The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 23, 1902, Page 11

THE SUNDAY CALL. €yes to see if she was anywhere about. Annixter—how, he could not tell—had be- come possessed of the idea that Hilma would not inform her parents of what 'ad passed between them the previcus ving under the long trestle. He had idea that matters were at an end be- himself and the young woman. He apologize, he saw that _clearly must eat crow, as he told him- Well, he would eat crow. He was Bot afraid of her any longer, now that €he had made her confession 1o him. He soon as possible and get raightened out and begin tarting pojnt. What nted with Hilmu, Annixter did not clearly in his mind. At one time known perfectly well what he Now the goal of his desires had vague. He could not say exactly He preferred that things idea of it should g nd of vely knew thoughts night; th: he was n he was with her and miser- away from her. hinese cook served his supper in xter atz and drank and light- and after hjs meal sat on the cf his house, smoking and enj twilight. The evening s beau- warm, the sky one powder of stars. the direction of the stables he of the Portuguese hands pick- guitar. he wanted to see Hilma. The idea of going to bed without at least a glimp: ef her became distasteful to him. nixter got up and. descending from the began to walk aimle about be- r the ranch buildings, with eye and car alert. Possibly he might meet her somewheres. The Trees' little house, toward wh inevitably Annixter directed his steps. dark. Had they all gone to bed so soon? He made a wide circuit about it, listen- ing, but heard no sound. The door of the dairy-house stood He pushed it open and stepped into _the odorous dark- ness of its interior. The pans and deep cans of polished metal glowed faintly from the corners and from the walls. The smell of new was pungent in his nostrils. E i ‘There was nobody He wemnk out again, closing the door, and stood for a moment in the space between the dairy-house and the new barn. uncertain as to what he should do next. As he waited there, his foreman came out of the men's bunkhouse, on the other side of the kitchens, and crossed over to- ward the barn. *“‘Hello, Billy,” muttered Annixter as he passed. “Oh. good evening, Mr. Annixter,” the other. pausing in front of him. didn’t know you were back. By the way,” he added, speaking as though the matter was already known to Annixter, “I see old man Tree and his family have left us. Are they going to be gone long? Have they left for good?” “What's that?” Annixter exclaimed. “When did they go? Did all of them go, all three?” “Why, I thought you knew. Sure, they all left on the afternoon train for San Francisco. Cleared out in a hurry—took all their trunks. Yes. all three went— the young lady, too. They gave me no- ¥ this morning. They ain't ought 1o have dome that. I don’t know who I'm going to get to run the dairy on such short notice. Do you know any one, Mr. Annixter?” “Well, why in hell did you let them £80?" vociferated Annixter. “Why didn't you keep them here till I got back? Why didn’t you find out if they were going for £00d? "1 can't be everywhere. What do I feed you for if it ain't to look after things I can’t attend te?” He turned on his heel and strodg away straight before him, not taring where he was going. He tramped out from the group of ranch buildings: hnldln% on over the open reach of his ranch. his teeth set, his heels digging furiously into the ground. The minutes passed. He walked on swiftly, muttering to himself from time to time: “'Gone, by the Lord. Gone, by the Lord. By the Lord Harry, she’s cleared outX’ As vet his head was empty of all thought. He could not steady his wits to consider this new turn of affairs. He d not even try. “Gone, by the Lord,” he exclaimed. “By the Lord, she's cleared out.” He found the irrigating ditch and the beaten path made by the ditch tenders bordered it. and followed it some minutes; then struck off at right an- s over the rugged surface of the ranch land. to where a great white stone jut- ted from the ground. There he sat down, and leaning forward rested his elbows on his knees and looked out vaguely into the night, his thoughts swiftly readjusting themselves He alone. The silence of the night, nite repose of the flat, bare earth immensities—widened around and above him like illimitable seas. A gray half light, mysterious. grave, flooded downward from the stars. Annixter was in torment. Now there could be no longer any doubt—now it was Hilma or nothing. Once out of his reach, once lost-to him, and the recollection of her assailed him with unconquerable ve- hemence. Much as she had occupied his mind, he had never realized till now how vast had been the place she had filled in his life. He.had told her as much, but n then he did not believe it. Suddenly a bitter rage against himself overwhelmed him as he thought of the rt he had given her the previous even- ing. He should have managed differently. How, he did not know, but the sense of ed a cigar. porch ing the tiful, From heard one said T a —two recoiled against him with cruel Now he was sorry for it, infinitely sorry, passionately sorry. He had hurt her. He had brought the tears to her eves. He had so flagrantly insulted her that she could no longer bear to breathe the same eir with him. She had told her parents She had left Quien Sabe—had left him for good. at the very moment when he be- lieved he had won her. Brute, beast that he was, he had driven her away. An hour went by; then two, then four, then six. Annixter still satyin his place, groping and battling in a confusion of spirit, the like of which he had never feit before. He did not know what was the matter with him. He could not find his way out of the dark and out of the tur- moil that wheeled around him. He had had no experience with women. There was no precedent to guide him. How was he to get out of this? What was the clew that would set everything straight again? That he would give Hilma up never once entered his head. Have her he would. She had given herself to him. Everything should have been easy after that, and in- stead here he was alone in the night, wrestling with himself, in deeper trouble than ever, and Hilma farther than ever away from him. It was true, he might have Hilma even now if he was willing to marry her. But marriage, to his mind, had been always a vague, most remote possibility, almost as vague and as remote as his death—a thing that happened to some ten, but that would surely never occur to him, or If it did it would be after long years had passed, when he was older, more set- tled, more mature—an event that belonged to the period of his middle life, distant as ret. e bad never faced the question of his marriage. He had kept it at an immense distance from him. It had never been a part of his order of things. He was not a marrying man. But Hilma was an ever-present reality, near to him as his right hand. Mar- e was a formiess, far distant abstrac- tion. Hilma a tangible, imminent fact. Before he could think of the two as on before he could consider the idea of mar- riage side by side with the idea of Hilma, ureless distances had to tra- versed, things as disassociated in his mind as fire and water, had to be fused to- gether; and between the two he was torn 2s if upon a rack. Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, the imagination, unused. unwilling machine, began to work. The brain's activity Japsed proportionately. He began to think less, d feel more. In that rugged com- position. confused, dark, harsh, a_furrow had been driven deep, a little seed plant- ed, a little seed at first weak, forgotten, lost in the lower dark places of his char- acter. & But as the intellect ymoved slower, its functions growing numb, the idea of self dwindled. Annixter no longer considered himself; no longer considered the notion of marriage from the point of view-of his own comfort, his own wishes, his own advantage. He realized that in his new- found desire to make her happy he was sincere. There was something in that jdea, after all. To make some one happy —how about that now? It was worth hinking of. . Far away, Jow down in the east, a dim belt, a gray light began to whiten over the horizon. The tower of the mission stood back against it. The dawn was coming. The baffling obscurity of the night was p:uis!ng. Hidden g8 were coming inta view. wflmfxwr, his eyes half closed, his.chin upon his fist, allowed his imagination full play. How would it be if he should take Hilma into his life, this beautiful young girl, pure as he now knew her to be; in- nocent, noble with the inborn nobility of dawning womanhood? An overwhelming sense of his own unworthiness suddenly bore down upon him with crushing force, as he thought of ‘this. He had gone about the whole affair wrongly. He had been mistaken from the very first. She was infinitely above him. He did not want— he should not desire to be the master. It was she, his servant, poor, simple, lowly even. who should condescend to him. Abruptly there .was-presented td his mind’s eye a picture of the years to come, if he now should follow his best, his high- est, his most unselfish impulse. He saw Hilma. his own, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, all barriers down between them, he giving himself to her as freely, as nobly, as she had given her- s<!f to bim. By a supreme effort, not of his will, but of the emotion,she fought his way across that vast gulf that for a time had gaped between Hilma and the idea of his marriage. Instantly, like the swift blending of beautiful colors, like the harmony of beautiful chords of mu- sic, the two ideas melted into one, and in that moment into his harsh, unlovely world a new idea was born. Annixter stood suddenly upright, a mighty tender- ness, a gentleness of spirit, such as he had never conceived of, in his heart strained, sweiled, and in a moment seem- ed to burst. Out of the dark furrows of his soul, up from the deep rugged recesses of his being. something rose, expanding. He opened his arms wide. An immense happiness overpowered him. Actual tears came to his eyes. Without knowing why, he was not ashamed of it. This poor, crude fellow, harsh, hard, narrow, with his unlovely nature, his fierce truculency, his selfishness, his obstinacy, abruptly knew that all the sweetness of life, all the great vivifying etgrnal force of hu- manity had burst into ffe within him. The littie seed, long since planted, gath- ering strength quietly, had at last germi- nated. Then as the realization of this hardened into certainty, in the growing light of the new day that had just dawned for him, Annixter uttered a cry. Now at length he knew the meaning of it all. % “Why—I—I, I love her,”. he cried. Never until then had it occurred to him. Never until then, in all his thoughts of Hilma, had the great word passed his lips. It was a Memnonian cry, the greeting of the hard, harsh image of man, rough hewn, flinty, granitic, uttering a note of joy. acclaiming the new risen sun. By now it was almost day. The east glowed opaiescent. All about him Annix- ter saw the land inundated with light. But there was a change. Overnight some- thing had occurred. In his perturbation the change seemed to him, at first, elusive. aimost fanciful. unreal. But new a the light spread, he look- ed again at the gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled before him from edge to edge of the horizon. The change was- not fanciful. The change was real. The earth was no longer bare. The land was no longer barren—no longer empty, no.longer dull brown. All at once An- nixter shouted aloud. There it was. the wheat! the wheat! The little seed long_planted, germinating in the deep, dark furrows of “the soil, straining. swelling, suddenly in one night had burst upward to the light.. The wheat had come up. It was there before him, around him, everywherg. illimitable, im- measurable. The winter brownness of the ground was overlaid with a little shim- mer. of green. The promise of the sow- ing was being fulfilled. The earth, the loyal mother. who had rever failed.’ who never disappointed, was keeping her faith again. Once more the strength of nations was renewed. Once more the force of the world was reviyified. Once more the Titan, benignant, calm, stirred and woke, and the morning abruptly blazed into glory upon the spectacle of a man whose heart leaped exuberant with the love of a woman, and an exulting earth gleaming transcendent with the radiant magnifi- cende of an inviolable pledge. IIL Presley’s room in the ranchhouse of Los Muertos was in the second story of the building. It was a corner room; one of its ‘windows facing the south, the other the east. Its appointments were of the simplest. In one angle was the small white painted iron bed, covered with a white counterpane. The walls wore hung with a white paper figured with knots of pale green leaves, very gay and bright. There was a straw matting on the floor. ‘White muslin half curtains hung in the windows, upon the sills of which certain plants bearing pink waxen flowers of which Presley did not know the name grew in oblong green boxes. The walls weré unadorned. save by two pictures, one a reproduction of the “Reading from Homer,” the other a charcoal drawing of the mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, which Presley had made himself. By the east window stood the plainest of deal tables, innocent of any cloth or covering, such as might have been used in a kitchen. it was Presley’s work table, and was in- variably littered with papers, half fin- ished manuscripts, drafts of poems, note- books, pens, half smoked cigarettes, and the like. Near at hand, upon.a shelf, were his books. There were but two chairs in_the room—a straight backed wooden chair, that stood in front of the table, angular, upright, and in which it was impossible to take one's ease, and the long ' comfortable wicker steamer chair, stretching its length in front of the south window. Presley was immensely fonc_of this room. It amused and inter- ested him to maintain its air of rigorous simplicity and freshness. He abhorred cluttered bric-a-brac and meaningless objets d'art. Once in so often he sub- mitted his room to a vigorous inspection; setting it to rights, removing everything but the essentials, the few ornaments which, in a way, were part of his life. His writing had by this time undergone a complete change. The notes for his great “Song of the West,” the epic poem he once had hoped to write, he had flung aside, together with all the abortive at- tempts at its beginning. Also he had torn up ‘a great quantity of “fugitive” verses, preserving only a certain half fin- ished poem that he called ‘“The Toilers.” This_poem was a comment upon the so- cial fabric, and had been inspired by the sight of a painting he had seen in Cedar- quist's art gallery. He had written all but the last verse. On the day that he had overheard the conversation between Dyke and Caraher, in the lJatter’s saloon, which had acquaint- ed him with the monstrous injustice of the increased tariff, Presley had returned to Los Muertos, white and trembling, roused to a pitch of exaitation, the like of which he had never known in all his life. His wrath was little ehort of even Caraher’s. He, too, “saw red”; a mighty spirit of revolt heaved tumultuous within him. It did not seem possible that this outrage could go on much longer. The oppression was incredible; the plain story of it set down in_ truthful statement of fact would not be believed by the outside ‘world. He went up to his little room and paced the floor with clenched fists