OCR Text |
Show JlMCOW PUNCHER wkrG By Robert J.C.Stead "Kitchener, and otker poems yJvC!$F IDurtaiionsliy Irwin Myer ymin 1 Si room In returning consciousness. "Where's the girls?" be asked. "Gone," said Conward sulkily. "Couldn't expect 'em to stick around all night to say goodby, could you, and you sleeping oft your drunk?" Dave raised his hand to hts head. A sense of disgrace was already upon him. Then he suddenly turned In anger an-ger on Conward. "You put this up on me," lie cried. "You made a fool of me. I've a mind to bash your skull In for you." "Don't be silly," Conward retorted. "I didn't enjoy it any more than you did introducing you as my friend, and then have you go out like that. Why didn't you tip me? I didn't know it would put you to sleep." "Neither did I," said Dave. "Well, the next thing is to get you home. Can you walk?" "Sure." Dave started for the door, but his course suddenly veered and he found himself leaning over a chair. Conward helped him into his overcoat, and half led. half shoved him to his boarding house. CHAPTER IV. Elden awoke Sunday morning with a prodigious thirst, which he slaked at the water pitcher. It was the practice prac-tice of Metford's gang to select one of their number to care for all the horses on Sundays while the others enjoyed the luxury of their one day of leisure. In consequence of this custom the room was still full of snoring sleepers and the air was very close and foul. Dave sat down by the little table that fronted the open window and rested his head on his hands. He was recalling, with considerable effort, the events of the previous night; piecing "FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!" Synopsis. David Elden, son of a drunken. shifLless ranchman, almost al-most a maverick of the foothills. Is breaking bottles with his pistol from his running cayuse when the first automohlle lie has ever seen arrives and tips over, breaking the les' of Doctor Hardy but not injur, ing his beautiful daughter Irene. Dave rescues the injured man and brings a doctor from 40 miles away. Irene takes charge of the housekeeping. Dave and Irene get well acquainted during her enforced stay. They part with a kiss and an implied promise. Dave's father dies and Dave goes to town to seek his fortune. ,A man named Conward teaches him his first lesson in city ways. CHAPTER III Continued. 6 Dave's duties were simple enough. He had to drive a wagon ti a coal-yard, coal-yard, where a very superior young man. with a collar, would express surprise sur-prise that he had been so long gone, and tell him to Back in under chute number so-and-so. It appeared to be always a matter of great distress to this young man that Dave did not know which chute to back under until lie was told. Having backed into position po-sition a il ior was opened. There was a liction that the coal In the bin should then run into the wagon box. but, as Dave at once discovered, this was merely a fiction. Aside from a few accommodating lumps near the door the coal had to be shoveled. Then Dave had to drive to an address that was given him, shovel the coal down a chute located in the most inaccessible inacces-sible position the premises afforded, and return to the eoalyard, where the young man with the collar would facetiously face-tiously inquire whether Mrs. Blank had invited him in to afternoon tea, or y he had be'en waiting for a change in the weather. His work and supper were over by seven o'clock each evening, and now was the opportunity for him to begin the schooling for which he had left the ranch. But he developed a sudden sud-den disinclination to make the start; he was tired in the evening, and he found it much more to his liking to stroll downtown, smoke cigarettes on the street corners, or engage in an occasional game of pool. In this way the weeks went by, and when his month with Metford was up he had neglected to find another position, so lie continued where he was. He was being gradually and unconsciously submerged in an inertia which, however how-ever much it might hate its present surroundings, had not the spirit to seek a more favorable environment. So the fall and winter drifted along; Dave had made few acquaintances and no friends, if we except Conward, whom he frequently met in the poolrooms pool-rooms and for whom he had developed a sort of attachment. One Saturday evening, as Dave was on his way to their accustomed resort, he fell in with Conward on the street. "Hello, old man !" said Conward cheerily. "I was just looking for you. (4ot two tickets for the show tonight. Some swell dames in the chorus. Come along. There'll be doings." There were two theaters in the town, one of which played to the better-class residents. In it anything of a risque nature had to be presented "You Made a Fool of Me. I've a Mind to Bash Your Skull In for You." in her dress and manner a modesty which fascinated the boy with a subtlety sub-tlety which a more reckless appearance appear-ance would have at once defeated. And then Dave looked in her face. It was a pretty face, notwithstanding Its grease paint, and it smiled right into his eyes. His heart thumped between be-tween his shoulders as though it would drive all the air from his lungs. She smiled at him for him! Now they were away again; there were gyrations gyra-tions about the stage. Then there was a sudden breakaway break-away in the dance, and the girl disappeared dis-appeared behind a forest. Dave supposed sup-posed she had gone to rest; dancing like that must be hard on the wind. He found little to interest him now in what was going on on the stage. It seemed rather foolish. He wished the girl behind the forest would come down and rest there. Then she could see the show herself. Then she coTld see But there was a whir from the forest, for-est, and the girl reappeared, this time all in red, right before him. And then she looked down and smiled again at him. And he smiled back. And then he looked at Conward and saw him smiling too. And then he felt a very distressing uncertainty, which brought the color slowly to his face. He resolved re-solved to say nothing, but watch. And his observations convinced him that the smiles had been for Conward, not for him. And then he lost interest in the play. They hustled into their overcoats to the playing of the national anthem. "Hurry !" said Conward. "Let's get out quick! Ain't she some dame? There through the side exit the stage door" is that way. She promised to have her chum with her. They'll be waiting if we don't hurry." Conward steered him to the stage entrance, where a little group was already al-ready congregated. In