamity, who did this?'"

"What did she answer?"

The attorney was on his feet with a bang of his fist on the table that

shut off the answer:

"Mr. Coroner, this evidence has proceeded far enough to show that the

death of the deceased gentleman had absolutely no connection whatever

with the official examination of the mines. The dead cannot defend

themselves. Out of respect to the deceased and the member of his

family--"

"That," interrupted Matthews, breaking from his chair, "is the third

time th' insinuation has been thrown out that MacDonald had things in

his life that wud na bear tellin'! A know his life: A know all his

life: ask me!"

But the attorney and the coroner were in an endless wrangle as to law,

that was Hebrew to the listeners, and gave the roomful of spectators

ample time to imbibe the false impression that was meant to be

conveyed, and to pass it to the prurient crowd outside. After a half

hour of reading from authorities to prove that the answer was

inadmissible as evidence, and another half hour rattling off counter

authorities at such a rate the listeners could not possibly judge for

themselves, the coroner reserved decision as to whether that answer

could be admitted as evidence or not, coming as it did from a person

plainly of unsound mind.

"What next happened?"

"I tied a stone to the cut end of the cable and unrolled the rope on

the hoist and gave it a hard enough pitch to send the stone past the

bend in the shaft."

"And when you turned to work the hoist and bring up the others?"

"And when I turned to work the hoist, the Indian woman was nowhere to

be seen. The chances are she knew the guilty parties would try to

throw the blame--"

"Mr. Coroner," shouted the attorney, "there can be no chances recorded

as evidence where the reputation of a gentleman, who cannot defend

himself, is concerned."

"Good God," said the news editor under his breath.

"Humph! A'll put a crimp in that! The Sheriff man is to give evidence

yet! Eleanor, y' better not wait! A'm goin' t' do some plain speakin'

t' y' father's honor, but 'tis not talk for a woman's ears! Y've heard

y'r father defamed."

"Then, I'll wait and hear him cleared," she whispered to Mrs. Williams.

"Will you stay?"

The Sheriff had gone round in front of the table, not too near it for

obvious reasons; for the time of his revenge had come and his rotundity

protruded full blown and swelling. He told how MacDonald had refused

to go down the shaft.

"Do you know any reason for that sudden change of mind?"

"I don't know whether it's the reason or not; but somethin' happened

jes' as he had his leg up to climb in, _might a' made_ him change his

mind! Th' squaw come ridin' all bareheaded, an' mad as a hornet out o'

th' cottonwoods wavin' her hands roarin' crazy! Minit he seen her, he

quit goin' down: said he'd give me a hand at the hoist! I seen what

made him change his mind al' right! She waz ravin' mad, come rampin'

out, then, she seen me, an' kin' o' hiked back ahint the cottonwood;

but I seen her plain! Jes as we commenced unwindin' her--"

"You mean the hoist?"

"Yes, jes' as we began lettin' her down, I sees O'Finnigan come up from

Smelter City trail roarin' drunk, ugly drunk, yellin' 'Hell: he waz

Uncle Sam,' an' all that."

"If y'll not admit the child's story of her father, why d' y' admit

this man's story of him?" demanded Matthews; but the coroner ignored

the interruption and the doughty defender of the law continued.

"I put up with his drunken yellin' till I felt the bucket bump the

first level. Then I sez, 'Now, my gen'leman, hand over that bottle o'

tipperary, an' scat out o' this!' There it is," the Sheriff laid a

black square whiskey bottle on the desk. "He began jawin' an' cuttin'

up gineral. T' make a long story short, I took him by the scruff o'

th' neck and helped him down Smelter City trail an'-an'-an' I jugged

him: that's all; an' there he is yet! When I came back up, this had

happened."

"When you arrested O'Finnigan for drunkenness, where was the woman,

Calamity?"

"Hidin' back among th' cottonwoods! She'd slid off her horse! Jes' as

I turned down the trail, I looked back! She waz comin' peepin' out

from tree t' tree!"

"How was MacDonald standing?"

"He waz standin' with his back t' her, with his hand hangin' kind o'

loose from th' hoist waitin' for 'em t' ring th' bell t' let her down

t' next level!"

There was a long silence. Eleanor had turned very white. The eyes of

the news editor emitted sparks.

"I expected that," commented Wayland.

"Y' d', did y'?" rumbled Matthews. "Then A 'll wager y 'll nut be

expectin' what A 'll spring!"

The room suddenly filled with a rustling and whispering. Men were

demonstrating exactly how it had happened. The handy man's tallow

smile melted on his face; and the tortoise shell eyes looked sidewise

at Wayland. The look wasn't malicious; and it wasn't triumphant. It

was the look of a gambler saying, "Come on my four-flusher, beat that!

Show down!" The rabble outside deployed off the pavement across the

street back a whole block. Eleanor could hear the hum through the open

window.

The attorney was leaning across the table conferring with the coroner.

The coroner rapped the table and cried for "order."

The room suddenly silenced.

"Gentlemen, as this evidence will have to be handed in to the district

attorney for what action he deems best, I wish to ask one more

question. Mr. Sheriff, you know this Valley and the people in it well?"

"I do, known it for twenty years."

"Do you know of any reason why this woman Calamity would have shot or

wished to shoot, her employer, MacDonald?"

The Sheriff changed a quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other.

Eleanor leaned forward looking straight in his eyes. Bat was eyeing

Eleanor quizzically. (Had he constructed the evidence so skilfully

that he had come to believe it himself?) Matthews was almost tearing

the arms out of the chair where he sat.

"Well," said Sheriff Flood clasping his hands in rest across his portly

person. "I guess squaw is same as any other woman in _one_ respect. I

guess she had same reason for shootin' MacDonal' as any other woman in

her place would o' had," and he looked up well pleased with himself at

the roomful. For a moment, there was deadly heavy silence; then the

hum of the crowd on the steps pouring the word out to those in the

street.

"Ye lyin' scut[1]! Ye filthy cess pool o' dirt an' falsehood!"

The old frontiersman had sprung from his place and smashed his chair in

twenty atoms on the table between the sheriff and the coroner.

"Y'll not offend the deceased gentleman's memory? Y'll not offend his

daughter here? An' the dead can't defend themselves? An' y're all s'

verra delicate y're lettin' a stinkin' slanderous unclean unspoken

damnable hell-spawned lie go forth unchallenged t' blacken a dead man's

memory? Oh, A know y'r kind well! A've heard harlots lisp an' whisp'

an' half tell and damn by a lie o' th' eye! Y' are insinuatin' this

woman Calamity shot her master to avenge dishonor in her early life?

'Tis a lie! 'Tis a most damnable black an' filthy lie! She wud a'

died for MacDonald ten thousand times over if she could, because he had

long ago, before ever he came here, avenged _her_ dishonor."

The coroner had sprung back from the table. The mighty man of valor,

who defended law, had precipitately put the space of overturned benches

between himself and the irate old frontiersman. Matthews suddenly

swung to face the spectators.

