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Show I j I 1 I Bhe ' Br d av id 8 , , ANDERSON :j ! ! s o4 Tale of the Flat woods cw,.. $ V Bobbft-Merril Company V g;l I :: WILD ROSE. 6ynopsts. Never having known his father, and living with his mother on a houseboat on the Wabash Wa-bash river. "Pearlhunter the only name he has learns from her a part of the story of her sad life. The recital Is Interrupted by a fearful fear-ful fit of- coughing. But Pearl-hunter Pearl-hunter learns how and why his mother left his father; also that he has the best blood of Virginia In his veins he, a man without a name, a freshwater pearlhunter In the Indiana flats of the Wabash river. CHAPTER I Continued. 2 Her eyes opened ; she looked up at him with feverish quickness. "I've lived twenty years without the world. I'll not go back to it now." "But, mother, if we just keep on this way, you'll you'll" lie hesitated at the next word ; finally let it fall "die." "Die !" she seemed to fondle the word. "A small thing to die !" She sat musing as if she found a melancholy comfort in the thought. "But I shan't die," she continued, with a hasty glance up at his face. "My cough is worse today because my medicine is gone." The young man started. "Your elecampane gone!" "I took (he last of it yesterday." . "Mother!" He went to the cook stove and lifted the saucer from a small jar in which the roots were usually steeped. It was empty and dry. There was a great tenderness ten-derness in his voice as he came back and bent over her chair. "Ton shall have your elecampane . tea," he said, "if the roots are to be found in the Fiatwoods; and you shall sleep tonight in the old cabin up there under the cool trees." A ripple of pleased expectation, -rf half-awakened interest, broke the drear surface of the weary face like a faint glow back of a curtain that never raises. He refilled the cup with cool water, rummaged a spade out of the locker tinder the forward deck, and was just on the point of leaping to the bank when he heard her speaking. He poked his head back inside the curtains, cur-tains, and she repeated what she had just said : "Isn't the Fiatwoods where the Wild Man lives? Seems to me I once heard that there is such a man in these woods." He felt carelessly along (he rusty bit of the spade with his thumb. . "I believe this is the woods." "Maybe he's I mean he's not dangerous?" dan-gerous?" "Dangerous ! A gray ghost of a man with a pitiful face. They say he goes through the woods as still as smoke, and leaves as little trail." A minute later he had leaped ashore, climbed the bluffs and plunged into the deep woods. The root of the elecampane was much esteemed as a remedy for coughs, but it was by no means abundant. abun-dant. No one knew this fact better than the Pearlhunter. The small stream that feeds the waterfall wa-terfall at Fallen Itoek is known as Wolf .run. Following up along its course the Pearlhunter presently came to a tiny thread of water that joined it from the west probably the outlet of some small pond tucked away among the hills. It is along the open margins of swamps and ponds, and never in the thick woods, that the elecampane grows. Believing from the wjirmth and dullness of its water that the tiny stream came from a pond, ralher than from a spring, the I'ear'Jiunter followed fol-lowed it. It had grown so small that the Pearlhunter began to fear it would disappear altogo'ber. when there came a break in the forest line just ahead. A scramble through a dense fringe of hazel, and there it lay a llllle pond in the midst of a narrow glade in a pocket of the hills, a delicate inlay in the forest. The man glanced at the sun ; turned, and hurriedly looked about for the elecampane. Along ihe oast edge of the glade, not far out from the fringe of hazel, lie found it a clump of some dozen stalks, three or four of them ready to bloom. The rusty spade was soon at their roots probably the first ground ever broken on the margin mar-gin of that pond. Three plants he digged, cut their stems close to the ground, shook ihe dirt from their clusters clus-ters of lb-shy roots, and hurried down the tiny ouih-t hack lo Wolf run. It was upon ihe giavelly margin of a pool (lint the I'cnrihunier stopped to wash the elecampane roots, aiel cut them loose from the clusters In which he had been carrying them. He hail finished Ihe task and was storing them mvay in the pockets of his blouse when the song of a thrush from somewhere some-where up Ihe stream gradually worked Itself across his consciousness. The song puzzled him. There were notes certain little foreign Mights; a deeper witchery that he could not have believed possible to a thrush's throat. The I'earlhunler had n nice car for the sounds of Ihe woods. He Mole cautiously up the bank. The bound, v, hen ho bad drawt tpille near, did not nppeur to come from any tree, but from some place down close to the water of another pool another spot just ahead where the water stopped to rest. Parting the bushes with the utmost caution, he crept up to the edge of the pool and peered forth. A woman a girl sat on a fiat rock jutting out from the opposite bank, her bare feet swinging in the water, her body bent slightly back and propped on her The Man Flattened and Held His Breath. hands, her face uplifted, her puckered lips pouring forth the song that had drawn him to the spot. A sunbonnet swung from her arm ; her shoes and stockings lay upon the rock beside half an armful of wild roses. A twig flipped back into place as the Pearlhunter strained his face a little closer. The song stopped; the