Evening Star Newspaper, February 22, 1931, Page 85

e by the afternoon sun from the meeting house bell, and Lucy in the square of red poppies before his cabin. She waved the preaching shirt which she was mending. It seemed to Childres Parker that Jasper Black could not last to finish the confession which he gasped out at long intervals, a few words at a time. Late the third day they had reached his shack to find him lying like a sheet of paper in his bunk, chest barely moving with shallow breath, the life flame dim in his eyes. He rose on the pillow and pointed to a board in the flooring. “There,” he said faintly and silence, They removed the board and took from a cache buckskin bags heavy with gold. They found the miner watching them. “The gold I washed out didn't—come—fast enough. Harry's pack train——" He was gone again. “There’s a horse thief jailed for it now in *Frisco.” Tad's eyes were staring. “Who'd ever think it was Jasper robbed the train?” ‘That evening the sick man rallied. “I must tell Harry, mustn't I, elder? I must give it back to Harry?” “Ain’t no use to go for him, is they?” Tad whispered. “His poor heart’s set on it, Tad.” more away from Lucy. “You are right, Jasper. Restitution must be made,” Childres Parker said quietly. The cold hand on the blanket reached for the warm vital one. Some of the terror left the ashy face. Again the messenger rode away. Childres Parker was left with the dying man. He fought off drowsiness, nursed the miner and read. hour after hour, seated beside the bunk, the most joyous of the Psalms until the dying man lay quiet, soothed by the ringing voice, by the verses’ rhythm and content. When Jasper drowsed the circuit rider’s thought flew back to his wife and her lonely trial. lapsed into Four days R he thought with puzzled distress of Tum- water Tom. During a noonday halt on their way to Black’s he and Tad were dozing on their saddlebags when a bullet whined over their heads. Instinctively they rolled to their stomachs and sighted rifiec across the saddle- bags. Three Indians, the toremost Tumwater Tom, rode into the meadow. They held brief parley, the circuit rider demanding explanation. Tom indicated one of his companions. “Him mot like white man.” “But tell him I am -your friend.” “I not like white man either,” Tom grunted. “You take our valley, build house, sow grain, build church. It is our ground. Many year we burn brush so grass grow plenty for cayuse. We camp to catch salmon. Now Killingsworth say we not come any more. It is our ground.” Only the urgency of Jasper Black's need kept Childres Parker from returning then and there to the valley. He promised redress for the camping matter and pushed on. No sooner, however, had the two parties separated than another shot grazed his hat. Furious, he turned. The smoking rifle was in Tom's cwn hand! Nights and days dragged by in the dark shack. Jasper, who had seemed so weak that he could not last out an hour when the circuit rider arrived, lasted to grow weaker yet. On the fourth day at sunset Childres Parker heard the horses on the trail. He hurried to the door. The men dismounted and looked at him in a strzined silence, strangely. “Yes, he’s alive,” Childres Parker said. Still that silence. That strange working of their features. A glacial chill crept over his heart. 88 it?” he demanded. “Tell me. ‘Tad turned away gulping. “Elder,” Staley stammered, “I'd give every- thing I own—if I didn't—have to tell you. The settlement’s—wiped opt.” Childres Parker’'s arm went up across his eyes to ward off the blow. He swayed on the doorstep. “Some ef them must have got away into the woods, Staley,” he said brckenly, “some of them.” But not Lucy, he thought as he spoke. Lucy was light-stepped no longer, but heavy with the burden of his child. “The man who brought the news saw no one, Mr. Parker. He saw houses burning and Indians laying firebrands to the church.” The meeting house, too. Everything he had built in the new West—his home, his family, his church. Gone. Only himself left with his futile strength and the heart crushed out of him. “I've brought an extra cayuse for you, elder. You'll want to go.” Hard-faced Staley, gentle &s a woman, planned for him Out of the numbness that engulfed him he was aware that Tad had brought his saddled cayuse and an extra pony on a leading string. Automatically he started to mount. His foot dragged from the stirrup. The cayuse turned to lcok at his master, usually so brisk in the saddle. “I am forgetting Jasper.” “You needn’t stay on his account, Mr. Parker, I forgive him. We'll settle that.” “You are a courageous man, Staley. You don't fear death. You never will. But Jasper’s soul is like a little child groping in the dark, frightened before the Unknown. 