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Show DBy E,di&a Ferlsesr Copyright by Edna Ferber.l .WNTJ Service. ZJ&r THE STORY Yancey Cravat, just returned from the newly opened I ndian territory, relates his experiences to a large gathering of the Ven-able Ven-able family. Yanci-y is married to Sabra Venable; is a criminal lawyer and editor of the Wichita Wigwam. When the Run started, ' Yancey had raced his pony against the thoroughbred mount of a girl. The girl's horse was Injured and when Yancey stopped to shoot It she grabbed his pony and got the land Yancey wanted. Yancey announces he ' is going back to the Oklahoma country with Sabra and their four-year-old son, Cimarron. They make the journey in two covered wagons. They arrive at Osage, where Yancey intends to start a newspaper. Yancey is determined to find out who killed Editor Peg-ler Peg-ler of the New Day. Preparations for the publication of the Oklahoma Okla-homa Wigwam are completed. Yancey consents to conduct divine di-vine worship on Sunday. During the services Yancey announces he has learned who killed Peg-ler. Peg-ler. Ho stoops in time to escape a bullet fired by Yountis. Still stooping, Yancey shoots and kills Yountis. Then he announces that pr Yountis killed Pegler. Sabra's second child. Donna, is about three years old when she returns to Wichita for her first visit. CHAPTER VII Continued 10 "Well, the Wigwam ain't been so regular since you been away." She allowed that to pass without comment. "Up In the hills he stumbles on Doctor Valllant, drunk, but not so drunk he , don't recognize Yancey. Well, he tells Yancey, drunk as ho is, that he's right In the camp where the Kid and his gang is hiding out. One of them was hurt had in that last Santa Fe hold-up at Cimarron. Like to died, only they sent for doc, and he came and saved him. They got close to thirty thousand thou-sand that trick, and it kind of -went to their heads. Valliant overheard them planning to rid? in here to. Osage, like today, and hold up the Citizens' National Na-tional In broad daylight like the Kid always does. They was already Btarted. Well, Yancey off on his horse to warn the town, and knows he's got to detour or he'll come on the gang and they'll smell a rat. Well, say, he actually did meet 'em. Came on 'em, accidental. The Kid sees him and grins that wolf grin of his and sings out, 'Yancey, you still runnin' that paper of yourn down at Osage?' Tancey says, 'Yes.' 'Well, say,' he ays, 'how much is It?' Yancey says a dollar a year. The Kid reaches down and throws Yancey a shot sack with ten silver dollars in it. 'Send me the paper for ten years,' he says. 'Where to?' Yancey asks him. Well, say, the Kid laughs that wolf laugh of his again and he says, 'I never thought of that. I'll have to leave you know later.' Well, Yancey, looking as meek and mealy-mouthed as a baby, he rides his way, he's got a little book of poems in his hand and he's reading as he rides, or pretending to, but first chance he sees he cuts across the hills, puts his horse through the gullies and Into the draws and across the scrub oaks like he was a circus horse or a centipede or something. lie gets Into Osage, dead tired and his horse In a lather, ten minutes before the Kid and his gang sweeps down Taw-huslta Taw-huslta avenue, their six-shooters bark- -V Ing like a regiment was coming, and makes a rush for the bank. Hut the town Is expecting them. Say! Blood!" Sabra waited for no more. She turned. And as she turned she saw coming down the road in a cloud of dust a grotesque scarecrow, all shanks and teeth and rolling eyes. Black Isaiah. "No'm, Miss Sabra, lie ain't hurt not what yo' rightly call hurt. No, ma'am. Jes'a nip in de arm, and he got It elung In a black silk hand'ehief and looks right sma't handsome. They wouldn't let him alone noways. Ev'y-body Ev'y-body In town they sliakiu' his hand caze he shoot the shot dat kill de Kid. An' you know what he do then, Miss Sabra? lie kneel down an' lie cry like a bahy. . . . Le' me tote (lis yere valise. Ah kin tota Miss Donna, too. My, she sho' growed !" The newspaper olliee, the print shop, her parlor, her kitchen, her bedroom, were packed with men in boots, spurs, sombreros; men in overalls; women With enildren. Mrs. Wvsitt ivnc tl,,.r the Philomatheans as one woman were I Here; Dixie I.ee. actually ; everyone every-one but sinister!' I.ouie Hefner. "Well, Mis' Cravat, I