girl whirled her eyes toward the swaying twig. The man flattened and held his breath. But the woodland song was done. She slid back on the rock and reached for her stockings and shoes. Such feet ! The rough shoes she picked up dishonored them. It would be giving the Pearlhunter uncertain praise to say he didn't look. Besides, it wouhin't be true. He did look. It is but simple justice to him to state, also, that after the one glance a glance he could no more help than the branch could help flowing he dragged his eyes away and held them away till he heard the girl scramble to her feet on the rock. As she gathered up her armload of wild roses he had leisure to observe her. With the muss of color close to her face, it was hard to tell the one from the other the flowers from the face; where the roses left off and the face began. Her hair hung loose, soft and wavy the kind of hair a roguish shaft of nmrning sun can change to spun gold ; lips like the song moment ago upon them; eyes like the little patch of sky at the bottom of the pools eyes that opened wide; that had nothing noth-ing to conceal. She was turning to spring to the bank when the I'irlliuntor rose ami Quietly stepped through the hushes. She whirled; and the two stood slnr-ing slnr-ing at each other across ihe pool. The (lowers struggled from her arms and dringled down upor. the rocks. The Pearlliunter's eyes were the first to fall. Drugging off ins battered hat, half awkwar'lly, he bowed his head and strove for a word to justify his intrusion. But lie was slow of speech. Words came hard to him. After a time, his eyes traveled back across the pool; past the patch of sky at the bottom; up the side of the rock where her feet had dangled. The rock was bare. The girl laid gone. CHAPTER II. The Red Mask. Amazed at the woodcraft that had enabled the girl to disappear under his very eyes, without so much as ihe quiver of a leaf, the Pearlhunter crossed Ihe branch on the rlllle til Ihe lower edge of the pool, by springing from stone lo s'one, and went tip lo the rock. There lay the (lowers In scattered confusion a tumbled mass of refreshing color; the half an armful arm-ful of pink and white and red wild roses, lie picked up three a pink; a P-d; a while and stood gazing down upon them. The true woodsman woods-man Is instinctively a gentleman, lie did not know he did not try to know that the girl watched his every move from behind a big oak a few yards up the bank. "I.Ike her somehow," he ninllered. "Wild P.ose ! It might be her name. A name! I wonder what It's like to have a name I" A thought shadowed his face the old thought that always brought the cloud. His eyes narrowed; the lines of his mouth drew tense. Drawing the stems of the three roses through a buttonhole in his blouse, he strode away down the branch back to Fallen Hock. The languid eyes of the Iron-Gray-Woman turned toward him as he sprang In over the sawing gangplank, pushed aside the rumpled curtain, and entered the tiny cabin of the houseboat. house-boat. There was not so much fire In the eyes. The fever was going down with the sun. The thought his returning re-turning step had brought came out In her first words. "They who own the old cabin might not like us to move In." "They can only make us move out again," was his cheery answer. "And. mother, you never saw such a view-as view-as you get from up there. And you can drink right out of the spring." Something came to the face of the Iron-Gray-Woman that had long been a stranger there. Not a smile a ripple, rip-ple, like the swnth a chance breeze ruflles across still water. "But you can't carry everything." "Everything. And the first load shall he you." "Me!" "It would set you coughing to climb the slope." The woman dropped her eyes. After all, weakness Is not a pleasant fact to face. The loss of power, the inabiity to do accustomed things, always comes as a shock. Life had brought to the Iron-Gray-Woman little enough pitifully little enough. But though life be ever so bare and gray, no one likes to sit helpless and watch it go. Haply the young man sensed nothing noth-ing of this, but was already busy gathering together such of their meager stock of household goods as it would be absolutely necessary to carry up to the cabin under the cliff if the coming night was to be spent ashore. Nothing remained but the actual going ashore. His mother came first, as he had said. While packing, he had planned to help her up the hill to the spring and leave her there while he swept the old cabin, aired it out, put up the cook stove, ami otherwise made the place as sweet and inviting as possible for her occupancy. Just before passing through the rumpled curtain of the houseboat she stopped and gazed over the tiny cabin. "Just one look before I go," she said. He was astonished at the wlstful-ness wlstful-ness in her tones. "Why, mother, you can come back any minute." "It has been my home for twenty years," site said as she turned away, her tone more the voicing of a reflection reflec-tion than the statement of a fact. Across the gangplank and up the slope among the trees he led her carried her with till the tenderness due from n man to his mother; for the Iron-Giay-Woman had the manners man-ners and speech of a "lady of high degree;" and site had taught him all she knew. He had brought along a cushion, which he spread for her upon a moss-upholstered rock. Willi the spray of the waterfall in the air. with (he cup in her hand, the cool spring within reach, be left her and hurried back to the houseboat. The sun was dipping low toward the dislant