and burning face, till at last the repression of his con- tending thoughts all but suffocated him and he flung himself before his table an began to write. For a time his pen seem- ed to travel of itself; words came to him without searching, shaping themselves into phrases—the phrases building them- selves up to great, forcible sentences, full of eloguence, or fire, of passion. As his prose grew more exalted it passed easily into the domain of poetry. Soon the ca- dence of his paragraphs settled to an or- dered beat and rhythm, and in the end Presley had thrust aside his journal and was once more Writing verse. He picked up his incomplete poem of “The Toilers,” read it hastily a couple of times to catch its swing, then the idea of the last verse—the idea for which he s0 long had sought in vain—abruptly springing to his brain, wrote it off with- out s0 much as replenishing his pen with ink. He added still another verse, bring- ing the poem to a definite close, resuming its entire conception and ending with a single majestic thought, simple, noble, dignified, absolutely eonvincing. Presley laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair, with the certainty that for one moment he had touched untrod heights. His hands were cold, his head on fire, his heart leaping tumultuous in his breast. Now at last he had dchieved. He saw why he had never grasped the inspiration for his vast, vague, impersonal ng of the West.” At the time when he sought for it his convictions had not been aroused; he had not then cared for the people. His sympathies had not been touched. Small wonder that he had missed it. Now he was of the pe?le; he had been stirred to his lowest depths. His earnestness was almost a frenzy. He b lieved, and so to him all things were pos- sible at once. Then the artist in him reasserted itself. He became more interested in his poem, assuch, than in the cause that had in- smr?‘i it. He went over it again, re- touching it carefully, changing a word here and there, and improving its rhythm. For the moment he forgot the people, for- got his rage, his agitation of the previous hour, be remembered that he had written a great poem. Then doubt intrgded. After all, was it so great? Did not its sublimity over- ass a little the bounds of the ridicu- ous? Had he seen true? Had he failed again? He reread the poem carefully; and it seemed all at once to lose force. By now Presley could not tell whether what he had written was true poetry or doggerel. He distrusted profoundly his own judgment. He must have the opin- fon of some one else—some one competent to judge. He could not wait; to-morrow would not do. He must know to a cer- tainty before he could rest that night. He made a careful copy of what he had written, and, putting on his hat and laced boots, went downstairs and out upon the lawn, crossing over to the sta- bles. He found Phelps there, washing down the buckboard. “Do you know where Vanamee is to- day?” he asked the latter. Phelps put his chin in the air. ““Ask me something easy,” he respond- ed. “He might be at Guadalajara, or he he might be up at Osterman’s, or he might be a hundred miles away from either place. 1 know where he ought to be, Mr. Presley, but that ain't saying where the crazy gesabe is. -#e ought to be range riding over east of Four, at the headwaters of Mission Creek."” “I'll try for him there, at all events,” answered Presley. “If you see Harran when he comes_in tell him I may not be back in time for supper.” Presley found the pony in the corral, cinched the saddle upon him .and went off over the Lower Road, going at a brisk canter, At Hooven's he called a “How do you do” to Minna, whom he saw lying in a slat hammock under the mammoth live oak, her foot in bandages; and then gal- loped on over the bridge across the, irri- gating ditch, wondering vaguely what would become of such a pretty girl as Minna and if in the end she wouid marry the Portuguese foreman in charge of the ditching gang. He told himseif that he hoped she would, and that speed- ily. There was no lack of comment. as to Minna Hooven about the ranches. Cer- tainly she was a good girl, but she was seen at all hours here and there about Bonneville and Guadalajara skylarking with the Portuguese farmhands of Quien Sabe and Los Muertos. She was very pretty; the men made.fools of them- selves over her. Presley hoped they would not end by making a fool of her: Just beyond the irrigating ditch Pres- ley left the Lower Road and followed a trail that branched off southeasterly from this point, held on across the Fourth Division of the ranch, keeping the Mission Creek on his left. A few miles farther on he went through a gate in a barbed-wire fence and at once en- gaged himself in a system of little ar- royos and low-rolling hills that steadily lifted and- increased in size as he pro- ceeded. This higher ground was the ad- vance guard of the Sierra fooihills, and served as the stock range for Los Muer- tos. The hills were huge rolling hum- mocks of bare ground, covered only by wild oats. At long intervals were iso- lated live oaks. In the canyons the chap- arral and manzanita grew in dark olive- greeR thickets. The ground -was honey- combed with gepher holes, and the goph- ers themselves were everywhere.- Occa- sionally a jackrabbit bounded across the open, from one growth of chaparral to another, taking long leaps, his ears erect. High overhead a hawk or two swung at anchor, and once, with a start- ling rush of wings, a covey of quail flush- fd" from the brush at the side of the rail. On_ the hillsides, in thinly scattered groups, were the cattie, grazing deliber- ately, working slowly toward the water holes for their evening drink, the horses keeping to themselves, the colts muz- zling their 'mothers’ bellies, whisk- ing their tails, stamping their unshod feet. But once in a remoter field, soli- tary, magnificent, enormous, - the ' short hair curling -tight upon hise forehead, his small red eye twinkling, his vast neck heavy with muscles, Presley:cam® upon the monarch, the king, the great Dur- ham bull, maintaining his lonely state, unapproachable, austere. . Presley found the one-time shepherd by a water hole in a far distant corner of the range. He had made his simple camp for the night. His blue-gray army blanket lay spread under a live oak, his horse grazed near at hand. He himself sat on his heels before a little fire of dead manzanita roots, cooking his coffee and bacon. Never had Presiey conceived so keen an impression of loneliness as.this crouching figure presented. The bald, bare landscape widened about him to in- finity. Vanamee was a spot in it all, a tiny dot, a single atom of human . or- ganization floating endlessly on the ocean of an illimitable nature. The two friends ate together, and Van- amee, having snared a brace of quails, dressed and then roasted them on a sharpened stick. After eating, they drank great, refreshing draughts from the wa- ter hole. Then, at length, Presley’ hav- ing lit his cigarette and Vanamee his P anamice; T have been weil : “*Vanamee, I have been wi y: VeERE LAy i il i toward him, his black eyes .fixed atten- tively.. g “I know,” he said, “your. journal.” “No; this is a poem. You remeniber I told you about it once: ‘The -Toilers,” 1 called it.” ; *“Oh, verse! Well, I am glad you have gone back to it. It is your natural ve- hicle.” “You remember the poem?” asked Presley. ‘It was unfinished.” “Yes, I remember it. There was better promise in it than anything you evéer Frote. Now I suppose vou have finished ‘Without reply Presley brought 4t from the , breast pocket -of his < shooting coat. The moment seemed propitious. The stiliness of the vast,"bare hills was profound. The sun was setting in a cloudless brazier of red light; a golden dust pervaded all the landscape. Pres- ley read his