"Men," he cried, "foul murder has been done; and this slander is t'

fasten guilt on a poor innocent outcast woman, t' send her a scapegoat

int' th' wilderness bearin' th' sins o' those higher up that A do na'

name; of y'r Man Higher Up, who is the curse o' this land! 'Twas in my

boyhood days on Saskatchewan! This woman, that y' have seen wander the

Black Hills sinnin' unashamed, was but a fair slip o' an Indian girl,

then, pure as y'r own girls in school! She married a little Indian

boy, Wandering Spirit o' the Crees at Frog Lake! The Indian Officer at

Frog Lake was a Sioux half-breed--he took her forcibly from Wandering

Spirit t' th' Agency House! 'Twas y'r sheep rancher, MacDonald, who

was fur trader then, went forcibly to th' Agency House, thrashed the

Agent, and brought her back to the Indian, Wandering Spirit! A was

passin' West by dog train to the Mountains when A stopped at the Agency

House! MacDonald had gone North. Little Wandering Spirit comes and

asks me t' interpret something he has to say t' th' Master--meanin'

that danged unclean Sioux beast. Says I, 'Wandering Spirit has

something not pleasant t' say t' you: Y' better get another

interpreter.' The officer says, 'Spit it out! Y' can't phase me.'

Boys, A spit it out. A gave it to him plain! The boy Indian stood in

the door o' th' Agency House holdin' a loaded dog-train whip hidden

behind his back. He was na' but half as big as the brute behind the

Government desk! He says, 'Tell the Master he must leave my wife

alone! If ever he comes near m' tepee again, A do to him like that,'

rolling a dead leaf t' powder 'tween his hands. The officer lets out a

roar o' filthy oaths! I hear the little Indian give a scream like a

hurt wild cat. 'He calls me a dog--a son of a dog,' he screams; an'

boys, with one leap he was over that counter with his dog whip; an'

what A did t' y'r Sheriff last week in the Pass is nothing to what that

bit of an Indian boy did t' yon bullying Agent! He thrashed him, an'

he thrashed him, an' he chased him bellowin' round the Agency House

till the blackguard's pants were ribbons an' the blood stripes reached

down an' soaked his socks. Boys, A went on to th' Mountains! When A

came back next year an' when MacDonald came back from MacKenzie River,

we found that Agent had had Little Wandering Spirit arrested by the

Mounted Police for assault an' battery, an' sentenced to a year in th'

penitentiary! 'Twas too late to undo the wrong! Th' girl, th' woman

y' know as Calamity, had gone insane from abuse! A helped to pry her

dead child from her arms! A helped the priest t' bury it in the snow!

Next year, was the Rebellion! Y'r sheepman an' his wife, Miss Eleanor

here was na' born then, had come down from the North. The Indians

loved him. They'd never touch _him_; but when the Rebellion broke out,

'twas Wandering Spirit went dancing mad for revenge from one end o' the

Reserve t' th' other! When the massacre came, the officer had tripped

the little Indian fellow to his face an' was pointin' the old muzzle

loader at the back o' his head to blow out his brains, when along comes

the MacDonald man an' kicks the gun from the bully's hand! Little

Wandering Spirit up an' he pours that muzzle loader into the officer's

face; an' he borrows another gun an' empties that in his face; and he

snatches a knife; an' what he left o' that brute y' could bury in a

coffin th' length o' y'r hand! 'Twas th' Indian's way o' vengeance;

but blame fell on MacDonald; an' when Wandering Spirit was hanged for

the murder, MacDonald fled from Canada; for his sympathies were with

the Indians, as every right feelin' man's were;[2] for back a

generation, there was Indian blood on the mother's side; but the Act o'

Amnesty has been passed this many a year; an' A'd come to take him back

to a fortune waitin' him in Scotland, to an inheritance when this

happened.

"Y' know how he found her again, eatin' garbage in the Black Hills

where the miners had cast her off; how he gave her an asylum an' a

home; an' this is the man y'r fulthy sheriff poltroon coward says she'd

shoot! Men, men o' th' Nation, murder has been done here: coward

assassin murder on an innocent man! The notes on the mine have been

robbed from his pocket. Who planned this murder? Who shot MacDonald

by mistake? Who planned th' Rim Rocks outrage? Is it to this y' have

let y'r Democracy come? Is this y'r self government workin' worse

outrage than the despotism o' Russia? We'd have hanged our kings in

Scotland for less sin! France would a' tanned her rulers' hide into

moccasins for less! What are y' goin' to do about it." His shout rang

and rang through the court. "Will ye make of self-government a farce,

a screamin' shame, a shriekin' laughter in th' ears o' th' world?"

There were cries of "Sit down! Sit down! Shut up! Go on! Who is the

old tow-head?" Then some one cried out "Moyese." Half the spectators

cheered. Half hissed. Then a voice yelled "Wayland! Wayland!" and

Eleanor felt the leap to her blood; for the crowd outside took up the

cry "Wayland, Wayland? What's the matter with Wayland?"

The Sheriff and Coroner were on the table shouting for "order--order"

when some wag heaved under and upset table, sheriff, coroner and all.

The last Eleanor saw before the news editor and Wayland pushed Mrs.

Williams and herself through a door behind the coroner's seat to a

taxicab that whirled them off to the hotel, was a wild sprawling of the

Sheriff coming down in mid-air. Bat Brydges and the downy-lipped

youth, chalky white as a dead birch tree, were letting themselves

hastily out through a back window. Matthews was being carried down the

aisle on the shoulders of a howling rabble of men and boys. His head

was bare; his coat was almost torn from his shoulders. His face was

passionate with jubilant laughter. "Yell, boys! Yell for Wayland," he

was urging. Could Eleanor have known what happened at the door, her

heart would have beat still faster. The old frontiersman brought her

word two hours later when he joined them at the hotel.

"They hauled me out to th' steps o' th' court house," he said, "an' A

says 'Yell boys! Yell, Yell like Hell for Wayland!' An' they set me

down on th' steps an' began yellin' 'Speech! Speech!' A held up m'

two hands like this. 'Men,' says I, 'y' ask for a word! Well, A'll

give it t' you. A'll give it t' y' from the door o' y'r own sacred

court o' justice, which y' have seen profaned this day by injustice,

an' a lie, an' a bribe into th' bedlam o' a mob! Y' ask for a word. A

will give it y', _Men o' the United States o' the World_; Men o'

Liberty; Men o' Strength; the world has its eye on ye! What will y'

do? M' word is this t' all time: M' word is th' simple word o' the old

prophets that ye conned by heart at y'r mother's knee: Y' ha' seen the

author o' crime an' outrage an' murder tryin' to wrest the judgment, t'

pervert the court, to slander the dead, t' send into th' wilderness a

poor innocent scapegoat o' sin, to defile the vera presence o' death.

An' ye ha' seen a young man single-handed fightin' for right, to save

y'r land from the looters, an' y'r forests from the timber thieves, an'

y'r mines from the coal pirates! Y' ha' seen evil an' good an' the

fruits o' them! _Choose ye this day which ye will serve_!' Man alive,

Wayland, ye should a' heard them! They yelled like Hell for y'! They

yelled till they split the welkin! They yelled, Wayland, till A

couldna' keep th' tears from m' eyes; an' then, man alive, they yelled

more than ever! Whiles we were yellin' and riproarin' outside, y'r

brave Sheriff man, he gets the door shut an' locked, an' the windows

down, an' the shades all drawn; an' they brings in a verdict o' 'come

to his death by the hands o' parties unknown.' Oh, A'll warrant 'twill

be 'by the hands o' parties unknown.' They'll never more try t' fasten

that crime on poor old Calamity; tho' she's no so old when y' come t'

think o' it, except in her bein' sore sinned against."

