Show A S T O 0 R Y 0 t H E P L A I 1 N S BY E HOUGH AUTHOR OF THE STORY OF THE COWBOY osos if D anicic ca ancans new york lab CHAPTER XV continued in the swift current of humanity then streaming up and down the cattle range the reputation of the halfway house was carried far and near and for fifty miles east and west for five hundred miles north and south the beauty of the girl at the halfway house was matter of general story about her there grew a saga of the cow range and she was spoken of with awe from the brazos to the blue many a rude cowman made long all gamage to verify rumors he had heard of the u beauty the per bonal sweetness of nature the personal kindness of heart and yet the personal reserve and dignity of this new god dess whose like was not to be found in all the wide realms of the range for each of these rude silent awk ward range riders who stammered in all speech except to men or horses and who stumbled in all locomotion but that of the saddle mary ellen bad a kind spot in her soul never ceasing to wonder as she did at the customs and traditions of their life pain they knew not fear they had not and duty was their only god they told her simply as children of deeds which now caused a shudder now set ting ling the full blood of enthusiasm and opened up unconsciously to her view a rude field of knight errantry whose principles sat strangely close with the best traditions of her own earlier land and time they were knights errant and for all on the trail there was but one lady As for edward franklin himself he could not in his moments of wildest egotism assign himself to a place any better than that accorded each mem her of the clans who rallied about this southern lady transplanted to the western plains repulsed in his first unskilled impetuous advance hurt stung cut to the quick as much at his own clumsiness and failure to make himself understood as at the actual rebuff received franklin none the less in time recovered sufficient equanimity to seek to avail himself of such addan as still remained and he resolved grimly that he would persist un til at least he had been accepted as something better than a blundering boor under major buford s indita lion he called now and again at the halfway banch and the major was glad each time to see him mrs bu ford also received franklin with pleas ure and mary ellen certainly always with politeness yet fatal sign mary ellen never ran tor her mirror when she knew that franklin was coming of lovers mary ellen would hear of none and this was franklin s sole con sol atlon yet all day as he labored there was present in his subconscious ness the personality of this proud and sweet faced girl her name was spelled large upon the sky was voiced by all the birds it was indeed her face that looked up from the printed page he dared not hope and yet shrunk from the thought that he must not knowing what lethargy must else ingulf his soul he heard so clearly the sweet imperious summons which is the second command put upon ani mate nature first to prevail to live second to love to survive As tree whispers unto tree as flower yearns to flower came the mandate to his being in that undying speech that knows no change from the begin ning to the end of time against this overwhelming desire of an impetuous love there was raised but one barrier the enduring resistance of a woman s will silent not strenuous UD protesting but unchanged to all his renewed pleadings the girl simply said that she had no heart to give that her hope of happiness lay buried on the field of Louls burg in the far off land that she had known in young er and less troubled days leaving that land orphaned penniless her life crushed down at the very portal of womanhood her friends scattered her family broken and destroyed her whole world overturned she had left also all hope of a later happiness there remained to her only the mem ory of a past the honor that she prized the traditions which she must maintain she was un reconstruct ed as she admitted bitterly moreover so she said even could it lie in her heart ever to prove unfaithful to her lover who had died upon the field of duty never could it happen that she would care for one of those who had murdered him who had murdered her happiness who had ruined her home destroyed her people and banished her in this far wandering from the land that bore her providence did not bring here to marry you she aid to franklin keenly but to tell you that I 1 would never marry you never not even though I 1 loved you as I 1 do not I 1 am still a southerner am still a rebel moreover I 1 have learned my leason I 1 shall never love again poor medic dae as it is work was brer the best salve known tor a hurt ing heart franklin betook him to hia dally work and he saw success attend A t t ilala a his labors he felt growing in his heart the stubbornness of the man of property the landholding man the man who even unconsciously plans a home resolved to cling to that which be has taken of the earth s surface for his own he knew that this perfervid time could not endure knew that the sweep of american civilization must occupy all this land as it had all the lands from the alleghenies to the plains he foresaw in this crude new region the scene of a great material activity a vast industrial development it needed no gleat foresight to realize that all this land now so wild and cheap could not long rema n wild and cheap but must follow the history of values as it had been writ ten up to the edge of that time and place of law business