OCR Text |
Show The White Desert BY COURTNEY RILEY COOPER (I opyright 19J2 Little, Brown &. Co.) BEGDi HERB TOD : Fate hid seen fit to shape the life of young bnkky HOUSTON inti. n series, or tragic molds, a bitter experience tn his past caused h;s lather to lost faith in hi son and therefore! bequeath to him timber holdings In Tnhemacle onl on cbhditton thai s high out-put be maintained Mysterious uecldents have prevented prevent-ed this and Houston, arriving from Hosion, find that this is due to the treachery of Ids mill superintendent, FRED THAYER. Houston is assisted assist-ed In his work in the timber count r; BVTISTE UENAll'. an eccentric French-Canadian, whose life has l.een saddened by the double tragedy of his sou'h death in France and the unsolved murder of his wife. Houston discharges Thayer despite the remonstrances of 'AGNES J 1 ERDON. a girl who has a mysterious hold over Houston. The mill is burned Houston decides to carry on the right when hfl is confronted with a forged lease which turns his timber rights OVe? to i neighboring lumber company. Houston claims he doesn't remember remem-ber signing su. b a lease I". the presence of MBDAINE RUHIN'ETTE to whom Houston is attracted. Thayer sns Houston probably doesn't remembe,-the remembe,-the night he murdered his cousin TOM LANODON. GO ON WITH THE STORY White-hot with anger. Barry Houston Hous-ton lurched forward, to find himself caught in the arms of the sheriff and thrown back. He whirled nd atofiped. looking with glazed. deadened dead-ened eyes into the blanched, horrified horri-fied features of a girl who evidently had heard the accusation, a gin v. ho stood, poised In revulsion a moment before she turned, and, almost running run-ning hurried to mount her horse and rldo awa. And tho strength of anger left the muscles of Barry Houston The red flame of indignation indigna-tion turned to a sodden, dead thing He could only realize that Medalncj Roblnette had heard him accused without a single statement given in bis own behalf that Medalne, the Klrl of his smoke-wreathed dreams, now fully and thoroughl believed him a murderer! CHAPTER IX Dully, Houston turned bark to the sheriff and to tho goggleeyed Ba'tiste, trying to fathom P all. Weakly ho motioned mo-tioned toward Thayer, and bin words when they came, were hollow and expressionless. ex-pressionless. "That's a Ilo, Sheriff. I'll admit that I havo been accused of murder. I was acquitted. Tou say that nothing noth-ing counts but the court action and that's all I have to say in my behalf In regard to this: I'll obey the court order until I ran prove to the judge's satlsfaicuon that Ihls whole thing It fraud and a fake. in the mean-1 while, almost plteously. "do you carol 10 go with me, Ba'tiste"'' Heavily, silently, the French-Cana-dtaU joined him. and together they walked down the narrow road to thej camp. Neither spoke for a long time "Well. Ba'tiste." came in strained j tones, "I might as well hear it now. j You'll only bo lcalng a sinking ship " "What you do?" "That depends entirely on you If you've with me, 1 fight. If not : well frankly I don't know." Member the mill, when he burn down?" "Yes." "You no believe B'leese did heem. Well, now I no believe either! ' Honestly, Ba'tiste?" Houston had gripped tho other man's arm. "You don't believe It? Y'ou don't ' "Ba'teese believe M'sleu Houston Wiu look like rny I'ierre Mv IMerre, he could do no wrong Ba'teese satisfy." satis-fy." , It sent, a iipw flow Of blood through, the veins of Barry Houston that j simple, quirt ptatemenl of the old trapper His voice bore a vibrant, tone, almost of exeltement. "I m going back to Boston tonight I m going to lind out about this There's fraud, Ba'tiste and 1 II prove it If I can get back to Boston Miss Jierdon knows the truth about this whole thing every step of the way. Will you tell her" "Oul. B'teese tell her abou the flume and M'sleu Thayer, what he say. You go Boston tonight?" "Yes." Weazened, wrinkle-faced little Jenkins Jen-kins met him at the Boston office. "You're back, Mr. Houston! I didn't know whether to send tho notice from the Mountain, Plains and Salt Lake Railroad. It Just came yesterday" yester-day" Abstractedly, Houston picked it up and glanced at th specifications. "Jenkins!" Houston's voice was sharp, Insistent. The weazened man entered, rubbing his hands. 