Show I 1 the an efte crippled lady of Peri Ped bonka by james oliver curwood Curt tood WV demee 0 WS 9 doubleday Doo bleday duran a co to CHAPTER II 11 continued he nodded to blaul ia ill dropped off hla his rubber cost coat and began to fill his bis pipe as he locket looke dout out over the workings 1 I 1 wish all the boys in the world could stand in this window and see going oo on down there be said raid that idea gets into my head every time I 1 come here it aou would id till fill em with ambition show ero em what can be done give lem em something to live and work for rotten day ill III rotten molten agreed pont paul but for a man abos done that it ought to be sunshine all the vine time added derwent lighting his bis pipe and pulling at it with great contentment splendid work paul something to be proud of all your life something 1 I hate ILI it interrupted paul ive hated it from the beginning ive bated it for three years derwent nodded 1 I 1 know it it paul turned from the window with a fiercely eloquent gesture at thirty eight his lean lithe figure was more like an indians when he was it boy there was something in the cut of his ebin chin his neck his bis shoulders and the look in his eyes which seemed to set him widely apart from the scene he had moodily surveyed a moment before shadows were hidden bidden behind them restless and troubled shadows which revealed themselves only now and then like ghosts whose grief could not always be kept behind wal walls Is of flesh his eyes were a deeper blue than when his mother had known him and they held i chained something which was forever struggling against the powerful will of the man occasionally the prisoner was released and when this happened there was a singular fur far seeing almost poetic beauty in them and the steel went out of his bis flesh so that be seemed all at once to cine come under the passing warmth of an influence other than that which had become so deeply rooted in his life Der analytical mind had bad arrived at the truth of the matter a long time ago lie be nodded again and repeated 1 I 1 know you dont like it but its a great work just the same paul looked at him with a relm grim smile and derwent surrounded rounded himself with a cloud of smoke do you think I 1 am quite a tool fool colonl do you really believe belleve 1 11 could be on a a job of this kind tor for three years without getting a pretty accurate measurement ol of the raud fraud of it all makes me sick I 1 the flattery of my friends everybody very body treating me as U I 1 were an omnisciently c powerful godhead of som kind I 1 I 1 tell you its all a lie ile and I 1 hate it im glad I 1 build that outrage down there im glad there a mark of my hand band upon it good 0 dl I 1 would die by inches rather than destroy a beautiful river for a thing like that desecrate a masterpiece for a few dollars profit prostitute a gift chien god put there when the world was made that a few worms like you and me may turn it to our selfish ends it if there ts Is a power that mounts the storm and walks upon the wind it ought to strike Us us dead for transforming a paradise into thail wee weeks he and months and years of gnawing torment bad at last broken through the dam paul had built up about his bis emotions and he bo spoke words which yesterday he be would have throttled in his breast fifty million dollars in and about that hole bole before it to Is finished derwent he said my fathers money that Is a why I 1 am here A score of engineers are on this job and every one of them to Is better fitted to fill my place than L they have done the work not L respectfully they submit suggestions when they know they should be commands yet they are slaves to my whims and desires as long ns as they remain on this work I 1 am the strutting figurehead 0 of f a financial monarchy I 1 hate bate that pit down there thera I 1 bate the millions going into it IL I 1 take no pride in what seems to thrill you all it if I 1 filled my pr proper per vince place I 1 would be among the men digging and messing myself with clay earning my six dollars a 11 day but im here instead I 1 do not brave to succeed simply because I 1 cannot fall my aly tn fathers millions attend to vint that the millions cannot lose they are all powerful next to the lord they get you and hold you and you cannot break away my bly father has never got away from them for a days play in his life and got me e bel I 1 hate them but that help p no matter where I 1 go they follow me harint me tie me hand band and toot grimace at me and mock me sometimes I 1 have lave had a terrible thought I 1 would like to see those millions shrivel up and die I 1 would like to feul feel the necessities of life with my baked bands bandi I 1 would like to fuel the loy JOY of knowing that I 1 had to work at M go 90 hungry what a thrill that must mart give one I 1 he turned toward derwent again trying t to stem the tide ot of him ahli emotion with a smile pardon me at if a gloomy day and I 1 feel eel like raving but I 1 did love viat that glorious glor loua river before we cut it into ribbons it if my father would head life his millions the alie other way and save ucb such things instead of destroying them id be quite As aa it la is I 1 suppose 11 1 must carry on until the d d things finished you owe yourself an apology der dec went remonstrated pocketing his bis pipe the engineers and your fathers muney money are making the job r success of course but do you ever think thing of morale a big thing a mighty big thing and it to Is what you nave have kept alive in the camps up and down the river for the last three years youre too serious you yon dont laugh leti enough letlough ough you dont join alu much in out parties and excitements excite ments but people like you that Is whit pulls the trick even the old heads beads the engineers w who ho worked in egypt and panama love to be with you there a jealous man in the workings to have made that condition possible to Is an achievement which makes you the most valuable hurrian humon asset in the organization it la Is good of you to say that acknowledged paul funny why I 1 should feel so strangely out of humor today I 1 think carlah Car lart mother to Is get tin ting on my nerves acnes have you seen her recently this morning and you still insist there to Is no DO hope positively I 1 had bad doctor titled mere come tip front from quebec as you requested ile he gives her even less time than L doctor rollins agrees with him it cant be more than three or four months I 1 think mrs holden baldan knows site she Is going to die and talks to us very calmly about it she afraid the thought of it seem to cast a shadow over her motherly sweetness she Is keeping herself that way tor fur arias sake if it were not tor for carlo caria the thing be 8 uch such a tragedy 11 1 I know its carla said paul sudden sickness and death like my own mothers so terrible but seeing it coming waiting for it counting ahe I 1 he days and weeks must be horrible carla Is losing everything she has when tier ber mother goes im wondering what she will ft do go on working among the children she told my wife that yesterday when the companas comp anys school closes here she will find another I 1 cannot understand der stand her quite she Is luviler than belie allebe and so lovable that halt half the men I 1 know worship her yet she favors one no more than another she Is twenty five lucybelle lucy belle says they like each other and have had their confidences lucybelle lucy belle says there in 1 a love affair to in carlos carlas life a broken one which makes it impossible impossible tor for carla to love any other man or marry carla told her ber that paul looked out of the window again with his bis back to derwent what a I 1 am to blow up as aa I 1 did a few minutes ago he be exclaimed but I 1 was thinking 0 of carla and the obstinacy of life mine has been one way carlas another I 1 was born rich she came over an I 1 inami grant baby I 1 did nothing but grow grove up tip she fought with the pert pertinacity ol of her race for an education after her bet r rather father lied died got it and has been fighting for her own and her mothers existence ever since im a man ashes a woman I 1 stand here a and nd sympathize with myself and curse my luck for being what I 1 am while she bears up like a soldier under her burdens I 1 saw her ber this morning it was wets wet bossy so aggy gloomy but she smil smiled ed the sadness n of all the world Is back ot of th that a t smile but it spoil its iti or its cheer she makes makei me feel how bow small I 1 am and hoi inconsequential all this work Is down la in the pit I 1 would give all this down here if it were mine to give could I 1 1 save her mother tor for her I 1 derwent put on his bis raincoat we all feel that way about it and were bel helpless pless lucybelle lucy belle wants wanti you to come over to supper will you thanks tell lucybelle lucy belle she Is an angel to think of me so often IV IT cowe come TO BM BB CONTINUED |