The Washington herald., 1914-05-10

Thus remained. until I beard my
dogs snarling, and mans voice. What
do you think the voice said? will tell
you. 1t said: Where in hell did you
come from?'
Those were the words, the exact
words. That was what your other grand
father said to me. Hare-Lip, when he
greeted me there on the shore Of Lake
were the most ineffable words I have
ever heard. opened my eyes. and there
he stood before me, a large. dark. hairy
man, heavy jawed. slant browed. fierce
eyed. How I got of my horse 1 do not
know. But 1t seemed that the next
knew I was clasping his hand with both
of mine and crying. 1 would have en-
braced him, but he was ever narrow
minded. suspicious man. and he drew
away from me. Yet did I cling to his
hand and cry.
Granser's voice faltered and broke at
the recollection, and the weak tears
streamed down his cheeks while the boys
looked on and giggled.
Yet did 1 cry" he continued, and
desire to embrace him. though the Chauf-
feur was a brute, q perfect brute-the
most abhorrent man have ever known.
His name was strange. how
have forgotten his name. Everybody
called him Chauffeur-it was the name Of
his occupation. and It stuck. That is how.
to this day, the tribe he founded Is
called the Chauffeur Tribe.
He was a violent. unjust man. Why
the plague spared him can never IN
derstand. It would seem, in spite of our
old metaphysical notions about absolute
Justice. that there IL no Justice in the
universe. Why did he live?-an iniqui-
tous. moral monster. q blot on the face
Of nature. a cruel. relentless. bestial cheat
as we'll All he could talk about was
motor cars, machinery. gasoline, and
gareges-and especially. and with hugo
delight, Of his mean offerings and sordid
swtndnngs of the persons who had en-
ployed him in the days before the COM
Ing Of the plague. And yet he was spared.
while hundreds of millions. yea. billions.
Of better men were destroyed.
'T went on with him to his camp, and
there I saw her. Vesta, the one woman.
It was glorious and pftiful. There
she was, vesta Van Warden, the young
wife of John Ven Warden. clad in rags,
with marred and SCARED and toil-cal-
loused hands, bending over the campfire
and doing scullion work-she, vesta.
who had been born to the purple Of the
greatest baronage of wealth the world
has ever known. John Van Warden, her
husband. worth one billion eight hum
dred millions. and President of the Board
Of Industrial Magnates, had been the
ruler of America. Also. sitting on the
Board of Control, he had
been one of the seven men who ruled
the world. And she herself had come Of
equally noble stock. Her father. Philip
Saxon, had been president of the Board
Of Industrial Magnates up to the time
Of his death. This Office was in process
Of becoming hereditary. and had Philip
Saxon had a son that son would have
him. But his only child was
Vesta, the perfect flower of generations
Of the highest culture this planet has
ever produced. 1t was not until the en-
yagement between Vesta and Van War |
len took place that Saxon indicated the |
latter as his successor. II was, I am |
sure. a political marriage. 1 have rea-
son to believe that Vesta never really |
loved her husband in the mad, passion !
ate way of which the poets used TO |
sing. 1t was more like the marriages |
that obtained among crowned heads in |
the days before they were displaced by |
the magnates.
And there she was boiling fish |
chowder in a soot-covered pot, her glori-
Gus eyes inflamed by the acrid smoke of
the open fire. Here was a sad story. She |
was the one survivor in a million, as
had been. as the Chauffeur had been. On |
4 browning eminence of the Alameda
Hills, overlooking San Francisco Bay.
Van Warden had built vast summer
palace. 1t was surrounded by a park Of
thousand acres. When the plague
broke out, Van Warden sent her there
Armed guards patrolled the boundaries
If the park. and nothing entered in the I
way of provisions or even mail matter
hat was not first fumigated And yet
lid the plague enter. killing the guards
II their posts, the servants at their tasks.
sweeping away the whole army of retain
least. all them who did not flee
70 die elsewhere. So it was that Vesta
ound herself the sole living person in
he palace that had become a charnel
house,
Now the Chauffeur had been one Of
he servants that ran away. Returning,
two months afterward. he discovered
Vesta In a little summer pavilion where
here had been no deaths and where she
lad established herself. He was a brute
She was afraid. and she ran away and
lid among the trees. That night, on
DOT, she fed into the mountains-she,
whose tender feet and delicate body had
lever known the bruise Of stones nor
he scratch of briars. He followed, and
hat night he caught her. He struck
Ter. Do you understand? He beat her
With those terrible fists of his and made
Ter his slave. 1t was she who had to
ather the firewood, build the fires, cook
nd do all the degrading camp labor
he, who had never performed a mental
ct in her life. These things he COM
elled her to do, while he. a proper saw
ge, elected to lie around camp and
1ok on. He did nothing, absolutely
othing. except on occasion to hunt meat I
r catch fish, jx
Good for Chauffeur" Hare-Lip COM G
rented in an undertone to the other +
oys. Il remember him before he died i
lie was a corker But he did things, t
nd he made things go. You know. dad '
larried his daughter. an you ought to v
re the way he knocked the spots outa y
ad. The Chauffeur was a son of a gun. a
lie made us kids stand around. Even a
hen he was croakin' he reached out r
DR. me once an laid my head open with f
hat long stick he kept always beside 6
i'm" liz
Hare-Lip rubbed his bullet head rernin- s