Show aaa au THE GIRL AT THE gi A L F WA Y HOUSE A S R Y T T H E P L A I 1 N S BY E HOUGH AUTHOR F THE STORY OP THE COWBOY tid 1903 isi D new carls CHAPTER continued ased said the tall Iri shiran riel g a d lading a hand upon his shoulder in t ye behave be lavin ye I 1 ve seen the an I 1 must see it again but in a while be comin arouca here to see the best man s antry on the globe an to meet agin the best man I 1 divver koew not till chy I 1 behave it for that I 1 can rot do bi t I 1 do behave it th Is tl e land for yo i don t be rest le b it abide an take ye root here for batt it s no odds he s seen the n orr 1 eat ersle gh s words caused frank 1 n s face to gro v still more grave and h s friend saw and suspected the real cause tut tut me boy he said I 1 well 1 now how your wishes lie it s a noble gyura ye ve chosen as a noble man should do she may change her thought to morrow it s change is the wan thing about a woman franklin shook his head mutely but Batter sleigh showed only impatience with him go on with your plans man said be an pay no attai I 1 on to the gyura make ready the house and prepare the bridal talk with her ray an thin try un ray and if shell folly ye thin to the ind of the earth an love ye like a lamb it s batty has studied the sex now there was a gyura but i not yet thrust to spa e god rist her aay iver more yes said franklin sadly that Is it that is what my own answer has been she tells me that there was once another who no longer lives bat no one else Eatter sleigh s face grew grave in turn there s no style of assault more difficult than that same said he yet she s young she must have been very young with all respect it s the nature the race women to yield to the livin br eathin man above the dead an honored the pretension and the failures of the new town blended in the product of human progress each man tell into his place in the community as though appointed there to and the eyes of all were set for ward to franklin the days and months and years went by abed his life settling gradually into the routine of an unhappy calm lie neglected too much the social side of life and rather held to his old friends than busied himself with the search for new Batter sleigh was gone swiftly and mysteriously gone though with the promise to return and with the reiteration of his advice and his well wishes curly was gone gone up the trail into a far and mysterious country though he too promised to remember and had agta hostage for his promise his friends of the halfway house were gone for though he heard of them and knew them to be prosperous he felt him self by reason of mary ellen s dec sion in propriety practically with drawn from their personal tance because of his level common sense which is the main ingredient in the success portion he went easily into the first councils of the community he made more and more money since at that time one of his position and opportunities could hardly avoid doing so his place in the business world was assured he had no occasion tor concern for most men this would have been prosperity sufficient yet never did ed ward franklin lie down with the long breath of the man content and ever in his dreams there came the vague beckoning of a hand still half unseen haunting him with the sense of the unfulfilled the face of mary ellen was ever in the shadow of mary ellen who had sent him away forever of mary ellen who was wasting her life on a prairie ranch with gaughf to the connate you I 1 I 1 had my hopes said franklin but they re gone let it go that way not wear my heart on my sleeve not for any woman in the world spoken like a man said batters beigh an it ye 11 stick to that ye re the more like to win chance follain too close in a campaign ag dinst a woman parallel an mine but don t uncover your forces it ye advance do so by rushes an not beelin the way but tin to wan if ye lie still under cover she 11 be out skir I 1 to see where ye arean what ye are doin now ye love the gyura I 1 know an so do I 1 an so does ivery man that divver saw her tor ashes the sort min can t help acorin but mind me kape away go way she to you an you go come back she whispers to herself an you don t hear it yet all the time she s wonderlin won derin puwhy you dont franklin smiled in spite of himself Batter sleigh s tactics and manual of strategy he murmured all right old man I 1 thank you just the same I 1 presume live at the worst and there s a bit in life besides what we want for ourselves you know there s naught in life but what we re ready to take for ourselves our silves cried Batter sleigh talk no fable of other fishes in the say tor ye take what ye want it yell have it an hearken there s more to ned franklin than bein a land agent and a petty lawyer its not for ye to sit an mope ceyther to spind your life diggin in a musty desk ye re to grow man ye re to grow git your nose up ned or you 11 be unwitting un with the great slave class which we lift behind not long ago but which is follain us hard and far git your nose up fer it s batty has been chinkin ye ve destiny inside your skin listen to batty the fool and search your tell ye this ive the beelin that be hearin of ye in all the mareches marr ches the dont disappoint me ned for the man has behaved in ye more than ye ve behaved in As to the gauri bah go marry her some day av ye ve bothin more imbor thant on yer hands but me dear boy imbor thant things I 1 calely must be goin now I 1 ve certain imp eions that are before I 1 get derunk this 0 Batter sleigh do be sensible said franklin and do give up tills talk of getting drunk