"I wonder if they'll try to come down on you for the disorder," asked

Wayland.

The old frontiersman chuckled. "A wish t' God they would," he said.

"What A'm wonderin' is what y' fat Bat fellow's doin'?"

"Oh, I can tell you that," answered the news editor. "Bat is singing

small! I'll bet you a five there won't be a line nor the fraction of a

line of all this in the local papers; nor as much as a blank space

about it in any other paper. My God, if I could only lay my hand on a

moneyed man who would back a paper thro' a fight like this and tell the

counting rooms to go to the Devil! I know a score of editors would

jump for the job and work their heads off! You needn't think we are

specially keen for eating dog on this kind of a job! 'Tisn't the men

inside the office bedevil us: 'tis y'r outside interest--"

Eleanor gave him a quick queer look. She was learning to think fast

and decide quickly. But the news editor was quite right. Not a word

of the disgraceful attempt to pervert justice appeared in either the

local or any other paper. MacDonald's death was briefly recorded as

accidental and the coroner's verdict given in a four line paragraph.

Do not ask me the _why_ of this, dear reader; or I shall ask you the

why of a hundred other equally mysterious silences. Don't forget, as

Wayland has already informed you, there are other countries besides

Russia where everything is not given out to the press. And do not

curse the press! It is not the fault of the press in Russia. Is it

here?

[1] I can find no authority for the old frontiersman's use of the word

but in a certain Elizabethan dramatist; and as he uses the word "scut"

for the bobtail of a fleeing rabbit or sheep, perhaps the meanings of

the word as used are identical.--_Author_.

[2] It need scarcely be explained these are the old frontiersman's

sentiments, not the writer's; but on investigation I found his

statement of facts as to what transformed little Wandering Spirit into

a blood-thirsty monster was absolutely true. This, of course, did not

justify the Rebellion, but helps to explain it, to explain why a

worthless scamp like Riel could rouse the peaceful natives to blood

thirst and rapine.--_Author_.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE AWAKENING CONTINUED

It was all over, the inquest, the coroner's finding, the reading of the

will, the revelation of the real errand on which the old frontiersman

had come from Saskatchewan. The parting of the ways had come to her,

as it comes to us all. The death of her father had shut the door on

opportunity in the Valley; and the little old lady, waiting for

Matthews up in Prince Albert, Canada, to take her back to the

inheritance of her father's family in Scotland, opened elsewhere

another door of opportunity. As one door had swung shut, another had

swung open. Were we creatures of circumstances, as the fatalists

declared; or could we master and bend circumstances to human will? Was

her feeling of rebellion but the kicking of ructious heels against the

closed door of fate? Would time teach the futility of barking one's

shins in such fashion? Eleanor sat in the parlor of the suite of rooms

reserved by the Williams and herself. The Williams and Matthews had

gone out for the evening to some women's club meeting on missions.

Eleanor's nerves were too tension-strung for people to-night. They had

read her father's will that afternoon. The quiet man doing the duty

next and making no professions had left her secure against want; and

after the lawyer who read the will had gone, the Williams went out, and

Matthews had drawn his chair near to hers and told her the same story

of her father's people that he had told Wayland in the Desert.

"They were a' dark fearsome men," he had said, telling her of the first

Fraser-MacDonald who fought with Wolfe at Quebec, and the Man of the

Iron Hand. "They were a' dark fearsome men; but of stainless honor,

child! Not a man of them left a bar sinister on th' scutcheon! Even

the man who married th' squaw, had a priest tie th' knot so that

children would come stainless t' life; but they were dark fearsome men,

undyin' in their hates an' unhappy in their loves. Y'r own mother's

people turned against y'r father for th' part he took in th' Rebellion."

"Don't you think," asked Eleanor, "it's time one of the race broke the

spell of unhappy love?"

"Aye, child! 'Tis why A'd take y' back t' th' little old lady waitin'

in Prince Albert, an' put y' in y'r own place in th' halls o' Scotland?

D' y' know there's been none o' y'r race direct t' occupy th' manor

since th' first Frazer fled from th' Jacobite Rebellion to French

Canada? 'Twas part o' his stubborn spirit that he fought for the

Nation that had cast him out."

"Oh, I'm not interested in the Jacobites and Wolfe and things of the

past," interrupted Eleanor. "I want to live my life full in the

present."

"Aye; an' 'tis because y're a Fraser-MacDonald of the Lovatt clan that

ye want t' live a full present! If you were an upstart new-rich, my

dear, y'd be sellin' y'r soul t' th' Devil an' y'r body t' some leprous

kite with ulcerous weddin' kisses for the privilege o' claimin' this

inheritance that's yours! There's a male decendant o' some collateral

line on th' place adjoinin' yours. Man alive, he's had th' pick o'

every pork packer's an' brewer's daughter; but he's waitin' th' little

lady who's his aunt t' come back from Prince Albert--"

He knew the minute he had spoken that he had struck a false note.

Eleanor jumped from her chair.

"Oh, bother the little lady at Prince Albert. Leave me, please! I

want to think--"

He withdrew as far as the door. "Would y' like me to see y'r lawyer

man 'bout puttin' th' ranch lands o' th' Upper Pass on th' market, an'

settlin' up th' estate?"

"No," answered Eleanor. "I'm not going to sell any of my father's

estate."

And when Matthews withdrew to join the Williams at the missionary

meeting, she burst into tears.

She went across to the window wondering about Wayland. She had not

seen him since early morning, before breakfast, when he called at the

sitting room door to arrange their return up the Valley next day. The

Williams and Matthews would go up in the buckboard. Would she ride

back up the hog's back trail with him? He would hire horses and riding

togs now if she would say? Yes, he knew it would be steep up grade;

but then, they could go it slow; he laughed as he said that. You see

the hog's back trail was fifteen miles shorter than the Valley road and

they could afford to go it slow; in fact, _very slow_.

"Come on in," urged Eleanor, throwing open the parlor door. "The

Williams are not up, yet!"

"That's why I came! No, I'll not come in: not much! I'm keeping

resolutions!"

She had not understood the wistfulness beneath his forced gayety until

Matthews told her all that afternoon.

"It will be our last ride: you'll come, won't you?" asked Wayland.

She had promised. Then, she had spent a most miserable morning. Why

was it to be the _last_ ride? She had not cared to go out. Though the

papers had suppressed all details of the cowardly assassination, the

glare of publicity had been focussed too keenly on her for comfort by

that explosion of the old frontiersman in the court room. She had

remained in all morning watching the motley crowds of a frontier town

surge past the hotel windows down the dusty hot main street, with its

medley of fine brick blocks, and poor shacks, and saloons, and false

fronts--little unpainted restaurants and cigar stands and gambling

places of one-story, with a false timber wall running up a couple of

stories.

"United States of the World," the old frontiersman had called this

country. Surely that was the true name of the wonderful new country

that had defied all traditions and mingled in her making the races from

every corner of the world! An immigrant train had come in. Eleanor

lifted the parlor window, and looked, and listened. Jap and Chinese

and Hindoo--strikingly tall fellows with turbaned head gear; negro and

West Indians and Malay; German and Russian and Poles and Assyrians. In

half an hour, she did not hear one word of pure English, or what could

be called American. Oh, it was good to be alive in this wonderful new

world under these wonderful new conditions working out the age-old

problem of right and wrong that had defied solution since time began!

