The evening world. Newspaper, September 9, 1916, Page 9

THE RE By FRANC The story of an Vast “find himeelf? until he @ AL MAN IS LYNDE erm man who did not lecame a fugitive from justice in the rugged West errs 018 hone sommes Ome) cr wf “That's b ith wantet Alcala arts a legal bot dow tou ; CHAPTER XX, (Qontinwed.) Y this time Bmith could hear the sputtering roar of the following car only too plainly. “It'a a big one,” he fom- mented. “You can't outrun it, Hilly; and, besides, there is nowhere to run to in this direction.” Again Starbuck's reply translated itasif into action. With a skilful touch of the controls he sent the car ahead at top speed, and for a matter of ten miles or more held a diminishing load in the race through sheer good driving and an accurate knowledge of the read and its twistings and turnings, faith knew little of the westward half of the park which they were approach ing, and the little was not encouraging. Beyond Little Butte and the old Wire Sliver Mine the road they were trav- oraing would become a cart track in * sigirtin Throughout the race the pursuers had been gradually gaining, and by the time the forested bulk of Little Butte was outlining itself against the clouded sity on the left, the headlights of the oncoming police car were in Worse still, were three grade crossings of the railroad track Just ahead in the stretch of road which rounded the toe of the mountain, and from somewhere up the valley and beyond the railroad bridgo canid the distance-softened whistle of a train Starbuci tin self as a courageous driver of notor-cars when he came to tae last of the three road crossings. ferking the car around sharply at he instant of track-crossing, headed straight out over the tles for the railroad bridge. It was a court- ing of death. To drive the bridge at racing speed was hazardous enough, but to drive it thus in the face of 1 downcoming train seemed nothing lems than madness, Tt was after the car had shot into the first of the three bridge spans that the pursuers pulled up and opened fire. Starbuck bent lower ver hig wheel and Smith clutched for handholds. Far up the track on the north side of tho river a head- light flashed in the darkness, and the hi 6 blast of a locomotive, whistling for the bridge, echoed and re-echoed among the hills. Starbuck, tortured because he could not remember what sort of an approach the railway track made to the bridge on the farther side, drove for his life. With the bridge fairly sed he found himself on a high embankment, and the oncoming train was now lesa than half a mile away. To turn out on the embankment was to hurl the car to certain destruction, To hold on was to take a hazardous chance of colliding with the train. Somewhere beyond the bridge approach there was a Foad, so much Starbuck could re- iy If they could reach its crossing before tha collision should come-— ey did ch it, by what seemed to Bmith @ margin of no more than the length of the heavy fretwht train whieh went jangling past them a scant aecond or so after the car had been wrenched aside into the obscure mesa road. They had gone a mile or more on the reverse lex of the long down-river detour before Starbuck cut the speed and turned the wheel over to his seai-mate, “Take her a minute while I got the makings,” he said, dry-lipped, feeling in his pockets for tobacco rica-paper. Then he adde Solomon! T never wanted a smoke so bad in all my life! CHAPTER XX1. ETWEEN 11 and 12 o'clock mark for him- of the night of alarms, Sheriff Harding's party of special deputies began to assemble; mounted ranch- men for the greater part, summoned by the rural telephones and drifting in by twos and threes from the out- lying grass-lands. Under cach man's saddle-flap was slung the regulation Weapon of the West—a scabbarded repeating rifle; and the small troop fi bunching itself in the river road the aaa t the railroad’ tre: jooked = servicrabiy = militant ona bumtinews: ne Harding woe counting wie nt © Heute nants nubile roued sllentiy down the mess read from the north and ong the oe ‘ wide the oar of the twe eeeu pente of the « * eat, eaying “Well, Mr, Rinith, were all here” “How many lh wee | curt ques “Pwenty* “Good Here Cy be acting under inetru tions from Judge Jareiing’a court Hed Hutte, took Coro n of our the even chance he eclaima to ing to arrest him and every in bis crowd Are you gume for | 6 to wOrve any papers that Varner'a got the nerve to is: waa the big man's reply the talk; that’s what 1 to hear you may Wa may de, and we may we certainly have the equit Was Stanton arrested? He sure