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Show GEORGE AQNEW CHAM8ERLA5N COPY3IOHT T TIE CENTUBT CO. blackest pace in the annals of the San ' Francisco basin. It seemed but days after the rains when the sparse grass and new-leu fed bushes of the wilderness wilder-ness began to shrivel up. Pay after day the sun leaped brazeu, from the horizon to the sky, his first level rays searching out the scant, stored moisture mois-ture of wilting foliage, and the very sap of the hardy brush. While the cattle cat-tle were still fat they became weak and turned to cactus for nourishment. Thoy broke down the sickly branches with their horns and rubbed them in 'he sand to free them of the worst of the thorns. Herders rode the rounds on weakening horses and dismounted time and agaiy to pull out spines from the snouts of passive, panting cows. Bulls died of broken pride. They would not subject themselves to the pain of eating cactus. The river the great river was no longer great. It grumbled wlih ft Weak voice from deep clown in the gorge. Gerry watched Its falling level with anxious eye and one day sent an urgent call to Lieber for help. Lieber came. He brought with him an army, every man bearing with liini the tool that had come soonest to his hand. Spades were few and hoes; the bright shares of a pick or two caught the light like lances. Most of the men depended on the heavy sheath knives they carried at their sides. They looked like an army of sansculottes as they swarmed into the ditch and began to dig. In two days they had sunk it to the required level. When they finished Gerry rode back with them to help bring down Lieber's weakening stock. Kemp had stayed in sole possession at Lieber's. Digging was not in his line, so he had volunteered to hold the fort against tue return of the garrison, garri-son, lie weWomed Lieber and Gerry to a supper of his own making in approved ap-proved cowboy style: sour-dough biscuits bis-cuits made by n master band, steaks cut from a freshly killed ealf and fried before toughness set in, a pile of creamy mashed spuds. There was a homeliness about the meal that made them eat in silence. They felt as though for years they had been worshiping wor-shiping false culinary gods. The pile of steaks, the heaped potatoes, the hoi biscuit, were exotics, strayed into a land of pepper sauces and garlic. The silence on the veranda tbat night was even longer than usual. Gerry's Ger-ry's mind went back to a French book that he had bought in desperation a I I'ernambuco. He had ploughed through half of it and with a catch in his thoughts be remembered that It lay open on the table when he left his little lit-tle room in Piranhas on the morning of mornings that bad broken life in two. Some of its phrases, conned over and over again in his struggle with the half-forgotten Idiom, came baeit lo him. "La parole est du temps le silence de 1'eternite." He smiled tc himself at the twisted meaning the long silence of bis companions gave tc the words. Then the smile left his face. He re . membered the argument. The instinct we all have for superhuman truths tells us that It is dangerous to be si lent with those we would keep at n distance, for words pass and are forgotten for-gotten between men. but silence ac . tive silence Is forever ineffaceable . True life the momeuts of life that , leave n trace Is made up of silence Not passive silence; that is but anoth er name for sleep. But the active si lence that breaks down barriers pierces walls and turns the life, of ev ery day into a life where all Is in . tense, where there is no ban nothim: forbidden where laughter dare u . enter, where subjection is submerge; and where all all. is remembered. Gerry felt that this active silence . had come upon them. These men wen , being borne into the silent sphere : , his own soul. Be felt restless afraid i He decided to speak. He was on tin I point of speaking when Lieber le down bis chair softly, clasped hi: I hands and broke the silence, f "Last night I dreamed I beard tin . blast of a steamer's horn and when I woke up the cold sweat was on m.i i forehead because I know tbat there i: . no desert, uo wilderness, so far fron the things you