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Show r z I I HOME I i l A Storey of Today and I of All "Day J I e t By GEORGE AGNEW CHAMBERLAIN Copyright by the Century Company THE MTLLARD COTJNTV played In bringing resurrection to the abandoned plantation and life to the neighboring stock. Alan cast a e-urious glance at Gerry. "Dangerous business," he said, "fooling "fool-ing with the Lormal level in flood country." r.ieber nodded and went on. He told bis tale well. He had seeu more than Gerry could have put into words. Gerry listened for a while, but be soon wearied. What had all that to do with him now? He wandered off and started start-ed to saddle True Blue. lie must get away from Alan. Alau was drawing him, but lie way bound in chains, lie must remember that. Then, too. what Alan had said about fooling with the normal level worried him. He must go back and statiou a guard at the great sluice gate. A sudden puff of air, then a breeze, then a gale, swept down on Lleber's from the southwest. The wind was hot, a furnace blast from the torrid wilderness. It carried with It whirls of dust, light, dry sticks, and, finally, small pebbles that hurtled along the ground. Gerry and his horse sough! shelter by the house. Herders came running out from their quarters and gathered in front of the veranda. The wind suddenly turned cold, dropped and ceased. The dust settled. The sun blazed ns before. There was not a cloud in the sky. The herders all looked at Lieber. They did not talk. They were waiting. Lieber . shrugged his shoulders. "Somewhere," he said with a wave of his hand to the southwest, "there has beeu rain and hail and that sort of thing. Temperature fell and drove the hot air off the desert." He told tlie men, but they did not go away. They stood around, their eyes sweeping sweep-ing the horizon to the southwest. At last one of them grunted. His eyes were fixed on a distant pillar of dust. It came towards them. Lieber used his field glasses. Without taking them from bis eyes, he spoke. "It's a man. riding. Looks like he's riding for life. Something is up. He's riding to kill his horse." As the man approached, a dull rumbling rum-bling filled the ears of the watchers. So gradual was Its crescendo that they did not notice it. The rider spurred and beat his horse to a final effort. They could see he was shouting. He drew nearer, and they beard him, "Flood! Flood!" Then tbey noticed the rumbling. It became a roar. Far "Alan, What Did You Do With Her?" awny on the horizon rose a white, ad vancing mist. The rider rolled otT his staggering horse. "The flood." lie gasped. "Never before has there been such a flood." Before the words were out of his mouth there was a frenzied ratile of hoofs and Gerry on True Blue tore off at a mad gallop down the trail towards Fazenda Flores. Almost at his heels followed the first mounted of the herders, filling all they knew to cut across to Piranhas ahead of the wall of water. Lleber's eyes followed Gerry's flight. Then be turned them on Alan. "That hollow down there," he said, "will lie turned into a rushing river in half au hour perhaps less. We're just safe here, and that's all. You see .Mr. Lansing? Lan-sing? lie's Hie spot farthest down the trail. I'm thinking we'll never see him again." A faint flush came into Alan's checks. It was a flush of pride pride in Gerry. Gerry had not hesitated. He bad not ridden off like a laggard. Even now they could see that he was riding for life riding with all bis might for the lives that shackled him. (Jerry bad never ridden a horse to death before. When True Blue first staggered he put spurs to him and laid on bis quirt right and left. The roar of the river was so loml that he could not tell if he had really beaten the flood or not. though he could see just before him the long, snaky ridge of the main ditch banks. He must get on. But True Blue only came to a staggering stag-gering slop tinder the quirt. With bis forefeet be still marked time as though with them lie would drag bis heavy body and mas;er one step nearer botne. CHRONICLE. DELTA. UTAF From his loins back he was paralyzed. With a last desperate effort he straddled his forelegs', but be could not brace himself against the backward sag of dead weight. Gerry felt him sinking beneath him and suddenly found himself standing over his prostrate pros-trate horse. Of True Blue, bis forefeet outstretched, his head and breast still held high, there was left only a great spirit chained to a railen and dying body. A cry escaped Gerry's lips a cry of horror at what he had done. Then he remembered why he bad done it and ran not for the sluice-gate but for the bridge. As he readied it the roar became deafening. There was a splin tering, crackling sound that, measured meas-ured by the great commotion, seemed like the tinkle of a tiny bell. But there was something in the sound that called to his brain. He cast a glance over his shoulder. The monster beams of his sluice-gate, hurled, splintered, into the air, were still hanging against the blue sky. Under them surged an nngry white wall of racing water. Even as he started to run down the long slope to the bouse Gerry thought with a great relief that if the gate bad been closed it would have gone even so, like matchwood. Below him Fazenda Flores lay peaceful, peace-ful, still, under the blazing sun. The cotttX! was a little wilted but high and strong, the cane stunted but alive. Only in the pasture bottoms the stock had gathered In frightened clumps. Their instinct had told them that danger dan-ger hovered near. Suddenly from the quiet bouse burst Margarita, carrying her son on one arm. She had seen Gerry from a window. While the others oth-ers watched the rising river, and now this terrifying torrent bursting down upon them from above, she had slipped out to run to him. The house at Fazenda Flores stood on a domed mound. Behind the mound was a slight hollow before the steady rise to the bridge began. Gerry caught sight of Margarita as she ran down towards this hollow. Terrified, he cast a glance at the descending flood and bis eye measured its pace against hers. "Go back!" he shouted with all the strength of his lungs, and waved bis arms. It was as though he had not spoken. Through the din and roar of the flood the sound of the words scarcely scarce-ly reached his owTn ears. At the very bottom of the hollow Margarita felt that she was stepping Tore Off In a Mad Gallop. in water. Sbe took her eyes from Gerry, who she thought was beckoning to her, and looked down. A hurrying rivulet whose swift flow carried it before be-fore the churniug crest of the flood, tugged at her ankles. She looked up toward the thundering wall of oncoming oncom-ing ater and knew that she was lost. She stopped and fixed her eyes on Gerry, who was plunging down the slope in a mad effort to reach her. She called to him, but she knew be could not hear her. With arms stretched to their highest, she held up the Man. The Man was not frightened. His black eyes were fixed on his running father. Margarita could feel him gurgling with joy in the new game. Then suddenly he cried out. It was a wail of fright. The wail was cut short. Broken in two, it rang terribly in her ears as she went down. The water had felled Margarita and the Man. Gerry saw them flung down the crest of the wave. They became suddenly n twirling, sodden mass, inanimate in-animate save for the fling of a loose limb into clearer view against the blue sky or the uncoiling of long black hair on the seething water. Gerry reached the torrent. .Margarita .Marga-rita and the Man had already been whirled faf towards the great river. He plunged into the flood. The water was thick with earth, sticks, uprooted plants and debris of every sort. Conflicting, Con-flicting, swirling currents tiurged at heavy stones, rolled them along and sometimes even tossed one to the surface. sur-face. Gerry's struggling body was hurled hither and thither. A stray current shot him to the surface, but before be could take breath other currents sucked him down and dragged him along tlie rough surface of t lie crumbling crum-bling soil. He felt as though be were being torn limb from limb. Then suddenly lie was cast Into an eddy that it) comparison with tlie maelstrom mael-strom was almost peaceful. For an instant he felt like one who awakes r from a terrible dream, but with the sigh that trembled to his lips came realization. From head to toe be was battered and bruised. Ills cotton clothes were in tatters. His chest heaved In great, spasmodic gasps. Breath whistled through his wracked lungs. His eyes protruded. His head ached till il j seemed on tlie verge of bursting. Bui to his mind pierced a tnought sharpe.i than pain the thought of Margaritt? and the Man. With clenched teeth he struck out for the current. Far, far away rose a dusty line of mist. It marked the head of the flood the meeting of water with tlie accumulated accumu-lated dust of rainless months. Gerry recognized the meaning of that line. Somewhere there in tlie turmoil of the first rush of the mad flood were Margarita Mar-garita aud the Mau what was left of them. The distance dismayed him, but be swam on. Theu he felt the fast ap proacbing end of endurance. ' A sob choked him. It was only minutes till his arms refused re-fused to answer to his will. They moved so weakly that more than once his gasping mouth sank below the water. wa-ter. He swallowed great gulps of the turgid flood. Then an uprooted tree brushed by blm. He clutched Its brandies. When all else in the world has passed from a man's brain there remains re-mains the life instinct the will to fight for the last minute of his allotted being. be-ing. The life instinct was all that still lived in Gerry. It urged him to a last effort. He dragged his body upon the tree where the branches forked from the main trunk. Utterly exhausted, he sank into their embrace. Tbey held bim as though in a cradle. The rush of the waters began to slacken. They stretched out over the valley and crept up its sides. They did not flow so much now as rise. The valley val-ley bwame a moving sea. On Its flowing flow-ing surface beasts, fowla and reptiles struggled, mad-eyed, far life. Here and fiere a bloated carcass, brought down from far up the river, blundered blindly through the living and brought screams of terro from the swimming horses, and gasping lows from the struggling cattle. From the middle of the sea rose the . old plantation house still high and dry on its mound. It seemed very tiny a toy house on a lonely Islet A great, open, white umbrella lined with green sailed gayly along. It caught In the branches of Gerry's tree. Uprooted cotton bushes floated by, and cane, snapped off, sometimes torn up In whole bills, banked up against the tree and formed a vast, unstable island, toward which swam the deluded delud-ed stock. From the mouth of the cleft in the river gorge Issued a thundering cataract. cata-ract. It had burst through the walls of the ditch and even unseated a section sec-tion of the rocky crag against which the sluice-gate had been buttressed. The ditch was goue. It could never be again, for the water was tearing the channel of the cleft deeper and deeper. The turbid flood devoured the silt of the valley, accumulated since man was, and carried it, seething, out towards the river. The valley would be left naked, stripped of the source of life. Gerry's tree had crawled away from the main current. In a vast eddy It approached the mound whereon squatted squat-ted the old plantation house. Dona Maria stood at the edge of the waters. Her two bands were clenched and held above her gray head. Thin wisps of hair hung about her face. Her face was distorted. She was cursing Gerry, cursing the day of his birth, the day of his coming, the day he had opened his ditch. She swept her arms over the terrible scene and called down the curse of all the ruin and death on his head. But Gerry was beyond hearing. In all the world there was none to hear the old woman. She stood alone; about her tlie silent waters, above ber the blazing blue sky. The tree shot out of the eddy. The current, tlie main current from the cleft, caught it squarely and swept it away. It suddenly shook its long trail of riffraff, and turning and turning, more aud more swiftly, swam out on to the churning bosom of the great river. The valley had disappeared. Squatting Squat-ting on the very level of the far-flung waters, the old house still stood. The bright sun struck a glint of light from its white walls and gave rich colors to its moss-grown tiles. The roof was crowded with fowl and a strange medley med-ley of heavy flying birds, glad of a perch on which to rest. Dona Maria went into the house. She closed tlie great board shutters. The bouse looked as if it bad closed Its eyes In a last renunciation. Gerry's tree floated down the river. It swung slowly along near the north shore. Just below it were houses. They were perched on the cliff. Below them were more bouses and under these tlie tiled roofs of still other houses just topped tlie flood. The bouses were what was left of I'lran-lias. I'lran-lias. From the shore canoes In search of loot began to shoot out on tlie quietening waters. One of them happened hap-pened upon Gerry's tree and then upon Gerry. Gerry's eyes opened and then closed again. He scarcely felt the arms that lifted him. Tbey carried car-ried lihn to the old Inn, the miserable little inn he had left behind on that glorious morning of so long ago. I Would it not be a sort of l poetic Justice if Gerry should '! "die now without ever being able to make amends to Alix ;! for his dreadful suspicion and without ever seeing his sfln and ; heir? !; (TO BE CO.N'i'lMtD.; ! SYNOPSIS. ! Alnn Wayne is sent away from Red Trill, his home. t,y tils uncle, J. Y., ns a moral fiLiliiio. Clem drinks Alan's health on his birthday. Judge. Mealy defends Alan In Ills business Willi tils employers. Alnn and Alix. Gerry's wife, meet at sea, homeward hound, and start a flirtation. At home, Gerry, as he thinks, sees Alix and Alan eloping, drops everything, atid goes to l'uinnmbueo. Alix leaves Alan on the train and goes homo. Gerry leaves Per-nnmtiueo Per-nnmtiueo and goes to I'lrunhas. On a canoe trip tie meets a native girl. The Judge falls to trace Gerry. A baby Is born to Alix. The native girl lakes Gerry to the ruined plantation she is mistress of. Gerry marries her. At Maple house Col-llngeford Col-llngeford tells how he met Alan "Ten 1'er Cent Wayne" hulldlng a bridge in Africa. Collingeford meets Alix and her baby and gives her encouragement about Gerry. Alan comes back to town but does nol go home. Gerry begins to improve Margarita's plantation and bullets an irrigating ir-rigating ditch. In Africa Alan reads Clem's lettera and dreams of home. Gerry Ger-ry pastures l.iebcr's rattle during the drought. A baby comes to Margarita. Collingeford meets Alix In the city and finds ber changed. Alnn meets Alix, J. Y., and Clem, grown to beautiful womanhood. In Ibe city and realizes that he has sold his birthright for a mess of. pottage. Kemp and Gerry become friends. They visit I.tfbor, and the three exiles are drawn together by a common tie. Lieber tells his story. In South America Alan gets the fever and his foreman sends him to Lleber's. Consider the mental agony of ; ; an Intelligent man when he !; ! comes to realize that he has ', ! committed a great wrong, an ir- '! ! reparable wrong against his !l wife and against himself. Rev-elation Rev-elation and a sort of terror come ! to Gerry. CHAPTER XXIV Continued. "You've been up all night," said Gerry. Ger-ry. "Oi and lie down for a while. I'll 'cull yod If anything happens." Lieber rose reluctantly. "Don't fail to call me," he said. "I'll leave my door open." Gerry sat down In a chnlr beside the settle. He bad not known how tired he was himself. Soon lie drowsed. His head fell forward on his chest. Sleep came to bim and then a great trouble came to bis sleep. He roused himself from a nightmare and. suddenly wide awake, found Alan's eyes fixed on his face. "You!" murmured Alan. Cerry did not answer. His face became be-came a mask. It seemed to him that only Alan's eyes were alive, and to Alan that Gerry had projected his spirit to his bedside to watch him die. Alan tried to smile in defiance. "Can't you speak?" he whispered hoarsely. Gerry leaned forward. The question he had to ask was stronger than he. It forced Its way through his lips. "Alan, what did you do with her? Tell me that and I'll go acj." A troubled look came luto Alan's thin face. He frowned. "Do with her? Do with whom?" "Alan." said Gerry, his suppressed voice trembling, "You know. With Alix." "Oh," said Alan, still struggling on the verge of consciousness. "I remember. remem-ber. I did nothing with ber. She wouldn't go witli me." ' "Alan," groaned Gerry. "I saw you. 1 saw you and Alix ou the train." The frown was gone from Alan's forehead. He felt sleep coming back to lilm and be wns glad. "Yes." he said, "she was on the train with me. I remember. She Jumped off. A baggageman bag-gageman caught her." He dropped off to sleep again. Lieber stepped catlike across tlie floor. He caught Gerry liy out? ear, and witli the other hand over his mouth led him out of the room. Gerry went tamely. When lliey were on the veranda Lieber looked at him. "So." he said, bis blue eyes blazing, "you only want to kill him." "No." said Gerry, dazed, "not now." "Mr. Lansing," said Lieber. "you get out of here. We'll scitle this business busi-ness some other time." Gerry's lip trembled. "You're right. Lieber." he said. "You're right, only you don't know It all. That chap in there wo were boys together, lie rati away witli my wife. That's why " Gerry suddenly stopped. Alix had not run away. She had jumped off tlie train. Where was she. then? What had she done through the years he had boon away? Why had she jumped off 11:0 train. He struck bis hand to his bead and stumbled off the ve-ran.la. ve-ran.la. l.iebcr's anger d'red In him, but he turned and went bad; to Alan. Two hours later he came out again to find Gerry crouched on the veranda. The spirit iiad gone out of him. but be turned on Lieber with a determination determi-nation in his tired eyes. "Yon told me to get out and I haven't. There are tilings I've got to know. I'll wait." "I spoke in baste, Mr. Lansing." said I.leber. "I want you should forgive me. You are all