The Seattle Star Newspaper, July 12, 1919, Page 4

THE SEATTLE BiG TiMBER COPYRIGNT BY BERTRAND W. SINCLAIR AVTHOR OF “NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE _ SYNOPSIS ‘To the tumber camp of her brother Chertie, in the Roaring | British Columbia, comes Stella Benton, that has supported her in luxui in the lumber business, and not &k Fyfe, There: Js his neighbor, J x e to further his one seif-cultured ambition mes camp cook and general drudge, until Jack Fyfe | Jack Fyte's Bhe was still hot with the spirit of tiny when morning came, but she | breakfast. It was not in her | Act like a petulant child. Morn-| also brought a different aspect to for Charlie told her while he Prepare breakfast that he was to take his crew and repay in the help Jack Fyfe had given ~ ile we're there, Jack's cook “feed all hands,” said he. “And time we're thru there, I'll things fixed so it won't be such @oeing for you here. Do you to go along to Jack's camp” " she answered shortly. “I I would nfuch prefer to get from this lake altogether, as I “you last night.” fou might as well forget that no- he said stubborniy. “I've got pride in the matter. I don't My sister drudging at the only work she'd be able to earn a at. re perfectly willing to have ige here,” she flashed back. different,” he defended. it’s only temporary. I'll be real money before long. get your share if you'll have a ie patience and put your shoulder wheel. Lord, I'm doing the can,” or yourself,” she returned. don't seem to consider that I'm atl to as much fair play as you'd fe to accord one of your men. I ‘Want you to hand me an easy On a silver salver. All I want is what is mine, and the privi- ing my Own Judgment. I'm le of taking care of my- if there had been opportunity to t on that theme, they might come to another verbal clash. n never lost sight of his y object. getting of break- putting his men about their Promptly was of more import- } to him than Stella's grievance. incipient storm dwindled to a Mood on her part. Breakfast Benton loaded men and tools & scow hitched beside the He repeated his invitation, and refused, with a sarcastic re- on the company she would Fy ae d She could to them or they to her, Long a. surfeited with , to make eyes at. Her nded by Roaring mission at Skookum- She was therefore no mitiga- Stella’s loneliness. make the best of it, and it! & poor best. She could not} herself sufficiently from the fealities to lose herself in u ‘There was not a to be had in the camp 10-cent sensations she o the bunkhouse, and these| more, a queer, half-amused expres- | ip » Even the bluejays and seemed to sense its aban- it, seemed to take her as part inanimate fixtures, for they and chattered about with un- on fearlessness. The lake lay gray, glassy as some great ir- window in the crust of the Only at rare intervals did sail smoke dot its surface, and then lar offshore. The woods stood breath- sas in the autumn sun. It was like entombed. And there would @ long stretch of it, with only a rence of that deadly grind of work when the loggers came in. time during the next fore- 10 she went southerly along the shore on foot without object or Hnation, merely to satisfy in measure the restless craving action. Colorful turns of life, more or less engrossing contact Various personalities, some new to be done, seen, admired, dis- had been a part of her exist- se ever since she could remember. jone of this touched her now. A weight of monotony rode her |. There was the furtive wild of the forest, the light of sun sky, and the banked green of forest that masked the steep} ite slopes. She appreciated uty, craved it indeed, but she ‘ould not satisfy her being with 7 effects alone. She craved, etinsu: being wholly aware of it, or together admitting it to herself, human distraction in all that tic solitude. It was forthcoming. When she re- to camp at two o'clock, driven | by hunger, Jack I’yfe stood on the D. ~ “How-de-o! I've come to bring you to my place,” he announced casually. “Thanks. I've already declined One pressing invitation to that ef. /’ Stella returned drily. His mat. Bs Sghimale assurance rather nettled| “A woman always has the privi- of changing her mind,” Fyfe} . “Charlie is going to be at iy camp for at least three weeks. rain soon, and the days’ll be) ty gray and dreary and lonesome, ht as well pack your war-bag along. stood uncertainly. Her tongu’ sid ready a blunt refusal, but she| not utter it; and she did not know | * She did have a glimpse of the itility of refusing, only she did not | with the crew,” he drawled. | got all kinds of room. My boss log: | while, party, and she keeps us all in ordes when ry suddenly yet num’ fore he