She did not mind the crudity. And if I am to be frank, she did not

mind the rudity. It was not a boiled shirt-front, kid-glove world. In

fact, at that moment she saw her hero stage driver shooting out tobacco

squids at the innocent granolithic, which showed no target because so

many other contributors had preceded the stage driver. In fact, it was

not a world for a lady with a train, though Eleanor saw some trollopy

immigrant "ladies" emerging from a big tent on a back lot decked with

tawdry lace and sporting trains in inverse proportions to the

sufficiency of their "h's." Nor was it a perfumed world. She could

smell the reek of the whiskey saloons all down the street--eleven of

them, there were in a succession of twelve buildings; and the twelfth

building, if Eleanor had known it, was a gambling joint of the Chinese

variety that had iron shutters and iron doors and signs up for

"Gentlemen Only." Let us hope, dear reader, that "gentlemen only"

entered behind the dark of those iron doors! She could not help

wondering had the old day passed forever in the West. Was a new day

not dawning? What was to become of all these incoming people? Could

the cattle barons and the sheep kings and the land rings fence them off

the vast, broad, idle acres forever?

Yet this was the world where her father had come penniless, a refugee

from miscarried justice, and had won out. It was the world where he

had been shot down by some miserable, criminal assassin, who, it was

more than likely, had mistaken him for Wayland. It was Wayland's

world, a world in the making. Well had Matthews designated it--The

United States of the World! More Jews than in Palestine; more Germans

than in Berlin; more Italians than in Rome; more Russians than in St.

Petersburg; more Canadians than in any four Canadian cities combined;

more descendants of the British than in the British Isles--the United

States of the World in the Making! Was it any wonder crime was

rampant; and Democracy rocked to the shock of collision and

miscalculation and inexperience; and Righteousness became a tacking to

progress, not a straight line, like the zig-zag of the ship making

headway all the time, but tacking back and forward to wind and current?

It was good to be alive and take part in the making of the United

States of the World!

She had had breakfast and luncheon in her apartments. At mid-day, she

saw Wayland coming along the thronged main street. At every step, some

man stopped him to shake hands; and groups turned and gazed after him

as he passed, and spat their approval or disapproval with great

emphasis at the mottled pavement. Below the window, a big Swede

grabbed his two shoulders with the grip of a steam crane.

"Say, you Vaylan', huh?" he asked. "Say, you a' right! You ever need

yob, Vaylan', you 'ply our union! Huh?" and he laughed, and went on;

and the tears welled to Eleanor's eyes.

Then came the lawyer to read the will; and after the lawyer's

departure, Matthews had told her how she concerned his errand down from

the North; and when the door closed on Matthews, she burst into tears.

She saw the street lights come twinkling out, and she did not turn on

the light of the sitting room chandelier. Did he love her at all; or

if he did, did he know what this waiting all day meant to a woman?

Then, it came to her in a flash, his wistful look in the morning behind

the forced gayety, his reference to the last ride, to keeping

resolutions. Was that resolution for the sake of his work at all; or

for her? Of course, Matthews had told him in the Desert; and with the

thought, the weight that had oppressed her rolled from her heart. She

jumped from her chair and uttered a low cry of happy laughter.

"Oh, I'll soon make short work of that resolution," she vowed.

Alas and alas! Samson straining his manhood for strength to shore up a

resolution, and here was a sharpening of scissors to shear him well!

There was a knock on the door. She thought it the waiter coming up

with a late dinner and had called "come in," when the door opened, and

in the glare of light from the hall way stood the news editor,

embarrassed and hesitating.

"Please come in." She pressed the electric button, shook hands with

him and shut the door. His air was at once apologetic and glad, but

all the bitterness and anger seemed to have gone. He stood holding his

soft felt hat in his hand and looking through his glasses, very

steadily and kindly, Eleanor thought.

"Won't you sit down?"

"We newspaper chaps should pretty nearly apologize for coming into your

presence, Miss MacDonald," he began. "I've wanted to tell you how we

fellows all regret that. I hope you know that kind of thing doesn't

come from inside the office. It comes from influences outside."

He had seated himself shading his eyes from the light with his hand, an

old trick of his compositor days, and still looked at her in the same

friendly way.

"Ever hear of the Down-East daily that black-guarded one of our

greatest presidents the very day he died? I've often wondered if the

public realized when that item appeared that not an editor on the staff

knew it was coming out, that when two of the editors read it, they

cried and went to pieces right there and then before their men for very

shame! Item had been sent straight to the composing room just before

the forms were locked up, by man who owned the paper. President had

refused him some public concession. Such things sometimes happen to

lesser folks than presidents."

"Were you so kind as to come here to say all this to me?" asked Eleanor.

"No, Miss MacDonald, I wasn't!" He blushed furiously, like a boy

caught in the act culpable. "Fact is, I'm keen to see Wayland, been

such a crush of men round him all day, haven't been able to get in a

word with him."

It was her turn to blush furiously.

"I didn't want him to go off up the Valley before I could get hold of

him. I wanted to have a shake with him. We're in the same boat now,

Miss MacDonald."

"I don't the very least bit in the world understand what you are

saying."

The news editor laughed and laid his hat on the onyx centre table

beneath the electric lights.

"Why, we're both fired," he said.

"Fired?" repeated Eleanor.

This time he laughed aloud: "I don't mean fired out of a gun," he

explained. "We're fired out of our job. I knew after the inquest, I'd

get the sack," he went on, making light of it, "but the wire didn't

come till this morning."

There were a lot of things the news editor didn't tell Eleanor just

here; and I beg of you, dear reader, to remember these things when you

execrate the press; for they happen every day to plain fellows, some of

them profane fellows, who make no professions and blow no trumpet.

When the news editor walked out of the office that morning, he owned,

besides the Smelter City lots, which were mortgaged to the hilt, and

six "kiddies," who had to be fed, precisely the five dollar bill in his

pocket, the clothes on his back and the duster coat that he carried out

on his arm. It was a mere detail, of course; but it was one of the

details he didn't tell Eleanor. When he had gone home and told his

wife, she had asked, "For Heaven's sake, Joe, what ever will we do, run

a fruit stand; or peddle milk?" Joe had answered the distracted

question with a lighter hearted laugh than she had heard for many a

day. Then he had gone off to catch Wayland.

But Eleanor did not know all this. Her quick wit grasped one salient

fact. You think, perhaps, it was that Wayland had been dismissed? It

wasn't.

"You mean that you have lost your position because of the evidence you

gave for us?"

Then the news editor did what he always told his underlings not to do

and to do--"Never lie; but if you have to, lie like a gentleman."

"Not at all, Miss MacDonald! I got fired because I told the truth! If

I had given evidence that was simply in your favor, I'd deserve to be

fired; but it was only a matter of somebody letting in a little honest

daylight. I told Wayland at the time that I'd cooked my dough! Funny

enough, the wire that came firing me this morning was immediately

followed by a wire from Washington announcing that he has been

dismissed for taking three weeks' absence without leave. We got it in

the neck together, Miss MacDonald, and I thought maybe Wayland would be

game enough to have a--a--a shake with me over it."

"Yes, a shake," smiled Eleanor. "I'd like to mix it for you!"

The news editor suddenly lost all shyness, burst out laughing, leaned

forward and shook hands.