a moment the girl appeared, handsomely dressed in furs. With her was another girl, also from the chorus, but Dave could not recall her part. He was suddenly aware of being introduced. "This is my friend Belton," Conward Con-ward was saying. Dave was about to correct him when Conward managed to whisper: "Whist ! Your stage name. Mine's Edward. Don't forget." Conward took the first girl by the arm, and Dave found himself following follow-ing rapidly with the other. They cut through certain side streets, up a stairway, stair-way, and into a dark hall. A door opened. Conward pressed a button, , and they found themselves in a small but comfortably furnished room evidently evi-dently bachelor apartments. The girls threw off their wraps and sauntered about the place, while Conward Con-ward started a gas grate and put some water to boil. "Sorry I've nothing for you to eat," he said, "but I've some good medicine for the thirst." "Eating's poor business when there's a thirst to be quenched," said one of the girls with a yawn. "And, believe me, I've a long one." The glasses were filled and raised. "Ho!" said Conward. "Here's looking !" said one of the girls. Dave hesitated, but the other girl clinked her glass against li Is. "Here's looking at you," she said, and she appeared ap-peared to lay special emphasis on the last two words. Certainly her eyes were on Dave's as she raised her glass to her lips. And under the spoil of those eyes he raised his glass and drained It. Other glasses were filled and drained. The three were chattering away, but Dave was but vaguely conscious con-scious of their talk and could weave no conneeted meaning Into It. His head was buzzing with a pleasant, dreamy sensation. A very grateful warmfh surrounded him, and with it came a disposition to go to sleep. lie probably would have gone to sleep had his eye not fallen on a picture on the wall. It was a picture of a girl pointing point-ing her finger at him. . . . No girl could point her linger at him. lie arose and made a lunge across the room. He missed her, and with difficulty diffi-culty retraced his steps to the table to make a fresh start. "She's makin' fun of me," he said, "an' I don't stand for that. Nobody can do that with me. Nobody see? I don't 'low it." "Oil, you don't?" laughed one of the girls, running into a corner and pointing point-ing her finger at him. "You don't?" lie turned his attention to her, steadying himself very carefully he-fore he-fore he attempted an advance. Then, with wide-stretched arms, he bore down cautiously upon her. When he had her almost within reach she darted dart-ed along the edge of the room. lie attempted a sudden change In direction, direc-tion, which ended disastrously, anil ho found himself very much sprawled on I upon the floor. lie was aware of laughter, but what cared he? lie wus disposed to sleep. What belter place to sleep than Ibis? What better lime to sleep than this? In a nmnietil lie was lost to all consciousness. It was later in the night wl lie felt himself being dragged lulu a sit ting posture. "Where am IV" lie said, blinking at the light. He uiiecr-laltily uiiecr-laltily to IiIk feel ami stared aland the them together In impossible ways ; re-assorting re-assorting them until they offered some sequence. The anger he had felt toward Conward had subsided, but the sting of shame rankled in his heart. "Fool !" he said to himself. And because be-cause he could think of no more specific spe-cific expression to suit his feelings, and because expression of any kind brought a sort of relief, he kept on repeating the word, "Fool ! fool 1 fool !" And as his self-condemnation gradually won him back to a sense of perspective he became aware of the danger of his position. He had left his ranch home to better himself, to learn things, to rise to be somebody. He had worked harder than ever before, be-fore, at more disagreeable employment; employ-ment; he had lived in conditions that were almost nauseating and what had he learned? That you can't beat a card man at his own game, price sixty dollars, and that the gallery seats are cheaper and sometimes safer than the orchestra. Then all of a sudden he thought of Ileenie. He had not thought of her much of late ; he had been so busy in the days and so tired at nights that he had not thought of her much. Now she burst upon him again with all that beauty and charm which had so magnetized mag-netized him In those glad, golden days, and the frank cleanness of her girlhood girl-hood made him disgusted and ashamed. It was to fit himself for her that he had come to town, and what sort of mess was he making of It? He was going down instead of up. He had squandered his little money, and now he was squandering his life. He had been drunk. . . . Dave's nature was one In which emotions were accelerated with their own Intensity. And the sudden manner man-ner in which Reenie had now Invaded his consciousness Intensified the blackness black-ness In which he was submerged, as lightning darkens the storm. He saw her on that last night, wllh the moonlight wooing her white face, until his own body had eclipsed it in a warmer passion, and he heard her words, "I know you are true and clean." . . . True and clean. "Yes, thank God, I am still that!" he cried, springing suddenly to his feet and commencing to dress. "I've been spattered, but nothing that won't wash off. Perhaps" Per-haps" and he stopped as the great thought struck him "perhaps It was the luckiest thing In the world that the booze did put :ne out last night. . . . It'll wash on'." I Dave turns over a new leaf. (TO It K CUNT1NUKD.) I i JiL mm "Eating's Poor Business When There's a Thirst to Be Quenched," Said One of the Girls. with certain trimmings which allowed It to be classified as "art," but In the other house no such restrictions existed. ex-isted. It was to the latter that Con-ivn'd Con-ivn'd led. Dave had been there before, be-fore, In the cheap upper gallery, but ('onward's tickets admitted to the best seats In the house. It was an entirely new experience. From the upper gallery the actors and actresses til ways seemed more or Jess impersonal and abstract, but here ihey were living, palpitating human beings, almost within hand-reach, certainly cer-tainly within eye-reach. Dave found himself rnnllng the young woman Immediately before him; all In white she was, with some scintillating mate-rUl mate-rUl that sparkled In' the glare, of the jptliglil; tin:" suddenly she was In orange, ami pink, and purple, and mauve, and back again In while. And although i-he performed Hie various itfi.us a ill: ---.'ling abandon there was |