Show yellow men en sleep slee lolk by JEREMY LANE copyright by the century company J EITHNA MARCH synopsis palt john levington a poet I 1 visionary and impractical and mary martin i the daugh daughter ted of rich and nd worldly par parent entil hear the call of love and unite their lives they coto eo to a small michigan city where john finds work in a stove factory and tn on sundays writes vera verses the martins martina try in vain to ed the happy wife to leave her husband mary begins to breathe breath for two john loses his lob job ile he appeals in vain to the martins mary goes to the hospital and never returns thus comes into the story cornelius levington the father leaves town and the city farms put out the child after two years the father returns and takes his little son eon with him on his world wanderings the father becomes the slave of a mysterious drug koresh with odors of wine an and d cinna cinnamon inon and returns with little tl con to die on his cifes grae gra e con Is again farmed out grows crows up in the underworld and Is saved tor for better things by andrew march so much by way of introduction to the lero hero of the strange a adventures of yellow men sleep these begin when cork con takes by force a small leather sack from chee ming mine the chinese cook of an acquaintance this sack contains a chinese map ap of the gobi desert which Is precious beyond price to andrew march CHAPTER ill continued 4 when repairs were finished the lie unpainted sloop nosed out of the bay and breasted the blus blue the captain had whipped three chineis into the crew and the lad loved them the coall inabel 1 also swedish but inclined to silence had frightened two wo neg negroes roes up tip from the back bach rooms of the city to add to the quota A hindu wild eyed and bony hauled at the sheets frequently pausing to weep at his own ignorance on these later occasions the silence of the mate was broken their cook a salty irishman whose life was for some reason forfeit in the gold districts above the bay cursed with a frantic might his goodwill good will to the newcomer new comer stephen march when the boy confessed in himself a line of celtic blood stephen was happy ills his da dais s were filled with strong drink labor and dreams the captain had bad read three books in english and he now road read them again aloud to its his mid midshipman hipman they werd the travels ef f marco rolo polo a fathomless treatise on the art of toxins and the the pages of these three golden fragrant and terrible were written afresh in n the eager listener ile he strove to conceal how bow they bit his pride ile he slaved at the ropes with the yellow men and sometimes laughed with them but they watched him with narrowed eyes and a lowe lowering xing of the chin and even donegan nt at the stove practised practiced more careful ways in stephens presence in the evenings there were tales of china and her deep mad deserts vague tague yet irresistible these yellow strands afe were re drawing him ato to mid asia lordliness stirred in his breast the voyage was an affair of months kale gale cut hut but stephen march had made his own lunor inner arrival but lie he was wag twenty when lie reached the inshan in shan mountains beyond the the china wall the caravan had left mm at the village khan for they were turning southward to cross the hwang ho and proceed upon the ilo iio tau plains over a trail that might once have heard merchants whispering the news of jesus here march waited having no gold then with the urgent mysterious summons still haunting him he was forced to turn his back upon the desert and return to peking for money the english girl whom he married to the square city of peking found in him the quality of lordship they prospered together when he was twenty seven he be went gain again to the gap in the long wall in the north he had camels and provisions and a radiant heart the unknown treasure beckoned A dlin remembered throne seemed walt waiting irig out there but the sleeted sheeted storms of winter came against him and his caravan diminished until the robbers tell fell upon them and left their bodies for the wolves when spring should come only one other returned with stephen llarch ilaree lils bis chiney boy who had gone mad load with desert tears fears the english wife was in mourning ind and a email ehll child was learning to walk in the garden court of the peking house then the three of them went to america where stephen found much gold and ills L englishwoman had less difficulty in teaching the mother tongue to her son andrew she longed for her lords and their ways many of them long since turned to quiet lust dust in some abbey and the of england must have hit ve heard for she was taken into the bosom of that assembly her death sharpened the old desire in stephen and when andrew was sixteen father and son had jobi journeyed neveil together to the tar far city ot of citing and to the great wall and the plains of ilo iio tou tau andrew march had told leving levington ton of f that failure so charged with beauty td od tow bow the fierce heat beat of summer had withered the beasts how hov their inspired trail across the sand crusts and along the rim of gray pits had been dotted with fallen men and camels the traders had warned them and cursed their purpose but