The Seattle Star Newspaper, January 20, 1922, Page 13

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1 Sngwsho (Continued From Page 6) males travel a ind by themselves 1 certainly wouldn't stay away, the girl feplied. And her interest Was real: the study of the forest life! about her had been an ever increas ing delight. She felt that she would Rreatly like to peer into one of those dark, mysterious dens where th mysterious American animal, the | grivaty, Hes in deep coma thru the long wimter months, “It will only take a minute. We haven't got to backtrack him more than « hundred yards at most. We'll be back in a minute, Harold. And if you'don't mind—1'l! take my own gun.” They exchanged rifles, and Vir finja and Bill started back toward the fallen grisly. But the explora tion of the winter lair had not been the only thing Bul had in view. He also had certain words to aay to V ginia—words that he could searcely longer repress, and which he couldn't have spoken with ease in Harold's | Presence. But now that they were alone, the sentences wouldn't shape on his lips, He mushed a while In ailence. - “1 | suppose I haven't got to tell you, Virginia.” he said at last, “That you your own courage—saved my life.” She looked up to him with lustrous yea. The man thrilled to the last ttle nerve, In her comradeship for him their juster was almost like that of which he had dreamed so often ." she answered frankly. “And I'm glad that~-tha it was mine, and not somebody @ise's.”” She too seemed to be having @ifficulty in shaping her thoughts: “I've never been happier about any ether thing. To pay—just a little bit| a gravel bed, verifying his gues that | mine of debt. But tn paying it, I incurred Another—so the obligation is just as|the first handful of stone he scraped |thronged h ‘big as ever. You know—vou saved My life, too.” He nodded. This was no time for Geception, for pretty lies. “I saw you throw yourself in front of me,” she went on. “I can never forget tt. I'll see that picture, over @nd over again, till I die—how you plunged thru the snow and got in front. So since we each did for the Other—the only thing we could do— there's nothing more to be sald about ft. Isn't that so, Bult" The man agreed, but his lips trembled as they never did during the charge of the grizsly. “I've learned a leexon up here— that word's aren't much good and don't seem to get anywhere.” The girl spoke softly. “Only deeds count. | times spring up among the mountain jeryel point could inf! After they're done, there is nothing moch—that one can say.” So they did not speak of the mat- ter again. They came to the bear's Dedy and back-tracked him thru the 999 —_— eTrail yting that she at uld be with him as he explored the cavern, It wan a | Most as if the tragedy of his father death concerned her, too. I can hold matches,” she told |tilm. She came up close, and for a moment her hand, groping on | hie—a soft | more than any words. When It wa released he lighted another mateh They stood together, looking down at the skeleton. But she wasn't quite | Prepared for what she saw. A little ry of horror rang strangely in the dark shaft This had been no natural death. been struck down from behind, as he worked, and he lay just as he jfell. ‘There was one wound in the skull, round and ghastly, and in a }moment they saw the weapon that }made it, A rusted pick, aw miners use, lay beside the boc ‘I won't try to do much today,” nm told her, “except to set up © of my cornerpo: md erect a Notice. My father’s notice has of course rotted away in the years and the monument that probably stood out there beyond the creek bed Was covered in the snowaslide. You see, a Cluim is made by putting up four stone monumenty—one at each corner of the area claimed. We'll be starting down in a day or two, and I'l register the claim. Then I'll come back—and give these poor bones decent burial.” From there he walked back to the nd of the shaft, scratching another match, It was wholly evident that jthe mine was only scratched. He Iheld the light e studying the | fear wall of the