Show ARTHUR stringer W N U service tibia STORY ao 90 1 tander lender re rescued sched carol coburn y the red I 1 annoyances of 0 eric brio i t returning to her native she it is i teach ifer her father a sour curdled to mine with an unproven lander an engineer for or the you all rj right ighut he be asked oil all right I 1 told him and apted to prove it by going out pin r ringing ig in the mud smeared Ir gotten black blackboard board I 1 tood watching mo me as aa I 1 wiped ud iud and then what was un from that ay ably iy a bloodstain 5 j acquired syr symbol abol of author without speaking rhen hen tin till bod od rather foolishly looking ch cb others eyes happen again he is s wont aith ath a steely sort of quietness incel down at his bis bruised eg you kno know w of course that rabble rouser wants to a a wants to throw a scare into frighten you out of your lob job ce this valley intolerable i should uld he ha I 1 asked alto W answered lander its ita has trumbull behind 14 g he ha theres Tb ere more than one way liber ber of fighting a mine 0 i voice was wa tellin telling g mo me sweet to lean it t would be it a wide shoulder like that the outcome until life lost t i er of its ita uncertainty sounded ded outside the 2 ir r horn born soun the door opened and we at the rough and mannish orI ot Katla catie oconnell OCon neU ure re the bozo I 1 want was waa her jated announcement weve get action here or therell be pay sy theres three clear of measles in that tent col nd d about two hundred kids i been exposed to it colonel gone over for the anchorage but that solve our n at t li is it you want asked want rant doctor ruddock h here ere batles atles prompt proclamation inside of twenty four hours ot it to have a hospital of some on n get it lander said reassuring curtness weve 4 t material and weve got two d workers woi kers hat it workers challenged ka those hose bindle bandle stiffs in the have lust just told me ng out they say on and the building gangs claim ave ive orders orden to stick to houses bell with orders barked at a time like this I 1 say gel ca that hospital and t lady before I 1 take these off iff CI lArTER XVI ion n Is eloquence as shake e once said ader er ail fall the valley in me of 0 need and katie got her L i she aie got was a board shed in ed 1 with plywood and rooted tar r paper a bald looking build ith i square windows and a ro row W any y cots along one wall but s shelter tor for katies patients int come easy when lan ut hs his pride in his pocket and to the transient workers he athing ieng but leers jeers F for or eric the obviously had been working em they declared they were dy imposed on and underpaid lander ander give up ile he edly ly canvassed the colony tents in unearthed three men who had aone me carpenter work then he after tier the old timers he got then he got sock and id the quick handed father of eckstrom It strom and a stalwart ex et maker who knew the mean edged tools the acid spirited BUM its true flatly refused me to our help but is flatly defied all paternal in a and joined up with the n the ha dirt began I 1 ta fly half aur after the site and size of iding had been decided the 3 were bedded and the sills while alle I 1 helped to lug two by aroln om the track side lumber ie wide shouldered back ack and forth with twelve doardt 3 or on her back she glo durn dumping ping her gl gigantic gantIc loads feet et of the busy lander and t 83 last fast as we could carry the timbers rn er th they ey were caught measured n e red and nd shaped while d of ham hammer mer and saw filled alley e thern tn nights at this time of lar are not long but when ess came on atres were light 14 sterns lanterns were swung above ABY y workers they neither bled d nor rested ost t until the sun began to ver the peaks of the st katie tle and I 1 took time ae them cm with coffee and hard by then the floor door had been the ie walls were up and the ready ady and waiting tor for its ing ai 01 tarpaper dmn n the root roof was finished and rand orand new red cross flag jyung 8 om it its peak then the Ws were screened and the and u dressings and towels and ments and enamelware were W d in brorn the emergency abent i ethina 6 looked 1 so that j trumbull co which Is fighting the th co burn claim breaks break with trumbull Trum buU but he remains engaged to Trum trumbulls bulls lt daughter barbara lander becomes field manager for or the matakuska Ma valley project installment hlll katie K hurriedly donned cd a uniform as brand new as her red cross hag flag and gave instructions tor for the carry ing ins in of tho the sick children T there h ere were seven even of them by this time and just as tho the last of them was wa being beag tucked into bed doctor Docto nud dock sol appeared ln in our midst and promptly announced that from that day forward he was to be lecog sf d as 8 the 01 official man of cine for the valley project I 1 10 could 1 see the glow that came m into nt katies batles celtic eye as she caught the significance of that announce ment great she said with a quaver in ln her h voice ile he inspected the building and lamented the absence of running water and laughed at la 10 the fa electric sterilizer lter mr which coulden couldn t be used of course until the completion of the projects generating plant throwing money away on the wrong things he said after a quick appraisal of the supplies and that seemed confirmed two days later when a motor ambulance was unloaded from a flat car a highly varnished and urban look ing ambulance designed for the use of the new red cross nurse but katie promptly cottoned to that ve hide hicle which because of its sable paint scheme she christened black marla maria but katie soon had other things to think of two cases of scarlet fever developed in our little tent city q iz 1 N I 1 ah lo 10 Q N 5 P great katie said and that stirred her ruddy into still more frantic action he bundled his nurse off to an isolation tent in a clearing at the edge of the blebel farm and commanded her to carry on as best she could this is like stamping out a pral he fire he ha announced weve got to check it before it starts katie went without a murmur I 1 think she would have gone to the north pole if her abstracted manof man of medicine had ordered it he boiled with indignation at the carelessness of the colony mothers one neglected child in spite