Evening Star Newspaper, January 18, 1931, Page 86

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 18 1931, A Piece Of Paper By CosmoHamilton A New and Strange Story From the Pen of a Famous Writer—A Piece of Paper Saves Two Lives. ON SHEPHERD'S mind was made up. He was going to kill a man in cold blood. He sat outside his trapper’s shack on the marsh and cleaned his gun with a slow, brooding delibera- tion. It was dusk when he had come home—home from the streich they give to poachers in the county jail at Penr:boro. It was dark when he finished cleaning his gun. It smelled of oll end its barrels glinted in the thin new moon- light. He leaned it up against the shack. All arourd him, in the Indian Summer eve- ning, the marsh stirred and was alive with old familiar sounds. Birds rustled in the grass; down near the landing a muskrat splashed; ducks were gabbling out in the bay. On the northern horizon the Pennsboro glow wavered between the flats and the stars. Over east, be- yond the dunes, the Aulumn ocean tumbled and sucked at its strip of Carolina coast. Jon Shepherd was part of all this, part of the life and soul of the marsh. He shared its somber moods, its invert fascinat.on, its dark pride. Like the marsh, he could smile sud- denly and become suddenly bleak. But now he had only murder in his hcart. Only an obses~ sion as cold, as deliberate, as it was unbalanced. He was going to kill the man who had been responsible for sending him to jail. He was going to do it tonight. E LIT a cigareite. The flare of the match snatch2d his face out of the dark. It ex- ploded with noiseléss light against the bony cheeks, the riveted black eyes, the aquiline nose, the thin lips gripping the cigaretie. Jon Shep- herd took two or three puffs on the cigarette and then flipped it into the damp marsh grass where it glowed and pulsed like a fire beetle. It was tenacious, it wouldn't go out. He won- dered whether Henry Garner would be as hard to kill. For as long as Jon Shepherd could remember he and Henry Garner had bcen friends. Henry Garner had been rich; he himself had been poor. Henry Garner had been brought up in the big house beyond the woods near the Penns- boro road, while he had always lived in the trapper’s shack. But none of these thicgs had mattered until Henry Garner inherited the big house and began to invite fine guests down from Baltimore and Richmond and Philadelphia. Then one day he had warned Jon Shepherd to confine his trapping and shooting activities to the bay and the lower marsh, away from pri- vate property. He wanted to turn his own land into a sporting preserve. And when Shepherd had disregardec his warning—not once, but twice—Garner had sent him to jail. The cigarette in the marsh-grass sizzled and went out. Shepherd stood up and reached for his gun His body was a dark blotch against the, shack, the shack was a pale blotch against the pines behind it, and the pines were a shaggy uncombed wilderness helter-skelter under the new moon. It was a grand night for loving or killing—whichever a man had a mind to do. The killing itself would be very simple. There would be a short tramp through the woods to the big house near the Pennsboro road. Then there would be a creeping up to the window of the room where Henry Garner always sat about this time. After that there would be nothing left to do but ram the muzzle of the gun through a thin pane and coax a couple of tender triggers. It was all as simple as that. Jon Shepherd had no desire to leer at Henry Garner or to taunt him. He wanted to have it over with as soon as possible. He tucked his shotgun in the crotch of his arm and walked unhurriedly toward the strip of woods that marked the beginning of Garner’s land He walked inexorably, like a machine that had been wound up and pointed at a cer- tain spot. At the edge of the woods he paused to make sure that the safety catch of his gun was all right. Although he knew every inch of the way, he didn’t want his gun to go off if he tripped in the underbrush. Then he faced around for a last look eastward. The marsh curved darkly around the bay, and the bay lay 2<'>*n against the dim shoulders of the dn ~yond the dunes, the beat of the oce ned to keep time with the beat of the b wod in Shepherd's chest and wrist and templ:s, But there was no need to hurry. There was no use ge'ting excited. Sh:pherd walked through the woods and skirted the field that lay in front of the big house where Garner lived. His state of mind was quite different from that of the average story book murderer. No lurking fear clutched at his heart; none of the usual drops of sweat stood out on his brow. Everything wus matter- of-fact, even the light that gleamed in the downstairs window and guided him, as he had known it would. BY using the cover of a clump of bushes it was easy to creep up to the lighted window. Sheph-rd crouched under the sill and gripped his gun with both hands, ready for a smashing blow at the pane. Then he stood up deliber- ately and looked in. His face slid up into the light and poised there, vulpine, staring. « of Garner’s usual Nobody was there. Nobody was in the room. For a moment it seemed to Shepherd that his plan had failed. Every long, slow day in the Pennsboro Jail had focused his obsession on -this time and on this place. Then he realized that Garner must be somewhere very near. The coals of the fire smoldered in the grate and there was an open magazine on the arm chair. There were two glasses and a bottle on the table, which indi- cated that Garner had a visitor. Garner and his visitor, whoever it was, must be out on the veranda at the other side of the house, because the night was beautiful and warm. Keeping close to the wall, S8hepherd edged around the corner and worked his way toward the veranda. Suddenly he heard Garner's voice say something in a low tone. Then it stopped and there was no answer. Shepherd reached the side of the veranda and paused, wondering how best to do this killing quickly. Fastest of All Modern Sports Continued from Seventh Page must be cool and steady, under perfect control, despite the break-neck action of your legs. From this angle, too, I think it can be shown that hockey is faster than the track sports. Naturally, a man can skate faster than he can run, but aside from this he must have his arms ready for a cool, steady drive while skating at a break-neck pace. [ As to roughness—that is, unintentional roughness—I think it far exceeds even old-time foot ball. Getting tackled hard on the gridiron has 1its disadvantages and being under- neath a half-ton pile-up of punching, kicking humanity is not exactly pleasant either, but substitute for the turf gridiron a flint-hard surface of unyielding ice, put razor-edged skates on those kicking shoes and hard elm sticks in ‘u:se hands and you can see the difference’ d the dangers in an ice hockey pile-up. “Disastrous accidents result more frequently on the rink than on the gridiron. While the players are limited by rule to two strides in blocking, similar to foot ball line work, a lot of momentum and force can be gained in two strides The unintentional collisions often have much more speed behind them. Thus we have, in the course of a season, broken shoulder and collar bones, several broken legs, countless torn and slashed muscles and ligaments in the arms, legs and shoulders. “The three implements of the hockey player, the stick, the skate and the puck, all add ma- terially to the dangers. Some time ago a player lost the sight of one eye as the result of a stick accident. Knockouts are frequent in foot ball and boxing, but I doubt if any are quite as sud- den and forceful as that delivered by a puck hurtling through the air with "the speed of a bullet. A disc of hard rubber, one inch thick and three inches across, with sharp edges and traveling at a high rate of speed, is a projectile of injury unequaled in any other sport. “Next to speed in the game stands stamina as an essential requisite. A sharp blow from stick or puck is exceedingly painful, but injury short of a broken leg or arm should never delay the play. Hesitation of a moment in this fast game often means the loss of five minutes’ frenzied battle for opportunity to score. “I know what you are going to ask me: why substitutions are so frequent if staying power is an essential to the game. The answer is, simply, speed. The speed of the game is so terrific, the pace s0 wearing, that substitutions are necessary every four or five minutes because the players are actually fagged out. “The average big-league team uses three shifts of forwards and two shifis of def men. The forwards, naturally, are called to do the brunt of the offensive work, but the play is likely to range anywhere, all play are generally in the thick of a speedy con for the greater part of the game. For that - son, the ratio of substitutes for forwards defense men is three to two.” Preventing Soil Erosion. 4 ONIolmemturiouaundlutm- that fully 75 per cent of the farm land of the country is subject to erosion. It is usually taken for granted that the natural resources of this country are limitless, yet in the upland sections of the United States the average depth of the top sofil is only nine inches. Below this soil is heavy clay, which is far less fertile and far harder to work. It also is less retentive of moisture and bakes easily in hot weather. Land subject to erosion needs protection, for the yearly sweeping away of the soll, which amounts to an immense total, is gradually wiping out some of the best in the country. Proper drainage canals, terracing of hillsides and preservation of trees on the watersheds are vital steps which must be taken to guard the future welfare of the land. The