The evening world. Newspaper, August 4, 1916, Page 11

ee 6 ME? , eTHE NEWS COMMANDMENT BY ANTHONY VERRALL The on ¢ a Kentucky feud hatred trans- planted in @ desert oasis, where a man anda woman, turned primitive by necessity, come at last to love as intensely as they had hated. Wmorans we Rivest §. Undey @TRores OF PRECEDING CRATERS, Ghent ond Jutith Heine ore the cole ee tong 084 eanguinery tout, hove left We fovtusl hewend for com other & the bere fms two, ot bering ma since ehilthond, emmanden igus raiiory ot 6 greet ate fo 6 Wester city, find themevivee the to 6 evtive teen, 4 seem tm which not even the coring drops Jed forth to fail tnto the basin. duel waged against the ching wind Deeper and deeper became Uy vation; leas and jess became the flow, At length of which the water was wont to gush upward. It could be hunted no deep- er, and only euMcient wae trickling through to Mi the basin in « night and day. CHAPTER XIX, A Battle in the Night. OR a week there had been no alteration in the struggle of the two for bare existence, Each day had brought its awful tale of heat and wind but the water had not yet ceased ti flow, at least the basin's capacity in each twenty-four hours. All night was barely time suMecten: for a cuptul of the drink to gather for thetr use, In their silent way, with no word spoken between then the two had come to a thorough ur derstanding regarding the equal div sion of the fluid, The compact was never violated, no matter how intense became their suffering, or how terri- bly temptation came to goad them. On such @ night as these had all become—nights of the sleepless agony of those who wait for @ terrible end— .ue man in his shelter and the woman in her cave heard the weird, disturb- ing howl, the yelp and chatter of a band of coyotes, come from some- where out beyond in the trackless realm of desert. It was a dreadful sound in the silence of the night. The rock receptacle was in its place, with nearly half a cupful of water in {ts hold—water more precious than the blood that flowed in their pulses, to Ghent and Judith, tossing on their beds. The spring-house entrance was open, the better to permit the cool night air to circulate within and en- courage the flow, That the famishing coyotes had smelled the priceless liquid and would hasten there and pillage th: basin of Its contents was the instan: conviction of the pair. Judith was out, with her hammer in hand, and speeding toward the spring no less promptly than was Ghent, who, with the old rusted barrel of a rifle Mpewteredio, Bots euimal and regetaite life bo $0 disappear, John decides to try croming the fo cork buman hatitations, Nearly crest eet ond privation he purwues the mirage of Malt” to the desert, He te compelled to reture Wo the oasis, The diminishing survly of game fends toe wordions partmervhiy in ite pumuit, (Phe apring dries wp and, facing thie new peril, the wo, working altemately, dig down in on attempt > reach tte source, CHAPTER XVII. ‘ (Continued) The Due'With the Heat. LL day «.. place was lifeless and deserted. Before sun- 1 down, however, Judith was working at the spring, as- guming her share of the labor, She found the pick, and having under- gone no less amazement at its pres- ence here than had Ghent, was no fees quick than he to divine the fact that at least one human being had been here before—digsing for his life, In her etrong, willing hands the fool took on a@ certain lust of labor. ( Bhe loosened and scratched out a heap of gand that left quite a cool, yawn- ' fng hole beneath the roots. From broken fibres, and even from a rock, @ few orystal water-drops fell trem- biingty. She caught up her empty re- coptacie and, wedging It into the hole, Deheld the priceless gems of moisture ad done. ‘That the willow protection they had made above the spring served merely to cast @ speckled shade upon the earth, and in no wise kept out the su- perheated air, she understood the bet- ter from the fact that her cave was comparatively cool, and that Ghent had been obliged to construct himself & roof with @ layer of earth. “ Instead of tolling longer with the pick, she permitted the dropping water to accumulate in her basin, and went at the task of fetching rocks with which to build a wall or house about the hole. Such @ astructu' could be roofed substuntially to keep it fairly cool, ’ ‘The rocks:that she fetched were al- most bitstering hot, but she hugged them ame bosom and carried them none the leas eagerly, making trip after trip to the slope that was strewn with broken fragments, Ghent be- eld her from his shelter, He under- gtood her intention and knew it was wise, Without pausing to