was, Strothers found him in Tie Hophra House bar, Hime of talk hoe turned loowe have set & wet blanket afire he tad to & Jimmie and get hin “That ta ti atop; roady, we'll tak@ the 1 Harding rode forward to marshal MMs troop, and when the advance be- «wun Starbuck @but off hie car lam and held his ce at the rear of the strageling column, jugelin and spark until tho car pace with’ the horses and humming of the motor waa indie tinguishable above the muffled drum- hoof-heata, over the low hill just ahead, | pole-bracketed lights at the) dam were starring themselves against | the sky, the group of horsemen hi at the head of the railroad tr which marked the location of north side unloading station. | From the halt at the trestle head, Harding sent two of his men forward to spy out the ground, Returning ese tWo Men Feported that there were no guards on the north bank of the river, and that the stag- ings, which still remained in place on the down stream face of the dam, were also unguarded. Thereupon Hardin made his dispositions. Half of the Posse was to gQ.up the northern bank, dismounted, and’rush the camp by way of the stagings. The remaining half, also on foot, was to cross at once on and the would Juet along with t locked” up.” how if you're a le, and to make its Approach by way of the wagon road the mesa foot. At an agreed \hon signal the two detachments were | to close in upon the company buildings | in the construction camp, trusting to | the surprise and the attack from op- posite directions to overcome any dis- barity in numbers. At Smith's urgings, Starbuck went with the party which croased by way of the railroad trestle, Smith himself accompanying the sheriff's detachment, With the horses left be- hind under guard at the trestle head the up-river approach was made by h parties simultaneously, though nm the darkness, 4d with the breadth of the river int ning, neither could see of the other, Smit beside Harding, and to the sheriff's query he an- swered that he was unarmed. “You've got a nerve,” was all the comment Harding made, and at that’ they topped the slight elevation and camo among the stone debris in the north-side quarries, om the quarry cutting the view struck out by the camp mastheads Was unobstructed. The dam and the uncompleted power-house, still fig- uring to the eye as skeleton masses of form timbering, lay juat below them, and om the hither side the flooding torrent thundered through the spillway gates, which had been opened to their fullest capacity. Be- tween the quarry and the northern dam-head ran the smooth conereted channel of the main ditoh canal, with the water in the reservoir lake still lapping several feet below the level of its entrance to give assur- ance that, until the spillways should be closed, tie charter-saving stream would never pour through the canal. On the opposite side of the river the dam-head and the camp street were deserted, but thére were lights in the commissary, im the office shack, and in Blue Pete Simm's can en dogwery. From the latter quar. sounds of revelry :ose above th spillway thunderings, and now and again oa drunken gure lurched through the open door to make ite way uncertainly toward the rank of bunk-houses, Harding was staring into the far- ther nimbua of the electric rays, try- ing to piek some sign of the other halfof his posse, when Bmith made a suggestion. —& “Both ur parties will have the workmen's bunk-houses in range, Mr, Harding, and we mustn't forget that Col, Baldwin and Williams are pris- oners in the timekeeper's shack, If the guns ye to be; used’ The interruption was the whining sous of « jacketed bullet passing overhear, followed by the crack of a rifle. “Down, boys!" said the sheriff softly, setting the example by sliding into the ready-made trench afforded by the dry ditch of the outlet canal, end as he said it a sharp fusillade broke out, with fire spurtings from the commissary building and others from the mesa beyond to show that the surprise was balked in both dt- ry must have had scouts out, mith's word to the sheriff, who cautiously reconnoltring the newly developed situation from the shelter ofsthe canal trench, ‘They are evidently ready for us, and that kuecks your plan in the head, Your ™en can't cross these stagings under was ‘Your ‘wops' are all right, anyway,” . World Daily Such Is 1 GONG Te Tame rene ) ea - Nore | oe re Rah apee we tans / wes CHE Rouse) WILL BE REAUTIF Amounorae ir PicTURES Life! re ee An Gomg T, Tant LOVELY SHES Mone Th DecoRare Tr RAdaTORS =} j LAN GOING th MOUNTED, IN THE DINING ROOM IN - OUR FLAT 8. on | eee _ AN Gawg