'Have we any stumpage eontracts?" "Only one, sir " "One? What!" The one you signed, sir. to Thayer nnd Blackburn, Just a week or so before you started out West. Don't you remember. lr; you signed It. together with a lease for tho Hume site and lako?" "I signed nothing of the sort." "You certainly did, sir." "You're lying!" "I don't He. sir. I attested the signature and saw you read both contracts. Pardon sir, but If any one's lying, sir It's yourself!" CHAPTER X Ton minutes after that, Barry nous-ton nous-ton was alone in his office. Jenkins was gone, discharged; and Houston felt s sort f.f relief In (he knowledge that he hud departed. Herreturncd to Tabernacle and at- tempted the only solution, he must' secure timber from Medaine Robin-1 ette and bid on the rallroa'". con-, tract. Houston felt that he would be presuming pre-suming to ask it of her himself a Btrajlfa agalnut whom had com'1 'he accusation of murder Tel. withal, in a way, he welcomed the chance to' si'C Ikt nnd to seek to explain to her the deadly thrusts which l'r- I Thayer I had ent agulnsl him. Medaine c hand trembled lightly as shi extended It to Ba'tiste. Houe-ton Houe-ton she received with a bow forrefi, ho thought "We have come for business. Medaine." Me-daine." Ua'tlste annnunecj. ".M'sleu' Houston, he have need for flume1 site." She seemed to hesitate then and, Houston took a sudden resolve. It: might as well be now as later. "Miss Roblnette," ho began, coming com-ing forward. "I realize that all th.s need some explanation. BapeoJally," and he halted, "about myself " Houston came directly to the question. ques-tion. ' It s simply this, Miss Rottineite. if am guilty of those thlngi you She sessmed to hesitate and Houston' took a sudden resolve. don't want to have anything to do with me. But I am here to tell youj that T am not guilty, and that It all! has been a horrible blunder of circumstance cir-cumstance Tt is very true In ono senso " and his voice lowered "that about two years ago In Boston, I was arrested and tried for murder." "So Mr. Thayer said." "I was acquitted. but not for the reason Thayer gave. They couldn't moke a case. A worthless cousin. Tom Langdon, was murdered. They said I did it with a wooden mallet which I had taken from a prize! fight, and which had been used toj hammer on the Kong for the begin-' ntng and tho end of the rounds I had been seen to tako It from tho fleht. and It was found the next morning besldo Langdon. There was human blood on iv. I had been tho last person seen with Langdon But they couldn't convince the Jury I went free, as I should have done. I was innocent." Houston, white now with the memories mem-ories and with the necessity of retailing re-tailing irain In the presence of a girl uho. to him, atood for all that' SSBgtfgSSSBSp. could mean happiness, gritted hlsj teeth for the determination to go oni with the grjsly thing, to hide nothing m the answers to the question which she might ask. But Medaine Robln- ette. standing beside the window, the color gone from her cheeks, one hand finporlng the curtains, eyes turned i without, gave no eldonce that she I had heard "I hadn t seen Tom Iangdon in' I five years. Always had looked on I him as a sort of black sheep. He Mked for my father and appeared anxious to see him. I told him that father was out of town. Then ho said he would stay In Boston until ho came back, that he had information for him that was of tho greatest Importance, Im-portance, and that whon ho told father what It was. that ho, Laok-don, Laok-don, could havo anything my father possused in tho way ef a Job and competence for Ufo. It sounded liko! blackmail I could think of nothing elee coming from Tom Langdon I and I told him so. That was un-j un-j fortunate. There were several per- sons in my office at the time He resented tho statement and we quar-j rclcd. They heard It and later testl-j testl-j fled He suggosted that we go to! dinner together and Insisted upon it There was nothing to do but aequl-lesce, aequl-lesce, especially aa I now was trylny to. draw from him something of what had brought him there. We had wine Oh," and he swerved suddenly sud-denly toward the woman at the window. win-dow. "I'm not trying to make anv excuses for myself. We left the cafe, he fairly intoxicated, myself greatly so Wo saw tho advertisement of n prize fight and went, gottlng seats near the ringside They weren't . close enough for me I bribed a fellow fel-low to let me sit at the presti stand next to the timekeeper, and worried him until he let me have tho mallet au.USln to 8trlke th gonK "The fight was exciting especially especial-ly to mo in my condition l was standinK most of the time, even Jean-Ing Jean-Ing on the ring. Once, while in this position, one of the men, who was 'bleeding, waj knocked down. Ht struck ihe mallet. H b!Jl L ered with blood. No one nofiee that, except m)i-V' 1 one was too excited. A m5Sjftg and tho fight was over T!J1 the mallei In my Pockl'J'. 7HV one who oared to hear "'J rR rying away a souvenir. 41 I went out together. ulU V, started li..nie lr nouneed that he vg !!JM the night with me "' h- ard him. It ,1 JSMh, house an I we l"J"d ''.'JSE the nav, he demanded jnnWI J himself and pulled mM po, u el J struggled w.3mHik finally, however, to M IJMl' iwoy I ! bed. About four o clocK nK, Ing I was awakened iBNt Th.... hnd found Turn U U, with his skull crushed, 1 the blow of a club or Thev said I did it " v-tfjWi. (Continued in Our ifjCi |