ascertain from her actions whether or not she would desert the labor upon his near ap- proach, he rolled a number of rocks down the sandy declivity, and was presently imitating Judith’a exam- ple--fetching the biocks and boulders to the spring. Not before had the pair labored in company, and even now neither @poke, Judith had no apparent inten- tion of leaving because of his assist- amee in the work. She continued to fetoh the crude material for walls, ‘and presently began to pile the frag- Ments one upon another in a rude ort of circle, embracing all but the french they had dug at the former outlet of the spring. By the time tne @arkness had enveloped all the world thelr spring-house waa nearly threo feet high and four or fives feet in diameter, For two or three days it seemed as if the newly built shelter, sup- Planting the bower of willows, had sufficed to stay the awful falling of ‘the spring. More sand had been heaped upon the roof, and gravel had Deen heaped about the walls. Even ® mass of now tree-stuf had beon cut by the two and laid over and upon the rock protection, ‘The hole had been rendered almost cool, despite the torrid heat and the Dilstering sirocco that returned with tortured than either the man or the woman, had indeed snatched the scent of the water from the air and were them snapping his fellows as they ran, Ghent was the first upon the scene. owy, slinking forms, as thin the rear, the to greet them. @ fight. place. man, the superior brute. precious to himself. Panton, but merely because this wi between the coyotes and the spring. slightest sound at beholding her, kuew why she was here. but they also scented meat. they could be dri ripped open to the pat of life, gurated. The tionally goaded to attack. most hairless old chieftain of the pack, @ confusing assault. Tt was Judith that turned and me! the creature, Sho crashed her stone hammer down upon its racing toward it jealously, each of A moment later he beheld their shad- ‘as wraiths, and two more brought up in six of them halting scarcely twenty feet away when the man who confronted them stirred in his tracks and moved @ step forward They paused to summon courage for While they still stood there bristling, dim spectres of want and desperation, two things happened. A wandering night breeze flung them a new, sweet scent of the water in the hole, and Judith came running to the She was panting, her eyes were ablaze with savage emotions. She was half stripped. The figure she present ed, with her ‘ugly rock-hammer in her hand, harked back to the dawning of She had come without a thought of Ghent, just as he had descended from his shelter with no thought of her, and for no other purpose than to guard the water, She took up a place at his side, not because he was a man and her com- the only position left to her to assuine She did not speak to Ghent in this extremity, nor did Ghent make the He The maddened coyotes, conjuring a certain sort of courage because of their numbers, not only smelt water, The two human beings were food, if but once ed to the earth and Tactics of circling and pressing tn closer were almost immediately inau- creatures were excep- It was one of the thinnest of animals, a tall, al- that was first to leap forward and lead coer Mn CORP “aes fa earn pa) mw 4 wa Sduwt fav. he Kubo first that came in reach, when himself was instantly the object than the very beasts that beset them, the man and woman swiftly turned the tables of the battle, attacking in They fought cave-pair schooled in savagery; and with lust and love of the bloody work they thirst-crazed coyotes, beating them down, and then beating them again, till the brutes @ frenzy of activity. Nike very demons, this rushed upon the were outdone in brute flerceness. There were presently two that Ufeless on the sand, grotesquely one, struck upon the nose, dith dealt it a crashing blow with the earth, his tall had been broken, With tales of suffering to come. helplessly hobbling about in the very roof from its skull, wion for fight that both were wild and sinister of pect. secure, + the spring. he had spoken, broke her silence at last, “Till wa mornin h from twelve o'clock different attitudes of death upon sand, and that none could drank a sip of the water, emerged and started in silence up slope, + Judith watched him go, died away, t depths, CHAPTER XX. A third hobbied about on broken legs, making sounds of its pain. A fourth turned round and round In a circle, till Ju- hammer and crumpled it down upon Of the two that remained one was entirely unhurt, the other had a brulse upon his bony rump and one sound companion, he turned and fled the scene, howling