to fane Yu ROM BAK Hone Th WE CHMETHAS Caps pean tha By Maurice Ketten AM Gong mie Ts fete rep ON oF — (TAOST TARE Tus Fonaus EACH ONE HAS AN AUTOGRAPH fae a, aid Harding. i of the bunk-houses and that saloon over thore and taking to the hills like 4 flock o' scared chickens his men: “Scatter out, boys, and get the range on that commissary shed. That's where most of the rustlers are cached,” Two days earlier, two hours earlier, perhaps, Smith would have begged a weapon and flung himself into the fray with blood lust blinding him to everything save the battle gemands of the moment. But now ths final mile-stone in the long road of his metamorphosis had been passed and ‘the darksome valley of elemental pas- was left behind. old up a minute, for God's sake;” ho pleaded hastily. “We've give them a show, Harding! The chances are that every man in that commissary believes that M’Graw has the law on his side—and we are not sure that he hasn't. Anyway, they don't know that they are trying to stand off a sheriff's posse!” chuckle was sardonic. that we'd ought to go over yonder and read the riot act to ‘em firet? That might do back in the country where you came from. But the man that can get into that camp over there with the serving papers now ‘d have to be armor-plated, I reckon,” “Just the same, wo've got to give them their chance!” Smith inslated doggedly. “We can't stand for any unnecessary bloodshed—I won't stand for it!” Harding shrugged his heavy shoul- ders. “One round into that sheet-tron commissary shack'll bri time--and nothing else wi T hain't got any men to throw away on the dewdabs and furbelows,” Smith sprang up and held out his hand “You have at loast one man that you can spare, Mr. Harding,” he snapped. “Give me those papers, I'll go over and serve them.” At this the big Sheriff promptly lost his temper, “You blamed fool!" he burst out. “You'd be dog meat before you could Get ten feet away from this ditch!" Smith caught at the warrants, and before anybody could stop him he was down upon the stagings, swinging himself from bent.to bent through a storm of bullets © not from the nmiséary, but from the saloon shack on the opposite bank—« whist - ling shower of lead that made every man in the Sheriff's party duck to cover, How the volunteer process-server ever Hived to get across the bridge of death no man might know. Thrice In the half-minute dash he was hit; yot there was life enough left to carry him stumbling across the last of the staging bents; to send him reeMng up the minway at the end and across (ie working 1 to the door of the commissary, waving the folded papers like an inadequate flag of truce as he fell on the doorstep. After that all things were curiously hazy and undefined for him; blind clamor coming and going as the noise of @ train to a dozing traveller when the car doors are opened and closed, “Craig K got to hi ennedy SE ANAtUAuae Sane OF OuR VACATION NH “They're pouring out There was the tumult of a flerce dat- tell a: tle being waged over him; @ deat fire and the spat-spat of the sheet-iron punctufing of the comm: realities, and whe: buck was kneeling beside him, Serving, apparently, to deprive him of his clothes with the reckless slashings of @ knife. Protesting feebly and trying to rise, he saw the working yard filled with armed men and the Festa ie To rene of laborers; saw Colonel Buldwin Williams talking excitedly to the Sheriff; then he caught the eye of the and beckoned eagerly with vailable hand. 1 until I can find how dead you are!” sition the tou ent ready surgeon 1o a pl i ping knife. But when Williams came and bent down to Iis- ten Smith found a voice, shrill and strident and so little like his own t he scarcely recognized It. ‘all ‘em out—call the men, out and start the gate machinery!” he panted in the queer, whistling voice which was, and was not, his own. “Possess—possesgion {s nine points of the law—that's what Judge War- ner said: the spillways, Bartley— shut ‘em quick!" “The men are on the job and the machinery is starting ri ht now," waid Williama gently, “Don't you hear it?" And then to Starbuck: “For heaven's sake, do something for him, Billy—anything to keep bim with us until a doctor can get here!” Smith felt himself amiling fool- ishly. “I don’t neod any doctor, Bartley; what I need is a new ego; then I'd stand some sha--some chance of Tinding"—he looked up appealingly at Starbuck—“what is it that I'd atand some chance of finding, Billy? I--T can't seem to remember.” ‘Williams turned hia face away and Starbuck tightened his benumbing grip upon the severed artery in the