"Don't know whether you know it or not," he went on, "but about a month

ago one of those d--I beg your pardon, Miss MacDonald, Down-East

scribblerettes, that come out to see the West from a Pullman car window

and put things right, passed through here. Somebody got him and filled

him up pretty full with a lot of lies about Wayland--"

"You mean Brydges gave him the facts?" asked Eleanor.

"Well, maybe, Brydges may have had him out in the forty horse power

car! He sent a lot of awful rot East! That wasn't the worst of it.

You'd think the Eastern fellows would know the difference between a

maverick and a long-horn! He's been going round to the Eastern editors

giving them doped stuff, lies dated out here written right down in New

York! They've been hammering the Forest Service for the last month!

I'll bet that dough-head never put a foot in National Forests once

while he was West: rot about running off settlers, and shutting down

mines, and hampering lumbering operations, and low down personal stuff!

Anyway, between lies and dope, they've got Wayland! He's fired! I've

been trying to get hold of him all day. Your old man's phrase, 'United

States of the World,' kind of caught on with the crowd: they've kind of

wakened up! Funny thing, the way that happens to a crowd! Your

professional wind-jammer can orate till he busts his head, he never

knows it has happened till the crowd has got away from him! Been a

crush of men round Wayland all day, by G--, I beg your pardon--but if

he isn't drowned, 'twon't be their fault! They are talking of putting

him up as a candidate."

"As a what?" exclaimed Eleanor.

"Run for Congress," explained the news man.

She had gone quickly forward to the window, righting a shade to hide

the flood of joy that surged up to her face.

"Excuse me--Mr.----? But I don't know your name?"

"My name? Oh, my name is--Legion," said the news editor dryly.

"Well, what was it you said the other day," she had mustered courage to

turn and face him again, "what was it you said the other day about a

moneyed man backing an independent paper through this fight? Don't you

remember, after the inquest, Mr. Legion?"

He uttered a shout of laughter, and she understood and laughed too.

"Oh, the independent paper is floundering on the edge of failure.

They'll have to swing in line with the side that pays them best at

election time. One could buy up their debts now for a few thousand

dollars, perhaps not twenty thousand. Another fifty or so would swing

her off on an independent tack. There's been a great awakening. The

people have their ears down to the ground for the coming change, Miss

MacDonald; and the politicians don't know it! If we could swing her

off well, she'd be a paying concern in a year; then the politicians

could be d--I beg your pardon, the special interests could go to the

Devil! That's what I wanted to talk about to Wayland. He's the

winning horse! We haven't either of us got anything left to lose but

some frayed convictions, and by God," (this time, he did not notice he

had said it), "we'd invest 'em in an independent for all we're worth!

I'm hot; and I've an idea Wayland isn't just at milk and water

temperature; and the public isn't; and we'd have them! We'd force the

other crowd to yell at the top of their voices for reform inside of six

months. There's a lot about that Rim Rocks affair even the owners of

the sheep don't know; but why in the Devil am I telling all this to a

woman?"

She had drawn her chair up to the table where he sat.

"Because, I suppose, the woman wants to know. In case, you don't see

Wayland, do you mind giving me the exact figures about that independent

paper? We are all to go home together to-morrow. Let us put the

figures down. I can tell him the rest when the others are not about;

and do you know, I think I have heard him speak of some one who might

back this kind of scheme?"

Oh, crafty woman! Do you think the kindly eyes behind those strongly

focussed glasses did not bore in behind your guarded words? Just once

did she interrupt his quick run of explanations.

"Is your idea to run an altogether _staid_ journal, or a yellow one?"

she asked.

He was plainly taken aback. He laid down his pencil.

"If you were a man, I could explain that easier!"

"Because, I'm done with the kind of goodness that's pickled and put

away in a self-sealer where it won't spoil like old-fashioned jam for

company," she said.

The news editor's eyes opened very wide, indeed! She had said "_I'm

done_" quite as unconsciously as he had let slip words inadmissable in

polite converse.

"It isn't piety done up in homoeopathic pills the world wants," she

went on.

"No, it's punch," he broke in; "and what's the use of dickering with a

little two-for-a-cent high-brow, superior, exclusive, self-righteous

rag of a daily that will reach only a handful of sissy people?

Democracy is here; and it's here for keeps, the rule of the many good

or bad; and it's as your old parson said in the court room, it's _going

to be the United States of the World_. What's the use of issuing a rag

sheet that will preach to a little parlorful of sissies and high-brows?

You've got to get the crowd, and to educate 'em up to self-government,

to pelt 'em to a pulp with facts! You've got to get 'em if you take

them by the scruff of the neck, Miss MacDonald! While the churches and

the teachers and the preachers sit back self-superior and

self-sufficient, Miss MacDonald, where's the crowd? They're out in the

street! You've got to get 'em! You've got to get the facts before

'em! People curse the yellow journals! All right! But they reach an

audience of a million a day; every one of them; and your self-superior

journals don't touch ten-thousand! Miss MacDonald, which is having the

telling influence, for good or evil? Which is getting the crowd? Oh,

I know they publish pictures of pugilists' big toes and base ball

pitchers' thumbs the size of a half page; but if I could ram a moral

truth or a hard fact down the fool-public's throat on the very next

page by advertising it with a pugilist's big toe, I'd do it--you bet!

I'd take a leaf out of the Devil's note book and go him one better!

You ask whether I'd publish a yellow journal? Miss MacDonald, if I

could get the facts of exactly what is going on in this country before

the public, I wouldn't publish 'em yellow! I'd publish truth bloody

red!"

When the Williams and Matthews came in from the missionary meeting,

Eleanor was standing under the centre light leaning against the table

with her back to the door.

"Feeling better, dear?" asked Mrs. Williams.

"So much better that I'm going to bed to sleep every minute for the

first night for a week."

"Surely," cried Williams clapping his hands. "A MacDonald never had

nerves."

Matthews was trying to read her face as she shook hands saying

good-night.

"No," she answered his look, shaking her head, "I must decide for

myself, Mr. Matthews."

The three stood talking in the room she had left.

"Do you think we ought to have told her?" asked Mrs. Williams

solicitously.

"No! Leave Wayland t' tell her himself t'morrow! A make no doubt that

buckboard won't hold five people! Is it six o'clock we set out? A'm

longin' for m' own wee uns!"

"One thing," declared Williams, throwing himself on a chair, "if

Wayland runs, I'm going to stump it for him! We've got to get busy,

Matthews! The old order changeth! We've got to keep up with the

procession!"

If you had not known her utter conservatism as to all things pertaining

to women, you could not appreciate the response of the missionary's

wife. (She was an ultra-anti-suffragette.)

"I am sure, my dear," she cried, "I know a couple of hundred people on

our summer circuit in the Upper Pass that I could make vote right."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE UNITED STATES OF THE WORLD

"Wayland, for a man who's had his head cut off, you look uncommon

joyous, tho' you're a bit white about the chops."

"Had a shave," answered Wayland dryly.

The yellow buckboard was rattling over the pressed brick pavement of

Smelter City towards the suburbs. Williams was in the front seat with

Matthews, who was driving. Eleanor and Mrs. Williams were in the

second seat, with Wayland standing behind as he had stood that night

going up to the Rim Rocks. Behind trotted two range ponies with empty

saddles.

"I thought, perhaps, you'd prefer driving out beyond the suburbs," he

had explained. "There's a good trail up to the hog's back opposite the

_Brulé_."