of woe and Ghent descended on the creature #0 gravel, and with one blow knocked could have slain a grizzly {n the p: was upon him. Both he and Judith were pantin| The half cup of water was “Wo'll have to watch here—every night!" satd Ghent, returning toward It was the second time Judith, who had never addressed him @ word in all these fateful weeks, Bhe said: ‘There was nothing further said, Ghent moved from one to another of the four still formas, lying in four having assured himself commit @ belated treachery, entered the spring-house, then A warm, soft glow that had come in her bosom He had been her fight- mate for a moment—nothing more— ~ but her nature had been stirred to its back and then upon its head, and then upon its leg, raining her blows like a fury on VES, AY DEAH 155 JECL@P ACLEPT OUR OFFER, AND PUL GUARANTEE WUR ACTING wily THE HELP OF OUR Pus WiLL INSURE YOU, FF MIGHT SAY IT, A VERY THE REHEARSAL WAS ALL RGHT NOW WE'LL TAKE THE PICTURES. he for had lost much of their hair, ‘There was nothing to do but to drag all of the others to assault. the d imal 1 in his fist, was swiftly descending ‘his ead animals far down the ravine RepnLne., Oe. ation Aunties, #ne ie aieaay awn is Gani A wild and tremendous melee en- past the cul-de-sac, and throw them Middle afternoon. couraged to flow by tho dissing she St, viain-wolves, far more gaunt and Sed More grim, moro desperate on the hill, ‘There they would pres- ently desiccate, almost without de- composition, to bleach some day and leave a pile of bones to whiten in the oun The skins secured began to dry at once. It was only by vigorous rub- bing as the heat drow the natural mojsture that elther Judith or Ghent was enabled to retain any softness or pliability in the pelts. This diver- sion served to while away another torrid morning. All afternoon the alroccc gushed upward from the open hells below, and the strip was de- eerted. There was no abatement of the heat At the spring the same slow, steady diminution of the water supply was maintained. For perhaps three deys there was no observable change, then once again, as always before, the oosing drops oozed less. In twenty- four hours not one full cup of water could be gathered in the basin. Each night, till the great blazing a@pper had swung half ita circle in the heavens, Ghent took up bis watch at the well, to ward off any famishing creatures that might smell out th He ai but burned up moisture, Each midnight Judith came to take his place and keep the grim vigil till morning. The hour arrived when the watch at night was no longer kept. There was nothing to watch, Three days had gone by and the two stlent spec- tres of the shriveled oasis had taken a bare sip apleco of the water, Doom and the end could apparently be dodged no longer. Fully twenty minutes that third awful night ‘both Judith and Ghent returned to haunt the spring. Either one, beholding the other come reeling out from the spring house they had made, could only groan, turn away end wander to cave or to camp in @ species of homing instinct undying in the mind, By some mercy of agontes in- creased beyond endurance the man end woman lay half fainting at last, They were unaware of the lowering something that oppressed the very hills, and when at length a leaden mass of tortured fumes and ether rolled like a frown of God across the summits, flashing with vicious spears of light, there was no human sense to render fit tribute of awe. The cataclysmio outburet of @ sky lay vine, exhaustion, her his the or dates; of assurance, couse. unl the th id Judith, could put pent to bursting and angered to furt- ous revolt at last by the mereti warfare of the sun came suddenly detonation of accumulated thunders, discharged in one prodigious explo- sion, the firmament appeared to split wide open and be rent in a thousand yellow fissures, Then down on the baked and shrinking oarth—the earth that had rendered up every last Jrop of its moisture—descended a million huge, splashing blobs of water, as if in the sudden, convulsive grief of all the heavens, God, how it rained! The downpour ceased at sunset. A zephyr lke the mountain's sigh crept with the dusk down the rugged ra- Judith and Ghent could do nothing but sleep in relief and utter In the morning God's smile had returned to His desert oasis, Tho spring was onc flowing from the rock, CHAPTER XXI. The Season of Moods. INTER in the desert bed commenced, of life to which they had subjected neither Ghent nor Judith had been aware of the passing of the weeks. Neither had kept @ calendar of days neither could have what month it was with any degree been Even now, when the reign of the