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Show A-. ' i!iiiiiitiiiii!iiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiifiiifiiiiiriiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiii:iiiniii!ii iiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiif iiiuiiirtimiiitiiiirfrrg I THE RED LOCK niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiuniiiTm..'j'aje 0f fjje Flatwoods -',,nIlimillIlllllllllim,l,IIIIImmiIim,'; CHAPTER XII Continued. 15 The sitting-room door opened, and Hie portly form of the housekeeper ippeared on the porch. "There's Mis' Curry," the girl cried, lelzlng her father's arm and Inviting the preacher with her eyes. "Break- ' fast's ready, and our bouquet not half finished." She was the life of the little group that assembled a few minutes later in the gloomy old dining-room, with the randies flickering over Its bare walls ind waging a losing battle with the lhadows lurking In the corners. Only for her, the scene and setting might have been somber enough the stark tvalls, stiff old furniture, decorations ind ornamentation severely In keeping keep-ing with the taste of a day long gone ; the grim gray figure that presided at the head of the table. Banker Colin was a man out of tvhom life had squeezed most of the liner sensibilities and coined them Into old. The dreams of boyhood, the romance ro-mance of youth, the glory of manhood gone bargained away for a price. Bitting there at his gloomy breakfast table, a disappointed, weary old man, his soul cried out to rue the bargain ; to trade back with fate. But ' none had learned the lesson better than he that fate trades not back ; that there he was doomed to sit, a hopeless mourner over the dead ashes of the might-have-been. The forenoon he spent In the small room, busy with his papers, or In meeting people who came to pay him monay or borrow it. In the afternoon he tried to take a lap, but so long had his mind been set to its daily grind that it now ran on In spite of him a sort of mental engine en-gine whose clutch could no longer be released. Rest ; a quiet nap they were no longer his. . He had sold them part at the price he had paid for what? the privilege to pocket Interest money ; to collect rents ; to write his check. Cheated again. The devil never loses In a trade. It would be a hopeless task to trace his thoughts as he thrashed about over the bed and fidgeted the hours away. His business ; the farms ; his squan-iered squan-iered years all passed in review. And what was left?- To sit by a musty window win-dow and pile up wealth for somebody else to spend. He couldn't spend It himself. He didn't know how. He had Br DAVID ANDERSON Author of "The Blus Moon" Copyright by The Bobbs-Merrill Co. past the past with Its disappointments, disappoint-ments, Its misunderstandings, Its tragedy. ! In a bold hand that wavered slightly slight-ly unmistakably the hand of an old man the big envelope was addressed, curiously enough, to Jack Warhope, with the legend "Not to be opened until his twenty-first birthday." After a moment the old man fumbled fum-bled some legal-looking papers out of the envelope; read them through with great care ; replaced them ; sealed the envelope and put It In his pocket. Then he walked to the safe; dropped the empty locket behind some papers at the very back of It; closed tbe door; locked it and strayed aimlessly out to the porch again. The shadows of the fine old trees in the yard were creeping well eastward. The preacher, still a truant from his studies, was with Texie at the spring. Just over the brink of the decline where the yard dipped to the parklike park-like orchard, he could see them the girl on the rustic seat, the tall form of the young minister lounging against a fork of the huge maple. The drone of their voices carried up to the lonesome old man, at a loss how to spend the hours of his enforced idleness, and the splintered ruins of what had once been a smile for a moment mo-ment chased the weariness from his craggy old battlement of a face. He dragged a chair to a sunny spot of the porch and sat down. The girl, hearing the scrape of the chair, sprang up. "Father!" she cried. "He's up." Springing over the gnarled, exposed roots of the great maple, she hurried up the yard, half laughing back over her shoulder at the preacher's mincing minc-ing steps as he followed. She flew to the porch, and In a moment mo-ment her arms were around the weary gray figure in the chair. "F'rgive me, father I didn't know y'u was up 'r I'd 'a' come sooner." "Aw, that's all right," he drawled. "Can't expect young folks t' waste the'r time on