bul they had pressed on away from the trodden routes to north and south straight into the west always westward and to the north until a party of dusty horsemen had ridden them down robbed them and turned them back bach parley was useless andrews father spoke a language langua gd they understood yet they gave but one reply broken with de defeat feals the white man and hla his son and two drivers returned to the village of shan sung their camels eyes were black and loose with coming death andrew march when hen he was thirty left ili his father in peking and started westward with a summer caravan his wife went with him a highborn high born irish girl who refused to stay back something in the great gobi had magnetized her as well ell her lovers quest was her own she loved the twisty old villages of the interior loved the fog over the millet fields the peasants who went about halt half dead with age and disease and she was ready to sing a hen the sun came through upon the dripping tiles of a farmers fan ners cottage rut but she could not stop in the pleasant lanes that wandered up from the marshes like andrew in whom slie she believed sho she was yearning for the secret of the desert though she could give no reason in the world we are exiled she had said and possibly she thought their exile would end it if they could tind the heart of mongolia through that memorable summer she had bad ridden beside her husband andrew march planned a southern approach from the clien chen tan break in the wall where the forests are thick in autumn the camels grew fat and the winter months found them plodding through the rain and snow of the sheltered ridges ridged spring came and the wanderers turned northward following the clearings through the woods EIt Elt hnas heart beat high but its as they journeyed the trees failed in the rocky earth and an unreal summer stiffened the spine of every camel the sand blazed on all sides sparkling upon worn rocks andrew hod bad striven to smooth all things for his eathna she laughed at his worries she was drawing closer to the heart of beauty and romance they halted in a bleak settlement where a stream had once passed now but a muddy spring remained midsummer beat into their bodies Elt linas child was born the only new clean thing within a thousand miles perhaps the immensity of sky the staring emptiness of the horizon affected the rosy newcomer there was no wall of sorrow from her tiny lips only a deep drawn murmur in their hut the tartar woman gnu gaunt and and hairy was an unsuspected miracle of tenderness and sagacity in the following spring when the glare of the daytime was accompanied by swelling heat andrew with ills his wife and child set forth again there was no trail the camels were uneasy andrew was worn lie ile longed to go on as eithna old did yet the impulse to turn back was strong within him but she had told him lightly and perhaps truly that china to the south and east would be quite as inconvenient and much less sanit sanitary arV than the pathless land before them the child gravely regarded sand rocks and the dear clear sky and learned to laugh happily whenever andrew came to take her A doll was made of silks and a jackal bone A shining lizard was also added to the march family tor for her entertainment the beasts grew thin and dry the wind a monster serpent of the air swept before them and over them reddened the camels eyes and darkened their milk in Elt hnas cheeks the color deepened and she refused to turn back andrew lost count of the days two of the pack animals were killed for food find and drink and a third went down for the lack of the same the baby girl prospered and estlina whispered her songs under the starlight of a grotesque world the riders came from out the west a little to the north they appeared a dozen or more huge men mounted on short legged horses shaggy and half wild they were nere silver eyed men their movements as incomprehensible as their words they circled about the young father and as they drew in closer he was ready to fire on them and tight it out but his legs became rud suddenly denly weak and the sky reeled earthward and when lie awakened it was deep night the desert was silent and horrible ills ells body ached felt thick and clumsy then he found the tiny feathered dart still clinging to his shoulder where they had bad blown it the pol poisoned barb under the skin andrew had been unconscious for hours eathna and the child were gone madly lie he kicked the camels and raced in the pale far light of the heavens he thought lie he could rollo follina the trucks tracks of una tho horses ile was wab able to do so without difficulty but found to his terror that each rider had taken a different direction radiating out from the he point of attack he did not know chich to follow ile he was alone sanity left him the camels chimber whimpered find and started back the way they had come andrew roused from his delirium in the hut where his baby helen had been born and the familiar bearded female was watching him fever had held him in this but for many days from caravansaries caravan saries sarles to the south he gathered up camels and men and horses and provisions and started noril northward iward again in search of his own most of the men inen refused to ride with him film beyond the trees