guess you must be pretty proud of him I .... You missed the shootiu', Mis' Cravat, but you're In time to help Yancey celebrate. cele-brate. . . . Say, the Santa l"e alone offered five thousand dollars for the capture of the Kid, dead or alive. Yancey gets It, all right. And the Katy done the same. And they's a government price on Ills head, and the Citizens' National is making up a - purse. You'll be ridin' in your car- riage, settin' in silks, from now." Yancey was standing at his desk in the Wigwam olliee. He looked up as she came In, and at tlio look In his face sho forgave him his neglect of her; forgave him the house full of wliut Felkj Venable would term riff raff and worse; his faithlessness to the Wigwam. Donna, tired and frightened, had set up a wail. Cim, bewildered, had gone on a rampage. But as Yancey Yan-cey took a stumbling step toward her she had only one child, and that one needed her. She thrust Donna again Into Isaiah's arms; left Cim whirling among the throng; ran toward him. She was in his great arms, hut it was her arms that seemed to sustain him. "Sabra. Sugar. Send them away. I'm so tired. Oh, God, I'm so tired." Next clay they exhibited the body of the Kid in the new plate glass show window of Hefner's Furniture Store and Undertaking Parlors. All Osage came to view him, all the county came to view him; they rode in on trains, on horses, in wagons, in ox carts for miles and miles around. The Kid. The boy who, in his early twenties, had sent no one knew how many men to their death whose name was the symbol for terror and daring and merciless marauding throughout through-out the Southwest. Even in the East in New York the "name of the Kid was known. Stories had been written about him. He was, long before his death, a mythical figure. And now he, together with Clay McNulty, his lieutenant, lay side by side, quite still, quite passive. Sabra did a strange, a terrible thing. Yancey would not go near the grisly window. Sabra upheld him ; denounced the gaping crowd as scavengers scav-engers and ghouls. Then, suddenly, at the last minute, as the sun was setting set-ting blood red across the prairie, she walked out of the house, down the road, as if Impelled, as if in a trance, like a sleep walker, and stood before Hefner's window. The crowd made way for her respectfully. They knew her. This was the wife of Yancey Cravat, the man whose name appeared in headlines in every newspaper throughout the United States, and even beyond the ocean. They had dressed the two bandits in new cheap black suits of store ' clothes, square In cut, clumsy, so that they stood woodenly away from the lean hard bodies. Clay McNulty's face had a faintly surprised look. His long sandy mustache drooped over a mouth singularly sweet and resigned. But the face of the boy was fixed In a smile that brought the lips In a sardonic snarl away from the wolflike wolf-like teeth, and the eyes, whose lightning light-ning glance had pierced you through 1 "But the Town Is Expecting Them." and through like one of the bullets from his own dreaded six-shooters, now were extinguished forever behind the waxen shades of his eyelids. It was at the boy that Sabra looked ; and having looked she turned and walked back to the house. They gave them a decent funeral and a burial with everything in proper order, anil when the minister refused to read the service over these two sinners Yancey consented to do it and did, standing there wilh the fresh-turned fresh-turned mounds of red Oklahoma clay sullying lils line high-heeled boots, and the sun blazing down upon the curling locks of his uncovered head. They put up two rough wooden slabs, marking the graves. But souvenir sou-venir hunters with Utile bright knives soon made short work of those. The two mounds sank lower, lower. Soon noining mai Ken mis spot on tne prairie to dift'eronlinte It from the red clay that stretched for miles all about It. They sent to Yancey, by mail, in cheeks, and through solemn committees commit-tees in store clothes and while collars, the substantial money rewards that, for almost five years, had been offered of-fered by the Santa Fe road, the M. K. & T., the government itself, and various vari-ous banks, for the capture of the Kid, dead or alive. Yancey refused every penny of it. The committees, the townspeople, the county, were shocked and even offended. of-fended. Sabra, tight