poem aloud. When he had finished his friend looked at him. ‘“What have you been doing lately?" he demanded. Presley, wondering, told of his various comings and goings. © “I don’t mean that,” returned the other. ‘* Something has happened to you, something has aroused you. I am right, am I not? Yes, I thought so. In this poem of yours you have not been trying to make a sounding piece of literature. You wrote it under tremendous stress. Its very imperfections show that. It is better than a mere rhyme. It is an ut- terance—a message. It is truth. You have come back to the primal ‘heart of things, and you have seen clearly. Yes, it is a gredt poem.” “Thank you,” exclaimed Presley fer- vidly, “I had begun to mistrust myself.” ‘“Now,” observed Vanamee, “‘I presume u will rush it into print. To have for- ulated a great thought, simply to have accomplished, is not enough.” “I think I am sincere,” observed Pres- ley. “If it is good it will do good to oth- ers. You said yourself it was a messag>, If it has any value I do not think it ‘would be right to keep it back from even lal' very small and most indifferent pub- c. “Don’t publish it In the niagazines at all events,” Vanamee answered. “Your in- spiration has come from the People. Then let it go straight to the People—not the literary readers of the monthly periodi- cals, the rich, who would only be indirect- ly interested. Jf you must publish it, let it be in the daily press. Don’t interrupt. I know what you will say. It will be that the daily press is common, is vuigar, {s undignified; and I tell you that such a g_oem as this of yours, called as it is, “The ollers,’ must be read by the Toilers. It must be common; it must be vulgarized. You must not stand upon your dignity v';'hh the People, if you are to reach s ‘“That js true, I suppose,’ Presley ad- mitted, “but I can't get rid of the idea that it would be throwing my poem away. The great magozine gives me such—a— background; gives me such weight.” “Gives you such weight, gives you such background. Is it yourself you think of? You helper of the helpless. "Is that your sincerity? You must sink yourself; must forget yourself and your own desire of fame, of admitted success. It is your poem, your message, that must prevail,— not you, who wrote it. You preach a doc- trine of "abnegation, of self-obliteration, and you sign your name to your words as high on the tablets as you can reach, so that all the world may see, not'the poem, but the poet. Presley, there are many like you. The social reformer writes a book on the iniquity of the possession of land, and out of the proceeds buys a corner lot. The economist who laments the hardships of the poor allows himself to grow rich upon the sale of his book."” But Presley would hear no further. " *“No,” he cried, “I know-1 am_sincere, and o prove it to you. I will publish my m, as you say, in the daily press, and fovevfl accept no money for it.”” ¥ They talked on for about an hour, while the evening wore away. Presley very soon noticed that Vanamee was again pre- occupied. More than ever of late, his sllence, his brooding had increased. By and by he rose abruptly, turning his head to the north, in the direction of the Mis- sion church of San Juan, “I think,” he said to Presley, “that I must be xoln;. ‘] ere to. at this time of “Going? night?” “Off there.” ~Vanamee made an uricers tain gesture toward the north. “Good- by,” and.without another word he disap- red in the gray of the twilight. Pres- left alone wondering. He found S | his hoise, and, tightening the girths, mounted and hode home under the shee of the stars, thoughtful, his head bowed. Before he went to bed. that night he sent “The Toilers” to the Sunday editor of a daily newspaper in San Francisco. Upon leaving Presley, Vanamee, his thumbs hooked into his empty cartridge belt, strode swiftly down from the hills of the Los Muertos stock-range and on through the silent town of Guadalajara. His lean, swarthy face, with its hollow cheeks, fine, black, pointed beard, and sad eyes, was set to the northward. As was his custom, he was bareheaded, and the rapidity of his stride made a breeze in his_swer of the night. He knew where he w: live long, black hair. going. He knew what he must _through that night. Again, the deathless grief that never slept leaped out of the shadows, and fast- ened upon his shoulders. It was scourg- ing him back to that scene of a vanished happiness, a dead romance, a perished idyl—the Mission garden in'the shade of the venerable pear trees. But, besidés this, other influences tug- ged at his heart. There was a mystery in the garden: In that spot the night was not always empty. the darkness not al- ways silent. Something far off stirred and listened to his cry, at times drawing near- er to him. At first this presence had been a matter for terror; but of late, as he felt it gradually drawing nearer, the terror had at long intervals given place to a feeling of an almost ineffable sweetness. But distrusting his own senses, unwilling to submit himself to such torturing, un- certain heppiness, averse to the terrible confusion of spirit that followed upon a night spent in the garden, Vanamee had tried to keep away from,the place. How- ever, when the sorrow of his life reas- sailed him, and the thoughts and recol- lections of Angele brought the ache into his heart, and the tears to his eyes, the temptation to return to the gardén in- variably gripped him-close. There were times when he could not resist. Of them- gelves, his' footsteps turned in that di- rection. It was almost as if he himself had been called. % Guadalajara was silent, dark. Not even in Solotari's was there a light. The town was asleen. Only the inevitable guitar hummed from an unseen 'dobe. Vanamee pushed en. The smell of the fields and open country, and a distant scent of flow- ers that' he knew well, came to his nos- trils, as he emerged from the town by way of the road tbat led on toward the Mission through Quien Sabe. either side of him lay the brown earth, silently nurturing the implanted seed. Two days before it had rained copiously, and the soil, still moist. disengaged a pungent aroma of fecundity. Vanamee, following the 'road, passed through the collection of buildings.of of « Annixter’s home ranch. Everything slept. At intervals the aermotor on the arte- sion well creaked audibly, as it turned in a languid breeze from the northeast. A cat, hunting field-mice, crept from the shadow of the gigantic barn and paused uncertainly in the open, the tiprof her tail twitching. From within the barn it- self came the sound of the friction of a heavy body and a stir of hoofs, as one of the dozing cows lay down with a long breath. Vanamee left the ranch house behind him and proceeded on his way. Beyond him, to the right of the road, he could makKe out the higher ground in the Mis- sion inclosure, and the watching tower of the Mission itself. The minutes passed. He went steadily forward. Then abruptly he paused, his head in the aiy, eye and ear_alert. To that strange sixth sense of Mis, responsive as the leaves of the sensitive plant, had suddenly come the impression of a human being near at hand. He had neither seen nor heard, but for all that he stopped an instant in his tracks; then, the sensation confirmed, went on again with slow steps, advancing ‘warily, At Yast, nis swittly roving eyes lighted upon an object just darker than the grey- brown of the night-ridden land. Tt was at some distance from the roadside. Vana- mee approached it cautiously, leaving the road, treading carefully upon the moist clods of earth underfoot. Twenty paces distant, he, halted. Annidter was thére, seated —upon a round, white rock, his back towards him. He was legning forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. He did not move. Silent, motionless, he