old ones." "No, no l Not waste." She smoothed his hair. "I'm so sorry I f'rgot your good day at home, too." The old man patted her face and reassured re-assured her, in a voice that the people was, half pleased her. The native cheerfulness, subdued for a moment by thoughts of her hapless brother, brightened again in her eyes. She threw her arm about her father, dragged him up out of the chair and led the way to the barn. Brownie, a beautiful dark sorrel, with a single small patch of white in her forehead, hearing the girl's voice, came trotting up out of the pasture lot the same through which Jack had trailed the unknown prowler the night before. A tall, clean-limbed gelding, bright bay, with one white hind foot, followed her almost up to the gate, where he stood back and half jealously jealous-ly watched the girl caress his mate. "Come, Rex," the girl called, reaching reach-ing out her hand and coaxing the tall bay. But the horse kept his distance. It was only after the two men had drawn back a few steps that he cams up to the gate and put his nose against her face. "Do you ride, Mr. Hopkins?" she called over her shoulder. "Not especially well," he answered, "though I do like a good horse. Xou ride, of course?" "Everybody rides in the Flatwoods you must learn." ; "W'jr, yes," chimed In the old banker, bank-er, "there's Hex jlst sp'llin' f'r work, now that I don't ride any more sence these blasted falnty spells got t com-ln'. com-ln'. Ther's nothln' t' hender y'u from takln' a ride every day I reckon we've still got my saddle an' things, ain't we, daughter?" "Saddle and bridle and all," she answered. an-swered. "And it will be such a pleasure," pleas-ure," she went on, turning to the young preacher, "f show y'u around over our beautiful Flatwoods." "With such a guide, I am impatient to go the earliest moment possible," the preacher exclaimed effusively, "this afternoon now If you will." The girl glanced at her father. "Why not?" he nodded. "I don't like to leave you." , The old man tossed up his hand and laughed a raspy sort of laugh all that the years had left him. The girl turned back to the preacher. "W'y, yes if you wish," she said "only you must promise not t' run away from me ; Rex is ever s' much faster than Brownie." The preacher turned to look again at the tali bay, standing a few feet back from the gate, where he had withdrawn step by step as the minister minis-ter advanced. "He certainly appears to possess great speed." "Speed I'" the old banker repeated, a note in his voice common to the throat of every man In the Flatwoods when speaking of his horse or dog, "next t' Jack's Graylock at the homestead yonder, yon-der, he's the fastest in the Flat-woods." Flat-woods." "Graylock Warhope" the tired eyes pinched together thoughtfully "a remarkable young man." "Scarce as hen's teeth, his breed," the old man returned warmly. "I'm doubtln' if ther's anybody along the Wabash that knows the woods like he does, unless it might be ol' Nick Wif-fles. Wif-fles. I've alw'ys be'n glad he tuck to 'em the way 'e did, and I've encouraged encour-aged 'im. Ther's nothln' like the woods t' make a man of a feller." "Some pr'fessors qame up her f'om down the river t' study what they called 'Native Flora' on the homestead last year y'u know, ther's two thousand thou-sand acres of It, most of it layln' jlst as the Indians left it, and he keeps coaxin' me not t' 'low an ax laid to a single sound tree. There'll be a fortune for-tune In that oak and walnut some day. Jack, he'd be'n wrltin' to' these pr'fessors, and they'd be'n sendln' 'ini books anyhow, they come up and tramped around f r nigh a week. "One day one of 'em was talkln' t' me, and he said Jack knowed more about the woods than all the rest of 'em put together. Well, that's him, every time. I never did know 'im t' try anything but what he got it down about as fine as the next one." The old banker glanced up at the sun slipping down the west and turned to his daughter: "Well, If y'u're goin', y'u better be startin'." Long years of active business life had taught Banker Colin the value of promptness and decision had so ground these trnlts Into his nature that they had come to function automatically. auto-matically. Talking as volubly about the relative rela-tive merits of Rex and Brownie as if he were an agent trying to sell them, and rubbing his bony hands in delight at having his restless mind set once more to a definite task, he led the way to the lot and turned the horses Into the barn. The saddle and bridle were somewhat some-what stiffeneu from disuse when he tried them on Rex, but he had