1 reckon it sounds queer to a man like you, but 1 am a refuge to Jasper from fear. I undertook to help bim die. I have to stay until it is finished.” Jasper Black lingered that night, and the next day and night, before his hand grew icy In the circuit-rider’s warm palm. At dawn Childres Parker took the trail. He traveled as long as he could see into the night, riding now his cayuse, now Staley's. It had rained heavily while he was in the cabin. ‘The great deluge washing down steep mountain- sides had swollen streams, made boggy stretches in the trail. He halted only until daylight and pressed on. All his life he was to remember the sleepless agony of those nights, waiting for the light. He came to a place where the trail parted. He chose the shorter, lonelier way. At last he reached the hilltop where the view of the valley lay before him. He looked, shut out the sight with a hand before his eyes. A sob broke from him. He locked again. “What Not—my wife.” ‘Another shot grazed Childres’ hat. Fu- rious, he turned. The smoking rifle was in Tom’s own hand! UEER. The square of red poppies still flamed untrampled. Lucy had stood there waving to him when he left. The poppies lay now before a bed of blackened embers. The Moonlight Continued from Fourteenth Page broken columns, challenged our imagination to reconstruct it into an architectural organism. 1t was but a step, after the first shock of the ruinous condition of Karnak had passed, to peo- ple these precincts with life, to feel the pulse of the processions passing through the mighty corridors, to hear the voices of the priests of the ancient Egyptian faith chanting the ritual of service and adoration. No immediate realism, such as on the morrow we met in this same area when we went in ordinary manner as sightseers, deflected our vision there in the moonlight. Karnak became a living entity. Then we returned to our motor and the illu- sion passed. But we had not yet our fill of moonlight. The hour was early enough to permit, so it was suggested that we “take a drive” Another “arrangement” was effected, quite satisfactory to all, and we drove along. But where should we go? Lauxor itself does not afford much “sightseci@g” by day or night—although the next evening we had a remarkable sight in its streets as we drove to take the train back to Cairo and noted half a dozen donkeys and a water buffalo being extracted from a newly dug sewer trench in one of the narrow streets, into which they had been crowded by traffic. There being nowhere else to go, we drove into the Arabian desert. A few turns away from the Temple of Karnak and we were on our way to the East. It was about 9:30 o'clock. ‘There was practically no “life” on the road or in the straggling settlements outside of Luxor. Here and there along the side of the road— which for a distance ran on top of a dyke bounding the irrigation ditch and the adjacent low field—appeared bundles of rags, close to the edge. The motor was slowed on passing them, for they were sleeping men, perhaps sons of the desert on their way to or from town, or shepherds, or maybe roisterers overtaken by the effects of their potations, Some of them stirred as we passed, to move a little farther away from the track of the wheels. Through a village we sped, arousing a group of men sitti~g on their heels about a tiny fire fields of grain were stamped out ruined,. Barton’s house was gone, Killingsworth's. Every home in the valley was destroyed. Here was no longer a settlement. No one, Indian or Memories and chatting. A few dogs ran out and barked at us. Between the trees of a date palm grove we twisted, and there before us spread the desert, a great hill looming dimly to the south, a faint line of trees flanking us on the north. The road itself was an imperceptible track. Yet apparently it would not have mattered if our driver had deflectd from it, so hard and smooth was the surface, On and on we went, and momentarily it seemed as if the moon grew larger and more brilliant. It was precisely at the full that night and never before had I ex- perienced such a flood of illumination from it as in that perfectly clear air and that softly re- flect surface of the earth. SOUNDS ceased, save for the purring of the motor. In a few minutes we had cleared away from both the flanking hill on the south and the trees on the north. Before us stretched the sands and ahead of us there was no hori- zon. Earth and sky melted imperceptibly into one expanse of the faintest blue. A word from Georges Mikhail and the driver stopped his car. We alighted and walked for a quarter of a mile or so ahead into the desert, just to get the feel of the sand beneath our feet and to realize the utter silence. We stood there aloof and alone, the car appearing as a gray spot far behind us. Then Georges spoke and his voice sounded as if coming from far, far away. We might, he suggested, drive out to a Bedouin village that lay a few miles to the east, but it was possibly too late in the evening for such a call. I looked at my watch. It was 10 o'cleck, Too late, Georges sighed. The Bedouins would probably all be asleep and might resent being aroused by strangers. So back we walked to the car, our footfalls imperceptible to sight or sound. The car spun around and we returned to Luxor, through the date palms, through the village, where the group of squatting chatterers had vanished: past the sleepers on the side of the road, past dark masses that stirred an® proved to be herds of goats acleep in the ficlds, and so into the now slumbering town, with its reiics of a civilization that flourished under the same moon 40 centuries ago. Gigantic Land Cruisers. Continued from Eleventh Page attack that would make insignificant the most powerful concentrations in the World War, and there would be no laborious preparations which would warn an