come over here this evening and talk with me it s much better than getting drunk Batter sleigh s hand was on the door knob the connate you he said ye re a fine boy aed an I 1 know of no more en than yer own but I 1 tale that it I 1 dian didn t get derunk like a gintle man this I 1 d be vio latin me auty to me own conic ence as well as settin at naught the the rile irish an so it ye 11 just excuse me say good bye till siy to mor row noon and now there still fared on the swift sane empire of the west the fagid changes the strivings the ac rf V inspire and none to witness the flower ing of her soul so much for the halt morbid frame of mind due for the most part to the reflex of a body made sick by an lr regular and irrational life this much too franklin could have established of his own philosophy yet this was not all nor was the total so easily to be explained away I 1 steadily and with an insistence somewhat horrible there came to franklins mind a feeling that this career which he saw before him would not always serve to satisfy him losing no touch of the democratic loyalty to his fellow men he none the less clear ly saw himself in certain ways be coming inexorably separated from his average fellow man the executive instinct was still as strong within him but he felt it more creative and he longed for finer material than the seamy side of man s petty strafes with man made possible under those cial laws which marked man s corn promise with nature longing for the satisfying for the noble things he found himself irresistibly facing to ward the past and irresistibly con vinced that in that past as in the swiftly marching present there might be some lesson not ignoble and not un comforting horrified that he could not rest in the way that he had chosen distracted at these intangible desires he doubted at times his perfect sanity for though it seemed there was within him the impulse to teach and to create he could not say to himself what or how was to be the form whether men tal or material of the thing created the thing typified the thine which be would teach of such travail of such mould have come great architects great engineers great writers musicians painters in deed great me of affairs beings who stand by the head and shoulders above other men as leaders the nature of such men Is not always at the first as the seal not always surely set on so that of one thus tor dented to his inner self it may be mere accident which shall determine whether it Is to be great artist or great artisan that is to be born again to franklin dreaming as he woke or slept there sometimes waved a hand there sometimes sounded a voice as that which of old summoned the prophet in the watches of the night neither in his waking nor his sleeping hours could he call this spirit into materialization however much he longed to wrestle with it finally it remained only to haunt him vaguely to join with the shade of mary ellen the cruel to set misery on a life which he had thought happily assured CHAPTER the great cold the land lay trusting and defence less under a cynical sky which was unthreatening but mocking dotting a stretch of country thirty miles or either side of the railway and extend ing as far to the east and west along its 1 ne there were scattered hundreds of homes though often these were separated one from the otter by many miles of open prairie most of them contained families men had brought haher theli and children sometimes 1 needful of warmth and CATS these stood guardian the gaunt ecat chutes of the town with the dema frdd of a population of twenty alve hundreds hund redi to say nothing of the settlers round about a hundred tons for a thousand families scattered dwelling out along breaks and coulees and on worn hill sides and at the ends of long faint wandering trails which the atrat whirl of snow would softly and cruelly wipe away yet there was no snow there had been none the winter before he trappers and skin hunters said that the winter was rarely severe the rail road men had ranged west all the win ter throats exposed and coats left at the wagons it was a mild country a gentle tender country in this laugh ing sky who could arf any cynicism one morning the sun rose with a swift bound into a cloudless field the air was mild dead absolutely silent and motionless the wires along the railway alone sang loudly as though in warning a warning unfounded and without apparent cause yet the sigh ing in the short grass was gone in the still air the smokes of the town rose directly upright and answering to them faint thin spires rose here and there far out over the prairies all i straight unswerving ominous ter a there was a great hush a calm a pause upon all things the sav was blue and cloudless but at last it could not conceal the mockery U bore upon its face so that when inen looked at it end listened to the singing of the wires they stopped and without conscious plan hurried on silent to the nearest company somewhere high up in the air un heralded invisible there were passing some thin inarticulate sounds tax above the tops of the tallest emoke spires as though some titan 1 tar jest across the continent to an other near the sea who answered with a gusty laugh sardonic grim foreknowing every horse tree on the range came into the coulees that morn ing and those which were fenced in ran up and down excitedly men ate and smoked and women darned and babes played in a thousand homes f there was content with this new land so wild at one time but now so quick ly tamed so calm so gentle thor hughly subdued to be continued |