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Show THE BULLETIN. RING HAM CANYON. UTAH andbe r W.N.U. RELEASE THE STORY THI S FAR: Martha d the ory 0, now ne ned tu And Uttj standing over her bed with the knife In hand. She and Tom bad tafcen the knife away from Letty, and Martha had gone to the graveyard to bury It while Tom watched over hli sick "i'e. "1 hid It where you found It" A little later Letty suffered a hemorrhage. "She died early this morning." Bob Reynolds pressed her further. "I did It!" Martha screamed. "I killed her. I hated ber. She spread stories about Tom and Miss MacTavlsh." Martha then went Ui to detail of how she went to Alicia's hone and waited for her chance, waited oJitll Jlrn MacTavlsh left Alicia and then committed the murder. Megan slipped away to offer her services to Annie In finishing up sup-per, but Annie said, "No'm, honey, I's got eve'ything undeh control y'all go out and git yo'se'f a 111 bits o' fresh air, 'fo' suppeh." And gratefully, Megan obeyed her It was already dusk, though not yet dark enough to obscure the vision. She crossed the backyard to a big old rough bench beneath a live oak tree and sat down, her head back, breathing deep of the crisp night air. The night was very still, save for the faint shouts of children playing somewhere along the highway; be-hind her In the barn she heard the rustling of the cows as they settled themselves down for the night. The whole scene was quiet and calm and peaceful. So peaceful that it wai hard to believe the horror and trag-edy and terror that had gripped the place so short a time before. She couldn't bear to think of Tom any more. She wouldn't let herself. were cold and hard as he followed her across the yard to the kitchen and into the dining room. Healthily tired at the end of the day, sleeping soundly at night, Me-- gan discovered, as week followed week, that the memory of those dark, evil days when Alicia Steven-- son's malicious tongue had wagged so freely, was growing fainter. And she realized that Pleasant Grove, as a community, was also recovering from the darkness when Alicia's tongue had set old friends to eyeing each other with more or loss veiled suspicion. Other farm families were finding release from dark memories in the ever new, yet age-ol- d miracle of the dark earth, the tiny seeds, the new, tender green sprouts that meant life and hope and the future. She was touched and grateful to Jim for his honest, if bungling, at-tempts to help her. She tried not to let him know that his hands were clumsy with the delicate, fragile plants that he tried to pack. She knew he was bored, and that he resented the hard, back-breakin- g la-bor that it takes to run a farm ef-fectively. He came back from Meadersville late one afternoon, his eyes shining with excitement, obviously with news that he considered of great importance. It was already dusk, and the dark-neg- g had driven Megan in from the fields. She had shed her earth-staine- d dungarees, had a shower and was dressed for supper, busy in the kitcheq helping Annie with the last duties of getting the meal on the table, when Jim came hurrying in. "The most marvelous thing has happened, Meggie I've been offered splendid opportunity!" "Tell me," said Megan, eager and Interested, loving him for the under- - standing she had acquired of him since his moment of n after Alicia's death. "Well, you know the county news-pap-in Meadersville? The Senti- - nel?" demanded Jim, as eager and excited as a boy. "Dick Morgan pub- - lishes it. Well, Dick's been drafted and he wants me to take over until he comes back!" He beamed at her happily and Megan said quickly, "It is wonder-ful, Dad but well, you've never had any newspaper experience do you think " Jim looked a little sulky. CHAPTKR XVI "There's a short cut through the woods, and it isn't far. I got my sister to bed and to sleep. As I've already told you. Tom was out of the house. I found Mrs. Stevenson was not alone. I waited" "She wasn't alone?" Bob jerked her up sharply. Miss Martha shook her head. "Mr. MacTavish was with her," she said, and now Megan held her breath and her teeth were clenched. "He left a few minutes after I got there. They had been quarreling. I could only hear a word or two, but I could tell, just looking in at the window, that Mr. MacTavish was very angry and that Mrs. Stevenson was laughing at him." Megan could see the picture as though she herself had stood outside that window, and it made her shud-der. Yet here was the thing that had worried her father an alibi. She drew a breath of sharp relief. "I waited until he had gone," Miss Martha went on wearily. "Then I knocked and she opened the