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Show Tie Laimi V Arthur Stringer jf JK 7 W. N. U. Service V J a'"T'UVS ' Kl) A st" tlM e 'S, rrU""l" native claim n unproven mine n. La.utor. an eKlneer tor u i t'HAI'TKlt XIV ! "tamka now on the map. ; Ihe colonists had arrived i en.lv i'-'f. rromis Lnd. appar-; appar-; '. duln;, live up to their expec- 't'ons or all they found were un. ' "'slu-d roads and harried onlcials a. d lumber piles nd an impromptu nty of tents along the valley flats army tents i rows as Tegllar &s a wooden floor and boarded side walls and a smoke pipe going up tiom its roof. There was no teaching for the ehalk-vvrangler yesterday when word "em round that the first trainload 1 of the colonists was on its way up from Seward, and Katie O'Connell was hurried over from Toklutna , to look after Uie women and chil-dien. chil-dien. And since I was detailed to stand right-hand man to Katie, I ! was there to help make boilers' of coffee and watch the disembarking of the disheveled and sea-worn army. ! But the note they struck was not ' always epic. I could see women still petulant ! over their weeks of homelessness. surrounded like ship-wrecked sailors j by what they could salvage from their long-traveled belongings. I , doled out coffee and sandwiches to ; toil-hardened tillers of the plains and drouth-wizened cattle-raisers from valley farms and Mackinawed I ax-wielders from wooded slopes. I tried to give them a welcoming word J or two as they stared gloomily i about at their Arctic El Dorado and i herded their children up to the grub i tables. The fact they were to live ! in tents, it was plain, didn't appeal . to them. i It was the young people, to whom Alaska meant excitement and Mata-nuska Mata-nuska spelled romance, who crowded crowd-ed about the cameras lanky youths and laughing girls, not in the slatted sunbonnets of earlier free-soilers, but in the sweaters and slacks of their own blilhe generation. And there were children, slathers of children.- with tousled heads and toys in their hands, staring wide-eyed at the white peaks of the Talkeetnas and lustily proclaiming to the world they were hungry. "You belong in these parts?" a petulant voice inquired of me as I refilled the coffeepots. I found myself my-self confronted by a rotund matriarch matri-arch with a terrace of chins and eight obstreperous children. I said that Matanuska was now my home. "Can't say you look like a girl who'd been brought up on whale blubber," observed my new friend, who asserted that her name was Betsy Sebeck. "But them cock-eyed bureaucrats, of course, ain't got anvthiro reariv Thprp ain't even water, they tell me, in them two-by-four tents. And they ain't got lamps when they told us we was to be steam-heated and lit by electricity!" elec-tricity!" Things will straighten out," I said as I caught sight of Lander haranguing a group of grumbling free-soilers. "But there ain't even blankets enough to go round." persisted Betsy. Bet-sy. "And if I don't get at a wash-tub wash-tub before the week's out them kids o' mine will have to go naked." The bureaucrats. I discovered, had declined to bring in a piano for ber, had lost two of her trunks, and were now trying to stow her away in a back-row tent which her man wouldn't accept They'd even failed to stock the Commissary up properly, proper-ly, she lamented, and that'd mean, of' course, going without grapefruit and ice cream. But even in the midst of all that confusion and complaining I wanted to cling to the claim there was something epic about the migration. That fact came home to me more than ever when I stood under an azure Alaskan sky that arched above the blue-ravined slopes of mountains towering up to stately peaks of white and watched the two hundred family fam-ily heads draw lots for their farm plots. For fate, of course, reposed in that little wooden box that held the plot numbers, since a few of the farmsites were already cleared and fenced and blessed with cabins, while others were swampy and unbroken un-broken forest. And as the lucky and the unlucky crowded about a big map of the valley, to determine the position and state of their tracts, there was much cheering and grumbling grum-bling and groaning. Salaria, deep-bosomed and Indian-brown, Indian-brown, drifted up to my table and viewed the scene with a hp curl of contempt. There she was Joined by Sock-Eye. waiting and watchful for the first open jeer from