gods of heat had been broken for the year, it was far from being a chill, damp world in which the oasis had ite being. The rains we came invariably im @ violent manner, to rage for an hour or more with extfaordinary fury and then abruptly Judith and Ghent hed returned to the former problem—that of food, Not many creatures eme: earth when the rains made ving possible, for scores bad been sluin by the preying pair, and to multiply here was weighty business, The man, therefore, gathered at bis camp @ great horde of pine-nuts, supplement- ed by the tiny manzanita berries that much resembled miniature tomatoes. more familiar with acorns and the uses to which she them, witb fetching many bushels of these Bhe likewise brought many of the berries. The powder that they rendered up on being ground mada @ sweet, nutritious addition to to her cave. The Evening World Daily Magazine. Friday. August TAM OrfL Closes WT A STHRRING SITUATION, MISS JEELIPP, IN WHICH You FiGuer MOST PROMINENT | WHERE [YA GET THAT | HEALTHY SUCCESS | STUFF ? her acorn-meal, an before, which she cooked, upon a stone. Once again she and Ghent had re- sumed pendent ways of exist- ence. Not infrequently they hunted in pair, as before, but tt was seldom that meat was forthcoming. They had robed themselves in fur. Judith's coy- ote skin was worn almost straight down her body and belted at the wa'et, Ghent's was flung across his shoulder and fastened in place with @ cord. ‘When they met there was no ex- change of speoch, yet a strong sense of fellowship had sprung into being between them. They had lived through a feud with the elements, if not @ feud with God, and the puny human quarrel and hatred bequeathed them by their tribes had appeared loss significant and vital. During that first month of the win- ter there were only two rains, both tremendous, however, in the masses of water discharged. Early in the second month came a cloudburst that eclipsed both the preceding storms, not only for violence and suddenness, dut also for destructiveness, Thi mighty demonstration of nature's Ill- regulated forces could have been no more terrific had tt embodied all the matice of 2 aky intent upon the earth's annihilation, A Down through the narrow oasis a torrent plunged aa if some great reser- voir above had given way. Trees were swept from their root-holds, rock-masses came toppling down there, ike castlos disrupted in # tidal wave, ‘The rock-and-earth mhelter con- structed by Judith and Ghent above the epring was swept away like a structure of nursery blocks, The wall of the cul-de-sac went like a wind- row of hay. Ten thousand tons of gravel flowed like mush down the gorge, spreading deop ovor spring, trees and all, As if wave and boul- ders, flood and swirling debris had been units in an army, fanatically charging down tho hill to overwhelm an enemy, the whole thing had come and gone in half an hour, leaving ruin and ugliness behind, Fortunately for Ghent tho roof of earth he had made for his shelter had only been partly washed away dn the deluge, His house did not leak; his grass bed was dry and almost com- fortable, He throw a new layer of sand on the top of his shelter and was ready to receive another drenching, Judith tn her cave was secure Against the onslaughts of the ele- ments, The rills of water which had With a mighty more In the stress told tow. They id from the the contented herself 4. NEXT WEEK'S COMPLETE NOVEL MY LADY OF DOUBT By RANDALL PARRISH A vomance of the Revolution with hero and heroine ther Nieione Grendel on esgamy het deepens with every chayter, BEGINS IN NEXT MONDAY'S EVENING WORLD eventful in thetr train. wae © pe fied of enforeed inactivity for beth JVGIUD and Ghent, with en eimont on. relieved monotony of diet on the (hinges whieh trees or shrubbery had Produced, Ghent 4id leas cooking than Judith, His fare was therefore lone tnviting From time to time either one or the other of them ee. cured one more rabbit or @ squirrel, but meat wae « luxury denied them day after day. To Judith the time wae almost happy, deapite the bedily privations she endured, Home vague, intangible joy had come upon her, undefined and not tn the least understood, he found herself humming et odd tittle tunes as she labored to grind up the acorns, A atraggiing words of songs whe once had eung came tenta- lively knocking at her memory, and ‘were bidden to enter and make them- neives at home, It was such & song that ®roke from her lips in clear, melodious utterance, day, as she walked to the spring to fll her treasured basin—the rock. basin, taken home as soon as the spring had recommenced to flow, She returned, atill singing softly