Evening Star Newspaper, April 13, 1930, Page 91

beating and flailing. Like a storm the elephant went tearing through the jungle. The three men stood stock-still. Drew and Barwn had their guns in readiness. Sioane hasitly shipped 1n fresh cartridges. The next instant the elephant burst in sight at the left— they could see the great ears over the bushes, wide out, like monster fans, to catch the least noise, the trunk neld high to test the air, the small gleaming eyes turning under the wrinkled lids. e was conung, not in the blind fury of a chaige, scent-directed, from which quick foot- work might save them, but coming “cold,” as hunters say, hunting them with quiet fury and intelligence in every sense. 'l‘HElR guns roared out together—no time to stand on any ceremony of first shots. They were none of them in a good position, and they fired desperately as best they might, two shots each, emptying their guns—then leaped back- ward mto the impeding jungle. The elephant came on as if he had not been touched—a desperately wounded elephant often seems im- mune to later shots that would have killed it they had been the first. it was all happening at once—the head towering over them, the roar of the guns, the confusion ot helplessness and attempted flight. Drew turned in his thorny thicket, tugging out fresh cariridges from his belt—and saw that Sloane was caught. The beast was lunging at him—the man was behind a tree, dodging—the snake-like wunk ieaped out, coiled about him ...The man was held in a ‘vise that tightened and tightened—he was being crushed in against the tree...Barton was somewhere in the path, fumbling in his cartridge pouch. The boy on whom he relied for reloading had fled. A moment more and Sloane would be bloody pulp against that tree. 7 Jrew had his cartridges in and he ran out around the elephant that had swung its back to him. There at the shoulder, he sent his shot up behind the lifted ear, straight through the opening in the skull to speak its message of death to the brain. Like a ship sinking, the massive bulk settled, the four feet doubling under. The head scraped forward against the.tree until the heavy tusks caught in the earth and upheld it.. Not a sound of death; not a shudder; only that leaden impassivity. Sehind the tree lay a collapsed figure. Drew found himself standing over it. There was blood trickling from Sloane’s mouth. His face was black. The native boys had suddenly materialized from the forest and were standing about. He heard Barton’s voice, shaken from its wonted quiet. *is he alive? A moment more—" A moment more—and Peggy would have been free. A moment more... Sloane was gasping out something. The blood was clearing splotchily from his face. “Not—got me,” he said. ‘“Maybe—a couple ribs.” His opened eyes roved upward, and Drew could have sworn that there was sar- donic raillery in them as they rested on him. “Drew shot him,” Barton babbled on. “A pear thing A moment more—" ! A moment more—the moment Drew had boped for! And Le—what had he done? wh, fool, fool! Slave of tradition! Had - Africa taught him no more than that? Sloane was unfit to live; yet Drew had not been able to stand by and see him done to death. . . He had saved that vile hulk for Peggy to nurse back to health! After all his resolves! Truly no man knew himself till his hour came Hastily they improvised a litter, of coats and sap.ings, «nd, with the blacks bearing 1t, the slow procession made its way back along ‘he trail, until it met the porters waiting in a glade. There they made a hurried camp. Drew got up tents, hammered in the pegs, tightened the ropes, unlocked boxes and set out their contents. He set up Sloane’s cot, spread out his blankets; then he and Barton lifted the wounded man or it, drew off his boots, fed him whisky and hot water, and then iea. Movement was agony te Sloane. Undoubted=- ly there was some sort of internal injury— ribs broken, Sloane insisted, with his custom= ary authority, Breathing was extremely pain- ful, but no other bones than ribs seemed brozen., “We can't move the chap-—unless he's re- ma. zably improved in the morning,” said Bar- ton to Drew, as the two withdrew to the boxes in front of the tent for a hasty meal. “We'd betier send off a runner ut dawn— sabu: sana,” he went on, “to try to get a doce tor from the mission to come out—if he can leave his patients. This is awkward, you know.’ DREW nodded. He had taken off his helmet and the red mark of it across his fore- head looked livid against the white skin above, He seemed oddly shaken, now the thing was over, Barton thought—he looked actually ghasi- ly. Well, it had been a near thing! Barton wondere ! a little over his apparent attachment to this Sloane. For himself, he must say that what he'd seen on this safari hadn't made him like the fellow. A good deal of a bounder, un- derneath. Or was it the surface? He might be a diamond in the rough—must be or Drew wouldn't take so much from him. “We'll have to stand watch with him to- might,” Barton said. Drew nodded again. In his tent Sloane was beginning to groan. “Have we any stuff for that pain?” Barton asked. “Did we take a medicine kit?” Something flickered in Drew’s eyes—flickered like the passage of a knife—or a thought. He answered slowly: “There's one in Sloane’s tent. I know—I put some things into it. I'll fetch it.” He went into the tent for it, opening it on the box before them. It was an old tin case, full of boxes and glass bottles. Two quart bottles of whisky were there, one half emptied. There was the usual supply of quinine and aspirin and simple rem- edies, some surgeon’s needles for sewing up wounds and a bottle of chloroform, iodine, ad- hesive tape and permanganate crystals. There was a tiny bottle of veronal tablets with a date four years old. “I don't know whether this stuff