They watched her leap down from the buckboard and mount the saddle, a

little awkward at first whether to put the right knee fore or aft, from

her Eastern training to a side saddle; and side saddles in the range

country are rare as low neck gowns and tuxedo coats; but once she had

caught the far stirrup, riding was riding. She had the pace, and the

two figures loped off up the burn for the hill known as the _Brulé_,

Wayland turning and waving his hat.

"Now the Lord have mercy on your soul, Williams. This ride will settle

it; an' A'm not darin' t' hope which way it goes! A 'm not keen to go

back empty-handed with yon little old lady payin' m' expenses heavy an'

generous; but yet--but yet--"

"Yet what?" asked Mrs. Williams, leaning forward between the two men.

"Th' great joy comes only once; an' when it cam' t' me, A put a

handspike thro' it, an' kept it."

He had come to her that morning with a look on his face that she had

not dreamed a human face could wear. She wondered if all men crucified

for right won such joy. And he did not tread earth. He trod air.

Eleanor could not trust her eyes to meet his. She felt their light

burning to the centre of her soul. What was it? Was it renunciation?

The thought turned her faint. Her determination to break his

resolution seemed the cheap obtrusion of egotism on the great mission

of a devoted life. Then, going up the hog's back trail along the rim

of the Ridge, they were facing the Holy Cross Mountain. The glint of

the morning sun on the far snows shone like diamonds, a tiared jeweled

thing poised in mid-heaven like a crown held by invisible hands; the

base of the lower mountain outlines melting and losing edge in the

purple shadows; the crown only, shining diademed, winged with opal

light.

"Look Dick," she said pointing with her riding crop, "do you remember

the night on the Ridge? Do you remember about the snow flakes massing

to the avalanche? It has--hasn't it? The Nation has wakened up."

Wayland looked ahead. He couldn't answer. 'Remember the night on the

Ridge?' He had a lump in his throat and an ache at his heart from

never letting himself remember it. By that strange perversity, which

we all know in ourselves, he couldn't talk. The hundred and one things

he had wanted to ask, died on his lips in a dumbness of gladness. Of

course, you, dear reader, on the return of a husband or wife

(prospective or present), on the sudden appearance of friend or kith

have never been similarly affected. You didn't forget the questions

you had meant to ask till thousands of miles again separated you.

It was good to leave the Valley road and go into seclusion and shelter

on the Forest trail; for a hurricane September wind was blowing, the

kind of Western wind that the Eastern woman with a big hat thinks is

possessed by ten thousand devils; the kind of wind that the Eastern

office man with sensitive eyes curses with tears that are not grief;

the kind of wind that makes the Westerner put screw nails in _his_ hat

and look out for the fire guard round wheat, stock and timber.

Such a different home-going he had planned from this visitation of dumb

devils that obsessed them both! He used to dream at night in the

Desert of the day, perhaps, coming when they should set out together

adventuring a life joy in the Forests; _his_ Forests; when he would

show her the golden cottonwoods and the pale birches nursing the

pineries to strong maturity; and the fire blisters on the firs; and the

sugar blisters on the sugar pines; and the rain of green-gray tempered

light from the under side of the funereal hemlocks; and the park like

glades of the wonderfully straight and serried soldier ranks of the

engleman spruce and the lodge-pole pines; and the larches yellow as

gold dust to the touch of the alchemist autumn. He wanted to bring out

his violin some day with her and see if they could catch the exact tone

and pitch of the pines, when they began harping those age-old melodies

of Pan: they were harping them to-day in the high wind; he was sure it

was the same as the bass undertone of a big orchestra. Had she ever

noticed the way the seeds came fluffing out of the cinnamon cones and

the asters and the golden rod and the fire flower in September, for all

the world like fairies sailing pixie parachutes? People said that

autumn was sad, it presaged death! Did it? A Forester did not see it

so; he saw the triumphal procession of the years lighted to its

consummation by the flaming torches of ten thousand golden twinkling

gay, recklessly gay flowers and trees--the cottonwood and the poplar

and the larch, the cone flower and the golden rod and the aster! But

to-day, he could not say a word. They were no longer _his_ Forests.

He had been cast out from his life work--the continuity of a National

Life Work broken--because he had dared to interfere with the petty

plans of peanut politicians and public plunderers.

"It is level here! Let us gallop out of this bare burn to the shelter

of the evergreens," she said. "I don't mind wind, but I'd just as soon

get under cover where it couldn't lash us so."

And the horses came chugging and breathing hard up on the sheltered

trail below the evergreens. She reined her horse to the slowest of

walks.

"Did you see the news editor before you left town?" she asked.

"Yes, he came over to my hotel last night about twelve o'clock. He had

the biggest fool-scheme you ever heard of my running for Congress and

buying a paper to boost out the Ring and all that! Thunder, I don't

want to run! I've no ax to grind! I prefer to stay a free lance in

the fighting ranks!"

"And do you think the fellows, who want to run and have an ax to grind,

do best for the Nation?" asked Eleanor. "Why wouldn't you run if the

people demanded it?"

"There is the plain brutal fact that it takes money," explained

Wayland. "I haven't the ambition; and I have less money. I haven't

more than will set me up on some little one-horse irrigation farm. Oh,

I know some fool had been filling him up about my having rich friends

East, who would put up money for this campaign and finance a new kind

of newspaper for the Valley! I'd like to knock the fool's head off who

told him that! It's all a lie! Of course, I knew lots of moneyed

chaps at Yale; but thunderation, I'd have to want public office a good

deal harder than I do to go round cap in hand! Why, Eleanor, a fellow

who would do that wouldn't be worth shucks to represent the people."

"Did you tell him that?" asked Eleanor.

"Yes and more! I told him he was clean plumb fool-crazy! Why,

Eleanor, when that fellow was fired out of his job yesterday morning,

he hadn't ten dollars ahead in the world! I'm not a bank, myself; but

then I haven't a wife and kiddies. Do you know, Eleanor, that fellow

had more pluck than I would have had under the same circumstances? I

couldn't let the results of this kind of a fight come down on a woman."

"What did he say when you told him he was crazy?"

"Oh, went locoed clean out of his head, kicked my hat off the bed post,

took out a fiver, said, 'Wayland, that's my last! I'll bet it a

hundred odd you do the very thing I'm outlining tonight.'"

"It was a safe bet," said Eleanor. "He had come to see me before he

went to you! I was the person, who told him you had a friend, who

would put up the money. I didn't tell him who the friend was; for it

happens to be myself. No: you needn't blow up, Dick; or drop dead of

apoplexy! He didn't come to tell me, or ask a woman's money! He had

come hunting you; and I pumped it out of him. He's a brick not to

mention my name to you. I like that in a man; and I am going to do it,

Dick; and you needn't blow up with rage! You can swear if it would

relieve pressure; but I am going to do it! I am going to do it at

once! Don't you see what a cowardly foolish thing it would be of you

to give up and slink into a hole just because you're defeated? It's

just what you said would happen that night on the Ridge. Don't you

remember, you said it was bound to be a losing fight; and I said it

didn't matter a bit if a man were crucified long as the cause won out?