would forget tha ! dreams cannot follow you to it." f He stopped and silence fell npoi ; them ni'aln. Lieber stared straight ii front of him. out into the night. Hi: face worked as though he were strua t sling to keep his Hps closed. When h j began to speak again, the words wer - scarcely audible. "1 don't know wh; I want to tell you two about why I an , here, unless it Is that as we sat her t so quiet I felt that yon knew it n ii ,. that you knew all that ! knoiv an: 1 that I was on the point of knowing a , that you have known. The little lie of life suddenly became bit? and hale I ''".1 and I saw in nty life a monster ii t that the silence was exposing. ,. "There are lots of men with the be ginning of my story. It's common an ' takes little telling. I was born i j Pennsylvania. We were mighty poo farmers but I got all the sehoolin e there was within 'walking distance o e home. My old man saw to that. Whe I was still a boy our little bank too 0 me in. It wasn't doing much busine r then but a couple of years later th e region struck oil and the bank's bus ness soared by leaps and bounds. 1 turned into as good a spoil ter as an t of the wells. The family that ran became rich and went to higher jot or out altogether. The staff wa shoved up and about the time I was e age I was handling more money tha I'd ever known was in the world. Tt I amount I stole was an even thtrt j thousand and I got away with it. was easier to do thirty years ago tha Bit Is today. I got away with it an tben It got away with me. It lastf me a year and four months and 1 sa g the end of It up the coast at Pxraau e buco. "I date my birth from the day 1 spent the last dollar or-d woke up. I worked. Nothing was too small or too big for 1U3 to handle. I got something to risk and then I risked it. I risked it again and again. Afler ten years 1 could draw my check for thirty thousand thous-and plus interest and I did. I sent the check to the little bank back home. 1 waiteil two mouths for the answer anil then it came; my check torn across and a short letter saying that the loss I had already been met by a bankers' surety association. I wrote the asso-! asso-! e-iation a dozen letters and some of them took some writing. In the last I offered fourfold the theft. There bad , been plenty of Bible in my bringing-l bringing-l tip. They wrote back that it was no i use that I could keep on climbing in j peace but It was their business to jail me for fifteen years the first chance they got and they'd do It the minute 1 set foot where they could grab me. "That letter frightened me. I began be-gan to realize that what I'd been working work-ing for wasn't money, or bouor, or rehabilitation but just the right to go back the right to go back home. "Nobody had. been harder on me than my old man. For years nobody in the house was allowed to say my I name and if he saw a letter from me j he threw it in the (ire, opened or mi-1 mi-1 opened. But somehow it got to him that I had offered to pay fourfold and that I'd been refused and that turned him. It was the fourfold that did It the divine and sacred measure of justice. jus-tice. He started to fight for me as hard as he'd ever fought against. And then he died and my old mother died. Letters stopped. My brothers and sisters sis-ters were coming up in the world. They couldnlt afford to own a thief much less fight for him. So the letters stopped. "I spent money then. I built me a bouse in Pernambuco that was a wonder won-der palace and I started In to forget. But when you've been rememberiiiE with all your might, the color of the paper on the walls of home, the lay of the wood-pile, of the sheds and the 1 tumbling barn and stables, the holes in the fence, the friendly limbs of apple ap-ple trees and the smell of bay; when you've been coddling bare memories : of simple things like those for fifteen years, you can't turn around on youi inside self and forget. "There's a flag the sight of whict makes my heart come up into mj throat and tears to my eyes. Yot "Thou Hast Been Away a Long Time.! t think I mean the Stars and Stripes j but I don't. I mean the Blue Pete that flies at the halyards of big ship and says to everybody that takes th