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Show Vanishing I Men t A I I f Richard ; Washburn J cm (Coi-rlcht by E. P. Dutton & C0 WNU Service, CHAPTER XIX Continued 15 "Xow he goes running out along the trails searching for something. Look ! Here! He ran out along the base of the wall searching." "For what?" "For bits of wood for anything that would burn for fuel. He must have a funeral pyre. He has been crazed by fear again. But he finds nothing, Urena. There is no wood here, no paper, no grass. There's nothing but sand and stone. Let him run about till he drops. There Is no mercy for Mm. Nothing that will burn. Nothing within a half a hundred miles. Like Hennepin, he too now screams and the scream comes back from the cliff with a terrible mockery." But he did find fuel, Peter," she faiil.. "He must have found something'' some-thing'' "Yes, he found something that would do not very well, as we can see. He had hoped for better results than he got. Come." On the way toward the gate of the fortification walls Peter stopped and kicked at a blackened spot on the sand. He said laconically, "Their fire. Wliere they ate their last supper togetherthe to-getherthe vanished men." The sun had dropped below the mountains , above the mesa ; Its needled lire had settled down into a hot layer of dull, sullen heat. But beyond the wall where their car stood the open desert, bare, cruel, with the heat waves running like endless' herds of sheep along the quivering horizon, was a relief from that strange spell of the dried well, the ruins, the fine yellow-gray dust, and the silence. Brena filled her lungs as one does who has come from the interior of a mortuary. "Petjr," she said. yes, uear. "I want to tell you, Peter, that you need not worry about me. I am all right. It is necessary for me to know. And I'm going to know, Peter, without with-out any weakening. We've come too far for that." He took her hand. "I'm not willing to let this make a scar on me, Peter," she said. "I've paid in full before this. So show me. And then lat's turn toward the earning earn-ing of our ways." "Our way," he insisted, correcting her. "Not ways. The earning of our way. together." She shook her head a little as if some doubt had stirred within, but iliey- were outside the wall now and i'fter's eyes were upon that which he had seen before. He dropped behind her and turned , hiT body so that she faced toward the bend In the southern end of the lutt ilitatioa wall. "There," said he. "You did not see il as we drove in." Standing on the desert, like a ragged unkempt Impropriety, was the ruin of a touring car. All that was left of its i"P was hanging In wispy strips on "'f metal frame, its paint and varnish had uhnost gone, the tires had hardened and crumbled on the wheels, nhi-Hls of dry rotted leather dangled from the cushions. Motionless, dead, silent as all else, the car, as if it v''re a shabby outcast thrown out to l'u appeared disconsolate, ready to fc'nri forth a wail of loneliness into l he emptiness. It had turned Its back H'n Pueblo Mescalero, as If it had wanted to go away but could not. "He came in that, Peter?" Brena asked. "Yes."-. "Hut never took It away. Did he kill l ...1W "No." I'cter answered. "A great abstract ab-stract justice a great equity from which there was no appeal sat In 'rial of him here. I tell you, Brena, H'e thh'g Is of magnificent, awe-inspir-h'S dignity. It's u tremendous thing - an unforgettable majesty of lnexor-"hle lnexor-"hle dealing out of sentences. The place of his crime was the scene of 'us trial, hlg conviction and sentence. hp died as Hennepin had died of ihirst." .brena started to speak. "No, not yet." Peter said. "As Ilen-"Pl'in Ilen-"Pl'in had suffered, so he suffered. lrp, perhaps, because -in his car just as we have he had a two-days' supply of water. Do you see tliat bacl; thing out there on the desert? 11 Is a metal container for water. He "us so crazed that he had tried to llrS H along with him on a hopeless Journey through the sand. When he wst nope after many miles he dragged 1 hack, tapping Its contents to wet crsu-king lips until the last drop was Kone." "But the car?" she asked. "What N'I'ened to the car?" 'Thenar was all right," replied Pt. Come tills way. Pon't go in 'f it. Look behind It the cks u i,fl nl!ute from the ptl(.0?ur(, Irnce. But here it stopped. Oh. e" you, tt is a thing of UeUuess " If some great head tut! com down." Brena stared at him ta eOTem wonderment. ''He was the Instrument of Justice -he himself," Peter went on. "A man who would save his life, lost it. The madness of fear brought all that be had to fear ami more." He paused. 