them limbered up and came leading out the horse almost as sonn as Texie had Brownie ready. (TO Bit CONTINUED.) ! conea so nara 10 mane it tnat ne naa never learned how to spend It an in-I in-I finitely finer thing to know. I . Sleep he was never wider awake j in his life. He floundered off the bed at last, less rested than when be lay down, and stormed out to the porch only to stand drumming a restless tattoo upon a post with his long bony fingers. The voices of Texie and the preacher preach-er were borne to him from the rustic seat under the giant maple at Whispering Whis-pering spring. He mildly wondered at it ; reflected that the genial day had probably for once lured the young man from his studies, and sauntered back to his easy chair In the sitting-room. sitting-room. As he sat therevwlth the pulse and purr of the wonderful May day borne in through the open door, his mind groping back over the distant past, a memory held him In far-flung retrospection. retro-spection. Minutes long it held him; until it smoothed the lines on his face and softened his hard old eyes. ; He rose from the chair at last; paced back and forth across the floor a time or two; went into the small west room to his safe." unlocked It ; with a noticeable effort swung the heavy door open; fumbled Inside and drew out a large envelope of stout mnnlla paper; unsealed; fumbled deeper and brought out a small locket of gold ; closed the shfe, without locking lock-ing It, and went back' to his easy chair. A long time he sat, with his elbow I propped up on the chair-arm, his chin In his palm; finally with fingers that .trembled, he pressed lp the catch of 'the locltet. It sprang1 open. There were two pictures Inside a woman and a man. But the face of the woman wom-an was not the face over the mantel in the sitting room; It was the face df the woman beneath ' the draped flag In the cabin under the crimson rambler what It had been in her girlhood. girl-hood. And the face of the man Jn the locket was not the upstanding soldier ahove the sword and spurs. In the uniform uni-form of a colonel of Mounted Hangers: It' was the face of Simon Colin what It' had been In the days' of his young manhood. The old man gazed at the beautiful, highborn face of the womur, in the locket; again and again laid It to his griitj old lips, held it chse against his breast suddenly, with a gasp, snapped the locket shut. A hiighty spasm of pain had gripped his side. He clutched) It with his hands; fought for breath. When It was over and he os atile to breathe again,' his lips vere bhiei and clammy sweat stood heavy on his craggy brew. Sti.ll clutching his side., he opened the locket, with Its secret, trying nol to see the beautiful face; lest It turn him from his purpose ; took out both pictures; struck a math, set them alight; ana watched them burn to ashesJ As ! he sat staring, gradually he seeruejd to grow aware of tie envelope lying 'In his lap. He picked It up and gazed! at it absently, as If his mind till Swh with the dead ashes of the The Old Man Gazed at the Beautiful, Highborn Face of the Woman In the Locket. " who borrowed his money had never heard. "W'y, child, I got up only a little bit ago, an' thought I'd jlst set out on the porch a while. It's klnda lonesome lone-some in the house." "And do y'u feel better after y'ur nap?" the girl asked, glowingly happy at his endearments endearments that had been all too rare. "Oceans," was his answer, with a grimace at the Idea of the nap a grimace that he ' suppressed Just in time to keep her from seeing. "Good as new. I be'n wonderin' why y'u never tuck Mr. Hopkins hossback rldin". Y'u ain't even showed 'im, y'ur new saddle boss, have y'u?" "Brownie? F'r a wonder, I hain't. But this is the first time he's ever be'n here, except at night and he's traveled s' much and knows s' much that I didn't 'low he'd care about hosses. We've Jist be'n talking about Ken " The old hanker bent his head and fumbled with ' loosened screw of the chair-arm. Toe girl gazed out across the wide bottoms to the river. The preacher took out his handkerchief; nervously brushed away a speck of dust from his coat sleeve; put It back. "Brownie," the girl repented after a time, her eyes turning back from the river to the piously pensive face of the preacher, "would y'u tare t' see 'er?" "It would give me the greatest pleasure." pleas-ure." was his answer, In the studied and faultless though somewhat stiited alction of the period. "I could talk y'u t' death about 'er." "I should die happy," he answered. The girl was so artless and unspoiled un-spoiled that -he flattery, trite as It |