bared arm from which he had cut the sleeve. Smith seemed to be going off again, but he suddenly opened his eyes and pointed frantically with a finger of tho one servicenble hand. “Catoh him! Catch him!" he shrilled, “It's Boogertield, and he's going to dy-dynamite the dam!" Clinging to consciousness with a grip that not even the blood loss could Dreuk, Smith saw Williama apring to his fect and give the alarm; saw three or four of the sheriff's men drop their weapons and hun themselves upon another man who was trying to make his way unnoticed to the stagtngs with a box of dynamite on hi ony) ~ der, Thon he felt the foolish amile coming again when he looked up at Starbuck. “Don't let them hurt him, Billy; him nor Simms nor Lanterby, nor that other one—the short-hand man-- I—I_ can't remember his name. They're just poor tools; and we've got to—to fight without hating, and— ner fection witensness was envel- ©: him again Iike @ cling! - meat and he made 4 masterful effort to throw it off. 1 the little gtrl— V \GtAd To See You Acre IN TOWN FIR JOHN ERE IS FIFTY OUVE NIRS IN Baw veel e mar CJ THE ASH CAN CO er—you know what to tell her, Billy; abdowt what I tried to do. Hard- ing eald I'd get killed, but I remem- bered what she said, and I didnt care. Tell her I said that that one minute was worth living for—' all it cost.” ‘The raucous blast of a freak auto horn ripped into the growling mur- mur of the gate machinery, and a dust-covered car pulled up in front of the commissary. Out of it sprang firet the doctor with his inatrument bag, and, closely following him, two lein-clothes men and a Brewster Bes 1008 tain in uniform. Smith looked up and understood, “They're just—a little—too tate, Bitty, don’t you think?” he quavered weakly. “I guese—I guess I've fooled them, efter all." And therewith he closed his eyes wearily upon all his troubles and triumphings. CHAPTER XXIl, PSEA TREE days after the whole- sale arrest at the dam Brew- ster gossip had fairly out- worn itself telling and re- telling the story of how the High Line Charter had been saved; of how Crawford Stanton’s bold ruse of hiring @n ex-train robber to tmper- sonate a Federal court oMcer had fallen through, leaving Stanton and hin confederates, ruthlessly abandoned by their unnamed principals, langutsh- ing bailless in jail; of how Smith, the hero of all these occasions, was still lying at the point of death in the office shack at the construction camp, and David Kinzie, once more in keen pursuit of the loaves and fishe: combing the market for off s\ the stock which was now climbing swiftly out of reach, But at this cli- max of exhaustion—or satiety-—came a distinctly new net of thrills, more Utillating, if posstble, than all the others combined. It on the morning of the third day that the Herald announced the return of Mr, Jostah Richlander from the Topas, and in the marriage no- me iasue the breakfast- the newspap the multimillionalre’s daughter had been privately married the previous evening to Mr, Tucker Jibbey, Two mining speculators, who had already made Mr. Jibbe: ac- quaintance, were chuckling over tho news in the Hophra House grill when @ third late breakfaster, a man who had been sharing Stanton's office space as @ broker in improved ranch lands, came tn to join them, “What's the joke?’ inquired the newcomer, and when he was shown the marriage {tem he nodded gravely, “That's all right, but the Herald man didn't get the full flavor of it, It w 4& sort of runaway match, it jeema; the fond parent wasn't in- vited or consulted. The boys in the lobby tell me that the old man had a fit when he came in this morning and a Herald reporter showed him that notice and asked for more dope on the subject.” THEY ARE NOTHING BuT JUNK “I don’t eee that the fond nt has any kick atin . Richlander had other plans for his daughter, They also say that Jibbey wouldn't stay to face the ™mustc; that he left on the midnight train last night a few hours after the Wedding, so as not to be among those present when the old man should blow in.” “What?"