door. She was surprised to see me, and not very pleasant. I tried to tell her why I had come, but she only laughed. She said that there must be a lot of truth in the stories about Tom and Miss MacTavish or he and I would not have been so alarmed and she added that she knew that Letty was out of her mind and that she was a menace to the neigh-borhood. She said she intended to start a movement to have her com-mitted " Her voice broke, and aft-er a superhuman effort at control, she said thinly, "And so I killed her." It was once more Bob who broke the tense, breathless pause. He still sat on the corner of the desk, and he scrubbed out the glowing tip of his cigarette as he spoke, his eyes on the crushed cigarette in the old glass ashtray, his voice very quiet and gentle, "The truth is, Miss Evans, that you spoke to Mrs. Ste-venson, and she answered you about as you have said. You did not kill her but when you turned to leave the house, you were astounded to see your sister in the doorway behind you, and realized that she had fol-lowed you. And it was, in reality, your sister, not you, who killed Mrs. Stevenson." Bob sighed. He ran his hands through his hair and stood up, white and tired, haggard almost, as though the long scene had been almost as much of an ordeal for him as for the broken, suddenly old woman be-fore them. "But how could you possibly tnow " Megan demanded of Bob. It was late in the afternoon of an sxtremely hectic day after all the oose ends and the final details of he tragic story had been cleared ip. Miss Martha and Tom had on their sad errand of "tak- - The glimmer of her light-color-frock through the dusk led him to her. and she was glad when she saw Laurence coming towards her across the dusky dooryard. The glimmer of her light-colore- d frock through the dusk led him to her. He called her name uncertain-ly, and when she answered him he came on to her, something dark in his hands. "Your scarf," he said. "Annie felt you might catch cola out here she said supper would be ready in ten or fifteen minutes." Megan started to rise, but he put his hand on her shoulder and pressed her back on the bench. Megan relaxed a little. He lit a cigarette and they sat for a little companionably in silence. "It's all like a terrible dream," she said huskily, and Laurence nod-ded. "But you've waked up now, Me-gan, and sensible people don't brood over bad dreams or let them affect their future lives!" he reminded "Oh, I know that, but after all, Dick feels that I have other qualifl-- cations," he pointed out. "And Mrs. Morgan will stay on as business manager and write the woman's page and all that. What I'll have to do is write the editorials, and what news I can pick up. Mostly, right now, it comes from a wire service, because about the only two things people are interested in are the war and politics. And there's a fellow in Washington who acts as DOtrespondent for a lot of county newspapers, Dick's paper among them. And Dick's got three weeks before he reports for induction and he feels that in that length of time he can get me settled in, help me to learn the ropes and all that. Of course, the salary is really laugh-able but I get a share of the prof- - its and all that." "It is wonderful, Dad, and of course you can do it!" Megan as- - sured him, sincerely. "I'm terribly proud of you." Jim looked at her oddly and then he asked, almost curiously: "Are you, Megan? Funny I can't remember when anybody ever said they were proud of me." Megan felt a little quick mist of tears in her eyes, but she knew this was no time for the display of pity that she felt for his humility his tacit admission that he had always hungered for appreciation, even while he had admitted to himself that he deserved no such apprecia-tion. "But of course I'm proud of you. Dad now you'll get to make use of all that study and research you have done these last few years!" she told him happily. "I'll bet there isn't an-other man in the whole county who has read as much, or studied as much, of current events as you have." Then he said hesitantly, "Of course, Meggie, I know I promised to help you with the farm this year but I hate to turn down a chance like this. A chance to well, to be somebody important, and to have people listen to my views." "Now don't you worry about the! farm, or me," Megan assured him firmly. Jim beamed at her happily, ob- - viously relieved. He would ride to and from Meadersville each day with three men from Pleasant Grove! who "commuted" to Meadersville! offices. The paper came off the! press every Friday. It might oe necessary for him to stay over ln town Thursday night, but the hotel wasn't bad and he could