The Seattle Star Newspaper, January 13, 1922, Page 13

(Continued From Page 6) Dad always prayed—half automati- calty—at bedtime; but actual, @ treating prayer to a literal God had been outside her bourne of thought. In her sheltered life she had never | felt the need of a literal God. The| spirit of AN Being was not close to her, as it was to him. Bil had found his religion in the ideorness, and it was real. He had Mstened to the voices of the wind) and the stir of the waters in the fret.) ful lake; he had caught dim mes. sages, yet profound enough to flood his heart with passion, in the rust. Ming of leaves, the utter silence of the night, the unearthly beauty of | the far ranges, stretching one upon another, His was an austere God, infinitely just and wise, but Hie, great alms were far beyond the pow er of men’s finite minds to grasp. Most of all, his was a God of strength, of mighty passions and moods, but aloof, watchful, secluded In this night, and the nights that followed, she absorbed—a littic at a time—hie most harbored iteas of life and nature. He did not speak freely, Dut she drew him out with sym | pathetic interest. Rut for all he} knew life in the raw and the gloom/ the spruce forest, his outlook had pot been darkened. For all his long @cquaintance with a stark and re- Morseless Nature, he remained an optimist. None of his views surprised her as much as this, He knew the snows and the cold, this man; the perseou- tion of the elements and the endless struggle and palm of life, yet he held mo rancor. “It's all part of the game,” he explained. “It's some sort of @ test, a preparation—and there's some eort of a scheme, too big for human beings to see, behind it.” He believed in a hereafter. He thought that the very hartiship of life made it necessary. Earthly e: istence could not be an end in itself, he thought; rather the tumult and stress Ghaped and strengthened the fou! for some stress to come. “And! some of us conquer and go on,” he told her earnestly. “And some of us fallh—and stop.” But Iife isn’t hard,” she answered. “I've never known hardship or trial. I know many men and giris that don’t know what it means.” “So much to their lowt Virginia, | those people will go out of life as soft, as unprepared, as wheo they! came in. They will be as helpless as when they left theic mothers’ wombe. They haven't been discip- lined. They haven't known pain and/ work and battie—and the strength ning they entail. They don't live) @ natural life. Nature meant for all) creatures to struggle. Because ot} man’s civilization they are having an} artificial existence, and they pay for| it In-the end. Nature's way is the) way of hardship.” ‘This man did not know a gentle, kindly Nature. She was no friend of his. He knew her as a siren. a Mmurderess and a torturer, yet with | great secret aims that no man could name or discern en the kindly! Gummer moon lighted the way for hunting creatures to find and rend their prey. The snow trapped the! Geer in the valleys where the wolf pack might find easy killing; the! cold killed the young grouse in the| shrubbery; the wind sang a song of | @eath. He pointed out that all the wilderness voices expressed the pain of living—the sobbing utterance of | the coyotes, the song of the wolves| in the winter snow, the wail of the| geese in their southern migrations. | In these talks she was surprised to learn how full had been. his read- | ing. All thru her girlhood ehe had) fone to private schools and had beeg tutored by high-paid Intellectual aris: » \tocrats, yet she found this man much | [ L.>etter educated than herself. He a read philosophy and had/ at least, among ‘all the best Mterature of the past: he knew his. tory and a certain measure of science, and most of all, the aaso- ciation areas of his brain were highly developed so that he could see into| the motives and hearts of things} much more clearly than she. In the nights he told her Nature lore, the ways of the living creatures | that he observed, and in the daytime he flustrated They would take little tramps to-| gether thru the storm and snow, go- ing slowly because of the depth of the drifts, and under his tutelage, | the wild life began to reveal to her {te most hidden secrets. Sometimes she shot grouse with her pistol: once & gteat, long-pinioned goose, resting | on the shore of frozen Gray Lake, | fell to her aim. She saw the animals going about their secret business: the moose feeding in the marshes, the | herds of caribou that are, above all other creatures, natives and hab | his points from life. | the little, lesser hunters marten and mink and otter. One| night they heard Yhe wolf pack chanting as they ran along the ridee. | Life was real up here. The super- ficialities with which she had dealt such as! light. Of all the past material requl-} sites, only three rermained—tood and | warmth and shelter. Others that she did not think she needed—protection | and strength and discipline—were | shown as vitally necessary. Cor radeship was needed, too, the touch | of a helping hand in a moment of | fear or danger; and love—the one| thing she lacked now-—was most | necessary of all. It was not enough | just to give love. For years she had poured her aforagion upon Har. | 014, lost and silent in the North. She | knew she must receive it too, recipro- cally: and thus she might find strength for the war of life, even a tremulous joy in meeting and sur- mounting difficulties. The sow fell almost Incessantly until the tree limbs could hold no more. The drifts deepened in the still aisles between trunk and trunk When the clouds broke thru and the | stars were like great precious dia monds in the , the cold would drop down like a curse and a scourge, d the ice began to gather on Griz aly River. | On such nights the Northern | Lights flashed and gleamed and danced in the #k 4 swept the for. est world with mystery. xII | Virginia found the days much hap | pier than she had hoped. She took ® reat interest in enring for their! ial} | sweeping horns led the file mending Bill's torn clothes, She had | & natural fine sense of flavors, and out of the simple materials that they | had in store she prepared meals that in Bill's opinion outclassed the finest | efforts of a French chef. He would exult over them boyishly, and she found an unlooked-for joy in pleasing him, She made delicious puddings out of rice and canned milk and raising, she knew just the identical | number of minutes it required to! droll a moose porterhouse just to his taste, and she could fry a grouse to} surpass the most succulent fried chicken ever served in a southern | home, All these things pleased her | and occupied the barren hours. She | learned to sew on buttons, wash her own clothes, and keep the cabin clean and neat as a hospital ward She liked the hours of sober talk in the evenings, Sometimes they | would play thru the records, and so | well had Bill made his selections that | she never tired of them. His prefer: | ence tended toward melodies in the | minor, wailing things that to him! vaguely reflected the voloes of the wild things and the plaintive utter ances of the forest: she liked the soubetirring, emotional melodica They worked up a rare comradeship before the first week was done, She had never known a human being to whom she opened her thoughts more freely. She had her lonesome hours, but) not so many as she had expected. | When time hung heavy om ber hands she would take out one of the olf magazines that Bill had beowght up to read on the winter nights, and devour it from cover to cover, She had abundant health. The experience seemed to build her up, rather than injure her. Her muscles developed, she breathed deep of the cold moun tain air, and she had more energy than she could easily spend. She fought away the tendency to row careless in dress or appearance She kept her few clothes clean and mended. Her skin was clear and soft, but she didn't know how the wilderness life was affecting her beauty. What Bill observed he did not tell her, Often the words were at his lips, but he repressed them. In the first place he was afraid of speaking too feelingly and giving away his heart's secret; in the second he bad a ridiculous fear that such & personal remark might tend to de stroy the fine balance of their rela tionship. She had no mirror, but soon she became used to gore with out one. But one day, on one of their tramps, she caught a perfect image of herself in a clear sprine. She had stopped to drink, but for & few seconds she only regarded her. self with speechless delight. She had had her share of beauty before; now perfect health had brought its mar velous and indescribable charm. Her hair was burnished ang shimmering with life, her skin clesr and trans parent, her throat had filled out. and her eyes were bright and clear as she bad never seen them. She felt no further need of cosmetics. Her lips were red, and Nature had brought a glow to her cheeks that no human #ktil could equal. “Good Heavens, Bint she cried “Why didn’t you tell me that I was getting prettier every day?" “I didn't know you wanted me to,” he replied. “But you are. I've been noticing it a long time.” “You're a cold, impersonal per. sont But at once her talk tripped on to less dangerous subjects. ‘Their cabin life was redeemed by their frequent excursions into the wild. The study of Nature was con stantly more absorbing to the girl Altho the birds had all gone south— except such hardy fowl! as the ptar. migan, that seemed to spend most of their time buried In the enow—there was still mammalian life in plenty in the forest. The little furred creatures still plied, nervous and scurrying as ever, their occupations; and the cari- bon still wandered now and then thru their valley as they moved from ridge to rides. The moose, however, had mostly pushed down to the low- or levels. The grizzties had gone into hiberna tion, and their tracks were no longer to be een in the snowrbut the wolt | pack still ran the ridges. And one| day they had a miniature adventure that concerned the gray band. ‘They were climbing a ridge one wintry day, unappalled by the three feet or more of snow, when the girl suddenly touched his arm “First blood on caribou,” she cried His eyes lighted. and he followed | her gaze. Lately they had been hav. | ing a friendly contest to who would get the first glimpse of any living creature that they encountered in their trampr, and Bill was pleased to admit that he had been barely holding his own, The girl's eyes were | as at long distances, and always there! was high celebration when phe saw | the game first. But today they were fated for more exciting business. | The caribou were plunging an fast as they could thru the snow. They efore were revealed in their true|came, in caribou fashion, in a long | yindly. file, each stepping into the tracks of the other, and it was a good woods. | man, coming along behind them. that | could tell whether there were two or ten in the band. An old bull with When going is at all easy, the! caribou can travel at an incredible pace, Kven their swinging trot can carry them from range to range in a single day; but when they choose to run thelr fastest, they seem to have wings. Today, however, the soft enow impeded their speed. ‘They seemed to be running freely enough, in great bounds, but Pill could tel! that they were hard pressed. He would have liked to have taken one of the young cows to add to his lard er, but they were too far to risk a} shot. Then he seized the girl by the hand “Plow fast as you can up hill,” he! urged. “I think we'll see some ac tion.” | For he had guessed the tmpulse behind the wild race. They plunged thru the snow as fast as they could | then sank almost out of wight in the drifts to a gray, shadowy band that came loping toward them out of the haze. It was the wolf pack, and they | were deep in the hunt. They were great, shaggy lean id avage, and Virginia felt glad t this stalwart form was beside her. | The wolves of the North, when the creatures, little cabin, cooking the meals, even starvation time is on, are not always of ice which accompanied it — Bus to be trusted. They looxed ghostly and incredibly large thru the Qurries. They came within a hundred yards, | then their keen senees whispered a warning. Just for an instant they stood motionless tn the snow, heads raised and fierce eyes gazing. | Bill raised his rifle, He took quick | aim at the great leader, and the re. port rang far thru the silences, But the entire pack sprang away as one “I can't believe I missed,” Bill cried. He started to take aim 1 again } But no second shot was needed. Suddenly the pack leader leaped high in the air and fell almost buried in the «now. His brethren halted, seemingly about to attack the fallen, but Bill's shout frightened them on. ‘The great, gnunt creature would sing no more to the winter stars | He was a magnificent specimen of the black wolf, head as large as that of a black bear, and a pelt already rich and heavy, “We'll add a few More from time to time.” Bill told her, “and then you ean have a coat.” In there ezcurvions Virginia learned to use her pistol with re markable accuracy. Mer strength increased: she could follow wherever Rit led. Sometimes they climbed snowy mountaing where the gains ahrieked like demons, sometimes they dipped ito still, mysterions «lens they tracked the little folk in the snow, and they called the moose from the thickets beside the lake. They did not forget their graver business, Ever Virginia kept wateh for & track that was not an animal track. a blaze on a tree not made by the teeth of porcupine or grizzly. ® charred cooking rack over the ashes of a fire. Rat as yet they had found no sign of human wayfarere other than themselves. There were no cut trees, no biased trails. no sign @f habitation. Yet she didn’t despair. She had berun to have some knowlege of the great din tances of the region; # knew there wero plenty of valleys yet un em (Continued Tomorrow) i APVENTURES OF THE TWINS Clive Roberts Barta = STEPPED J ROLLER SKATE FOR A FRIDAY 13% HOODOO HA-HA- C'MON IN BUS = AWT You’ EGG “THAT WAS APPLAUDING YSELF ABOUT BEING FAT AN LUCKY AN’ SNEAKING “THROUGH FRIDAY TH’ 137 witHour A MISHAP 2 ©) | DOINGS OF THE: DUFFS MRS. DUFF, | HEARD THAT YOUR NIECE,MISS OLIVIA, HAS DONE SO WELL BY DIETING THAT | THOUGHT I'D COME OVER AND CONSULT WITH HER- WAS SHE SUCCESSFUL? ALVIN'S, THE SEATTLE STAR BY AHERN =] 1 DON'T WANT “TO BE AROUND WHEN HE SETTLES DOWN = THE! VIBRATION WILL JAR “THE PIANO OUT OF “TUNE AN’ SCRAMBI AL THe EGGS! ~~ at ~ - -- es ——™ =— LITTLE NoURISHM HER SUCCESS WAS ALMOST FATAL~ All he could find was a string of pearl beads on his ‘The next kite that came before the |the Fairy Queen I can't make head or ta could Fairy Queen was « bird-kite, and he, too, was in trouble, “Neither Billy, ftants of the snow-swept mountains, | practically as quick as his and better | mother’s bureau, which he tied on to me for a tail. “What can I do for you, my good |the bird-Rite mournfully the Fairy Queen, Nancy and Nick wondered good nature, The Twins of their own impatience fellow?” asked at her thought | “What's all this? of it?’ answered “That in, he couldn't find a tail to balance me/ when I waa up in the air, of old muslin would have done, but} he couldn't find a thing. when their kites got tangled in trees |ed around and all he could find was | fo he hunt. or refused to go as high as their lit-/a string of pearl beads on his moth resolved to do better in the future. | for a tail The Fairy Queen seemed to know | | tle owners wished them to, and they |er's bureau, which he tied on to n “Then he took me out and let me} this, for she looked over and gave| fly away up into the air above the ther an approving smile. Then she | tree-tops again “Please, your highness, would you mind sending word to Billy Brown's mother that I didn’t take her pearls?” answered the kite, thinks that I stole them, but honest, | edhe pearls.” maid, But the think wind turned her attention to the kite| strong that the string snapped and | the wind blew me up here. Now I'm afraid they'll was #0 stole the ‘The Fairy Queen smiled. “I'll send “She | Twinkle Toe back with the pearia,” “and Silver Wing will 1 didn't, You see the string broke | show you the way back to Billy's and the pearin were fastened to my | house.” tail because Billy couldn't find-—" (To Be Continued) “Oh, hold on, hold onf* erted out (Copyright, 1921, Heattle Star) (Copyright, 1922, by Seattle Star) Confessions of a Movie Star And in a moment Bill pointed) CHAPTER LXII—A MOUNTAIN TOP PICNIC WITH CHAMPAGNE MecMasters had rent up the books) I refused the champagne, to my with the man who carried the | host's annoyance; indeed, to his ex | treme disgust. luncheon, Also be had ordered the most luxurious picnic spread I ever had shared. Its standard is to be guessed from the bottles in a bucket duce Apparently, the richest movie pro: of the time was imitating some ancient Roman sporting gentleman, But most unfortunately, he had se- A strip | “ yDS D: ar, OK By Pegry let the scissors fall with 4 clatter and came over to stand |] close to the knew of grandmot) er's friend. | “I didn't know gold mines did |] amet! weet,” she naid. Eh?’ exclaimed the little i} woman, who hag forgotten that |] Peggy was there, “Eh? Well, they 40, sometimes, and |] they don’t. Somgtimes |] beautiful and sometimes they're | ugly as mud, and it isn't everyone sometimes {] sees it. | “But Aunt Mary did. t “Uncle George wasn't much in- terested when she began to ex- plain to him about ber little gold mine; he just ate his good dinner |] ingailence and sort of thought how foolish women are, and asked hin wife for another plece of pia, tho he had already eaten @ quarter of a common-sized pin. “You know, California didn't have such a lot of orchards and truck gardens in. the early days What folks had to eat was mostly beef, dried or fresh potatoes, onions and coffes, “There were no refrigerators to ship fresh things tn, so almost everything which came in on the ships from New York or from it iB + ‘ . abel OOK: x = Page 572 HOW AUNT MARY GOT THE GOLD (Chapter 2) they're | who knows a gold mine when she | . , TENT PAE biciNeS- POST CARUS PAREGOR' BaP Olivia Receives a Caller SHE |S JUST PARTAKING OFA ENT NOW- OH, | SEE - HOW DO You DO, OLIVIA MY, YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED ' io WONDERS HOw DO You DO, MRS. HILL - WON'T You SIT DOWN AND WAVE SOE Grattle + the islands was dried. “Dried beef, dried beans, dried appleg—all things which would pack close and carry no extra weight. “People got so tired of the few | things they had that here in the | Puget Sound country they used to cut fern tips when they were young and tender and cook those, and raspberry tips boiled with salt | and a bit of meat was a common | dish. “I think they were sort of care- less, too, down there in California, and didn't make the most of what they had; that's what Aunt Mary thought. “You see, she wasn’t lazy and she wasn’t selfish and had a mind | to help. So when she saw the | miners come in night after night jand knew they had nothing to eat which men really care about, she got sorry for them, ‘ | “Then, because her own hus- hand's ill luck was always on her | mind, and she was always trying jto find a way to help him, she | thought about the dried apple pies, and that's what she meant by calling the smell from the oven a ‘gold mine’.” t (To Be Continued) PEE — lected the wrong girl to lavish his luxuries upon Serving iced champagne.on Broad bend's peak to a girl who wouldn't |touch It appealed to my sense of humor. | If Dick and P had been off on a |tramp, we would have pulled some \cheese sandwiches and oranges from our blazer pockets—and called them a feast! | MeMa display of luxuries |which he intended to fascinate me, jonly irritated me, Who did he think I was? An artificial exotic without an ounce of brains in my head? A girl without taste? 1 was May Scott, a girl whom na- rs’ ! |ture had teen kind to in the matter jof nose, eyes, chin and mouth—so much he could see, But he couk not see that I was alive to the vul- garity of the lavish courses his man was passing to me. In a hotel, the menu would have been artistic and jelegant, but it was decidedly pre \tentious and absurd amidst the pines of the mountain I nibbled at some of the plainer foods, and then the iced dainties were cleared away, the man in charge dis. appeared down the slope and Me- Masters produced his selections of recently published literature, MeMasters, like Cissy, was an aesthete, I'm always trying to visu- pen HS ARBICYCLE RAN OVER “DAD DUNLAPS PET BUNION TODAY- BOTH BICYCLE AND BUNION SEVERELY SHAKEN UP BY STANLEV alize words. I 8 action | white-haired, too-heavy prod |& connoisseur [skin dee, of translating words into persons or | pictures may individual, but for me may hold the secret of future business success, I get tired of acting, perhaps I may | because they confined my mind! be able to write and produce my own scenarios, called “radical.” ridiculed in them. OH CHOCOLATE CAKE AND WHIPPED CREAM! JUST WHAT | LIKE! NOW You MUST TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOURSELF AND WHAT To DO To ReDuCce! ae A AW, TEACHER TOLD EVERETT TRUE OH, MR. BLANK, ON MY WAY To YouR f “Nov Gor THAT JOS FROM THE TAK PaYers OF THIS COMMUNITY ON THE SSUMPTLION “THAT ‘YoU HACE THe TIMG Hu'RE RUNNING AROUND COOKING AFTER YouvR PERSONAWY INTERESTS !¢! To me, the pink-cheeked, joer was in surfaces! Iv Moth rdear has said that my habit often be hard on an It US THAT TWELVE IWCHES WAST wry, I'M NOT GONG! THERE NOW, BUT mY CLERK WILL Take CARE OF part of my profes-|dealt with changing views about sion or the curse of my imagination | marriage, some which preached the to see words as moving creatures or | right of the individual to live his life in his own way. | “If you would shed your Victorian Beauty, | training, May, as you would a cloak, for him, never need be more than you'd get rid of a big burden im limb to the top of your profes , sion.” ad that was what he wanted, he |said. He wanted me mentally, and liberated from ancient taboos, which hampered my acting It sounded very advanced and en- But when McMasters looked MeMasters’ books might have been | earnestly at me and told me that his Old customs were | only wish in life was to see me blos- McMasters read som, a single perfect flower to me passages which derided pre: |tip of @ stem—t vailing ideas of ethics, others which (To Be | ticing. to be free, at giggled! be