into the forbidden land bright eyed alarm prevented although a few consented to accompany the white man softly moaning wind covered their tracks as they went they moved in large irregular circles always northward searching until they deserted andrew for a madman stephen march came to find its ills son and ended these desperate wanderings he pieced out the story andrew could not tell and gently guided him back to peking A ransom was raised great enough to impoverish the house of march now to carry the ransom to the riders came the british expedition and its failure Is still on the tongues of certain tat old timers out of thirty stalwart sweating sun gun helmeted men four staggered ered back to shan sung with a tale of skin wounds that brought bitter death and whole mirages of hell bell their mou things were not taken down officially the stories were tinctured with lunacy so decided the wise listeners at the legation eithna march was never found in eighteen years some of the bitterness had faded out of this for andrew march ills his ways were as recondite as those of his father his desires far flung in shadowy worlds to him eithna was lest but not forever ills his MI jee if it aint con levington sorrow was never a blank ile he realized how completely an easterner ho hl was wa s how oriental in character the blessing was that it gave him a chinese patience about the time that con levington was finding the deep places of america and dipping in rather freely for a young person andrew marces hs attention had centered upon chee ming newly arrived in dory street this chinese shared his business with no man intentionally march had been so light a shadow upon him that the attack attach in the house was a real surprise levington had bad worked delicately and march permitted himself to hope as he had not dared hope tor for eighteen years lie ile had seen a peculiar promise in the way levington bad made that stampede down the street in cincinnati con was close to the elements had imagination vigor and a laugh in him were centered now all the hopes of an unhappy man 0 0 0 0 on oil the night train con secured a section sect lon and as a precaution slept in ili it e upper tipper berth lie ile inserted himself between the stiff brown pullman blankets and stared for a moment up into the close curve of the car root roof lie ile thought of the small parchment map against his ribs tissue than in its tiny leather stick resembling a mongol charms charm but in ili tills this case utilitarian rather than religious so marked as to guide him and of the lie two unusual mm men whose messenger lie was and nho ho had filled the pouch in ili his big bell with heavy coins cobis wid mid paper but ohp lull full of the hie rushing train the clicking monotony of the lie cleel wl eels the fresh air that shot in through the ventilators rs and anal hilligus ere claiming an organ ism fare newly tuned to health and ur LOT ington fell asleep ile he took his next mornings wait along the swaying from froin to coach lie ile abandoned caution fon and felt again a sense of well being th breakfast coffee had been rood good the th train was long and fast ile he liked ti t stretch his legs Us his spirit rose while await awaiting teg hla his turn torn in the bar bers clial cha chairse rhe Irhe saw a familiar figure swing into the smoking compartment con felt the jerk at a his nerves the man was short and stocky with a very large cigar ds figuring his mouth in a browncheck brown check ed suit of clothes that gave youth tc ills his appearance despite the gray bris ties that were cropped above his bis ears beneath the rim of a brown derby jee it it aint con said the flashy person throwing out a stubby but newly manicured right band how are you stub never finer son its great to se set you where you been keepin yourself they tell me you are dittin UK the strait and narrow how about it who told you that returned ley lev ington with a laugh dont we all know it exclaimed stubby taggart aint saw you at al the club since christmas was down cincinnati way said con aware of another back backward rd rub on his nerves im no good in cold weather but you sure do eat up then them nights in spring aint I 1 saw you do it 14 connie when the weather Is woold wool and soft and the winter linin goes off your taster and you feel a drought comin on last you till snow fles again stubby cackled with head thrown back until the derby was in danger the other men in the compartment found it difficult to be as bored as they wished to appear 1 I guess they hey had find a spell of hot weather down in cincinnati they find and stub set himself off in another fit of laugh laughter tex levington nodded grinning then taggart lowered ills his voice discreetly and whispered in his young friends ear on the level now how the did you keep from gettin a ride in the blue buggy they tell me you had everything your own way with a gat in both mits mils 1 I dont remember the details answered con as lie ho shifted the conversation what have you been doing stubby you look prosperous dont tell roe me youve gone to work A hurt expression covered the red puffy face but a smile was in it it work work aint I 1 always been the little hurndin hurn min bee for work 1 I thought perhaps you had a by this time not at the present price 0 liquor and |