'Brena, I will tell you," he said In " hushed, awed voice. "The man was mad, Irresponsible, without power to reason. ne was in g pan,c o fear He wanted to hide his crime at anv cost. He had filled his gasoline tank for the return Journey. Look !" Peter pointed to the hole In the back of the car Into which the gasoline is poured. The screw cap had gone. A bent copper pipe still dangled out of that hole. He wanted a hat-full of gasoline. That was the fuel, Brena the fuel to burn the remains of Jim Hennepin." He wet his lips. "He used a siphon. This bent copper cop-per pipe taken from his tool chest a spare length of oil feed pipe! And with that he filled his hut and ran back." Peter looked up into the sky. He went on quietly. "And the siphon ran on. lie had forgotten it. It ran on with its little stream saturating the sand until the tank was empty and the heat of the clay was evaporating the last drops at the bottom. I'armalee had condemned himself to death ! He had lost the fuel he had put in for the return Journey !" Brena pressed her lips tightly together to-gether and for many moments looked Into the great fanlike spread of the sunset. Then suddenly she turned toward the car and took several steps. "No," said Peter firmly. "You mustn't." "I. must know, Peter, beyond a shadow of a doubt." "He is there nothing for you to see. dear. He must have bad the delusion at last that he could drive the car. He's there at the wheel fallen forward. for-ward. And so " She looked up. "And eo to be sure I took the watch a gold one this one. Is it his?" He held it out on the palm of his hand. "Y'es, it is his, Peter." He looked down at It a moment ; then tossed it Into the sand as one tosses aside a poisonous fungus. "Peter." "Yes." "We mustn't let this go with tis when we go following us away. We must leave them both here." She took his hand. "I am sure. For myself I can answer. an-swer. I know the desert has served some great Will. The book is closed." ' They slept upon one great square blanket spread on the open desert beneath the stars while the pale moon moved on its great silver arc across tbe heavens. The Pueblo Mescalero was far behind ; from it they had ridden rid-den for miles in awed silence. And when they had reached a stopping place upon a rise of ground, neither had dared an expression. Aching with weariness they had looked at each other mutely and flung themselves down. Now the second morning, like the first, came over the desert's edge with a host of golden lances; again the air of the desert became a haze of luminous lumi-nous violet hanging above the red and yellow sands and waiting for that clang when the yellow glare was flung forward again over tbe plain. Brena awoke, sat up, unbraided her hair and tossed it loose with her fingers. fin-gers. Something within her, that had been growing with the slow growth of stalwart long life, that had suffered no blight, that subconsciously she had protected and nurtured for an unseen end, that had been made ready to withstand with-stand assaults by tragic winds, that had lived apart and immune from taint, was now free. As she threw cut her arms toward the sun, so now this thing within her for the first time came forth from Its depths fo greet a dawn of its own. It was not a thing asking for dramatic dra-matic crises or for summits of joy; it only asked for the ultimate romance thai of the continuity of a full. strong, human life tbe adventure of adventures into which the soul throws mind ami body, thought and flesh, nerve and will. And because she had found her mate in this ultimate ro- i,.v,.i hpnt over and kissed maiice, - Peter's lips. He smiled in bis sleep, and slowly his body moved and his eyes opened. "Where are we going, Peter?" she asked. ., , , , . -. Somewhere with you, he said, sit-tin" sit-tin" up. 'Somewhere with you. I suppose we'll have to be married, dear "one But I feel that we were something some-thing more than that a long, long time "Tie turned toward the east and tha first tSood of golden light illumined his face. -Do you know. Brena. that there is something not weighed by science and ihe philosophies, not reckoned by governments gov-ernments nor laws nor customs. It is something that is ours-some newborn new-born thing without material existence. so. immortal spirit that we have crenied-vou and I-long ago. l'rena moved her heml up and down l 'silent assent. She sat with her lunds clasped in her lap her Our eves moist, and a calm smile upon her sensitive, flexible HPS- For now she knew that he too nn derstood tbe way to tbe greatest of all the mysteries. THE ENDI |