lipped, at last broke out In protest. "We could have a decent house a now printing press Cim's education Donna " "I don't take money for killing a man," Yancey repeated, to each offer of money. The committees and the checks went back as they had come. Sabra noticed that Yancey's band shook with a perceptible palsy before breakfast, and that this was more than ever noticeable as that hand approached ap-proached the first drink of whisky swallowed before he ale a morsel. He tossed it down as one who, seeking relief from pain, takes medicine. When he returned the glass to the table he drew a deep breath. His hand was, miraculously, quite steady. More and more lie neglected the news and business details of the Wigwam. Wig-wam. He was restless, moody, distrait. dis-trait. Sabra remembered with a pang of dismay something that he had said on first coming to Osage. "G d, when I think of those years In Wichita ! Almost five years in one place that's the longest stretch I've ever done." The newspaper was prospering, for Sabra gave more and more time to It. But Yancey seemed to have lost interest, in-terest, as he did in any venture once it got under way. Even In the courtroom or while addressing ad-dressing a meeting of townspeople Yancey Yan-cey sometimes would behave strangely. He would stop In the midst of a florid period. At once a creature savage and overcivilized, the flaring lamps, the hot, breathless atmosphere, the vacuous wdiite faces looming up at him like balloons would repel him. He had been known to stalk out, leaving them staring. In the courtroom he was an alarming figure. When he was defending a local county or Territorial case they flocked from miles around to hear him, and the crude pine shack that was the courtroom would be packed to suffocation. He towered over any jury of frontiersmen a behemoth be-hemoth in a Prince Albert coat and fine linen, his great shaggy buffalo's head charging menacingly at his opponent. op-ponent. His was the florid hifalutin oratory of the day, full of sentiment, hyperbole, and wind. But he coittd be trenchant enough when needs be ; and his charm, his magnetic power, were undeniable, and almost invariably invari-ably he emerged from the courtroom victorious. Sabra saw more and more to the editing and to the actual printing of the Oklahoma Wigwam. She got In as general houseworker and helper an Osage Indian girl of fifteen who had been to the Indian school and Who had learned some of the rudiments of household duties: cleaning, dishwashing, dishwash-ing, laundering, even some of the simpler sim-pler forms of cookery. She tended Donna, as well. Her name was Arita Red Feather, a quiet gentle girl who went about the house in her calico dress and moccasins and had to be told everything over again, daily. Isaiah was beginning to be too big for these duties. He was something of a problem In the household. At the suggestion sug-gestion that he be sent back to Wichita Wich-ita he set up a howling and wailing and would not be consoled until both Sabra and Yancey assured him that he might remain with them forever. When Jesse Rickey was too drunk to stand at the type case and Yancey was off on some legal matter, he slowly slow-ly and painstakingly helped Sabra to make possible the weekly issue of the .Oklahoma Wigwam. Sabra, in a pinch, even tried her unaccustomed hand at an occasional editorial, though Yancey seldom failed her utterly in this department. A rival newspaper set up quarters across the street and, for two or three months, kept up a feeble pretense of existence. Yancey's editorials, during this period, were extremely personal. . But it was Sabra who held the women wom-en readers with her accounts of the veal loaf, coleslaw, baked beans, and angel-food cake served at the church supper, and the somewhat touching decorations and costumes worn at the wedding of a local or county belle. If, in the quarter of a century that followed, every trace of the settling of the Oklahoma country had been lost, excepting only the numbers of the Oklahoma Wigwam, there still would have been left a clear and inclusive record of the lives, morals, political and social and economic workings of this bizarre community. Week by week, month by mouth, the reader could have noticed in its columns whatever of progress was being made in tills fantastic slice of the republic of the United States. restlessness, was