I trouble to look, 'We sail today.' Ove 7 the tops of the houses I've seen tha i flap '"iking iu the heavens like a bi i of deep blue sea married to a whit t cloud and to me It always said, 'W sail for home today.' I'd shut my eye ! or close the blinds but what was th i use of that? Night and day I eoul s hear the bellow of the great horns - blast lor good-by and another for e ! challenge to the sea as the big boat e ! headed out for home. y "1 couldn't stand it. I came up here j : Anil now. last night. I dreamed that e 1 heard it in my sleep up here. Gei tlemeii. a man without a country Is I 1 a bad way but a man without a bom I even if it's a hovel well we all knoi s the old song." He paused to maste .. his voice, 'then in a whisper that the e just caught he added, "Home is tli anchor of a man's soul. I want to g Home." d Lieber stopped talking. The revea n big silence had done its work. It ha ,r brought them close so close that 1: g had spoken lest they take his soul b f assault. He left them and went to h n own room. They saw he was an ol k man. beyond the years be had di 3 cieiscd. e They did not speak. They wei 1. nervous. Kemp made a cigarett !t puffed at It once or twice and the y threw it away, to roll another a m it ment later. His thoughts were win; is i ing away to the fork of Big anil Lift S ' Creek where a three-room shack stoc if In the shadow of the White mountaii u ' of New Mexico. He had thought ie : small, miserable, cramped. But oi y ! here in the wilderness, thousands ar It thousands of miles away, it came ba n to his vision, glorified. A swellii d came Into his throat. He tried :d cough it up. But as long as he thoug! w of the mountain, the thickness stu a- in his throat. He took from his pock a treasured cake of tobacco and wi strong teeth tore off a generous portion. por-tion. Then he rose and walked off to the corral. Gerry sat on aloue. Thoughts were troubling him. too. What was he doing do-ing here? Who was this Margarita that bad twined herself into Ills life? Was it his life? And her irtt-le boy black-haired, black-eyed, olive-tinted he was his boy. too. lie was Gerry Lansing's son. No. not that not Gerry Ger-ry Lansing's. Gerry Lansing belonged to a time that was far away, to a bill where white houses with green blinds peered out from the darkness of domed maples, from the long shadows of up-pointing firs and from the eaves of flaring elms, the wine-cups of heaven. heav-en. A sigh came quivering through all his body and escaped from his trembling trem-bling lips. "I am alone," he breathed to himself. Deep In South America, on the ragged fringe of the outskirts of progress, prog-ress, Alan Wayne was pushing a long bridge across a drled-up watercourse. He was sick, tired, disgusted. Over and over again be had grumbled to McDougal that It was a job for a ma-sou ma-sou and McDougal had patiently answered. an-swered. "I'm the mason, Mr. Wayne. Do you lie bye a wee and gie the fever a chance to get out of the body." But Alan stuck jealously to his Job. Ten Percent Wayne might retire on bis laurels but he could never be beaten. Every third day the fever In his bones seized his body In a grip that could not be denied, shook It till It rattled rat-tled and cast it down limp, cold and hot, teeth chattering and then clenched, and tben chattering again. But on , the days between Alan made up for the lapse. He became a devil banging on tbe backs of bis men and driving , them to superhuman efforts. Terror , held them. They were Italians, far from home. A wilderness stretched between them and the sea. Tbe sea it-! it-! self was none of theirs; It was but an added barrier. A madman had them . in thrall. Terror drove them. It was a race to finish the bridge before he killed them. "I am going to be sick." be had tojd them in cold, rapid words, "I L am going to be sick, bnt before I'm finished the bridge is finished or " He smiled and made a gesture with his hand to show how he would brush them all off into the dry gorge. His smile terrified more than the raised hand. The giant gang-boss, McDougal, stood by and nodded solemn confirmation. confirma-tion. When Alan was ill by day, Me Dougal left him and drove the men