gazed out ugon the flat, somber land. It was the night wherein the master of Quien Sabe wrought out his salvation, struggling with Self from dusk to dawn. At the moment when Vanamee came upon him, the turmoil within him had only be- gun. The heart of the man had not yet wakened. The night was young, the dawn.. far distant, and all around him the fields of upturned clods lay bare and bi 1 empty of all lite, ;,wyog;g»py's single S oot the - Wcrcies ot .. the ircles .o e en, of so widely differ. e éhnnkters. touched each other, there in the sileneé of the night under the stars. Then silently Vanamee with- drew, going on his way rl{derlns at the trouble that, like myself, ve this hard- headed man of affairs, untroubled by dreams, out into the night to brood over an_empty land. ] Then speedily he forgot all else. The material world drew off from him. Real- ity dwindled to a point and vanished like the vanishing of a star at moonrise. Earthly things dissolved and disappear- ed as a strange, unnamed essence flow- ed in upon him. A new atmosphere for him pervaded his surroundings. He en- tered the world of the vision, of the le- gend,_of the miracle, where all things were sible.. He stood at the gate of the Mission garden. Above him rose the ancient tower of the Mission church. Through the arches at its summit, where swung the - Spanish Queen’s_bells, he saw the slow-burning stars.. The silent' bats, with flickering wings, threw their dancing shadows on the pallid surface of the venerable facade. ¥ Not the faintest chirring of a cricket broke the silence. The bees were asleep. In the grasses, in the trees, deep in the calix of punka flower 'and magnolia bloom, the gnats, the caterpillars, - the beetles, all the microscopic multitudinous life of the daytime drowsed and dozed. Not even the minute scuffling of a lizard over the warm, worn pavement of the colonnade disturbed the infinite the profound stillness. Only within the garden the intermittent trickling of the fountain made itself heard, flowing stead- ily, marking off the lapse of seconds, the pro‘%reu of hours, the cycle of years, the inevitable march of centuries. At oné time the doorway before which Vanamee now stood had been hermetical- ly closed. But he himself had long since changed that. He stood before it for a moment, steeping himself in the mystery and romance of the place, then, the latch, pushed open the gate, and closed it softly beHind him. in the cloister garden. The stars were out, strewn thick and close ifi the deep blue of the sky, the milky way glowing like a silver veil. Ursa Major wheeled gigantic in the north. The great nebula in Orion was a whorl_of shimmering star dust. Venus flamed a lambent disk of pale saffron, low over the horizon. From edge to edge of the ‘world marched the constellations, like the progress of emperors, and from the innumerable glory of their courses a mysterious sheen of diaphanous light dis- engaged itself, expanding over all the earth, slf{telne. lnfldnlte, majestic, 'he le garden revealed itself dimiy beneath the brooding light, otr,nlllyt half emerglng from the shadow. The poi- ished surfaces of the leaves of the pear trees winked faintly back the reflected entered He was light as the trees just stirred in the un-- certain breeze. A blurred shield of silver marked the ripples of the fountain. 'Un- der_the flood of dull blue luster the grav- eled walks lay vague amid the grasses, like webs of white satin on the bed of & lake. Against the castern wall the head- stones of the graves, an indistinct pro- S0 mrent has becn the de- i mand for the first installment of “The Octopus.” published in ‘The Sunday Call of November 9, that only a few coplex of that edition remain. If you missed the first number of this great story apply for The Sun- day Call of that date at once or you will be too Inge. “The Octopus” was written by the Iate Frank Norris. It is Mr. Norrls’ strongest novel. 3 It has justly been consider- ed the nearest approach to the wgreat American novel” ever written. 1t portrays 1ffe and scenes tn California more vividly than. any other book extant. it is now running in The nday Call. 3 ~No extra charge! And by this means you read the best novel of the day—FREE!l B 2 2 o -and a fourth. repose, © raising - be]éslon of gray cowls ranged them- selves, - Vanamee crossed the garden, pausing to kiss the turf upon Angele’s grave. Thenhe approached the line of pear trees and laid himself down in their shadow; his chin propped upon his hands, his eyes wandering over the expanse of -the little valley that stretched away from the foot gl‘;{:e hill upon which the Mission was it £ Once again -he summoned the vision. Once again he conjured up the illusion. Once again, tortured with doubt, racked with a deathless grief, he craved an an- Once again, mystic that he was, he sent his mind out from him across the enchanted sea of the su- pernatural. Hope, of what he did - not know, roused up within him. Surely, on such a night as this, the hallucination must define itself. Surely the manifesta- tion must be vouchsafed. His eyes closed, his will girding itself to a supreme effort, his senses exalted to a state of pleasing numbness, he call- ed upon Angele to come to him, his voice- less cry penetrating far out into that sea of faint. enhemeral licht that floated tideless over the little valley beneath him. ‘I'nen, motloniess, prone upoll Lie Bround, he waited. Months had passed since that first night when, at length, an answer had come to Vanamee. At first, startled out of all composure, troubled and Stirred to his lowest depths because of the very thing for which he sought) he resolved never again to put his strange powers to the test. But for all that he had come a second night to the garden, and a third, At last his visits were habitual. Night after night he was there, surrendering himself to the influences of the place, gradually convinced that some- thing did actually answer when he called. His faith iIncreased as the winter grew into spring. As the spring advanced and the nights became shorter it crystallized into certainty. Would _he have her again, his love, long dead? Would she come to him once more out of the grave, out of the night? He could not tell; he could only hope. All that he knew was that his cry found an answer, that his out- stretched hands, groping in the ‘dark- ness, met the touch of other fingers. Pa- tiently he walted. The nights became ‘warmer as the spring drew on. The stars shone clearer. The nights seemed brighter. For nearly a. month after the occasion of his first answer nothing new occurred, Some nights it failed him en- tirely; upon others it was faint, elusive, Then, at last, the most subtle, the barest of perceptible changes began. His groping mind far off, there, wandering like a lost bird over the. valley, touched upon some- thing again, touched and held it, and this- time drew it a single step closer to him. Hdés heart beafing, the blood surg- ing in his temples, he watched with the eyes of his imagination this gradual ap- proach. Vhat was coming to him? Shrouded in the obscurity- of the night, whose was the face now turned toward his? Whose the footsteps that with such infinite slowness drew nearer to where he waited? He did not dare to say. His mind went back many years to that time before the tragédy of Angele’'s death, before the mystery of ‘the other. He waited then as he waited now. But then he had not waited-in vain. Then, as now, he had seemed to.feel her ap- proach, seemed to fee]l her drawing nearer and nearer to their rendezvous. Now What would happen? tie did not kmow. He waited. “He walted, hoping all things. He walted, belleving all things. He wait- ed, enduring all things. He trusted in the vision. Meanwhile, as ‘spring advanced, ~_the flowers in the Seed ranch began to come