content enough. The children were well ; the paper was prospering; she had her friends; the house had taken on an aspect of comfort; com-fort; they had added another bed- IMIIB.II, I Ml. II IIIIBIllS III Ill I IB M III IHII .1 room. She was, in a way, a leader In the crude social life of the community. com-munity. Church suppers; sewing societies; so-cieties; family picnics. One thing rankled deep. Yancey had been urged to accept (he office of territorial delegate to congress (without (with-out vote) and had refused. All sorts of territorial political positions were held out to him. The city of Guthrie, capital of the territory, wooed him in vain. He laughed at political position, posi-tion, rejected all offers of public nature. na-ture. Now he was being offered the position of governor of the territory. His oratory, his dramatic quality, his record in many affairs, Including the Pegler murder and the shooting of the Kid, had spread his fame even beyond the Southwest. "Oh, Yancey !" Sabra thought of the Venables, the Marcys, the Vians, the Goforths. At last her choice of a mate was to be vindicated. Governor! But Yancey shook his great head. There was no moving him. He would go on the stump to make others congressmen con-gressmen and governors, but he himself him-self would not take office. "Palaver- X t fv ' vff Iff if j ' "Good G d! Sleeves." Ing to a lot of greasy office seekers and' panhandlers! Dancing to the tune of that gang In Washington I I know the whole dirty lot of them." Restless. Moody. Irritable. Riding out into the prairies to be gone for days. Coming back to regale Cim with stories of evenings spent on this or that far-off reservation, smoking and talking with Chief Big Horse of the Cherokees, with Chief Buffalo Hide of the Chickasaws, with old Black Kettle of the Osages. But he was not always like this. There were times when his old fiery spirit took possession. He entered the fight for the statehood of Oklahoma territory, and here he encountered opposition op-position enough even for him. He was for the consolidation of the Oklahoma territory and the Indian territory under un-der single statehood. The thousands who were opposed to the Indians who looked upon them as savages totally unfit for citizenship fought him. A year after their coming to Oklahoma the land had been divided into two territories one owned and occupied by the Indian tribes, the other owned by the whites. Here the Cravats lived, on the border line. And here was Yancey, fighting week after week, in the editorial and news columns col-umns of the Oklahoma Wigwam, for the rights of the Indians; for the consolidation con-solidation of the two halves as one state. Yet, unreasonably enough, he sympathized with the Five Civilized Tribes in their efforts to retain their tribal laws in place of the United States court laws which were being forced upon them. He made a thousand thou-sand bitter enemies. Many of the Indians In-dians themselves were opposed to him. These were for separate statehood for the Indian territory, the state to be known as Sequoyah, afler (lie great Cherokee leader of that name. Sabra, who at first had paid little heed to these political problems, discovered dis-covered that she must know something some-thing of them as protection against (hose times (increasingly frequent) when Yancey was absent and she must get out the paper Willi only the uncertain un-certain aid of Jesse Rickey. Sabra came home one afternoon f,..., o c,,,.t-.-f,,l ,.11,1 Cti,.;,,- . ing of the Twentieth Century l'hiloma-tliean l'hiloma-tliean Culture club (the two had now formed a pleasing whole) at which she had read a paper entitled, "Whither Oklahoma?" It had been received with much applause on the part of Osage't twenty most exclusive ladies, who had heard scarcely a word of it, their minds being intent on Sabra's new dress. She had worn it for the first time at the club meeting, and it was a bombshell far exceeding any tumult that her paper might create. Her wealthy Cousin Bella French Yian, visiting the World's fair in Chicago, Chi-cago, had sent it. It consisted of a blue serge skirt, cut wide and flaring at the hem but snug at the hips; a waist-length blue serge Eton jacket trimmed with black soutache braid; and a garment called a shirtwaist to be worn beneath the jacket. But astonishing as-tonishing revolutionary as all this was, it was not the tiling