counts his pennics inter harde: offers her a running indignantly against compul sion, nevertheless her muscles invol untarily moved to obey. It irritated her further that she should feel in the least constrained to obey the calmly expressed wish of this quiet spoken woodsman. Certain possible phases of a lengthy sojourn in Jack Fyfe's camp shot across her mind. He seemed of uncanny perception, for he answered this thought before it was clearly formed. “Oh, you'll be properly chaper- oned, and you won't have to ix “I've ger's wife if up from town for a She's a fine, motherly old “I haven't had any lunch,” she temporized. “Have you?" He shook his head. “I rowed over here before twelve. Thought I'd get you back to camp in time for dinner, You know,” he said with a twinkle in his blue eyes, “a logger doesn’t eat anythin’ but a meal. A lunch to us is a snack that you put in your pocket. I guess we lack tone out here. We haven't got past the breakfastdinner-supper stage yet; too busy making the country fit to live in.” “You have a tremendous job he gbserved. “Oh, maybe,” he laughed. “All in the way you look at it. Suits some of us. Well, if we get to my camp before three, the cook might feed us. Come on. You'll get to hating your. self if you stay here alone till Char. e's thru.” Why not? herself, one stand upon her: dignity, the other half of her urging acquiescence in his wish that was almost a com- mand. She was tempted to refuse just to see what he would do, but she reconsidered that. Without any log- {eal foundation for the feeling, she was shy of pitting her will against Jack Fyfe’s. Hitherto quite sure of herself, schooled in self-possession, it was a new and disturbing experi. ence to come in contact with that subtle, analysis-defying quality which carries the possessor thereof etraight Thue she parleyed with to his or her goal over ali opposition, | which indeed many times stifles all opposition. Force of character, over: mastering personality, emanation of sheer will, she could not say in what terms it should be described. What- ever it was, Jack Fyfe had it. It ex- isted, a factor to be reckoned with when one dealt with him. For within 20 minutes she had packed a suitcase full of clothes and was embarked In his rowboat, He sent the lightly built craft eas- fly thru the water with regular, ef- fortiess strokes. Stella sat in the stern, facing him. Out past the north hora, bay, she broke the silence that hid ‘fallen betwéen them. “Why did you make a point of coming for me?” she asked bluntly. Fyfe rested on his oars a moment, looking at her in his direct, unem- |. “My partner pulled out be- fore Christmas and never came back. It was the first time I'd ever been alone in my life, I wasn't a much older hand in the country than you are, Four months without hearing the sound of a human voice. Stark alone. I got so I talked to myself out loud before spring. So I thought —well, I thought I’d come and bring you over to see Mrs. Howe.” Stella sat gazing at the slow mov- ing panorama of the lake shore, her chin in her hand. “Thank you,” she said at last, and very gently. Fyfe looked at her a minute or as well tell the whole truth. I've been thinking about you quite a lot lately, Miss Stella Benton, or I wouldn't have thought about you get- ting lonesom« He smiled ever so faintly, a mere Movement of the corners of his mouth, at the pink flush which rose quickly in her cheeks, and then re- sumed his steady pull at the oars, Except for a greater number of board shacks and a larger area of stump and toplittered waste imme- diately behind it, Fyfe's headquarters outwardly, at least—differed little from her brothér’s camp. Jack led her to a long log structure with a shingle roof, which from its more substantial appearance she judged to be her personal domicile. A plump, smiling woman of 40 greeted her on the threshold. Once within, Stella perceived that there was in fact con- siderable difference in Mr. Fyfe's habitation. There was a great stone fireplace, before which big easy- chairs invited restful lounging. The floor was overlaid with thick rugs which deadened her footfalis. With No pretense of ornamental decora tion, the room held an air of homely in here and lay off your things,"" Mrs. Howe beamed on her “If I'd ‘a’ known you were livin’ so close, we'd have been acquainted a tled here myself. My land, these men are such clams! I never knowed till this mornin’ there was any white woman at this end of the lake besides myself.” She showed Stella into a bedroom, Tt boasted an enamel washstand with taps which yielded hot and cold water, neatly curtained windows, and a deep-seated Morris chair. Certain. ly Fyfe's household accommodation war far superior to Charlie Benton's. Stella expected the man’s ne to bi off her hat and had a critical su y of herself in a mirror, after which she had just time to brush her hair before answering Mrs. to a “cup of tea.” a well-cooked and well-served meal with china and linen and other un expected table accessories which agreeably surprised her. he made comparisons, somewhat lie would fix his place with a few such household luxuries, life in their camp would be more nearly bearable, it that refusal might be of no tht in the matter, With her mind despite the long hours of disagree- half of her minded to! week ago; tho I ain't got rightly set- | rough and ready like inekte and in| @ measure it was, but a comfortable | sort of rough and readiness. She took | Howe's call) The cup of tea resolved itself into) Inevitably | tinctured with natural envy. If Char-| able work. As it was—well, the un- to warp her outlook on everything. Fyfe maintained his habitual spars | ity of words while they ate the food Mrs, Howe brought on a tray hot from the cook's outlying domain When they finished, he rose, took up | his hat and helped himself to a hand ful of cigars from a box on the fire place mantel guess you'll be able to put in the time, all right," he remarked, “Make yourself at home. If you take |}@ notion to read, there's a lot of books and magazines in my room Mrs, Howe'll show you.” He walked out. Stella waa con scious of a distinct relief when he was gone, She had somehow experi- enced a recurrence of that peculiar feeling of needing to be on her guard, as if there were some curious, latent antagonism between them, She puz zled over that a little, She had never felt that way about. Paul Abbey, for instance, or indeed toward any man | she had ever known, Fyfe's more or less ambiguous remark in the boat had helped to arouse it again, His manner of saying that he had “thought a lot about her” conveyed more than the mere words. She could quite conceive of the Jack Fyfe type of man carrying things with a high hand where a woman was concerned. |He had that reputation in all his | Other dealings. He was aggressive. | He could drink any logger in the big | firs off his feet. He had an uncanny | luck at cards. Somehow or other in | every undertaking Jack Fyfe always |came out on top, so the tale ran. There must be, she reasoned, a wide | Streak of the brute in such @ man. It was no gratification to her vanity to have him admire her, It did not dawn upon her that so far she had never got over being a little afraid of him, much less to ask herself why she should be afraid of him. But she did not spend much time puzzling over Jack Fyfe. Once out of her sight she forgot him. It was balm to her lonely soul to have some jone of her own sex for company. What Mrs. Howe lacked in the high er culture she made up in homely perception and unassuming kindli- ness, Her husband was Fyfe's fore- man, She herself was not a perma- nent fixture in the camp. They had & cottage at Roaring Springs, where she spent most of the time, so that their three children could be in school. “I was up here all thru vacation’ | she told Stella, “But Lefty he got to howlin’ about bein’ left alone shortly after school started again, so I got | my sister to look after the kids for a | spell, while I stay. I'll be goin’ down about the time Mr. Benton's thru | here.” | Stella eventually went out to take a look around the camp. A hard- Deaten path led off toward where Tose the distant sounds of logging work, the ponderous crash of trees, and the puff of the donkeys. She fol- lowed that a little way and presently came to a knoll some three hundred yards above the beach. There she paused to look and wonder curiously. For the crest of this little hillock had been cleared and graded level and planted to grass over an area 400 feet square. It was trimmed like a lawn, and in the center of this vivid green block stood an unfinished house foundation of gray stone. No stick of timber, no board or any ma- terial for further building lay in sight. The thing stood as if that were to be all. And it was not a new undertaking, temporarily delayed. There was moss creeping over the thick stone wall, she discovered, when she walked over it. Whoever had laid that foundation stone had done it many a moon before. Yet the sward about was kept as if a gar- dener had it in charge. A noble stretch of lake and moun- tain spread out before her gaze. Straight across the lake two deep clefts in the eastern range opened on the water, five miles apart. She could see the white ribbon of foam- ing cascades in each, Between lifted & great mountain, and on the lake- ward slope of