to herself, and Ghent watched her go- ing all the way, It was not till the following day, however, that he climbed the bill, up the branch ra- vine, till he came to the place where two white skeletons had lain for years. They were gone. The cloud- burst had swept them away at last and given them interment tn sand. Q@hent gazed in unbelief ‘where the pair had been, then felt a warmth creep subtly to his heart, as if at ome propitious omen, Tt wee not watt! Ghent beheté ry her Udy, mended raiment that the ot bie mature was et length somewhat Intelligen bie being, Me beheld ber at the spring, bathing Mer splendid bare arms in (he secondary pow to which the waters trickled, Mie blood leaped holy in tte chan hela and bis wane was bent upon her intentiy, He watched her wnootl the manses of her hair and shake the glo- Flows mantic out upon her shouldem. He noted the curve of her bedy, from her neck to her feet, The eup- ple, sinuous movements that ene made were infinitely graceful end eugKestive of power, For the very. first time in all these months the man had forgotten that Judith was « Haines; he beheld her only as @ woman-« female creature of his race, Tt was nm til Judith turned and beheld him that confusion of mam ory and present ré, in ehactio strugs#lo for hia mastery, wept eome hot tide of fover to his face. He did Not relinquish his gase, however, and Judith met it calmly. There was Nothing of hatred in the glance she bestowed upon him, When she turned to go the mas’s Base followed, despite the feeble strag- slo of hia memory, making ite resiajance in his mind. serv ae tat @ucceeded for a week the mais one wish was to look op Judith’s form. His gase grow bolder. ry had come in bis jJonship was building some airy bridge between them. He did not speak when he met her and she never spoke to him. The habit of silence upon them was deeper, more tangible thin the older habs of their hate, As for Judith—no woman so favored by the gods, so entirely recreated on the natural lines of an open-air being, eelf-dependent, returned to savage ways and bounding with natural vigor, could have long remained insensible to nature's mighty edicta, She, too, Bad forgotten the accursed feud; she teo, had responded to the spring. Admire- tion for Ghent'p resourcefulness, hie courage, yea, even his grim and éin- ister indifference to herself through- out thelr sojourn here together, had been kindled in ber bosom months be- fore. He was strong; she admired his might of arms and limbs. He could fight; she responded to the savagery that made him what he was. If his glances were startling to her keen pers ception now, then so were the impulses deep in her own surging blood. Like the quall and the grouse that had come here to nest, John Ghent was possessed of one thought only—to make his den complete. The spring- stirred passion of his nature was not such @ love as conventions beget or ap- prove, It was hardly to be termed @ love at all. Toward Judith he felt no tender emotions, no solicitudes, no softening sense of adoration. As @ Jungle-bred tiger demands a mate, so he demanded the Eve of this garden in the desert. He meditated no woo- ing; his impulse was to bound upon and hold her, to drag her by force from her cave on the hill and fetch her away to his shelter. Three more days went by, and the madness on Ghent disturbed him aight and day. If some lngeriig Teminiscence of the codes evolved.by ‘men who abide in the towns remained still undissolved from his long years of training, they had all become pow erlese at jast, A There came @ warm, eweet night when the fragrance of some goddess, trailing her new spring garments across the air, intoxicated Ghent with an overwhelming ecstasy of lite. He crept from his shelter silently and stood for a moment in the mar- yellous moonlight, flooding all the world, He remained there to scru- tinize the gorge below and to listen, in the silence, for a moment, Then he nolselessly descended to the grean- ery, proceeded down its grassy bed, and was presently climbing the slope to Judith's cave, The man was trembling violently. His mouth was dry. All his senses were tremendously acute, A clammy perspiration had broken out upon him, Ho could feel and hear his heart beat tn tts rapid, heavy strokes, He slipped on a rock as he neared the cave, and made a slight disturb- ance which the atillness magnified alarmingly, Then, emerging close to Judith's abiding place, from behind the final turn of the rise, he sud- denly halted at @ sight that chilled the marrow in his tones, Creeping toward the cave mouth far more etealthily than any man could ever hope to creep upon a vie-~ tim, her