of his warnings developed pneumonia and that brought a hurry call to me weve got to have help here he said when I 1 confronted him in his crowded little tent office and as im stopping au all public assemblage your schoolwork peters out and leaves you free so I 1 wa was s not only a day nurse and scrubwoman scrub woman and deputy mar but also a human laundry and a stove stoker and milk distributor and of desquamating little bodies I 1 took temperatures and chang changed ed sheets and doled out a gallon galion of cathartics I 1 kept the shed warm at night and the sunny side screened by day I 1 patted soda solutions on itchy little torsos and swabbed out spotted little mouths and baked sheets and played placed checkers with the convalescents and shooed over inquisitive urchins away from the door and went to bed so 0 dog tired ed that seven hours sleep seemed not nothing hing more than seven ticks of my alarm clock but behind my back all the while as life has the life was going on habit of doing for the colony without a 8 valor all its own every mass migration I 1 felt must have had its casual mishaps and touches of misery rall rail at ruddy the misfit s might and his health rules and the malcontents might squat about the corn com porch and orate at the bureaucrats mata who were turning nuska into something worse than soviet russia but the real home out on thel their already seekers were getting a bit of land ready cluts lending a seeding or tor for belated shelter tor for their hand at building belated stock the they y were the hope of the broj project ct rand and among the wor worsen xen I 1 found carol and he be both are ar enthusiastic about um the future of the tha new colony eric the tha red and a gang of word worker e bring carol a blackboard and becomes become insulting she faces aces them with a lander arrives arrive and knocks erlo eric out there was tho the samo same division bo be tween tho the misery bongers mongers and the homemakers while the triple chinned betsy sat gat on a chop ping block and railed at tho the corn for ladling out coffee that t dated and butter that smelt cheesy a more energetic group of housewives were down at the salmon stream ream with pitchforks ladling out half a ton of fresh fish where the water was almost solid with red bodies which were promptly dressed and salted or processed and canned and stowed away against a rainy day some of them I 1 noticed had already planted sweet peas along the black terraces in front of their still unfinished ed houses they made my own humble up when prairie fire was wa finally stamped out and I 1 moved bick back to my home on the jansen clearing seem a very small and antiquated affair the quietness oppressed me I 1 was glad when katie dropped in but her spirits for once seemed anything but light and airy I 1 on your mind I 1 demanded A couple of snapshots was katies rather cryptic answer snapshots of what I 1 asked of a snip of a surgical nurse down in that seattle hospital the gloomy eyed katie replied ruddy just showed lern cm to me ile he seems to think ashes the last word in womanhood 00 life I 1 felt when katie went on her way again was a dolorously muddled up affair it make a goo good d bagi beginning nning for my first fir st night back in the up and a little later it was crowned by a still more unpleasant thing for most unmistakably on that first midnight of my new loneliness somebody came to my cabin and tried to force the door op open en I 1 sure just how much pressure my crossbar would stand so I 1 groped about in the darkness after slipping out of my bunk and made a search for sock eyes revolver I 1 waited with the big six gun in my hand until the sounds began again then I 1 deliberately fired a shot at the wall as a gentle reminder of what that would bo be intruder might expect the warning apparel apparently antly wasted for nothing but silence after that awful roar of sound came to my ears but even though I 1 took sock eyes six gun to t bed with mo me it was a long time before I 1 could go to sleep CHAPTER long before this colony was thought of there was a small school at matakuska Ma village it was housed in what had once been a wooden fronted trading post its floors doors had heaved with the frosts of many a long winter its walls walla had sagged sag feed and its ita roof leaked like a sieve sam bryson its owner soured by his removal as district superintendent refused to lift a hand in repairing rIng the old wreck the workers were equally recalcitrant 4 so lander marshaled a corps of volunteers and tackled the j job ob the undulating du floor was made level once more the side walls were patched and straightened two new windows were put in and the roof was ma made de waterproof they also built bu ailt a double row of rough little desks and replaced tho the rusty old drum stove with a new and shining airtight air tight heater to say nothing of four equally bright and shining gas lamps the project may havo have been short on labor but they proved prodigal enough with supplies for they promptly shipped in six gross of blackboard wipers and a hau half truckload of chalk boxes and enough paper and pencils to run a state university they also ironically enough sent a nickel and enamel water cooler and an electric fan both ol of them of courso course quite useless but all shipments of textbooks must have fallen by the wayside alary openly defying her acidulous lous old dad helped me sandpaper per the rough little chair desks and sweep up shavings and brighten the windows with chintz when I 1 asked alary as we worked there side by side wit be easier caster to pursue her studies in such surroundings she startled me by the vigor of her revolt me plant my carcass in one 0 them kid seats she indignantly demanded me squat here and do sums with a bunch of chee chakos chakas who aint able t V wipe their own noses not me she was conscious of my frown of disapproval as I 1 watched those full and r rose ose red lips framing language so go insulted ansu cited to the seeker of culture pops been won wonder derin ln she observed w with iab a new meekness in her I 1 smoldering eyes if you corne come and teach m me e private and once I 1 got t f handlin handl ln a pen a as 8 epsy easy I 1 handle a rifle he allows I 1 id d as outside and has haf 1 be ready t gu winter in the states TO ife CONTINUED |