this stood a terrible scar of a slide, yellow and brown, | rising 2,000 feet from the shore. A vaporous wisp of cloud hung along the top of the slide, and above this aerial banner a snow-capped pinnacle thrust itself high into the infinite blue. “What an outlook,” she said, bare conscious that she spoke aloud. ‘Why do these people build their houses in the bush, when they could live in the open and have something like this to look at. They would, if they had any sense of beauty.” “Sure they haven't? Some of them might have, you know, without being able to gratify it.” She started, to find Jack Fyfe al- most at her elbow, the gleam of a quizzical smile lighting his face. “I daresay that might be true,” she admitted. Fyfe's gaze turned from her to the huge sweep of lake and mountain chain, She saw that he was outfitted for fishing, creel on his shoulder, un- jointed rod in one hand. By means of his rubber-soled waders he had come upon her noiselessly. “It's truer than you think, may- be," he said at length. “You don't want to come along and take a les- son in catching rainbows, I sup- poser” “Not this time, thanks,” she shook her head. “T want to get enough for supper, so I'd better be at it,” he remarked. “Sometimes they come pretty slow. If you should want to go up and watch the boys work, that trail will take you there.” He went off across the grassy lev- el and plunged into the deep timber that rose like a wall beyond. Stella looked “It is certainly odd,” she reflected with some irritation, “how that man affects me, I don’t think a woman could ever be just friends with him She'd either like him a lot or dislike him intensely, a loge lik Funny Then she | r, and yet he has a presence one of the lords of creation went back to the house to converse upon domestic matters with Mrs, Howe until the shrilling of the donkey whistle brought 40 odd lumberjacks swinging down the trail Behind them a little way came ck Fyfe with sagging creel. did not stop to exhibit his catch, but half an hour later they were served hot and crisp at the table in the big living room, where Fyfe, Stella and Charlie Benton, Lefty Howe and his wife, sat down together, A flunkey from the camp kitchen served the meal and cleared it away For an hour or two after that the He isn’t anything but| He} ———-M! | relieved discomforts were beginning | three men sat about In shirt-sleeved ' puffing at Benton excused to bed. When d, Stella did likewise. long twilight had dwindled to a misty patch of light sky in the | northwest, and she fell asleep more at ease than she had been for weeks. Sitting in Jack Fyfe's living room thru that evening she had begun to | formulate a philosophy to fit her en | forced environment—to live for the day only, and avoid thought of the | future until there loomed on the ho- | | rizon some prospect of a future worth | thinking about. The present looked | passable enough, she thought, if she kept her mind strictly on it alone. And with that idea to guide her, ahe found the days slide by smooth: ly. She got on famously with Mrs. Howe, finding that woman full of vir- | thes unsuspected in her type. Char-| lie was in his element. His prospects fookea 80 rosy that they led him into | otintic outlines of what he intended to accomplish. To him the future | | meant logs in the water, big holdings of timber, a growing bank account. | Beyond that—what all his concentrat ed effort should lead to save more | logs and more timber—he did not) seem to go. Judged by his talk. that | was the ultimate, economic power— | money and more money. More and | more as Stella listened to him, she became aware that he was following | his father’s footsteps, save that he) | aimed at greater heights and that he worked by different methods, jug- sling with natural resources where their father had merely juggled with prices and tokens of product, their end was the same-—not to create or build up, but to grasp, to acquire. That was the game. To get and to hold for their own use and benefit and to look upon men and things, insofar as they were of use, as pawns in the game. She wondered sometimes if that were a characteristic of all men, if that were the big motif in the lives of such men as Paul Abbey and Jack Fyfe, for instance; if everything else, save the struggle of getting and keep- ing money, resolved itself into pure- ly incidental phases of their exiat- ence? For herself she considered that wealth, or the getting of wealth, | was only @ means to an end. | Just what that end might be she | found a little vague, rather hard to | define in exact terms, It embraced personal leisure and the good things of life as @ matter of course, a broad ler existence, a large-handed gener | osity toward the less fortunate, an intellectual elevation entirely unre- lated to grons material things. Lite, | she told herself pensively, ought to | mean something more than case and | g004 clothes, but what more she was | chary of putting into concrete form. It hadn't meant much more than that for her, so far. She was only beginning to recognize the flinty facts of existence. She saw now that for her there lay open only two paths to food and clothing: one in which, lacking all training, she must earn her bread by daily toil, the other leading to marriage. That, she would have admitted, was a woman's nat- ural destiny, but one didn't pick husband or lover as one chose a fown or a hat. One went along liv- ing, and the thing happened. Chance ruled there, she believed. The moral- lity of her class prevented her from prying into this question of mating with anything ike critical considera. tion. It was only to be thought about sentimentally, and it was easy for her to so think. Within her sound and vigorous body all the heritage of natural human impulses bubbled warmly, but she recognized neither their source nor their ultimate fruits. Often when Charlie was holding forth in his accustomed vein, she wondered what Jack Fyfe thought about it, what he masked behind his brief sentences or slow smile. Lat- terly her feeling about him, that in- voluntary bracing and stiffening of herself against his personality, left her. Fyfe seemed to be more or less self-conscious of her presence as a guest. in his house. His manner to- ward her remained always casual, as if she were a man, and there was no question of sex attraction or mas- culine reaction to it between ther. She liked him better for that; and she did admire his wonderful strength, the tremendous power in- vested in his magnificent body, just as she would have admired a tiger, without caring to fondle the beast. Altogether she spent a tolerably pleasant three weeks. Autumn's gor. geous paintbrush laid wonderful col- oring upon the maple and alder and birch that lined the lake shore. The fall run of the salmon was on, and every stream was packed with the silver horde, threshing thru shoal and rapid to reach the spawning ground before they died. Off every creek mouth and all along the lake the seal followed to prey upon the salmon, and sea-trout and lakers alike swarmed to the spawning beds to feed upon the roe. ‘The days short- ened. Sometimes a fine rain would drizzle for hours on end, and when it would clear, the saw-toothed ranges flanking the lake would stand out all freshly robed in white—a mantle that crept lower on the fir- cla@ slopes after each storm. ‘The winds that whistled off those heights nipped sharply Farly in October Charlie Benton had squared his neighborly account with Jack Fyfe, With equipment he moved home, to begin work anew on his own limit Katy John and her people came back from the salmon fishing. Jim Renfrew, still walking with a pro- nounced limp, returned from the hos: pital, Charlie wheedled Stella |taking up the cookhouse burden again. Stella consented; in truth she could do nothing else. Charlie spent a little of his contract profits in piping water to the kitchen, in a few things to brighten up and make more comfortable their own quarters. “Just a# soon as I can put another boom over the rapids, Stell," he promised, “I'll put a cook on the job. I've got to sail a little close for a} while a million feet in the water in six weeks. Then I'll be over the hump, nd you can take it easy. But till then—" “Till the elf useful tically | “Well, why not?” Benton demanded | impatiently. “Nobody around here works any harder than I do.” And there the matter rested. Juck Fyfe's cigars. himself and Howe and his The | ease | The: went | wife reti I may as well make my- Stella interrupted caus 'AR—SATURDAY, down the Laughing Brook crew and} JULY 12, 1919 It shows a deep knowledge of the minds of women and the ways -IN- Now here—a real clever girl, supported by Har- rison Ford, in a hot com- edy of married life— TALMADGE “Happiness a La Peter F; inds the Home of Longlegs BY THORNTON W. BURGESS (Copyright, 1919, by T, W. Burgess) ETER RABBIT watched Rattles! because it the Kingfisher until the latter | loosely put together, grew tired of fishing and flew away | wouldn't have thought about it at all This re-|had not Mrs, Longlegs settled her- minded Peter that he had once found| self on it right while Peter was It didn’t seem big enough bank, and he promptly decided he|or strong enough to hold her, but the home of Rattles in a gravelly | watching. would go look for it again it did. scampered So Peter along the bank of the| to