Well, you sent me the note saying you had set out on the Trail and

would never quit till you got the Man Higher Up. How are you going to

get the Man Higher Up if you don't go right after him in the House and

the Senate? They've crucified you; and it's going to be the making of

you. Men don't destroy an opponent unless they fear him! If he's a

fool, they give him rope enough to hang himself; but if they fear him,

they slander him and blacken him and misrepresent him and try to

destroy him! Well, they've done all that to you and tried to destroy

you; and instead of destroying you, they've only made the people call

on you for a leader! Don't you see what a cowardly thing it would be

to slink away now because you are defeated? Why, that's the very time

a man can't afford to quit, and still call himself a man. No, don't

try to stop me! I lay awake all last night thinking it out! They'll

not have a chance to call you a woman-made man! I'll place a certain

amount with my lawyer for Mr. Williams. You know my father always

helped the Mission School more or less; and a woman is supposed to be

soft on Missions. Mr. Williams will loan it to the news editor. Only,

I may as well tell you, Dick, you are not going to be allowed to stop

now! You wrote me that a person couldn't stab certain things to life

and then expect them to lie quiet as if nothing had happened. That

cuts both ways. Men are pretty good egotists; but I wonder if you ever

thought what that means with me, with the people you have prodded up to

resent the Ring in the Valley here. Do you know Dick, if you would

quit now, I'd despise myself for ever having loved you."

Wayland could not answer. His eyes had filled. He rode with his hand

on the pommel of the saddle. Her words had fallen like whiplashes. It

was true. You could not cut out and disconnect with life. He had

dreamed of this last ride as a sort of mid-heaven ecstasy; and behold,

instead of love's dream, the lifting kick to a limp spine. If only

one's friends would oftener give us that lifting kick instead of the

softening sympathy! If only they would brace our back bone instead of

our wish bone!

Then, she turned to him with a sudden tenderness: "What a beast I am to

speak so to you when you've just had the blow of public dismissal on

top of five years' continuous grilling," and he saw that the flame in

her cheeks, in her eyes, was not anger but a gust of passionate love.

"I can't thank you Eleanor," he said. "This is beyond thanks."

"And your old editor man was so funny about it," she went on. "You

know Dick, I think he had really come round to the hotel to have a

consolation drink with you; and he almost let it out; but just at the

last moment he changed the word and said he'd come 'to shake' with you

on being dismissed together."

"When do you leave?" asked Wayland dully.

"I don't leave! I haven't the slightest intention of ever leaving this

Valley! Why, Dick, would you have me exchange this splendid big free

new life where men and women do things, for a parish existence--working

slippers for a curate and talking dress, Dick--dress like the Colonel's

wife, and chronicling what Shakespeare calls 'small beer'? I don't

intend ever to leave the Valley! Tennyson sung of 'the federation of

the world,' Dick! You and I are seeing it in the making! Think of the

fun of my staying and seeing it and having a finger in the making, just

a little quiet finger that nobody knows about but you and me! United

States of the World, Dick; and you are going after the Man Higher Up

just as you went after those blackguards into the Desert." She laughed

joyously, joyous as a child, swinging out her arms to the sweep of the

roaring Forest wind. "Don't look shocked. I'll not stay on alone at

the Ranch House for the Rookery to talk about! I'll insist on the

foreman marrying an aged house keeper for me; or I'll move over to the

Mission School; or--Oh, I'll plan out something; but I am not going to

leave the West."

Wayland suddenly wheeled his horse across her way and faced her. "So

you've been trouncing the hide off my back for an hour or more to make

me believe all this doesn't mean renunciation? They splashed their

filthy hogwash on your skirts to foil me; and _that_ was nothing! The

fight was to go on just the same. I was not to stop because of any

injury that came to you. Then, they assassinated your father; and you

know as well as I do he was shot down by that drunken Shanty Town sot

in mistake for me; but the fight is to go on just the same. _That_,

too, is nothing if the cause be won. Now, you take a slice of your

fortune and slam it into the cause, backing me; and you renounce

everything that gives meaning to life for a woman, pretending that

renunciation is a privilege--"

"It is," interrupted Eleanor, "if it weaves the thing worth while into

the warp and woof of your life so it can never be anything but a part

of you! Turn your broncho round here and ride along side of me. Look

at our Mountain ahead! It isn't a Cross: it's a Crown! Do you think

I'm going to push a crown away from myself for the sake of having a lot

of flunkeys in a land I don't know bending themselves in their middle

at me all my life?" She laughed joyously, flinging her arms wide to

the drive and toss of the rolling wind tunneling up the trail on their

backs. She had pulled off her hat and the wind tossed forward her hair

in a frame of curls round an enamel miniature that always haunted

Wayland. "I love it," she said, "the harder it blows, the harder I

want to ride! You remember that night coming down the Ridge in the

storm? It was like Love and Life! And smell the air, Dick! It has

all the sunbeams of the summer imprisoned, done up in balsam fir and

balm of gilead and spices! Exchange _this_ life in the open, here, in

the very thick of things doing, for that ancient tapestry plush

upholstery blue-book existence?"

"I can't ask you, Eleanor! I haven't a thing on earth to offer but a

broken reputation and a lot of plans in the ditch! I ought never to

have let you know I loved you! I ought never to have let you care for

me! You know what you think and you know what I think of a man who

lets a woman give all. He isn't worthy of her. You know you have

never been out of my thoughts day or night since I met you, dear! I

couldn't have come through that Desert thing alive without you; and

I'll hold you in my heart every day of my life till I die." He had

taken off his hat and kicked the stirrups free and was riding with

loose rein.

When a man tells a woman that he is down and out financially and dare

not ask her to marry him, do you think there is an end of it, dear

reader? Do you think a Silenus would hesitate and stickle and scruple

over a point of honor; though some of us have seen Silenus blunder into

a paradise which he promptly transformed into a sty? And do you think

the descendant of the Man of the Iron Hand thought anything less of her

lover for refusing to accept renunciation as his right? If Wayland

could have trusted himself to look at her, he would have seen that she

was riding with a whimsical smile. They came to a bend in the upward

climbing trail that overlooked the Valley and faced the opal shining

peak.

"There goes the buckboard," remarked Wayland.

"Dick," she said, "I'll write my lawyer about placing the loan in the

bank at once. You need not lose any time."

"But, I can't take that, Eleanor! I haven't any security on earth to

offer you."

"Oh, yes you have! I've thought all that out, too. You have the very

best security I ever want."

"What?" asked Wayland incredulously. "Do you mean you trust to my

honesty? Good intentions aren't usually a banking proposition--"

"You will do as security," she said.

Was it the old mountain talking again; or was it the break in her

voice? Their eyes met. He had slipped from his horse.

"Don't," she cried averting her eyes with a tremor in her voice. "I

couldn't bear This to be of Self! If I were a man, you'd shake hands

with me and call it a bargain. Look Dick! We're in the light of the

Cross! Shake hands with me! Is it a bargain?"

His hands closed over both of hers. There were tears in his eyes. He

did not break out with any of the wild terms that had clamored and

clamored for utterance these weeks past. He did not say any of the

things that men and women say at such times in books and plays. They

paused so, she on horseback, he standing at her side, on the crest of

the Ridge gazing down on the Valley in the light of the Cross.

"So my old Mountain is talking to you, too?" she said. "Do you

remember, Dick?"

"It's so God-blessed beautiful, Eleanor," he answered. "I can't thank

you! If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't live out my thanks. I

could only put up a bluff of trying."

"Dick the nth," she laughed whimsically, "Dick the nth for the United

States of the World."

Suddenly he looked up at her. The lashes did not veil quick enough.