cave. It was simply | here lay an old bed of the creek, In out he found a halfounce nugget. “It's rich?” she asked. “Beyond what I ever dreamed. But there's nothing more we can do now I've made my find at last—but it doesn't seem to make me-—as happy as it ought to. Of course that «ight j|—there aguinst the wall—would nat lurally keep a man from being very lhappy. Oh, if I could only find and | [Kill the devil wha, did it” His voice In the gloom was charged | jing. She had never «een thie de of him before | Here was primeval emotion, the de sire for vengeance, fillal obligation. | with immeasurable fe hate that knew no mercy and could! [never be forgotten. She understood. |now, the savage feuds that some | people, unable to forget a blow or an injury, She had the first inkting had influenced Kis life But his face calm when they Undoubtedly the elder Bronson had | of how deeply bis father’s murder|hold hig share in / WELL, IFTHIS AINT A ™ ER LAUNDRY ! — ~ y li vet ) would have accompanied them inte the den. At least he should have done that much, he told hin atone for his condu eit, to et during the | dear'e charge Then he would have been in a position to claim half the and Ket it, too, Dark thoughts, curtously engromsing and justful, is mind. He found a match at last, and it |Mared in the darkness. And the white jskeleton lay just at his feet, He drew back, startled, but in stantly regained his poine, He knelt with uneaplicable intentnem. He too saw the ghastly wound and its grim connection with the rusted pick And he bent, ywiy, like a man who is trying to control an | =6unwonted eagerness, lifting the pick in his arma, Hin fingers seemed to curl around it, like of a mixer around his gold. Some way, hik gravp seemed jcaressing. Oh, it was easy to handle and lift! How naturally it swung in |his arms! What a deadly blow the Just one little tap had been needed. Bronson jhad rocked and fallen, no longer to the mine's geld If there were an enemy before hie how, one tap, and one alone was ali gow. They pushed thru the young | merged into the light. They walked |that would be needed Spruce from whose limbs the grizzly | Over to the creek, and beneath it! ty could picts had knocked the snow. Then they |Overhanging banks where the snow |twenty yours before ame out upon the cavern mouth. Instantly Bill understood how the fall of the tree had knocked away had not swept, he found enough rocks them, carried them tn armfuls to a the snow from the maw. “There's, Place fifty yards beyond the creek Been @ landslide here too, or a snow. | @n down It, level with a turn in the slide,” he said. “You see—only the! hillside above, beyond which the old top of the cave mouth ts left open ‘The dirt’s piled around the bottom.” He crawied up over the pile of rocks and dirt and, stooping, stepped within the cavern. The girl was im- mediately behind him. Back five feet from the opening the interior was dark as night: the cavern walls, gray at the mouth, slowly paled and faded and were obliterated in the gloom. it there was nd stir of life in the darkness, no sign of any other hab- ftant. But the walls themselves, Where the light from without re- ‘Vealed them, beld Bill's fascinated gaze. The girl stood behind him, silent, wondering what wan in his mind. “This cave—I've never een a cave Just like thie. Virginia—" The man stepped forward and feratched a match on the stone. It flared; the shadows raced away. Then Bill's breath caught in a half-.sob. Instantly he smothered the match. ‘The darkness dropped around them like a curtain. But in that instant | of light Bill beheld a scene that tore at his heart. Against the cavern wall, long lost tn the irremediable dark- ness, he had seen a strange, white sbape—a ghostly thing that lay still and caught the match’s gleam—a grim relic of dead years. He turned to the girl, and his voice was almost steady when he spoke. “You'd better go out, Virginia—into the light,” he advised. “Why? Is it—danger?* “Not danger.” His voice in the} silence thrilled her and moved her “Only wickedness. But it isn’t any thing you'd like to see. The single match-flare Wad re vealed him the truth. For one lit fraction of an instant he had thought that the white form, so grim and silent against the stone, revealed some forest tragedy of years ago—a human prey dragged to a wild beast’s lair. But the shape of the cavern, the character of its walls, and a thousand other clews told the story plainly. The thing he had seen was a naked skeleton, flesh and garments, having dropped away in the years and the grialy had simply made bis Jair in the old shaft of his father's mine. Bill had found his father's) wepuicher at last! For @ moment he stood dreaming fn the gloom. He understood, now, why hile previous search had never revealed the mine. He had supposed that his father had operated along some stream, washing the gold from its gravel: it had never occurred to him that he had dug a shaft. In all probability, considering the richnese of their output, they had burrowed into the hill and had found an old bed of the stream, had carried the gravel to the water's edge in buck ¢ts, and washed it out. He had never looked for tunnels and shafts: if he| had done so, it was doubtful if he could have found the hidden cavern ‘The snowslide of some years before had covered up all outward signs of their work, struck down the trees they had blazed, and covered the ashes of their camp fires. The girl's voice in the darkness called him from his musings. loreek bed obviously could not lie; then heaped them [nto a monument. | Then he drew an old letter from his coat pocket, and, searching farther, jfound a stub of a pencil. Virginia | looked over his shoulder as he wrote | One hundred yards up the stream | Harold watched them, dumbfounded as to what they were doing. He saw Bill finish the writing, then place the paper on the monument, fastening }it down with a large stone. Then he came mushing towards them. | So intent were they upon their } work that they didn't notice him un- } ti hé was almost up to them. Put | both of them would have paused in wonder if they had observed the cu tious mixture of emotions upon his jface. His lips hung loose, his eyes | protruded, and something that might | have been greed, or might have been | jealousy or some other unguessed emotion drew and harshened his | features, “You've found a mine?" he cried Virginia looked up, joyful at Bill's | good fortune. We've found his |father’s mine—the old shaft where }the bear has been sleeping. But there's a dreadful side of it too.” }to see it. Take me into it, Virginia —right away—”" Bill had a distinct sensation of re |vulsion at the thought of this man | going into his father’s sepulcher, and he didn't know why. It was an in stinct too deeply buried for him to trace. But he tried to force it down There was no reason why Virginia's 2 ain't view his find. Al irginia was pointing out the i You can claim half of it.” he was whispering eagerly into her ear You were with him when he found it “It can—but I won't.” she replied coldly. “He asked me to go with him, The thought’s unworthy of you, Harold.” | “Gold, gold, gold,” he whispered to himaclf. | But he was in no mood to be [humbled by her disapproval, Cur. liously, he was intensely excited. He |mushed away toward the cavern I believe I understand,” she said, | mouth fou've found your mine—and your father’s body. “Yes. Just a skeleton.” “I'm not afraid. Don’t you want me to stay?” “U'd love to have you, if you will, |Bill had to find it. ‘That devil hac it takew away a lot of my |to Some way bitterness—to have you here.” lan | Two minutes later he stood in the darkness of the tunnel, fumbling for | atch Gold, gold, gold,” he whispered, “Heaps and heaps of it what I've alwa hunted Ane alk right into it.” He was sickened by the thought It wag tru¢e. It seemed wholly fit-|that except for his own cowardice he “Show me where it is. I wanted | | sleeping queer sounds, “W © the soene of some the flickering lcandies, the lin cover |for his monument. He gathered |aancing lows, the yellow Evie adows, the yellow gold beautiful in the light. He could ase Bronson working—alwayn the plod. der, always the fool! Behind him Rutherford, his partner, the pick in his arms"and his brave intent in his |brain. Then one ewift stroke Harold did not know that at the thought bis muscles made involun tary response. He ewung the pick |down, imaging the blow, with « |ferocity and vicioustiess that would have been terrible to ee | In the darkness his face was drawn jand savage, and ugly fires glowed jand smoldered and flamed in his eyes. | (Continued Tomorrow) Nick grabbed him and set him on the nest of eggs was a nest of em How it hap: pened that they didn't break, I don't know, but there they were perfect y whole, not a crack in one of them. That's the way it is with Whizzy tter whole Tornado—he can ah Jtowns with one whiff of his great breath, and yet it often happens |that he set# things down miles off, so gently that it wouldn't waken a rying and making at is it?” asked The exes were Buskins, bending low “Oo-ling-how-wong-chu!” walled the le “Ying-sing-wu-lung-foo a too bad aid the fai soberly. “It must be awful But the Twins understood. “They are Cochin China eggs.” said Nancy, ud they want their mama, they #8 They'll be chickens by tomor row if they are only kept warm. They are just beginning to hatch.” | “Well, well! Here's a pretty ket tle of fish, I mean nestful of egg,” CHAPTER LXVIII—WHY THE LEOPARD STUNT WAS A. WHIZ Nobody was at all The nets were Jenure the cats were | My act with the leopards happened , jto be scheduled for a torrid morn ing. It was staged under neta merit nen—there were three of them—l. ith steel mirrors, with Mademoiselle Lisa and me, SEATTLE STAR OUR BOARDING HOU ed laa 7 ONCE BEFORE I MADE A RUSH § FOR “TH\S TROUGH AND FOUND TH’ HOUSE | THEMSELVES AROUND | {SWEET RACKET « HERE I ;COME IN TO RINSE MY SHAPE } AND FIND SOME FRILL 1S USING TW’ TUB TO SOAK GOLDFISH WAGGING { IN\T WHEN THEIR BOWL WAS CRACKED !« ANOTHER TIME THERE WASN'T ANY PLUG, | AND [ HAD “TO HOLD MY HAND OVER 1H’ DRAIN | TO FILL TW’ TANK AND THEN HAD “TO DO A SPEED SCRUB WHILE IT EMPTIED ! THERE [L WAS LATHERED UP LIKE A CHARLOTTE RUSSE'AN'NO WARM WATER OF ALL TH’ BOARDING HUTS, THIS MUSEUM 1S “TH’ CucKoo NEST! LEFT | soe GLYDE JACORS ALMOST BUSY - WELL I CAN'T HELP IT- WHY DIDN'T You GET IT? You WAVE MORE TIME THAN | HAVE - ALLRIGHT GET SORE~ NO-No-GoopBy ! SAY, DIDN'T You SAY TH’ CTHER DAY ADVENTURES OF cee Eat Set 2 The ne&t thing the Twins found sald Buskins. “Does anybody see a obody did, but a large red rooster | ened to strut by specting what Nick grabbed him and set him on much to that gen “Clk, elk, elk,” | redder and red the nest of eges, tleman's amazement Let me go, I tell} soon as T ean,” kept muttering to himsel in his throat told his friend: never so mortified Chinese chicken (To Be Continued) by Seattle Star) | tt HH HH seme | (Copyright, 19 _|cranking, and Mademoiselle Elsa |outside the nets, wherein 1 worked | sve me the order, 1 heard the big, terful command. lcoaxed the big cat. branch previous maison Ho w The big cat was to be shot several | Bangs, times, but there was only one mo*| Woe took plenty of time for the act. |at her. ment in which I was to be alone with |Gairee was too ro: |the two animal hurried, I glanced at h Vor 4 pull the little leopard by its tail, Confessions of a Movie Star (Copyright, 1921, Beattie Mar) afraid of the too valuable to] It was an adorable part. Never] ‘The big creature did not look par-|him wildly around the limit of the had T had so much fun in my Ife. | ticular! I went to work gleefully. | When Gi up the baby leopard, euddied it and were enclosed | cooed to it, carried it around in my ams. The. camer men. stopped Al the mys people were collected |to hold her pose while I roughed up! chain, ectors, electricians, a property man | mademoiselle that way. BY AHERN , _THE OLD HOME TOWN CLOTHING SALE YOUNG MEN SUITS RED NEC RUBBER COLLARS "6s : Bie og ili 3 KG ED WURGLER, WHO DELIVERS WASHINGS FOR HIS WIFE-IS AVICTIM OF HARD LUCK— HE SPRAINED HIS WRIST WHILE PLAYING CARDS LAST NIGHT. TAKES A BATH = WIFE TO WHOM You WERE vusT HAVE AN ARGUMENT ANY MORE OR EVEN A HARSH WoRD! YES, IT WAS AND WHAT OF IT? The Explanation BY WELL, hows COME You LNE ww WHY, MSSUS WANKLER, | SHES MY How's ir WAPPEN THAT YER jet NAME IS SANDERS {/ AN YER MOMS ar Grattle _ + * + _By Mabel Cleland _»% Page 578 TROUBLES OF HIS OWN “Peery,” began the big man | as David does in his school. (S TWO HOURS, BUT Ll DRovs (T ONE HOUR AND A HALE. solemnly, “can you keep a secret?