think that in that direction there | Blue Heron, were no high, gravelly banks, be- cause the Laughing Brook was flow. ing thru the Green Meadows, and | Longlegs is, it. “As I live," thought Peter, “I've Laughing Brook, without stopping | found the nest of Longlegs the Great | good fisherman, but he certainly is }a mighty poor nest-builder, or Mrs. looked too rough and Probably he He may be a mighty for probably she built | into With this crew J ought to put} \Nige Mrs. (Continued in Monday's Star.) Copyright, 1916, by Little, Brown & Co. All rights reserved. the Green Meadows are low. At last Peter reached the place where the Laughing Brook enters the Big River, Of course, he hadn't found the home of Rattles, But now he did find something that for the time being made him forget Rattles and his home, Just before It reaches the Big River, the Laughing Brook winds thru a swamp in which are many tall trees and a great number of young trees. Many big ferns grow there and are splendid to hide under. Peter always did lke that swamp. He had stopped to rest in a clump of ferns when he was startled by seeing a great bird alight in a tree just a little way from him, His first thought was that it was a Hawk, so you can guess how sur- prised and pleased he was to recog Longlegs. Somehow, Peter had always thought of the Herons as always alighting on the ground. But here was Mrs. Longlegs in a tree, Having nothing to fear, Peter crept out from his hiding place that he might see better. In the tree in which Mrs, Long- legs was perched and just below her he saw a little platform of sticks. He didn’t suspect that it was a ne: It is the poorest apology for a “As I live,” thought Peter, “I've | found the nest of Longlegs the Great | Blue Heron.” | nest I've ever geen. I don't see how | under the sun Mrs. Longlegs ever gets on and off without kicking the eggs out.” Peter sat around for a while, but BY THE STORY LADY Aunt Grace bought Peter a bird looking for bird nests. He found the mocking bird's nest in the summer house and the bluebird’s nest in the knothole in the big gate post. There was a wren’s nest in a box on the porch, and a song sparrow had a nest just inside the pasture fence. Peter found a little yellow | bird making love to a bright red and |brown one. He found in his bird He came tearing into the house book, and he spent most of his time | book that they were orchard orioles. | PETER IS A BIRD LOVER Jone day: unt Grace, come quick; | there's a big brown and red bird in the orchard, I can't find him in my book at all. Do come quick before he flies away. I couldn't see him good.” | So Aunt Grace stopped her bread- | making and ran to the orchard with | Peter. Sure enough, high up in the big cherry tree was a big bird, but he flew to the ground as Peter and Aunt Grate came up. Aunt Grace laughed and lavghed. “That's Mi | Robert's brown Leghorn rooster, she said, |_—HELEN CARPENTER MOORE. |Seattle Yank Wins High Belgian Honor Capt. Frank O. Mercer has writ- ten his parents, Mr. and Mrs. O. O. Mercer, 1310 Queen Anne ave., tell- ing of his decoration by King Albert as chevalier of the Order of the Crown, and citation by Gen. Per shing for distinguished and gallant service, The Seattle officer won the honors when a lieutenant by leading his men in an engagement at Frepelle. He was slightly wounded and lost one-fourth his unit. In the Argonne they went over the top again, and Capt. Mercer went to the hospital with his second wound. He has only recently been discharged as cured, He does not know when he will be ordered home, ag he is now on duty in Luxembourg. be known, and as there was no one but Mrs. Longlegs. to talk to, he presently made up his mind that, being so near the Big River, he would run over there to see if Plung- er the Osprey was fishing there. Next story: The Mystery of Many WANTS PLAY IN * CITY’S STREETS Would Close Thorofares Part of Each Day Advocating the closing of desig- | nated streets thruout the city at giv- |en periods during the day for organ- ized street play, Adella M. Parker, 419 Boylston appeared before the board of park commisisoners Friday and urged adoption of the plan, She informed the park commia- sioners that in Eastern cities the scheme has met with favor. The pirk department would have men and women play directors on hand, with volley balls, medicine balls and indoor baseballs, and the plan is fa- vored by parents, on the ground that it keeps children near home, In some cities, Miss Parker sa} play for adults also is organized, has proved a success, One can't judge the good there is as'he didn't care to let his presence | Little Holes, in a man by the worldly goods he pos- esses,