to life. Over the 500 acres whereon the flowers were planted the widening growth of vines and bushes spread like the waves of a gréen sea. Then; timid- ly, colors of the faintest tints began to appear. - Under the moonlight Vanamee saw. them expanding, delicate pink, faint blug, tenderest variations of lavender and yellow, white shimmering with reflections of -gold, all subdued and pallid in the m%onll ht. i 8o z 'y degrees tlie night. became impreg- nated with the perfume of the fowers. Illusive at first, evanescent as filaments of gossamer; then, as the buds opened emphasizing ~ itself, breathing deeper, stronger. An exquisite mingling of many odors passed continually over the Mis- sion from the garden of the Seed ranch, meeting and blending with the aromd of its magnolia buds and_punka blossoms. As the colors of the flowers of the Seed ranch deepened, and as their odors pene- trated dee and more distipetly, as the starlight of each sueceeding night grew er-and the air became warmer, the usfon defined itself. By impergeptible degrees, as Vanamee waited under the shadows of the pear trees, - €hey answer w_nearer_and . He not! EE‘ but"tne 'am‘l.mnlt::‘lrfiél‘;ler of the flow- . e hear@ nothing 'but -the D the fountain. Nothing moved a’hn‘lli,t’ i) but the invisible, slow-passing breaths of pier‘lume: yet he felt the approach of the vision. 4 It came first to about the middle of the Seed ranch itself, some half a mile away, ‘where the violets grew; shrinking, timid flowers, hiding close to the z,roung. Then it passed forward beyond the violets, and drew nearer and stood amid the mig- nonette, hardier blooms -that dared look heavenward from out the leaves. A few nights later it left the mignonette behind, and advanced into the beds of white iris that pushed more boldly forth from the earth, their waxen petals claiming the at- tention. It advanced then a iong step into the proud, challenging beauty of the car- nations and roses; and at last, after many nights, Vanamee' felt that it paused, as if trembling at its hardihood, full in the superb glory of the royal lilies them- selves, that grew on the extreme border of the Seed ranch nearest to him. After this, there was a certain long wait. Then, upon a dark midnight,-it advanced again. Vanamee could scarcely repress a cry. Now, the illusion emerged from the flow- ers. 'It stood, not distant, but unseen, al- most at the base of the hill upon whose crest he waited, in a depression of the fr_ound where: the. shadows lay thickest. [t was nearly within éarshot. - The nights ‘passed. The spring grew ‘warmer. In the daytime intermittent tains freshened all the earth. . The flow- érs of the Seed ranch grew rapidly. Bud -after bud burst forth. while those al- rcady opened expanded to “full maturity. The color of the Seed ranch deepened. One night, after hours of waiting, Vana- ‘mee felt upon his cheek- the touch of a prolonged, rufl of warm wind, breathing across the little valley from out the east. It reached the mission garden and stirred .the branches of the pear trees. It seemed veritably t6 be compounded of the very essance of the flowers. Never had the aroma been so sweet, so pervasive. It passed and faded, leaving in its wake an absolute silence. Then, at length, the silence of the night, that silence to which Vanamee had so long appealed, was brok- of - m wing, the nodding of a wind-touched blos- som, nor the noiseless flitting of a bat. It was a g|ea.m merely, faint, elusive, impos- sible of definition, an intangible agitation, in the vast, dim blur of the darkness. And that was all. Until now no single real thing had occurred, nothing that Van- amee could reduce to terms of actuality, nothing he could put into words. The manifestation, when not recognizable to that strange sixth sense of his, appealed only to the most refined, the most deli- cate perception of eye and ear. It was all ephemeral, * filmy, dreamy, the mystic forming of the vision—the invisible de- veloping a concrete nucleus, the starlight coagulating, the radiance of the flowers thickening to something actual; perfume, the most delicious fragrance, becoming a tangible presence. ~But into that garden the serpent in- truded. Though cradled in the slo rhythm of the dream, lulled by thi beauty of a summer’s night. heavz with the scent of flowers, the silence broken only by a rippling fountain, the darkness flluminated by a world of radiant blos- goms, Vanamee could not ~forget the tragedy of the other; that terror of many years ago—that prowler of the night, that strarge, fearful figure with the un- seen face, swooping in there from out the darkness, gone in an instant, yet leaving behind the trail and trace of death and of pollution. Never had Vanamee seen this more clearly than when leaving Presley on the stock range of Los Muertos, he had come across to the mission garden by way of the Quien Sabe ranch. It was the' same night in which An- nixter outwatched the stars, coming, at last, to himself. As the hours passed, the two men, far apart, ignoring each other, waited for the manifestation—Annixter on the ranch, Vanamee in the garden. Prone upon - his face, under the pear trees, his forehead buried in the hollow of his arm, Vanamee lay motionless. For the last time, raising his head, he sent his voiceless cry out into the night across the multi-colored levels of the little val- ley, calling upon the miracle. summoning the darkness to Fl\'e Angele back to him, resigning himself to the hallucination. He bowed his head upon his arm again and waited. The minutes passed. The foun- tain dripped steadily. Over the hills a haze "of saffron light foretold the rising of the full moon. Nothing stirred. The silence was profeund. Then, abruptly, Vanamee's right hand shut tight upon his wrist. There—there it.was. It began again, his invocation ‘was answered. Far off there, the ripple formed again uvon the still, black pool of the night. No sound, no sight; vibra- tion merely, appreciable by some sub- limated faculty of the mind as vet un- named. Rigid, his nerves taut, motion- less, prone on the ground, he waited. 1t advanced with infinite slowness. Now it passed through the beds of violets, now through the mignonette. A moment later, and he knew it stood among the white iris. Then it left those behind. It was in the splendor of the red roses and car- nations. It passed like a moving star into the superb abundance, the imperial opu! ence of the royal lilies. It was advancing slowly, but there was no pause. He held his breath, not daring to raise his head. It passed beyond the limits of the Seed ranch, and entered the shade at the foot of the hill below him. Would it come farther than this? Here it had always stopped hitherto, stopped for a moment, and then, in spite of his efforts, had slip- ped from his grasp and faded back into the night. But now he wondered if he had been willing to put forth his utmost strength, after all. Had there not always been an ‘element of dread in the thought of beholding the mystery face to face? Had he not even allowed the vision to dissolve, the answer to recede into the obseurity whence it came? But never a night had been so beautiful as this. It was the full period of the spring. The air was a veritable caress. The infinite repose of the little garden, sleeping under the night, was delicious be- yond exrresslon. It was a tiny corner of the world, shut off, discreet, distilling ro- mance, a garden of dreams, of enchant- ments. .