in his stead, but when tbe hour for knocking knock-ing off came with the sudden eclipse of tbe sun by the horizon, he hurriec to Alan's tent, fished him out from some corner on tbe floor, wrapped hire, in blankets, dosed him with quinine tempted him with poor, weak broths and nursed him, unprotesting, througt the night. McDougal had followed Alan intt strange lands and strange places ant seen him in many ji deep hole, anc through it all Alan had been tbe same a purring dynamo at work. He hac been tbe same until this trip Into the Brazilian wilderness, and here t change had come over him. There were times when he talked and what he sale was, "No more trips forme, McDougal I'm a consulting engineer from thh on."' McDougal had beard more thai one man talk like that under fever anc he frowned, trying to remember one oJ tbem that had ever come back. Alan was Inured to river fever. Hi had fought It often, and when he saw the fetid pools of stagnant water ii tbe dried-up watercourse be knew hi would have to fight it again. Some i, how, some night, a mosquito wa: r bouud to get at him, and the feve: s would begin. He doubled his preven e tive dose of quinine, but he could no r double his spirits for the battle. Hi t came to the field with a gnawing a t those sources of health, a calm mini e and sure sleep. Sleep did not conn e as of old after tbe day's work. In s stead he tossed and twisted on hi: e narrow cot and finally would turn oi d the electric torch to read two letter a over and over again, a One he read with a curl of the lip s It was from a pretty woman that hai fluttered into his life and out. He hai !. forgotten her and now she had com 1 back to buzz words iu his buzzing ears 1- She said, "It costs a woman to lear: n that happiness is not really tangible e. Between being fortunate and happy v gulf is fixed. I was fortunate jus ir not miserable and stood on the brin y of the gulf. Happiness brushed m e with its wings. I reached out t :o catch it and the gulf took me. llo long will it be before I climb hac 1- to the height that seemed not so ver d high when I possessed it? I don ie know ... 1 do not hate you onl y myself. You have known many won is en. bnt you have not known me. Tha d is the bitter part. You do not knoi s- what I gave you. One thing I ask yo and the words as I write are blurre e with tears like my eyes If ever e. foolish woman, honest and true as :n was, offers you the same sacrifice, d o- not take it. I have suffered for all th g women you will meet." le "Fool." said Alan to himself, "foo id not to see that I turned her wisl is washy weakness into strength an it loosed a dumb tongue." id J"""' " .c What sort of a reply do you ig ; suppose the cynic Alan wrote to to f this sorrowing woman? What ht ! does he deserve for his sneer- k ? ing attitude? L....... th (TO BE CONTINUED.) SYNOPSIS. 10 Alan Waynn la sent away from Kel Kill, til.s homo, ly his until;, J. Y.. as a moral fuiliirtt. Chrm drlnlcs Alan's health on hl ?jlithdity. Ju1k Hualey defends Alan In ils hii.slness witli his Cfinptuycra. Alan und lic, (Jerry's wife, meet ul sea, homeward bound, and Htart ft Illrtiitlon. At home, (.Jerry, an ho thinks, sees All and Alan t'lopiiiK, drops every tiling, an'l K"t;s to j'ernaiMhuco. Alix loaves Alan on the train and Kfr'H home, (ierry haves I'er-inaiuLuco I'er-inaiuLuco and Koes to Piranhas. On a .riiniii' Hip ho meets a nalivtj Kiri. The JudK fdlls to traeo Gerry. A hahy Is horn to Alix. The, native girl takes Gerry to tlui ruined plantation tdie Is nd.slnss nf. G.-rry marries her. At Maple house Ool-'lintfofonl Ool-'lintfofonl tellH how ho met Alan "Ten lvr Gent Wayne" build in y a bridge In I Africa. C'olhtiKeford meets Alix and her ba by and k' ves her encouraRement ahou t Gerry. Alan coitus back to town but doe-rot doe-rot KO home. Gerry begins to Improve jMnrKartta's plantation and builds an ir-rl ir-rl satiny til tch. In Africa Alan r.atlg iCIein's letters and dreams of homo. Gerry Ger-ry paHlures Ideber's rattle durinar the 'drought. A baby comes to Margarita.. ColllnKeford meets Alix In the city and finds her changed. Alan meets Alix, J. Y., and (Mem, grown to beautiful womunhood. In the city and realizes t Hat he has sold 'his birthright for a mess of pottage. Kemp and Gerry become friends. They visit 'I-lcher. t.........-.............-.-.-..-.............-.......-.. i f i ! f, In a day of desperate weak- i I ness you had embezzled your f i employer's money and had to i t flee the country, do you think ? ? you could resist the desire to re- i turn, even after years? Does ; J horn. seem to you Xa be "the ? 1 anchor of a man's s?jI?" I i. ; '" CHAPTER XX Continued. ; The veranda at Lieber's was like that of Fnzonda Ftores only much bigger. big-ger. It looked out upon a wide stretch ot desert but away at the rim of the desert one could feel tbe river. The iroat: of the falls mumbled In the ear. 'It came from so far away that one jhad to strain one's ears to actually 'define It. After supper they gathered ion the veranda. They sat In rude, raw-(hide raw-(hide chairs which were comfortably istrong and tilted thera back to tbe ,natIonal angle. I.leber and Gerry smoked corn-husk cigarettes but Kemp stuck to his yellow papers. Gerry did not want to talk. He sat where be ;could watch the strange pair whose companion he was for a night. Into 'the souls of Lieber and Kemp tbe long silences of solitude had entered and become at home. They were patient of silence. Speech had Its restricted uses. They still had their hats on. Lieber's was pushed back, Kemp's "was drawn forward. Kemp was whittling. whit-tling. Kemp's words of farewell came back to Gerry. "It's a long trail from the. Alamo to New York, but the whole country's tinder one fence." Texan. Tennsylvanla Dutchman and New Yorker might be socio' iles but tonight to-night they seemed strangely near to each other. The next morning Gerry was up early, ear-ly, nervous after his first night's absence ab-sence from Fazenda Flores. Kemp watched him saddle his horse. "That ain't one of the five," he remarked. "No," said Gerry.. "I traded the roan for the Iron-gray. Do you think I was done?" "I ain't sayln'." said Kemp cautiously. cautious-ly. "I don't want you should think I was teachln' you, Mr. Lansing, but that hoss ain't no Iron-gray. There nln't no such color for a hoss as I ever lieern tell on. That hoss Is a blue an' he's a true blue." "All right, Kemp." said Gerry, smiling. smil-ing. "You've named him true blue and True Blue he is from this day." Lieber came out In py'amas and cnlled them for coffee. When they "were seated he proposed to Kemp that he make his headquarters at the ranch for a while. The advantages were evident. evi-dent. It was a congregating point for tbe natives from miles round. Goatskins Goat-skins came Into Lieber's from hundreds hun-dreds of miles up country. They camc slnglv. in donkey loads or in wholr packtralns. Sometimes they passed directly into his hands from the producer; pro-ducer; sometimes tiiey ran through n chain of transfers, from hand to hand All news centered at and radiateO from Lieber's. The same men thai brought in goatskins would be glad U add orchids to their stock in trade. Kemp grunted his thanks. He had waited two years for this offer. The realization of the obligation Liebei was putting him under embarrassed him. He bewail to talk. "These greas ers." he said, "take a lot o' toachin some! i -lies, an' sametimes they don't F'r instance, you can tell 'em that Cat tleyas are wo'th money and that tin rest o' their parasites ain't, 'ml ai'tei they seen you throw P.u'lin'tonias an OneiJiutns an' Miltonias into the dis card fo' three months steady, they be rgin to sober down to jest Cattleyas m realize that it's no use holdin' a four flush against a workin' pair." ' At the scientific names dropping s( Incongruously from Kemp's lips. Ger ry stopped eating and looked up. Lie tier's face wore the smile of one win had heard It before but Is quite will ing to hear It all over again. "Hut." continued Kemp, "yo' c'l puil till you're Win' an' you cau't heai 'em around to see tbat onless a Cattle-yH Cattle-yH has eight leaves, it's too young to be packed an' no good to the market besides bein' a victim to race suicide. "As to their brlngin' In Itu'lin'tonlas an' Oneidlums an' Miltonias, I never get onpatient o' that. How c'n a greaser greas-er ever learn that a Miltonia Speeta-bilis Speeta-bilis Moreliana that looks like pigeon's blood in a pu'ple shadow ain't a com-a.ercial com-a.ercial proposition, while tbe Cattleyas Cattle-yas is? When he's In the woods an' 4 smell straight fin heaven draps its rope on him an' he looks up an' sees a droopln' spike o' snow, how you go-in' go-in' to teach him that a Bu'lln'tonia Fragrans ain't just as good business as a Labiata? "Time was when orchids was an ambition; now tbey's jest a business. In Lump, it's some different. Tbey's collectors hankerin' after new varieties varie-ties an' houses tiiat keeps men lookln' for 'em but in America, you rna'k me, if an orchid don't make up well on the missus' bodice or on the table, 1t ain't business; an' tbey's a few million children growin' up to the idea that if It ain't a Cattleya it ain't an orchid." Kemp came to himself, blushed and hurried out as if on urgent business. Ijeoer looked at Gerry's thoughtful face and smiled. "Who'd have thought he'd ever talk that way iu daylight?" lie said. "I think." replied Gerry, "it was your offering to let him make this place bis headquarters. It rattled him aud started him off. I could see he was grateful." 'Terhaps that was it." said Lieber. "He's a queer one. He never asked me. It just occurred to me to suggest sug-gest it because I'm getting to enjoy having Kemp around." Gerry nodded. His eyes fell on the clock and he got up with a start. The sun was at its highest when be reached Fazenda Flores. "Thou hast been away a long time," said Margarita reproachfully. re-proachfully. Gerry jumped off his horse and kissed her. Then he picked up his son and set him in the saddle. Margarita Mar-garita screamed. True Blue arched his neck and looked cautiously around at his featherw-eight burden. The young horse stood very still while Margarita fought past Gerry's arm and dragged the Man from its perilous perch to her bosom. And manlike the Man protested with a bad-tempered, whole-lunged wail tbat rcr. iue air and brought Dona Maria to the cornet of the house to peer at them with eyes shaded under cupped hands. A few days later the rains came in earnest, passed aud Gerry contracted with Lieber for labor to be paid for in produce. Fazeuda Flores blossomed and bore fruit. Feople began to eoiuc in from afar to barter for produce anil a buyer appeared and took over the whole of tbe little cotton crop. Gerry poured money into Margarita's lap more money than she had ever seen and sent her under escort of Don.' Maria and Bonifacio aud tbe Man tc purchase all of comfort and furbelows that the tiny market of Piranhas couh: supply. They were to be gone two days anc Gerry left tbe Fazeuda in charge ol ' his foreman to go and spend the time with Lieber and Kemp. lie founc Kemp In a sort of controlled ,elatioL over the greatest shipment of commer cial orchids the trade had ever known Just after Gerry's arrival two mer appeared bearing a monster plant o: over "two hundred leaves strung, like the grape cluster of Eschol, on a pole Kemp's deep-set eyes seemed b 1 grow out of his head as he made on their burden. "Hl-yi!" he yelled anc ' rushed off to the corral where he threv himself on to an astonished heifer For one second she squatted and.thei ' went mad. With yell and Hogging ha ' Kemp poured oil on the fire nf he ' frenzy. She bucked and twisted am ' all but somersaulted in her efforts b 1 rid herself of the demon on her la"l; Cm the veranda, Lieber and Gerry beli ' their sides aud roared at the tnos grotesque line riding thoy bad eve 1 seen. Finally: with a desperate lunge the heifer breasted the corral fence ' It caught her middle and she tectere ' over. Kemp turned a handspring fron ; her back and landed on bis feet. Th ' heifer scrambled free from the fenc I and tore, wild-eyed, out into the deserl Laughter rang from every side. Thre ' herders threw themselves on to thei horses and rode, shouting, after th hoife. Kemp straightened out his hai ', put it on. and walked sedately over t the veranda. There was only a rain glint In his eye as be bought the mor j ster plant to crown the monster sliif ment. 3 That dry season saw the beglnnln i of a drought that will long hold th. |