is any good,” remarked Barton dubiously. THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 13, 1930. y — Drew had learned to know his neighbor since the day down at Kampala, when Sloane had appeared with his new wife. “Probably not,” said Drew mechanically. He added: “The quinine is fresh, and the aspirin. I put that in myself.” They were standing there, examining the stuff in the light of the“candle lanterns that the swift-coming dark had necessitated. And then Drew saw suddenly a label on a tiny bot- tle. His heart_leaped. He held the phial up to the light. Aconite. . . . Aconite—what did he know about that? Deadly stuff, that was; it would stop the heart—enough of it. People used to take it for some fevers. . . . The pellets were the same size as the veronal. Slowly his hand LPotomac W 1llows. By Stephcn B. Stanton, Here, Walt- W hitman, were you wont to lie = And look across to columned Arlington, “And hold that inward converse with yourself, Those words impressed zith life that never die. So mght you here, methinks, that morn have sat nd drecamed vour idyl on the dandelion— Old faun, old satyr, in yvour rugged face One sees the vagabond—whom gods begat! closed over the bottle and then he thrust his fist into his pocket. “We'd better start with the aspirin,” he said slowly. “Ten grains, say?"” 2 “Fifteen, if he’s in pain,” suggested Barton, and together they went into the tent, and raised the wounded man's head, held the aspirin to his lips, with a mug of whisky and water to wash it down. “Whisky straight,” voice. “He’s used to it,” said Drew briefly, and gave it i0o him straight. “You know him rather well, don’'t you?” said Barton. “We're neighbors.” “Then-—if this runs into days—what d'you think of sending for his wife? He'll need a said Sloane’s grating Sloane’s eyes, and those eyes were staring straight up at him, mocking him. Drew wrenched his eyes from the balefulness of that mockery. He pulled out a camp chair and set it beside the bed. “We'll know more tomorrow,” he said. “Shall I take first watch or_you?” “I'm extraordinarily fatigued,” the other man admitted. “And, I don’t mind confessing, I could do with some hot water. But be sure to call me when you are he admonished, and, with a last glance at Sloane’s flushed face, he went to his own tent. Drew sat there, his fingers touching the bottle in his pocket. Aconite. Release from - that man in that bed. Release for Peggy. He tried to whip that numb spirit of his with thoughts of Peggy here beside Sloane, hending over him, bearing the burden of nursing him, of age and scrupulous dealing had built in him. There were things, apparently, that such a man could not do—and murder, no matter how well deserved, appeared to be one of them. cold blood. WAsheneoward,nhernl? Was he mot strong enough in spirit to bear the re- sponsibility ? PN the one to intervene and snatch this man back encircling forest was a wall of black, The porters were asleep, their untended fire a mass of embers. Stillness possessed the place, timt curious sense of stillness which is not silence though it seems silence, compounded as it is of a myriad night noises, high shrilling of insects in faint eternal vibrancy. He turned his haggard face up to the stars and stood so, and the clamor within him died quietly away. There was madness in the Afri- can moon, but there was peace in the stars. He felt,_the light of them, like something pal- pable, flowing in upon him, remote but aus- terely clear. ! He went back inio the tent and put the Barton’s tent and roused him. . “Will you take him on now?” he asked wanly; and when Barton, in mosquito boots, cording his heavy bathzobe about him against the chill of the tropic night, Bad joined him in Sloane’ tent, the two stood a moment looking on the injured man. s “He looks bad,” said Barton.’ “He is bad,” said Drew. “Have you given him anything?” " Drew shook his head and a curious smile played faintly at the somber corners of his mouth. - “Perhaps“we’d better try the veronal” said Barton. He's in pain. No good of that. What's the dosage?” Drew held the bottle of veronal to the lan- tern’s mica side and they both studied the im+ - seription, . .. “Four,” said Drew finally, and put the bottle back. “We'd better make it five,” said Bartom, doubtfully. “What d'you think? That’s stuff’s old. . He stood sleepily holding in his fingers the bottle he had taken up. But it was not the same bottle that Drew had set down—it was not the bottle of veronal. 3 Drew did not know this—he was staring down on the coarse, bestial face on the cot pillow. “Four, I think,” he answered. “His heart, you know——" ' “A drinker?” Drew nodded. He heard the pellets shaken out behind him, and counted in Barton's tired voice: “One — two — three — four. Sure that's enough?” “It ought to be.” : He heard the cork replaced, the bottle re- turned to the kit. Then Barton reached for the Water bottle and Drew fanded it to him. “Good night,” he said. “Call me when you want me. Good night.” With a sure step he went out into the celd, star-filled peace of the African night. He felt the strange, sustaining quiet of those stars. He . did not know that in their courses they were vayrking for him. . . . A second time that day Fate had reached out. Need More Cows on Farms.. AFAR.Ilwnhoutleol seems as incongruous -as a golfer without knickers, yet in the South there are thousands of farms which have no ~ows, and whose owners are forced to buy their milk, butter and cheese. The Department of Agriculture is seeking to impress upon the farmers of the Southern States how much to their economic advantage it would be to owm & cow or two, not only because of the saving.in. diet, but betause of the inexpensive nature of. the food and the advantsge to the fertility of the soil on the farm. i o o > Pobve B3 e S 1l sy bl ey