| “But there was one little girl Cross your heart, hope to die) —I won't tell you her name be *tyou ever tell, keep it?” cause this is a secret—whom I = liked very much, oh, very much! “Very well, then, I'm going to Peggy nodded, solemn “She was 11 and so was I. She was the best runner in school, and {! TA ARUT Vil) 1 was the next best tell you @ secret that’s a Joke on me, Think of that!’ saintenh simi nine hakca. kia “IT was a good speller and she eT te ee IN OROER To Do THAT DISTANCE IN AN HouR AND A HALF YOU HAD To TRAVEL OVER SI MILGS AN HOUR, AND “THAT'S Too FAST, For PUBLIC SAFETY!) YOU'RE GITHER LYING AGovuT IT OR TELLING THE TIRYTH —— was @ good speller, But right and walted there is where we stopped being “You know, when T was little, | an awful jot alike, for she waa as Seattle was little, too, and) pretty as a picture umd I knew Tacoma wasn't’ any bigger, and perfectly well I was no beauty, } Olympia was bigger than either) «4 geliow docan't need to be IN GItTHER CASE You PEServe A one, told when he has a mirror to look Goon CcovurT !! J nee “The towns were litthe and the| into. a: ae houses and churches and stores| “And every time T looked at her S were little, Kverything except} I thought how pretty she was the country itself and the hearts! and what a lot of fun we could of the pionvers and the appetites} haye playing together if only I of little early-day boys was little.| could screw up my courage to we had to do without! speak to her. & great many things a gr t every time T came near many times because everything | ner 1 seemed to be tongue-tied and was just getting started I couldn't think of a thing to “I went to school every day to! gay. the Tittle schoo! house in the! “Oh! how I did want that little || woods, and every day at recess! girl to know I liked her! “When she passed me—just be- cause Iw so bashful, I gues. she would toss her curls and look haughty as a queen.” — —-— = ——— exactly (fo Be Continued) ed with the and noon hour I p rest of the children. Some of them I liked a lot and some of} them I just put up w Laski. The day was too hot for| Suddenly Dick's voice interrupted retakes, I wanted to avoid mistakes, | the clicking of the cameras, I went on the set when Demaisc May! Come here!" was his mam — Gairee, upon the | with the leopards, yy selected by De-|t Somehow, Dick | ¢#t still hissing, 4nd I was glad she| This I heard just as I dropped to get inside, | Was “taking her part” so well. pillow my head on the soft smooth: the side of| I couldn't go out of my own part | *Y of the baby leopard. tor. long enough to turn around and look |, 1t Was the last sound I heard fom an hour, * al a dame to be! I went to work gleefully, T skipped | But the pleture of what happened) j |next turned out to be a whiz! yi or ad z./about the small leopard, ed with | MO* . * ie r admiring pard, ¥ a with (To Be Cont sthi | Why suffer? ¢ ives vor relief. ve years of success, at all druggists, Avoid substitutes. least afraid of her, but I did want her|to be fastened by @ concealed Dr. F. G, Kinsman, Bent Block, eee, found an excus standing by tant few of film, I was to|ly in a pause t ween shots while| bis sharp and splendid white teeth, } Mademoiselle Elsa induced her to| danced above his lithe length | rouch just where Demaison wanted | stretched on the ground, oto she ently in ignorance of its moth: arrival her. jpeized him by the tail and ran with leepy to me. 1 wondered if | set , ree, the old cat, hissed, I] Klsa had decided not to give her aj I ran directly under Gairee on her not care, She often scolded|sieeping potion. I was not in the|branch, to which she was supposed