planting of cover crops on idle land is also a step in the direction of retaining the valuable top soil. U. S. Machinery in Siam. AMER.ICAN efficiency and economy are grad- ually beginning to make the demand for American machinery forge into the lead in far- off Siam, and, as a result, the total of sales of machinery for 1928-9 was $6,000,000, as com- pared with $1,225,000 in 1925. The chief competitors of the United States are Great Britain and Germany, the sales of the former bemg based largely on political rea- sons and the latter because of cheapness of product. The greater economy obtained by the operation of American machinery is tell- ing, however, and it is believed that the sales will increase from year to year. The principal industries of Siam are rice milling, tin mining, teak lumbering and saw milling. The tin industry uses a large num- ber of dredges, but as the tin market is in the midst of a bad slump, the demand for dredges is likely to be lighter for some time. Power generating machinery from the United States is the principal line being developed at present, according to the United States trade commissioner in the country. Shepherd paused, wondering how best to do this killing quickly. Recognition didn’t matter, because everybody would know he had shot Garner anyway. Recognition didn't matter, because everybody would know he had shot Garner anyway. Just then he heard the other voice. It was a woman's, soft and thrilling, and it was saying something that seemed very important. It was a voice that had a startling effect on the man crouching in the shadows with the gun. A$ first vaguely familiar, like a vanished dream, then it began to burn its way into him with & soft fiery music that washed away his mure derous obsession and his consciousness of time and place. In all the world there was only this voice—and he was listening to it. “It’s just because I love you so much that I must tell you, Henry,” it said. “If T hurt you it's only because it would hurt me more to be divided from you by any secret.” “Tell me,” said Garner’s voice quietly. “It was a wounded boy behind the lnes.* The other voice was very steady. “He was going back to the front. It wasn't love, Henry. It wasn't pity either. It was something else that I couldn't explain even to myself. Hes was so alcne, so brooding, so passionately strarge. My sense of values was warped then, too, I suppose. Anyway, he loved me. He wanted me.” “I see,” sald Garner’s voice. “It happened the night before he went back.” The other voice faltered a little. “I never saw him again. He wrote me letters for a while— sweet, strange, illiterate letters. And foolishly, perhaps, 1 answered one of them. But the$ has never worried me. I trusted him.™ HERE was 8 little silence and then Garners voice said, “Yes, that was foolish. A letiee like that is only a piece of paper, but it cam be a terribue weapon. But it can't be now, can it?" “No." The crouching figure beside the veranda straightened up and leaned against the wall Jon Shepherd’s face was a pale expressionieass mask in the faint light. “You're brave,” said Garner's voice. There was a slight sound like a kiss. “It's past now. I love you.” When Jon Shepherd got back to his shack he went inside and groped around for the box in which he kept his shotgun shells. Then he broke his' gun mechanically, took out the two unused shells and put them back in the box. There was an old duffle-bag in one corner of the room, and Shepherd went over to it and knelt down. He knew exactly where the letter was. His hand closed on it and pulled it out. He crouched there with it in the darkness. A piece of paper? A terrible weapon? Were these all this wonderful letter could be? Suddenly he struck a match and touched the flame to the dog-eared envelope. The paper begtn to burn brighter and brighter until the light was dancing with the shadows on the walls. But Jon Shepherd’s shadow was huge and quiet and shapeless. When the letter burned down and began to scorch his fingers he dropped it on the floor and went outside. There was no moomn. The marsh and bay and dunes were one blur under the stars. Shepherd walked down the rotting boardwalk to the landing. His old hoat was still there—half full of water, but that didn't matter. He climbed into it and began to row. He rowed the boat toward the Pennsboro lights that wavered above the northern horizon. Pretty soon he noticed, without surprise, that his shack was burning. He leaned on his oars to watch it. It became a gigantic torch that lighted his farewell view of the marsh with & red glare. Jon Shepherd bent to his ovars again. The bay was rippling up. The breeze was shifting into the northeast. There would be fine duck- hunting weather in a day or two. And Garner's gun would be booming back there in the fiats. (Copyright, 1931.) said the other wvoice. “It can't be— ]