of an actual sart there was next to none at ellisville Ellis ville all the transactions being in wild lands and wild cattle but as did all actor neya of the time franklin became broker before he grew to be probes man fortunate in securing the handling of the railroad lands he sold block after block of wild land to the pushing men who came out to the front Is search of farms and cattle ranche his own profits he invested again in land thus he early found himself making much more than a alve chood and laying the foundation of later fortune long since he had proved up his claim and moved into town permanently having office and residence in the great depot hotel which was the citadel of the forces of law and order of progress and civilla alon in that land the railroad company which tow d ed had within its board of dl rectors a so called and improvement company which atter company naturally had the first knowledge of the proposed location of the different along the advancing line when the sale of town lots was thrown open I 1 am still a southerner am still a rebel to the public it was always discovered that the land and improvement corn pany had already secured the best of the property in what was to be the business portion of the town in the case of this inner corpora alon knew that there was to be located here a railroad division point where ultimately there would be car shops and a long pay roll of employed emp loyes bucl a town was sure to prosper much more than one depending solely upon agriculture for its support as was to be the later history of many or most of these far western towns franklin given a hint by a friendly official in nested as he was able in town prop erty in the village of ellisville Ellis ville in which truly it required the eye of faith to see any prospect of great enhance ment betimes he became owner of a quarter section of land here and there in course of commissions scales he was careful to take otay such land as he had personally sees and thought fit for farming and always he secured land as near to the railroad as was possible thus he was in the ranks of those foreseeing men who quietly and rapidly were making plans which were later to place them amog those high in the control of affair everywhere was shown the ang saxon love of land each man haa his quarter section or more ean nora the waitress at the hotel hid filed on a quarter and once in cpr haps a month or so would reside there overnight a few faint furrows in the oil done by her devoted admirer sam passing as those legal ampro e ments which should later give i title to a portion of the earth land was passing into severally coca co ca ing into the hands of the people v ac had subdued it who had driven those who once had been its mccu pants the indians were now cleared away not only about but far to the north and west the skin hunt ers had wiped out the last of the great herds of the buffalo the face of na ture was changing the tremendous drama of the west was going on in all its giant action this torrent of rude life against which the hands of the law were saiji so weak and unavailing had set for it in the ways of things a limit for Us flood and a time for its receding the west was a noble country and it asked of each man what nobility there was in his soul franklin began to grow As he looked beyond the day of cattle and foresaw the time of the plough so also he gazed far forward into the avenues of his own life now opening more clearly before him he rapidly forecast the possibilities of the profession which he had chosen and with grim self confidence felt them well within power beyond that then he asked himself in his curious self questioning manner what was there to be wherein was he to gain that and that satisfaction which to attend each human soul and entitle it to the words well donea odd enough were some of these self which went on betimes in the little office of this plainsman lawyer and strangest of all to franklin s mind was the ta ai afi 3 i that ats heart had not yot eseed that which was its right neither bad hia hand yet fallen upon that which it was to do franklin rebelled from the technical side of the law not so much by reason of its dry difficulty as through scorn of its admitted weakness its inability to do more than compromise comp romiee through contempt of its pretended and its frequent inefficiency and harm falness in the law he saw plainly the lash of the taskmaster driving all those yoked together in the horrid compact of society a master inetor able stone faced cruel in it he found no comprehension seeing that it re carded humanity either as a herd of slaves or a pack of wolves and not as brethren laboring suffering per forming a common destiny yielding to common fate he saw in the law no actual recognition 0 the individual but only the acknowledgment of the social body thus set down in a day miraculously clear placed among strong characters who had never yet yielded up their souls witnessing that time which knew the last blaze of the spirit of men absolutely tree franklin felt his own soul leap into a prayer tor the continuance of that day seeing then that this might not be he tell sometimes to the dreaming of how he might some day if blessed by the pitying and understanding spirit of things bring out these types these times and 80 at last st them lovingly before a world which might at least wonder though it did not understand such were his vague dreams unformulated but happily meantime he was not content merely to dream to be continued |