stay there. He had his plans made. Megan, listening to him while she did the mending that always occu-pied her sizable work basket, thought that he seemed younger and more vividly alive than he had been in a lung time, and was deeply and self-ishly glad that he had found a joo that he felt was worthy of his ability (TO BE CONTINUED) ing Letty home" to lay beside the Ifttle son who had never lived. Megan had asked Bob and Lau-rence to stay for supper and they had accepted gratefully. And now they were in the living room, with Jim listening and looking on, with-drawn and pale, but genial and pleasant when spoken to. "1 didn't know, of course," Bob answered frankly. "It was just that -- well, call it a hunch, what you will. Only I kept hearing something in Miss Martha's words that didn't quite ring true. What she was say-ing would be completely sincere and convincing. Then something would creep into the story, nothing I could set my finger on, but it was there and I could sense it. Especially that very elaborate ruse of hiding the knife. If it had really been a knife out of the kitchen of her own home, she might have hidden it very care-fully about the house. But to get herself up like a particularly terri-fying ghost and go sneaking out into the night to hide it in the one place she felt sure would never be found-w- ell, that had me puzzled." "I thought of that, too, of course, ' Laurence contributed. "Then when she began to talk about going to Mrs. Stevenson's-remem- ber she mentioned the short cut through the woods? Yet she had been at some pains to assure us that her sister's strength was not sufficient for her to walk to the Ste-venson place. But if there was a short cut through the woods, and if her sister, in one of her periods of lucidity, had followed her and over-heard her quarrel with the Steven-io- n woman, and the sister had been frightened, excited, as she most cer-tainly would have been do you see? The pattern is the sister doing the deed not Miss Martha. I saw it suddenly, and-w- ell, you know what happened." her almost sternly. "There is one thing out of the bad dream that you can remember, though Fallon is free. After a decent interval of timti " She shivered and said impulsive-ly, "I don't feel I could ever bear to see him again." Laurence turned on her sharply, angrily. "Now you're talking like a fool!" he told her violently. "Just because a man has gone through hell and a hell that was no fault of his own no woman with a decent instinct to her name can throw him asidel" Megan caught her breath and looked at him in surprise. "I didn't mean that after all, aren't you taking rather a lot for granted?" she protested heatedly. "Tom Fallon and 1 were friends " "Tom Fallon was and is in love with you, and you know it," Lau-rence told her bluntly. "Even if I hadn't known it, the way he looked at you when he said good-b- y and besides, have you forgotten that you told me yourself you were in love with him?" "I I guess I am," she admitted humbly. "You guess you arel" Laurence was caustic. "Well, what I meant was I'm all mixed up and confused it's been so horrible" she stammered faintly. "That's understandable " Lau-rence conceded grudgingly. "But after a while, you'll pull yourself to-gether and be able to see clearly and in a year or so " Annie's voice from the kitchen door, that spilled an oblong of golden-a-mber light into the backyard, was theost welcome sound Megan had ever heard in all her life, and she rose so swiftly that Laurence's mouth tightened a little and his eyes ISSIFIED ;RTMEHT --'Wn s access roiTwHEELS T Us.'f rjilvrs l" U"N1 ,,.,-.- Iiucso From YEAR "ssL jfe INVEST. OPPOR. TaCTO SI rl'I.Y STORE. re Fran his and mcrchan-S- u 'now (or new Associate Edltate be! you Invest, write nr wire, ItllO STORKS. Dallas 1. Te. NEEDLEWORK PATTERNS Pretty Designs for Gift Linens C"v r t JMY7t' Five ednlnfr; Instructions arc given I I I' ,he pattern. Send 20 cents In coin, you ' JlE name, address and the pattern numbei 'aKT's. JCSfe SEWINO CIRCLE NEFDI.E WOltK iifrWV S r$Fi$ 709 Mlsslon st- - San Francisco, Call! pfc5k 'ScSiK Jos' til? Enclose 20 cents for pattern. mlmSl change vnLUA . 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T days every a." f;PI the kidneys filter m""'7"' the blood. ,' aware of how th oust constantly remove sur-- th.f " 'd" nd 0th" wt ti' "':,t the blood :te , Z t0 healtk th" "' i?.t. '!iindinf ' KhV the " J',,et vhn kidneys fall gas prop rly. t.icnty or too frequent urina-y"- " warn, that something kdsch" nanrinc b.ck- - ttti ? " "'nees. rhcumatl ? ur'," n'Khta, swelling. !., ivr:nt recommended the f tlJ ''"ai't etimulate the func- - k ;'!nry, tnJ n them , T i P""nons waste from the ""'"'n nothing harmful, gffg-- U "1th confident 1 Behind the News.': ByPAULki.iON"b'.