eyes ablaze, her jaw dropped down, her tall straight out behind ber, @ huge mountain lioness, heavy with whelps, was almost at the entrance of the cavern, That all her faculties 4 i were intent upon a single object . For a moment he almost forgot what it was he had come here to neck, He looked about and into the cave, at the table two men had once constructed out of stone. There up- on It lay—the object he had climbed the slope to And—the nugget of gold, with @ hole through the bulk of its mo He took It at once and, re- turning to his ahelter, sought out a large fat rock to serve him in lieu of an anvil, and then, with bis rusted sun-barrel for @ hammer, began to pound and shape the gold with care- ful, fastidious strokes, Why he was working at this heavy plece of stuff he could not have told to save his life. He only knew the work was joyous, out there in the sun before his shelter. A ahy, half- audible sound of whisting floated from his lips, stealing forth on the air~a faint, blithe echo of the song that Judith had been singing. CHAPTER XXII. When Nature Stirs the Blood. MB OR @ number of days Ghent wrought at the nugget, beating it slowly tnto the shape of @ large, rough ring three inches or more tn diameter, He worked with care, directing his blows in a manner that increased the natural hole by which the nugget had been pierced and reducing the magy Irregularities of ite pattern, ith, whose feet were almost bare again, was patiently toiling, day by day, to produce such a pair of wabots as ehe had observed on her neighbor's feet. With a hint of the method that Ghent had employed to hollow out his wooden shoes, she set to work on just such a piece of dead tree-trunk eas he had employed, burning away euch of ite substance as she could not cut with her corset- steel knives, and then scraping out the charred portions, to repeat the performance anew, This was the fashion of existence the two wore leading when the win- ter had spent ite fury and a hint of spring was coming in the air, From somewhere, out in the places of its mystery, came a pair of the dosert's quail, to repopulate the gorge, Later @ pair of grouse arrived, and another mated brace of quail A number of newly grown cottontatla— the family of some old, wily pair that had lived through the drought and escaped from Ghent and Judith— drew the meat-hungry hunters upon themeclyes and excited their appetite anew, It was not altogether because of the tuste of fresh meat thus afforded him that Ghent began to experience a atirring of spring in his blood, Tho fret frail ecatasy had faintly tinged hia pulses on the day that Judith’s gong had floated to his ears, Not even yet, however, did he compre- hend the meaning of the wine within his velns, Something animal, some- thing buoyant, exciting and flery made his movements elastic and hie brain alert and his senses all sharp in their tingling. every day. But no considerable flow the form that lay so soon upon the The Revolt of H hastened gown the slope had under- He was no longer working at his could be no doubt That the. Gf water had been encouraged. The gravel, its lunge heaving fearfully jibes dbail aged TAKE THE EVENING WORLD WITH YOU ON YOUR VACATION } mined het’ fire stones and carried @ massive ring of gold, Ina manner it bad been here for former w @vepe merely oozed from the hungry in death, T dawn both Ghent and number away, but a new supply could was finished like an ancient toro, W®% as certain as that med So that you will not miss any of the weekly novels and mand, eped down the white fibre of may continue to enjoy the daily magazine, comic and other Dreken roots and fell into Judith's re- eeptacie, but this was enough, No sooner had she presented her A back to the wolves at the fore, how- . ever, than a pair leaped straightway battle and skinned tt for special features. Include them in your summer reading. ‘Hope had almost sprung anew for to attack her. With his gun-barrel, ite hide, None of the crea- bygone race of Titans, shoes had absorbed her attention pro. the place, Order The Evening World Mailed te Your Semmer Address . La) both, when an hour arrived Gheos ‘broke the two forelegs of the, tures bore @ handsome coat Two The weeks went-ay, with nghbing tragtedy, __.. ecmamianiemimnman al » (Be Be Continued) ; : , { ) ¥ ? Judith dragged one coyote aplece from (he scene of the emelled @ human intruder and meant to elay, in her epproaching motherhood, and be selected from any one of dozens of shale deposits where slabs as flat as @ plank lay like broken platters of @ rugged and splendid, For nearly a week he had seen very jittle of Ju- dith, Her labor to make @ pair of