~ Belo’ in the little valley, the resplen- dent lorations of the million flowers, roses, lilies, hyacinths, carnations, violets, ?owed like incandescence in the golden light of the rising moon. The air was thick with the perfume, heavy with it, clogged with it. The sweetness filled the very mouth. The throat choked with it. Overhead wheeled the illimitable pro- cession of'the constellations. Underfoot, the earth was asleep. The very flowers ‘were dreaming. - A cathedral hush over- lay all the land, and a sense ‘of benedic- tion brooded manifesting itself in beauty, in peace, in absolute repose. It was 2 time for visions. . It was the hour when dreams come true, and lying deep in the grasses beneath the pear trees; Manamee, dizzied with mysticism, féaching up ‘and_out toward:' the super- natural, feit, as It ‘were.“}is’ mind begin to. Tise, upward from ' outt his body. He passed into a state of being the like of which he had not known before. He felt that his imagination was reshaping itself, preparing to receive an_impression never experienced until now. His body felt light to him, then it dwindled, vanished. He saw with new eyes, heard with new ears, felt with a new heart. **Come to me,” he murmured. Then slowly he felt the advance of the vision. 1t was approaching. Every in- stant it drew gradually nearer. At last, he was to see. It had left the shadow at the base of the hill; it was on the hill itself. Slowly, steadily, it ascended the slope; just below him there, he heard a faint stirring. The grasses rustled under the touch of a fdot. The leaves of the bushes . murmured, as a hand brushed against them; a slender twig creaked. The seunds of approach were more distant. They came nearer. They reached the top of the hill. They were within whispering distance. Vanamee, trembling. kept his head buried in his arm. The sounds, at length, paused definitely. The vision could come no nearer. He raised his head and looked. The moon had risen. Its great shield of gold stood over the astérn horizon. ‘Within six feet of Vanamee, clear and distinct, against the disk of the moon, stood-the figure of a young girl. She was dressed in a gown of scarlet silk, with flowing sleeves. such as Japanese wear, embroidered with flowers and figures of birds worked in gold threads. On either side of her face, making three-cornered her round, white forehead, hung the soft masses of her bhair of gold. ler hands hung limply at her sides. But from be- tween her parted lips—lips of almiost an Egyptian fullness—her breath came slow and regular, and her eyes, heavy lidded, slanting upwards toward the temples, per- plexing, oriental, were closed. She was asleep. From out this life of flowers, this world of color, this atmosphere oppressive with perfume, this -~ darkness clogged and €n by a tiny sound. Alert. half-risen from_ cloyed, and thickened with sweet odors, the ground, he listened: for now, at length, he heard something. The sound repeated itself. It came from near at ‘hand, from the thick shadow at the foot of ‘the hill. What it was, he could not tell, but it did not belong to a single one of the infinite similar noises of the place with which he was so familiar. It was neither the rustle of a leaf, the snap of a safled twig, the drone of an insect, the ropping of a magnolia blossom. It was a vibration merely, faint, elusive, impos- sible of definition; a minute notch in the fine, keen edge of stillness, Again the nights passed. The summer stars became brighter. The warmth in- creased. 'The flowers of the Seed ranch grew still more. The five hundred acres of the ranch were carpeted with them. At length, upon & certain midnight, a new light began to spread in the sky. The thin scimitar of the moon rose. veiled and dim behind the earth-mists. The light jn- creased. Distant objects, until now hid- den, came into view, and as the radiance brightened. Vanamee, looking down upon the little valley, saw a spectacle of incom- parable beauty. All the buds of the Seed ranch had opened. The faint tints of the flowers had deepened, had asserted them- selves. They challenged the eye. Pink be- came a royal red. Blue rose into purple. Yellow flamed into orange. ge lowed golden and brilliant. The earth slnppearsd under great bands and fields of resplendent color. Then, at length, the moon abruptly . soared zenithward from out the veiling mist, passing from one filmy haze to another. For a mo- ment there was a gleam of a golden light, and - Vanamee, his eyes searching the shade at the foot of the hill, felt his heart " suddenly leap, and then hang poised, re- fusing to beat. In that instant of pass- ing light, something had caught his eye. Something that moved, down there, half in and half out of the shadow, at the hill’'s foot. It had come and gome in an instant. The haze once more screened the . at was it he seen? He. o, o brief had been that move- ment, the drowsy brain had not been quick erough to interpret the cipher mes- sage of the eve. Now it was gome. But something had been there. He had seen it. Was it the lifting of a strand of hair, the wave of a white d, the flutter of a garment’s edge? ‘He could not tell, but it not belong 'to any of Se hts which he had seen so often in that place. It was neither the glancing of a moth’s she came to him. She came to him from out of the flowers, the smell of the roses in her bhair of gold, the aroma and the imperial red of the carnations in her lips, the whiteness of the lilies, the perfume of the lllies, and the lilies’ slender, balancing grace in her neck. Her hands disengaged the scent of the heliotrope. The folds of her scarlet gown gave off the enervating smell of poppies. Her feet were redoient of hyacinth. She stood before him, a “vision realized—a dream come true. She emerged from out the invisible. He be- held her, a figure of gold and pale ver- milion, redolent of perfume, poised mo- tionless in tHe faint saffron sheen of the new-risen moon. She, a creation of sleep, was herself asleen. She, a dream, was herself dreaming. Called forth from out the darkness, from the grip. of the earth, the embrace of the grave, from out thememory of cor- ruption, she rose infd light and life, divinely pure. Across that white forehead was no smudge, no trace of an earthly pollution—no mark of a terrestrial dis- honor. He saw ig her the same beauty of ‘untainted_innocence he had known in his Years had made no difference She was still young. It was the old purity that returned, the death- less beautv. the ever-renascent life, the eternal consecrated and immortal youth. For a few seconds she stood there before him, and he, upon the ground at her feet, looked up at her, spellbound. Then, slow~ 1y she withdrew. Still asleep, her eye- lids closed. she turned from him, descend- ing the slope. She was anamee started up, coming. to himself, looking wildly Sarria was there. *“I saw her,” said the priest. Angele, the little _girl, your daughter. She is like her mother.” But Vanamee scarcely heard. He walked as if in a trance. pushing by Sarria, go- ing forth /from the garden. Angele or Angele's daughter, it was all one with him. It was she. Death was overcome The grave vanquished. Life, ever-re- newed, alone existed. Time was naught; change was naught; all things were im- mortal but evil: all things eternal but grief. 