one of those preoccupied cheechakos. "Looks Uke a potlatch f me. observed ob-served Salaria. "A potlatch with Uncle Sam passin' out forty-acre farms instead o' two-bit kruves. And Zsi o- these poor coots don't even know what they're gittin . Sock-Eye spat dourly Into the road dU'They think they're gittin' seething see-thing for nothing." he averred. But them giloots'U be about as happy THE STOltY SO KAR Trumbull Co.. which Is llnhlini; the Co-bum Co-bum claim, breaks with Trumbull. But ha remains entailed to Trumbull's daughter, riaibnru. Salaria Rrysun. on outdoors Kill, is also In love with Lnn-ter. Lnn-ter. Lander becomes Held manager tor INSTALLMENT XII In this valley as blncksnake on an ice block." "Lander says there's a shortage of axes and work tools," I was prompted to explain. "Of course there is," exulted Salaria. Sa-laria. "They've got grand electric coffee-grinders but no power f run 'em. They've got a string o' thresh-In' thresh-In' machines, but no crops in V thresh." "And stoves over there rustin' In the rain," added Sock-Eye, "but no-whores no-whores f put 'em. And a mountain o' them new-fangled enamel sinks and no kitchens f set 'em up in. And a carload o' harness, by gad, and no workhorses f buckle it on." The tumult had subsided and the shadows were growing longer and I could see smoke going up from the unbroken line of smoke pipes before Katie was able to join me at my alfresco coffee table. "They're pretty well settled," she said as she munched a sandwich between her strong white teeth. "But 1 wish Ruddy was here." I asked her why. She postponed her answer until she had polished off her sandwich and reached for her second cup of coffee. "There's a baby over there I don't like the looks of." she finally announced. an-nounced. "What's wrong with it?" I questioned. ques-tioned. "I don't know, yet," she said as she bit into a sandwich. Then her eyes became ruminative. "Wouldn't it be sweet if measles got into this little family circle. Or scarletina! Or even whooping cough." Her tired 2 "They're pretty well settled," she said. looking eyes surveyed the row of white-walled tents. "There's six hundred hun-dred kids in that camp, in one mad huddle, and not a roof over their head if a bug or two got into their blood!" I asked if they all hadn't had medical inspection. "They're supposed to," admitted Katie. "But if I know my onions there's a father of seven over in that line-up who won't last long. He's plainly tubercular. And there's a Michigan woman who's been having labor pains all the way up from Seward." Sew-ard." "What does that mean?" I asked with a qualm of dismay. "It means," said the weary-eyed Katie, "that we can't sit here enjoying en-joying the scenery. You'll have to scrub up, old-timer, and help me with the delivery." Two hours later' I heard the first faint wail of the first baby born in the Matanuska Colony. CHAPTER XV If I'm the lamp in the valley I've got to burn with a brighter wick. Colonel Hart called me Into Headquarters Head-quarters and told me I was to have a schoolhouse as soon as they could find a building that would suit the purpose. The real school, he explained, ex-plained, couldn't go up until next year. But if the Colony children could be grouped into classes of some sort, and a teacher rotated among them, there might be less grumbling from the parents and less hell-raising by the youngsters. So for two or three weeks, he proceeded, I'd have to do the best I could as a circuit-rider teacher The first call on the workers, of course, was to get homes built. I suggested that a portable blackboard black-board would be a help, since a blackboard was to a teacher what a throne was to a king, the seat and symbol of his power. "All right." the man at the desk answered across his mountain of blueprints. "Tell that bunch of transient tran-sient workers out there to make your board and make it pronto Tell them I said so." So I sallied forth to where six flannel-shirted CCC workers were languidly piling lumber at the track side I ignored a " t' audible. the Matanuska Valley project. He takes Curol to a camp dance and he tells her of his love. She reminds him of Harbara. Truly, their paths have crossed many times by now. but Barbara still remains a barrier to their romance. "Pipe the peach!" as I approached them. I merely Informed them of the Administrator's order for the concoction of a four-by-six portable blackboard. "You can have anything we've got, baby-eyes," said one. And still another coyly observed that his own schooling wasn't all it should have been and it seemed about time to be starting over. It wasn't, of course, as bad as It sounded, being carried on with that half-respectful and heavy-jointed Jocularity peculiar to the regions where life is rough and chivalry is apt to stay in Its shirt-sleeves. And, for all their banter, they assured as-sured me I'd have my board, neatly nailed together and ebonized with a flat coat of lampblack. They even promised to have it at my cabin the next day. I rather overlooked their eagerness eager-ness to know just where that cabin was. And It would all have worked out better, I imagine, if they hadn't first gone over to Wasilla where flourishes the valley's only open bar. and where they were joined by a dozen or two other transients. There, at any rate, they plainly drank more moose-milk than was good for them. I could hear them as they came in a body toward my cabin clearing, singing as they came: "Oh, then, my Booska, Don't you cry for me. For I'm off to Matanuska With the teacher on my knee." Someone with an accordion was leading them in that familiar old pioneer pi-oneer tune. But I didn't find the newer wording altogether to my liking. I closed and fastened my door. I pretended to be writing at my table end, sitting there, rather anxiously, anx-iously, as they worked pole ends under the sill logs and tried to impart im-part a ship-at-sea motion to my small cabin. But they soon tired of that, finding the shack too heavy to be converted into a rocking chair. So they proceeded to serenade me, more noisily than ever. And to the general din they added a salvo or two of revolver shots. When I realized real-ized that one of the faces peering in at the window was that of the fire-eating Eric Ericson I found the last of my patience ebbing away When they started to pound on the door again, this time with one of their heavier poles, I could see that it would soon go down under their blows. And that not only brought the light of battle into my eye but prompted me to cross to the dish shelf and reach for Sock-Eye's old revolver. Then I lifted away the crossbar and swung the door open. But instead of shrinkins back thev began to laugh at me and my threatening threat-ening firearm. They could see hesitation, hesi-tation, I suppose, in the very way I held that old six-gun. It was Eric the Red who swayed closest to me. "Mightn't it go off. angel-eyes?" he taunted. "It will," I warned him, "unless you stand back." I could even feel an impulse to resent his mockery stiffen my finger on the trigger. But he was too quick for me. With an unexpected upsweet of his hand he knocked my arm above my head. The shock of that blow made the revolver go off, high in the air, and before the smoke cleared away they were crowding in closer, pretending to be fighting for its possession. I could see. by their laughing faces, that they rather rath-er liked my struggles. But they made it a point to keep my right hand pinioned above my head. "It mustn't lose its temper." said Ericson, with his face close to mine. He even passed mockingly admiring fingers across my tumbled forelock. And as I shrank back from that odious touch a motor truck of battleship-gray, came clattering across the clearing. It wasn't until I saw him pushing in through the crowd that I realized the newcomer was Lander. He scattered scat-tered the startled transients right and left as he came. A heavier-bodied heavier-bodied man, who tried to block his way, went suddenly flat on the door-yard door-yard soil as my rescuer's fist thudded thud-ded against bis jaw. The crowd was no longer laughing. Ericson, close to me in the doorway, door-way, half-turned to fathom the reason rea-son for the sudden silence. And I could see Lander's mouth harden into a grimmer line as he saw and recognized that half-turned face. The mallet-like fist, swinging for the second time, sent my tormentor tor-mentor sprawling in across the cabin cab-in Moor. He lay there, face-down, as Lander turned on the resentful group behind him. They fell back a little, milling and shouting as they went. But they ai least fell back. Lander, stooping down from his towering height, lifted lift-ed Ericson from the floor and flung him out through the open door Then he reached for the revolver still Hutched in my hand and took il away fn m me in in-, comm. 1 1 |