—in a chorus of two-— “left hia wife?” “That's what they eay. But that's only one of the new and atartling things that isn’t in the morning pa- pers, Have you heard about Smith? ~or haven't you been up long enough ret?” ? “You're out of date,” this from the dealer in ranches. “You know the story that was going around about hia bets ‘a in escaped convict, or eome- thing of that sort? It gets Ite ‘local color this morning, There's a Sherift here from back East somé re— came in on tho early train; name's Macauley, and he's the requist- tion papers, But Basith fooled him good and pienty.” Again the chorus united In an eager query. “How?” “He died last night—a little past midnight. They say they're going to bury him out at the Jam—on the job that he pulled through and stood on ita feet. One of Williams's quarry- men drifted in with the atory just a little while ago. I’m here to bet you even money that the whole town goes to the funeral.” Aa the event proved, the seller of the ranch lands would have lost his bet on the funeral attendance. For some unknown reason tha notice of Smith's death did not appear in the afternon papers, ‘and only @ fow people went in autos to sea the coffin lowered by Williams's workmen Into @ grave on the mesa behind the con- struction camp; a grave among others where the victims of an early Indus- trial accident at the dam frad been buried, ‘Those who went out from town came back rather scandalized. There had been @ most hard-hearted lack of the common formalities, they said; a cheap coffin, no minister, no mourners, not even the poor fellow'a business associates in the company he had fought so hard to eave from defeat and extinction, It waa a shame! With tiie report passing from lip to lip in Brewater, another bit of coasip to the effect that Starbuck and Stillings had gone Hast with the disappointed Sheriff, ‘to clear Smtth's momory,” ax the street talk had tt, called forth no little comment derog- atory. As tt chanced, the two mine ing speculators and Bixby, the ranch seller, met again in the Hophra House oafe at the dinner table on the evening of the funeral day, and Stryker, the captious member of the trio, Was loud in hie eriticiame of the Hi Léne people. “Yea!” he railed; “a couple of ‘em . ” Magazine, Saturday, September 9, 1916 =i_s ie NEXT WEEK'S COMPLET! NOVE THE SCIENTIFIC GUNMAN B ANTHER DB hh 1 “Crag he ‘ y th which wit ‘ rypleds of earn! detective In thin he pits hameaell ageinat mast wl a tif woman, they nown him ey * he | hide tometer 4 tok ¢ ih about the the poor dev rush rote up there on one ne bald mene ma) deal disappointed (e0.” confeoned improved ranch landa ly sSonmes that if nobody cise went, the little girl from the Raidwin place would be out there to tell him goodby, But she wan't.” . © 8 © + £8 Three weeks of the mateliless Au- Gust weather had slipped by without incident other than the tadictment by the Grand Jury of word Stanton, Harney M’Graw, and a number of others on « charge of co Williama, unmoieated of tee grand battue fy Harding had Ggured the hunt, bad completed itch system and wan inetel pare get lately power-houre, Over the hills from the northera mountain boundary of the Timan- »} yoni a wandering pros peotor hed come with a vague tale of @ OW abyss strike in Sunrise district worked ow! twenty years earl of the Red Butte tioned ele the peeing of 4 fo proof pos but in the hile he the of the deserted he had ecen ing. An to the fact of the ¢rail, wan: dering talo-bearer was net at fault. On the most panes of the lat _ Auguat mornings a young woma olsd in serviceable khaki, and keep- ing her cowboy Stetson and buff top- boots in good countenance by riding astride in a man's eaddie, was push- ing her mount up the trail toward Sunnee Guich. the top of a little rise the abandoned camp came Into view, ite Beaps of worked-over Gravel sprouting thickly with the wild th of twenty years, and ite crum- shacks, ene of an, a gaunt young fellow wi ara’ in @ ailing and the pallor of a Jong confinement whitening Ble face id hands, was trying to help the © horsewoman to Giemodnt Im ebe cabin dooryard, but she and awung out of the Gagided, r im out of 2 and yes Ing: I got to tell you that you help @ woman out of a is the bridle reins over the head of the wiry little cow-pony, which was thus left free to crop th short, sweet grass of the creek val- ley, the young woman led the man to the house bench and made bim eit down, “Where is Mr. Jibbey thie morn- p44 “He has gone up the creek, fishing. I made tim go. If I didn't take a club to him now and he'd hang over mo all the time. There never wan another man like him, Corona. And at home we used to call him ‘the black sheep’ and ‘the failure,’ and cross the etreet to dodge him when he'd been drinking too much!" “He says you'vo made @ man of in| him; that faved hie life when you had Treason not to, You never told me that, John,” “No; I aidn't mean to tell any one, But to think of his coming out here to nurse me, Leash | ve on the very night he married her! A brother of my own blood wouldn’t have done it.” The man's eyes filled suddenly, and he took no shame. He