bend in Ihe river when Ihe last of the moving was done. A purple twilight had given place to dark before he had the cabin put to rights, his moih.T in her easy chair, and supper on the table: a bass, taken from the nets nr'y that morning; fruit from the woods; baked potatoes; pota-toes; toast, crisp and brown; and ten. which she had left her chair long enough to draw. In the contented silence that often falls after the evening meal, the man sat covertly studying her face. '" I fever had gone. It was a face aitao serene. She appeared, as he watched her, to be listening to the sound of the waterfall floating In through the open window upon the pulse of the night. The move bad done her good, lie thought how beautiful she must have been how beautiful still. Her words that afternoon came back to him the only word that bad over come lo him out of the past. The desire to learn more grew In him. and yet he dreaded to speak. The Iron-Crav-Womiin was not one to invite confidences. And yet a man might lo know something of the manner of Ills coming Into the world. The cabin laid setl'ed to deep iptiel ; the lap of the waterfall hail swelled to full strength upon Ihe silence; when the cabin door hanged open and a man stormed In. The Pearlhunter whirled up out of his chair and faced him. The Inlrinler was a man of forty, possibly more, lacking somewhat of the Pearlliunter's height and massive build, yet still what would be called n big man tight and well set up smooth shaven, except for an aggressive aggres-sive mustache faintly shot with gray, lie wore a slouch hat, top hoots, frock coat, and a very fancy and much-he-flowcretl vest. Ills blue eyes the kind of blue thnt turns black when roused had an uncomfortable knarts of seeming to see everything in sight. They were just now flitting furtively, a bit contemptuously, over the tall figure fig-ure of the young man facing him. "You're the fellow they call the Pearlhunter?" The gray eyes of the man addressed were blazing; his fingers manifesting an almost uncontrollable inclination to tuck themselves inte his palms; but he held himself and answered civilly: "They do call me that." "What are you doing In this cabin?" "Is it yours?" "No difference whether it is or whether it isn't. It's no place for river scum to wash ashore." A stranger ought to be pretty sure of himself before he says a thing like that, especially when he says it the way the Mau-in-the-Fancy-Yest said it. He didn't know the Tearihunter not as the river men knew him or he would have considered a long time first. Almost any river man along the Wabash could have told him that tilings would happen. Things did happen. Still, It probably would have been just the same anyhow. A wildcat couldn't have dodged the toil-calloused fist that stabbed across the candlelight. candle-light. It caught the intruder flat in the mouth and pitched him back against the door, which slammed to the wall, and thus saved him from going go-ing clear to the floor. He was up in a flash. His hand dropped toward his hip. That Is always al-ways a dangerous motion to make In the Fiatwoods; never more so than just then and there. The Pearlhunter had anticipated such a move. His own hand reached his hip the flash of a second ahead. The two stood eyeing each other, crouched and tense. There came a scream from the Iron-Gray-Woman. She had risen from her chair. The rearlhunter dared not look, but he saw the eyes of the man he faced turning Irresistibly toward the sound. With the first glance a . startling change came over him ; his eyes strained ; stared ; his hand left his hip and went to his face. He straightened and shrank back against the cabin door. The Pearlhunter Pearl-hunter dared not look around, yet he knew his mother was coming. With a step he would not have believed It possible for her to take she was between be-tween them, her face ablaze with imperious im-perious dignity; her eyes like the panther pan-ther before the door of her den. She had shod her weakness as a mantle. The intruder cowered ; his lips moved. She raised her hand and pointed to the door. Again he tried to speak. Her body stiffened ; her arm grew rigid. Like a man compelled to retreat re-treat before a blaze, he half turned and backed away. The Pearlhunter followed him. trailed him up the bluffs, through the woods and out to the river road, where it came down from the north, right angled east and led away up the river to the village. When he hurried hack his mother was again in her chair, the Imperious outburst over, spent and trembling. She looked up at him curiously. He thought she was about to speak. She hesitated: looked down. "I haven't seen him for twenty years. He's the the other man." The Pearlhunter started; glanced quickly at her. She was rocking back It Caught the Intruder Flat In the Mouth. and forth, the lingers of her thin hands lacing and unlacing nervously. The breeze from the door was guttering gut-tering the candle. lie crossed the floor to close It. As he brought It around, it scraped a small packet ahead of II along ihe floor. He picked il up and, after closing the door, carried car-ried II to the candle. Il was not bigger big-ger than the length and width of n man's two thumbs, and was wrapped In brown paper. He unrolled it. The first glance, as the folds fell apart and a hit of cloth dropped upon 'lie table, brought ;i startled exclamation from him. It was a red mask. The Iron-Giay-Woman left her chair and came to Ihe table. The two of them stood staring down upon the bit of flaming cloth. The Blue Moon. O'U UK CUiVl'INUKD.) |