in, too. Come with aie." He led him Into his own room, made Hi in lie down, and closed the shutters. Qerry t'-evv himself across tlie bed, arms outstretched, face down. Lieber slipped out and noiselessly shut the door. Gerry lay exhausted. He could not think any more. A great weight lay on Ills brain. The ten minutes' doze In the chair at Alan's bedside had uot been rest, but a nightmare. Presently Pres-ently he fell into sleep, a deep sleep that was all unconsciousness. it was almost night when he awoke and with the awakening the weigh! settled back on Ids brain, only now lie had the strength to think In spite of It. He got up and went out in search of Lieber. Lieber heard him and came out Into the hall. Gerry nodded towards Alan's room. "It's all right. Mr. Lansing. He must have a solid mind. Y'our talk didn't excite him didn't even disturb bis sleep. He's on tlie road up weak, a baby, but he's started life again. He's asked for you twice. Seems to have something he's got to get off his chest to you. You'd better go In." Gerry sat down once more beside Alan. The questions he must ask crowded to his lips, but he forced them back. He tested his strength with res olutions and held them. It was his way of reassuring himself. He wanted want-ed to feel his firmuess rising in him to meet the struggle be felt must come when Alan spoke. Alan knew be was there. He saw him through half-closed eyes, but. more than that, he felt him. His brows puckered in a frown. It was still bard to use words. "Gerry, last night I wanted to tell you more only I couldn't. I had to sleep. Alix didn't go with me. She only came to the train. When I kissed her she woke up and found she wasn't carnal after ail. She went back home. Y'ou didn't turn up. You never turned up. They tmced you to a river, an empty canoe ca-noe pyjamas you know." He stopped aud sighed as though bis task were over. The veins on Gerry's forehead stood out in knots. His chin rested on his clenched hands, his elbows on his knees. "Alan," he said, "where is Alix now? What has she done?" Alan opened his eyes and looked at him. "She is waiting. She has always waited for you to come back. Sbe would not believe you were dead, because be-cause of the boy." "The boy!" groaned Gerry. "What boy?" "Yours," said Alan. "LTe is a great boy. There is a new Alii since be came. She Is as far from me an(3 what she was as the stars. She Is a steady star. But It's all right now. You'll go hack to her." "I can't." whispered Gerry hoarsely, more to himself than to Alau. "I've got a wife here. I've got a child here. To me he is my first-born." Alan's eyes opened, this time in wonder. won-der. A twisted smile came to bis lips. "You!" he said. "Y'ou!" and then the smile changed to a faint disgust. He turned bis head on the pillow away from Gerry aud slept. The next morning found Gerry still at Lleber's. Outside the heavenly bowl of blue was virgin of clouds. It stretched and domed in a sphered eternity eter-nity of emptiness. Through Its depressing de-pressing void tlie sun swam slowly, pitilessly, as though it were loath to mark the passing minutes. The whole earth baked. Strong trees wilted and turned up (he wrong sides of their leaves on the sea of heat like dying fish turning up their white bellies at the last gasp. Not a breath of air stirred. Heat rose from the ground in an unbroken, visible wave. "My God," said Alan, gazing with wistful, far seeing eyes beyond the familiar, repel lent scene. " 'a homeward fever parches up my tongue.' " There was such an agony of longing in tlie words that Gerry was frightened. He looked questioningly at Lieber. "No." said Lieber, "he's not dying He was dying, but he's changed his mind. He's going to go home instead." "I believe he's right, Gerry." said Alan with a faint smile. "But I didn't change my mind. He did it for me. lie's in line for a life-saving medal. I.icber's all right." He stopped, tired out. Lleher began to talk to Gerry. "How's the water in tlie ditch, Mr. Lansing?" "Mighty low," said Gerry. He spoke almost absent-mindedly. For the first time in months the ditch was far from his thoughts. "It's hard luck," said Lieber. "The river's never been so low before not in the memory of man. We do not hear the falls any more. The river is asleep. Ho you want mo to send my men down again?" "It's no use." said Gerry. "I don't dare deepen tlie ditch any more. It's 'way below the normal level now." Alan stirred. "What's that about a ditch?" In unhurried pbrases nnd a low voice Lieber told liiin the history of Fazenda I'lores since Gerry's advent and of the great part the ditch bad |