-- r Released by Western Nswspape: t a STOCK MARKET BREAK HINTS END OF INFLATIONARY TRIO NO NEW YORK - They said bad news from abroad caused the stock market to skid. As they put it the international news was "a caution-ar- y speculative and investment ele-ment." Yeah! It was "caution ary" to the extent of a maximum 17 point decline that day. Actual-ly the news was not then much worse than it had been for weeks, although a radio commentator whose views are rarely accepted on anything except births, had an-nounced 48 hours earlier something about us having war with Russia by January 1 or some thrilling date. Other accounts of the break claimed it was "psychological" but they did not say what it was psy-chological of. When I sought out an extraordi-narily objective authority to get the inside on the situation, asking: "What in the world happened to the stock market?" I obtained the pithy explanation: "It broke." Yet from this and other sources I was able to obtain some fresh understanding of the "cautionary" state of the financial mind, clearing up some matters which have not been pub-licly understood, namely these fol-lowing suggestions and conclusions: Maybe the inflation is not go-ing to be so inflationary after all. Perhaps the stock market is hewing downward to a level which can be established out of the unprecedented volatile econ-omy in which we have been soaring lately. Maybe we are reaching for some stability. Who can say? SHARE PRICES LAGGED Now some financial elements have been complaining that the in-flation so far has taken the stock market up less than anything else. These people claim wages and prices have risen more than profits, or at any rate more than the sell-ing price of stocks. You can get nearly any kind of an answer you are looking for, along this line but mostly yes. If you take a tomato and General Motors stock and se-lect your comparative period ad-vantageously, you can show the to-mato price has doubled and trebled, whole General Motors has not gone anywhere comparable. In gen-eral, there may be some truth in the supposition that stocks have ex-perienced less of a price inflation than much goods. This is not an unreasonable assumption because the profits of General Motors cer-tainly have not swollen to the same extent as foodstuffs and materials. Yet when automobiles are produced and sold to full capac-ity. General Motors will do the business and probably at a profit, and when you get enough tomatoes the price should come down. So in this instance, you can see this nation is in a unique and temporary condition. In-deed it is practically a miracle that in the midst of an abund-ance of favorable economic fac-tors, with a shortage of goods, a national income of $165,000,000,-00- 0 (where we got along on before prices and wages went upl, a plentiful sup-ply of money, a public demand for everything then, at that time, the stock market breaks. It never happened belore. SOME STRANGE FACTOR? My suspicions naturally were di-rected toward the possibility that some factor had entered the situa-tion which was little known. This, they say with authority, is impos-sible. Perhaps some foreign gov-ernment is carrying on an attack upon our system at its financial core? Impossible. A bundle of our stocks is held in Amsterdam, and a smaller wad in England, but nc foreign nation has sufficient to stari a selling wave (particularly not the Soviets). Could there be anything political in thus signalizing finan-cially the opening of a hard con gressional campaign for the admin istration? The answer was: Iff too early, and who could do it at any time9 Actually it would b nearly impossible to do, because of the broad and scattered ownershij of stocks in this country today. Nc one has enough of them to do any-thing with them. You have to get back, then, to thf conclusion that the stock market has begun to suspect the Inflation can be stopped and stabilized. It may be skittish justly also about prospective profits. Certainly pro-duction is not satisfactory. Few think the break will continue proportions, bui to more alarming if it does, the knowledge will grow cannot stand an that this country other depression now. England has tried to Tduv herself .out of a bank ruptcy caused by her high debt by purchasing" industries, thereby increasing the government debt, im moving working conditions which Urease costs of operation and thui IftCreas. prices, but not profits. Econ 0Oli,tt in this country, seeing th. ways, want o kee, ,rror of those but make it work wha. we have, Thai is the problem. |