enemy against such an attack. “The tanks, hidden miles behind the lines, could drive up rapidly in an hour, discharge their death-dealing load before the enemy had fully grasped they were spilling terrific destruc- tion and then disappear before anything ef- fective could be done against them. “Experiments have shown that tanks can drive by compass in good or bad weather and maneuver in a smoke screen. Neither fog, sleet, snow nor rain could stop them and the enemy’s nerves could be rubbed raw by these sudden, overwhelming and unexpected attacks. “STANDARDIZATION of types of vehicles is just as important for a mechanized army as it is for a factory in production or a fleet of motors in commercial service. It greatly simplifies all matters connected with the ordering of parts, replacements, repair and maintenance and makes easier the operation of the force as a whole. “With a standardized chassis for combat fighting machines there will be a uniformity ot automotive equipment for all branches of the service participating in the formation of mech- anized divisions. “The building of a suitable superstructure also will make this tank available for carrying supplies and cargoes of all kinds. Men, ma- chine guns, oil and rations can be shipped on roads or across country without delay and road congestion can be eased by ordering certain sections of the mechanized forces to take o the fields and permit the most important traf- fic to use the highways. “With such high speed, supply dumps could be shifted farther back of the lines and ef- ficiency in serving supplies could still be main- tained.” (Copyright, 1931.) /‘ e .\‘{ white, moved in the width of the valley. But the church stood there. Strangely it stood sur- rounded by utter desolation. The savages were superstitious. He had not remembered that. They must have feared at the last to burn the house of the white man’'s Great Spirit. But Lucy; he must find Lucy. He hurried his horse downward into the valley. He rode towarg the solitary church of his building. But he rode no longer controlling »ie wiry cayuse. The exhaustion of the past wwo weeks finally had its way with him. The teins fell from lax hands, his head drooped over the pommel, he moaned like some stricken animal. Suddenly Childres Parker heard the peal of a bell. He thought he must bt going mad. He raised his head. The bronze bell swung back and forth in its squat tower, back and forth, Below it the heavy doors were thrown open. Men, women and children streamed cut to meet him. Killingsworth and Barton helped him from the saddle. A hubbub of voices rocse about him: “We thought you were killed.” “Lucy?” he asked simply. “Inside.” And the voices went on: Barton saying, “Killingsworth thinks now he's the one planned such a stout church,” Killingsworth saying, “Well, you know if it hadn’t been for my arguing with you all, we’d have had nothing but a shack.” “So you've argued yourself into believing that, have you?” the crowd jeered at Killingsworth. And finally plump Mrs. Killingsworth touch- ing his sleeve. “Come with me, Elder,” she said. ‘The church with its deep-cut windows was dusky after the bright sun outside. “Childres.” A low voice reached him. He fell on his knee; beside her cot. “Childres, our son——" “A fine child,” Mrs. Killingsworth bustled, “born in the church.” And when she had ex- hibited the puckered mite that was his first- born, she tiptoed away. He could see more plainly now Lucy’s sweet eyes on him, the tight fist of his son waving above the coverlet. Two hot tears splashed on Lucy’s forehead. “Your hour of greatest need,” said Childres Parker, “and I not here to help you.” “But, Childres”—she reached out and patted his huge hands with her white small ones— “even while you were gone your love and your strength protected me.” “Protected? I don’t understand.” She smiled. “Because you do everything completely. Don’'t you rem-mber nursing Tum- water Tom’s son until he was entirely well, Childres, so that even if they put him in the sweat house and plunged him into the river it wouldn’'t hurt him?” “Yes, but Tom——" “He gave me warning.” “Tom? He threatened my life.” “To deceive the Indians with him so that he could warn us without being suspected. You saved his son, so he saved us.” “I have done him grave injustice in my mind,” said Childres Parker. “So we rang the bell. People were frightened to hear it. They came from all over the valley.” “The farthest settlers heard it?” “Every one. When the attack came, we were all gathered here. They were terrible, Childres.” Her hand gripped his. “Terrible in their war bonnets and paint. The men wanted to rush out and stop them when they burned owr homes and crops. The worst was when they found we were in the meeting house. But they did not kill a single person, for the church is strong as a fort. You built so well, Childres, when you built this church, a citadel unto—the Lord.” Agonized night after agonized night she had lain awake listening for his step, the boom of his voice. Now that he was here, she drowsed. His big plain face hung over her, its inherent determination overlaid with gentleness. She couldn’t know just what she was saying as she dropped to sleep, Childres Parker thouht. “That’s what—you are—yourself, Childres —a—citadel—" (Copyright, 1831.)