He caught the veil wide open. He had thought he knew before. Now, he

knew that he had but touched the outer margin of her love, of the

wealth of her nature, of the reach and grasp of her spirit. She felt

the grip of the strong hands closed over hers.

"Mine alder-liefest," he whispered in the old clean unused phrase.

"Is it a bargain?"

"Bargain?" repeated Wayland.

Then, they both laughed. She had him at such an obvious disadvantage.

I do not intend to tell how far the afternoon shadows had stretched out

when Eleanor exclaimed with a jump; "Dick: the buckboard is out of

sight." I do not think either of them as lovers of horses ever offered

adequate reason for having ridden their bronchos such a hard pace up

grade the last ten miles that the ponies came down the Ridge to the

Valley road a lather of sweat.

"You are sure," he had asked as they came out of the evergreens, "that

you'll never regret?"

"Mr. Matthews intended to leave to-morrow, Dick. Do you think you

could persuade him to stay over a day?"

It was Mrs. Williams who sensed something unusual as the ponies came

down one of the by-paths from the Ridge.

"My dear, look at their faces! I do believe it has!" Then to Eleanor,

"Will you come in the rig? Are you tired?"

"I think I shall," said Eleanor.

"You've ridden y'r nags uncommon hard, Wayland," observed Matthews.

Eleanor had ascended to the back seat. Wayland had tied the bridle

rein of her horse to the rear and was riding abreast of the front seat.

"I wish you could make it convenient to put off your departure for a

day or two," began Wayland, very red.

"Eh? What's that?" cried Matthews; and when he looked to the back seat

Eleanor and the little gray haired lady in plain back mourning bonnet

were going on as fool-women will, and Williams was risking a fall out

leaning over the seat shaking hands with Wayland. Somebody was

flourishing a red cotton handkerchief; two for ten cents, they sell

them in Smelter City. It was Williams who put a check to what Eleanor

called a 'loadful of idiots.' "The wind is blowing towards the snow,"

he said; "but I don't like that column of smoke rising from the

Homestead slope in this high gale. That Irish sot went home roaring

drunk by the stage yesterday. What will you bet the fire didn't start

in the timber slash?"

Wayland gave only one look. "It isn't my job any more," he said, "but

I can't stand seeing _that_."

He was off at a gallop. They saw the sparks strike from the stones as

he turned up the Ridge Trail.

A week had passed. The fire had been put out with little damage except

from O'Finnigan's timber slash to the lake beneath the upper snows. A

new Ranger was in charge. As for O'Finnigan, like Calamity, he had

dropped as completely from the Valley's knowledge as if the earth had

swallowed him. The Valley, in fact, had given small thought to the mad

squaw or the drunken Irishman. The Valley had had other things to talk

about. There was the coming fall campaign, and Wayland's name as

reform candidate, and Wayland's quiet marriage to the daughter of the

dead sheep king. Eleanor and Wayland had gone round through the Pass

to the Lake Behind the Peak, where he had dreamed what form of

triangulation thoughts must take from the star in the water to the star

on the other side of the Holy Cross; where the little waves lipped and

lisped and laved the reeds; where they two could drink and drink unseen

of the joy of the waters of life before the opening of the political

battle.

"Make him tell y' of all that happened in th' Pass when A was with

him," Matthews had called as they rode away up the narrowing trail to

the jubilant shouting of the canyon waters, the little mule leading the

pack ponies.

Mrs. Williams stood on the upper piazza of the Mission School waving

and waving. The cottonwoods were raining down showers of gold; and the

pines were clicking their gypsy tambourines; and the golden torches of

countless yellow autumn flowers lighted the triumphal procession of the

year to its consummation. Against the opal crown of the Holy Cross

Mountain, the yellowed larches tossed flaming torches to the very sky.

"They seem to be riding away to a world of dreams," said the little

lady in black.

Mr. Bat Brydges and Senator Moyese walked slowly and reflectively past

the Range Cabin towards the charred burn and timber slash of

O'Finnigan's abandoned homestead.

"It's that damned rant the old fellow let off in the court room," said

Brydges.

"Rant doesn't win elections, Brydges! It has to be fought out! Sooner

we accept the challenge and put 'em to bed for good, the better! Money

talks, Brydges!"

"But that's just it, Senator! Money _does_ talk; and some body's money

has talked when the Independent sold out to Joe!"

"Fool and his money soon parted, Brydges! Only, in this case, I've a

suspicion it's a _Her_! Never fear a known enemy, Brydges! It's the

unknown factors you want to look out for! F'r instance, there is this

sot of a drunken Shanty Town Irishman? What's become of him? Did he

burn himself, when he set fire to the slash?"

They had paused opposite that fallen giant which bridged the Gully

where Wayland had laid the saplings to cross to the Rim Rocks.

"That's a fine one; the fire didn't bring that one down! Been cheesy

heart wood! Wonder who placed the saplings for a bridge? Think I'll

cross and go down to the ranch by the Rim Rocks, Brydges!"

"Then, excuse me, Mr. Senator! I go back _this_ way! Napoleon had

aversion to mice! I've an aversion to wire walking."

He saw Moyese, hands in pockets, stroll along the great log bridging

the Gully. Mid-way, he paused as if in contempt of Brydges' timidity.

"Bark gives a little," he said, pressing his whole weight up and down

flexibly.

"I wish you wouldn't do that, Senator," called Brydges. "Trunk looks

to me as if the fire had run through the punk!"

Even as he spoke, he saw it happen, Calamity glide on the far end of

the log, utter a maniacal laugh, throw her shawl to the winds and bound

forward.

"Go back, you she-devil! Look out, Senator! That log won't stand the

weight of two--"

There was the flash of a knife in her hand. Moyese had jumped from the

stabbing onslaught--when he lost his balance: the tree crunched, bent,

doubled like a jack knife, and plunged in a swirl of smoke and dust to

the bottom of the Gully. It had been burnt through to the green mossed

outer bark. When Brydges looked fearfully over the bank, the Indian

woman had crushed below the log; and Moyese lay very still, his face to

the sky, his left hand in his pocket, his right hand thrown out as if

to ward a blow, gashed and bloody, whether from rock or knife cut, one

could not tell.

I do not intend to repeat the "Smelter City Herald's" flare head

announcement of "the deplorable and tragical accident that cut short

one of the most promising political careers in the United States."

"Senator Moyese had long been accustomed to search the mountains in

autumn for seeds and roots of specimen flowers for his herbarium, of

which he had made a hobby. That reckless disregard of danger for which

he was famous, etc., etc." You'll find the salient features of it all

in "Who's Who." Pad that out with Mr. Bat Brydges' imagination and

devotion; and you will have an idea of the sorrow that convulsed the

"Smelter City Herald."

The opposition paper opined "He would hardly have retained the

confidence of the Valley had he lived;" and the "Independent"--our old

friend, the news editor--paid him the straight out from the shoulder

compliment, "that he had died as he had lived, an uncompromising game

fighter to the end."

What became of Mr. Bat Brydges? Bless you, my friend, do you need to

ask? He is shouting for Reform as loudly as his kind always shout when

the tide turns. What became of the scandal story? What becomes of any

scandal story? What becomes of the skunk's contribution to the gayety

of nations?--Buried in the memory of decent folks, long ago and

forgotten: in the memory of indecent folk, still hauled forth and

repeated and fondled under the tongue.