was still shaky enough in herve and muscle to excuse it, “Nobody ever had such frieads, Corona,” he said. “You all knew I'd have to go back to Lawrenceville and fight it out, and you didn’t want me to go handloapped and half-dead. But how did they come to let you take ms awny? I've known Macauley ever since T was in knicks He te not the man to take any ohances. The young woman's laugh was ndiess, "Mr. Macauley wasn't ed. He thinka you are dead,” she td. What!" “Ive ao. You were not the only one wounded in the fight at the dam. ‘There were two othera—two of MeGraw'a men, Three da later, just as Colonel-daddy and Billy Star. buck were getting ready to steal you away, one of the others died. In some way the report got out that you were the one who died, and that made everything quite easy. The report has never been contradicted, and when Mr. Macauley reached Breweter the police people told him that he wan too late.” “Good heavena! Does everybody in Brewater think I'm dead?” “Nearly everybody, But you need not look @o horrified. You're not dead, you know; and there were no obitu- aries In the newspapers, or anything like that.” ‘The man got upon his feet rather unateadily “That'a the limit,” he said defin- itively. ‘T’m a man now, Corena; too much of a man, I hope, to hide behind another man’s grave. I'm going back to Brewater, to-day!” Begin Reading the First Story in Next Monday’s Evening World A ne en ttn BINS IN NEXT MONDAYS EVENING WORLD f ton. wha methods are aa his own Adds find him orona! Tuen recognined met ve Not at firet. Hut after @ £* began to come back; what you told me-about Miss ander, you know, and the bias eave me of your troubled feat’ “Then you knew—or you thought” 1 was & criminal?” Bhe nodde . ‘ vel , rote me Bus dans whether you had done the b> 4 not. : iw wae * you haa fA ehackles in some way r) 10 get free, your? on You were, “I muppose #0; In some bind Hut it is you who are. Tt began ville when I stole one " waen't anything you it wae what you and lived. and out herent, iy was fairly on the edge bey stay in the mine and yn Ty wanted to; you lashed me with the one word that made me re his life w did ‘one word to ¥ i, “How do we know anything?” zs! inquired softly. “The moment bri {ta own inspiration, It broke s heart to eee what you could be, to think that you might not be it, after all. But I came out here this morning to talk about something cise. What are you going to do when you ere _ to leave pote Quich “The one straightforward thi: there le for me to do, I shall go to Lawrenceville and take my = cine.” a “And after that?” “That ts for you to say, Corona. Would ywe, marry a convict?" Billy Starbuc! dering why Billy never camo out here to see you--4t was because he and Mr, Stillings have been in Lawrenceville, trying to clear you. on the house bench, {ta interspaces led no worth recording. In on: coherent intervals it who sald: “Some thi in wonderful, happenings, and hen account laws threw us jer at your cousin’ Guthrlevile a year age fast Suse? Bie foarhes eae itt _would Absolute Ego,” he i a Roa who te Mr. Debrite?* ‘ “Ho is the man I dined ig my last evening in LawrenceviNe, had been Joking me about ‘ amugnesses—good jo! x clothes, easy life, and all that, and ‘he wound up by warning me to watoh ont for the Absolute Ego.” “What te the Absolute Egot* ghe asked dutiful John Mont ie Smith, with hte \ curling yellow beard three weeks un- trimmed, with hia clothes iressl the part of a neglected camper, an with a steel-jacketed bullet trying to encyst Itself under his right shoulder- blade, grinned exultantly, “Debritt didn't know, himself; but T know now: it's the primitive mane soul; the ‘I’ that is able to refuse to be bound down and tied by environ- ment or habit or petty conventions, or any of the things we mtsname ‘imitations. [t's asleep in. roast. of us; it was asleep in me, Yan made it sit up and rub ita for a minute or two that evening in Guthrievilia, but it dosed off again, and there had to be an earthquake at the last to shake jt alive. Do you know the first thing it did when ét took hold and began to drive?" “No” “Here is where the law of chances falls to pieces, Corona, Without tell- ing me anything about it, this newly emanci man-soul of mine made a bee-line for the only Absolute Pro woman it had ever Known, And it found her.” Again the young woman laughed happily. “Tf you are going to eall me names, Rgo-man, vou dave to mi 4 it up to me some other way,” @he said Whereupon, the moment etn strictly elemental and sacre! to deme” onstrations of the absolute, he did | = (THE END) | Ve