5 Suddenly. the dawn low—a divine kindliness 11 up his arms, he uttered a great cry. There it was. \!l'he whufiha wheat! In the night it had come up. It was there, ever re, from to margin of e horizon. ~ The_ earth, long empty, teemed with green life. nce more the pendulum of the seasons swung. in its mighty arc, from death back to life. Life out of death, eternity rising from out dissolution. There was the lesson. Angele was not the symbol, but the proof of immortal- ity. The seed dylng, rotting and cor- rupting in the earth; rising again in life unconquerable and in immaculate purity: Angele dying as she gave birth to her lit- tle daughter, life springing from her death—the pure, unconquerable, coming forth from the defiled. Why had he not had the knowledge of God? Thou ¥ool, that which thou sowest is not quicken- ed except it die. So the had died; So died Angele. And that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bear again. It may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. The Wwheat called forth from out the.darkness, from out the grip of the earth, of the grave, from out corruption, rose tri- umphant into light and life. So Angele, so life, so also the resurrection .of -the dead. It is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is Sown in weakness. It is raised in power. Death was swallowed up in victory. The sun rose. The night was over. The glory of the terrestial was one. and the glory of the celestial was another. Then, as the glory of the sun banished the lesser glory of moon and stars, Vanamee, from his mountain top, beholding. the etarnal green life of the growing wheat, burst. ing its bonds, and in his heart exulting In his triumph over the grave, flung out his arms with a mighty shout: “*Oh, death, where is thy sting? Ob, grave, where is thy victory?” Iv. Presley’s Socialistic poem, “The Tofl- ers,” had an enormous success. The ad- itor of the Sunday supplement of the San Francisco paper to which it was sent printed it in Gothic type, with a scare- head title so decorative as to be almest illegible; and furthermore causéd the poem to be illustrated by one of the pa- per’s staff artists in a_most impressive fashion. The whole affair occupied am entire page. Thus advertised, the poem attracted _attention. It was promptly copied in New York, Boston and Chicago papers. It was discussed, attacked, de- fended, eulogized, ridiculed. It was prais- ed with the most fulsome adulation; as- sailed with the most violent condemna- tion. - Editorials were written upon it Special _articles, in literary pamphlets, dissected its rhetoric and prosody. The phrases were quoted—were used as texts for revolutionary sermons, reactionary speeches. It was parodied; it was dis= torted so as to read as an advertisement for patent cereals and infants’ foods. Finally the editor of an ecaterprising monthly magazine reprinted the poem, supplementing it by a photograph and biography of Presley himself. Presley was stunned, oewildered. fe began to wonder at himself. Was he actually the ‘“greatest American poet since Bryant?” He had had no thought of fame while composing “The Toilers.” He had only been moved to his heart's foun- dations, thoroughly in earnest, seeing clearly, and had addressed himself to the poem's composition in a happy mo- ment, when words came easily to ‘him, and the elaboration of fine sentences was not difficult. Was it thus fame was achieved? For a while he was tempted to cross the continent and go to New York and there come into his own, en= Joying the triumph that awaited him. But soon he denied himself this cheap reward. Now he was too much in earnest. He wanted to help his people—the com~ munity in which he lived—the little world of San Joaquin, at grapples with the rail- road. The struggle had found its poet. He told himself that his place was here. Only the words of the manager of a lec= ture bureau troubled him for a moment. To range the entire nation, telling all his countrymen of the drama that was work- ing itself out on this fringe of the com- tinent, this ignored and distant Pacific Coast, rousing their interest and stirring them up to action—appealed to him. It might do great good. To devote himself to “the cause,” accepting no penny of remuneration; to give his life to loos- ing the grip of the iron-hearted monster of steel and steam would be beyond ques- tion heroic. Other States than Califor- nia had their grievances. All over the country the family of cyclops was grow= ing. He would declare himgelf the cham- pion of .the people in their oppositioft™ to the trust. He would be an apostle, & prophet, a martyr of freedom. But Presley was essentially a dreamer, not a man of affairs. He hesitated to act at this precise psychological moment, striking while the iron was yet hot, and while he hesitated other affairs near at hand began to absorb his attention. One night, about an hour after he had gone to bed, he was awakened by the sound of voices on the porch of the ranch house, and, descending, found Mrs. Dyk there with Sidney. The ex-engineer” mother was talkipg to Magnus and Har- ran, afid crying as she talked. It seemed that Dyke was missing. He had goue into town early that afternoon with the wagon and team, and was to have beenm home for supper. - But now it was 10 o'clock and there was no ne of him. Mrs. Dyke told of how she first had gone to Quien Sabe, intending to telephone from there to Bomneville, but Annixter was in San Francisco, and in his absence the house was locked up and the overseer, who had a duplicate key, was himself in Bonneville. She had telegraphed threes times from Guadalajara to Bonneville for news of her son, but without result. Then, at last, tortured with anxiety, she had gone to Hooven's, taking Sidney with her, and had prevailed upon *“Bismarck” to hitch up and drive her across Los Muer- tos to the Governor’s to beg him to tel- ephone into Bonneville to know what had become of Dyke. ‘While Harran rang up Central in town Mrs. Dyke told Magnus and Presley of the lamentable change in Dyke. ““They have broken my son’s spirit, Mr. Derrick,” she said. “If you were only there to see. FHour after hour he sits on the porch with his hands lying opem in his lap, looking at them without a word. He won't look at me in the face any more, and he don’t sleep. Night aft- er night he has walked the floor until morning. And he will go on that way for days together, very silent, without = word, and sitting still in his chair, and then, all of a sudden he will break out— uh‘r nldrA Derrlc):“l it is tern’blo—!nw an awful rage, cursing, swearing, grinding his teeth, his hands clenched over his head, stamping so that tne house shakes, and saying that if S. Behrman don’t give him back his money he will kill with his two hands. But that isn’t the worst, Mr. Derrick. He goes .to Mr. Car- aher’s saloon now and stays there for hours and listens to Mr. Caraher. There is something on my son's mind; I know _there is—something “that he and Mr. Caraher have talked over together, and I can’'t find out what it is. Mr. Caraher is a_bad man,sand my son has fallen under his infli W~ tears filled her eyes. Bravely, she turned to hide them, turning away to take Sidney in her arms, putting her head upon the little girl’s shouider. “ aven't broken down before, Mr. Derrick,” she said, “but after we have been so happy in our little house, just us three—and the future seemed so brig! oh, god will punish the gentlemen who own_the railroad for being so hard and cruel.” Harran came out on the porch, fromy the telephone, and she Interrupted her- self, fixing her eyes eagerly upon him. “I think it is all right, Mrs. Dyke,” he said, muufln#ty. “We know where he is, I believe. You and the little tad stay here. and Hooven and I will go after him.’ About two hours later, Harran brought Dyke back to Los Muertos in Hooven” wagon. He bad found him at Caraher's saloon, very drunk. T was nothing maudlin about Dyke's drunkenness. In him the alcohol used the spirit of evil, vengetul, merely ro rec! As the wagon passed out from under the eucalyptus trees about the house, taking Mrs. Dyke, 7] § the latter remark: “Caraher is right. There is only thing they listen to, and The followl: good-by to the Governor, he was to go on to_the hop ranch to see the dition of affairs in that quarter. He turned to Los Muertos overwhelmed sadness and trembling rl(h anger. hofi ranch that h:‘ tg.d hstl seen in tl full tide of prospe: was almest a ‘Work had evidently been abandoned long since. Weeds were already cl the Bsvist : vines. Everywhere the poles dropped. Many had even fallen, the vines with them, spreading them over the ground in an inextricabie of dead snar]