that caused the eyes of feminine Osage to bulge with envy and despair. The sleeves! The sleeves riveted the attention of those present, to the utter neglect of "Whither Oklahoma?" The balloon sleeve now appeared for the first time in the Oklahoma territory? sponsored by Mrs. Yancey Cravat. They were bouffant, enormous ; a yard of material at least had gone into each of them. Every woman present was, in her mind, tearing to rag strips, bit by bit, every gown in her own scanty wardrobe. Sabra returned home, flushed, elated. She entered by way of the newspaper office, seeking Yancey's approval. Curtseying Curt-seying and dimpling she stood before him. She wanted him to see the new costume before she must thriftily take It off for the preparation of supper. Yancey's comment, as she pirouetted for his approval, Infuriated her. "Good G d ! Sleeves ! Let the squaws see those and they'll be throwing throw-ing away their papoose boards and using the new fashion for carrying their babies, one in each sleeve." "They're the very latest thing Id Chicago. Cousin Bella French Vian wrote that they'll be even fuller than this, by autumn." "By autumn," echoed Yancey. He held in his hand a slip of paper. Later she knew that it was a telegram one of the few telegraphic messages which the Wigwam's somewhat sketchy service serv-ice received. "Listen, sugar. President Presi-dent Cleveland's just Issued a proclamation proc-lamation setting September sixteenth for the opening of the Cherokee strip." "Cherokee strip?" "Six million, three hundred thousand acres of Oklahoma land to be opened for white settlement. The government has bought it from the Cherokees. It was all to be theirs all Oklahoma. Now they're pushing them farther and farther out." "Good thing," snapped Sabra, still cross about the matter of Yancey's indifference to her costume. Indians. Who cared ! She raised her arms to unpin her hat. Yancey rose from his desk. He turned his rare full gaze on her, his handsome eyes aglow. "Honey, let's get out of this. Clubs, sleeves, church suppers G d ! Let's get our hundred and sixty acre allotment of Cherokee strip land and start a ranch raise cattle live In the open ride this town life is no goodit's hideous." Pier arms fell, leaden, to her side, "Ranch? Where?" "You're not listening. There's to be a new Run. The Cherokee strip opening. open-ing. You know. Let's go, Sabra. It's the biggest thing yet. The 1889 Run was nothing compared to it. Sell the Wigwam, take the children, make the Run, get our hundred and sixty, start a ranch, stock up with cattle and horses build a ranch house and patio; in the saddle all day " "Never !" screamed Sabra. Her face was distorted. Her hands were clutching clutch-ing the air, as though she would tear to bits this plan of his for the future. "I won't. I won't go. I'd rather die first. You'll never make 'me go. I'll stay here with my children and run the paper. Mother! Cim! Donna!" She had a rare and violent fit of hysterics, after which Yancey divested her of the new finery, quieted the now screaming children, and finally restored re-stored to a semblance of supper-time order the household into which he had hurled such a bomb. Felice Venable herself, in her heyday, could not have given a finer exhibition of Marry temperament. tem-perament. Yancey was properly yolic-itous, yolic-itous, tender, charming as only he could be. From the shelter of her husband's arms Sabra looked about the cozy room, smiled wanly upon her children. "That," she thought to herself, her-self, bathing her eyes, smoothing her hair, and coming pale and wistful to the table, her lip quivering with a final efl'tctive sigh, "settles that." Hut it did not. September actually saw Yancey making ready to go. Nothing that Sabra could say, nothing that she could do, served to stop him. She even negotiated for a little strip of farm land outside the town of Osage and managed to get Yancey to make a payment on it, in the hope that this would keep him from the Run. "If It's land you want you can stay here and farm the piece at Tuskamingo. You can raise faille on it. You can breed horses on it." Yancey shook his head. He took no Interest in the farm. September, the month of tiie opening of tne vast Cherokee strip, saw him well on his way. Cim howled to be taken along, and would not be consoled for days. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |