Mexico Missouri message., 1916-03-23


blackest page in the annals Of the San
Francisco basin. 1t seemed but days
after the rains when the sparse grass
and new-leafed bushes Of the wilder
ness began to shrvel up. Day after
day the sun leaped brazen, from the
horizon to the sky, his first level rays
searching out the scant, stored mois-
ture Of whiting foliage, and the very
sap Of the hardy brush. While the cat
tie were still fat they became weak
and turned to cactus for nourishment.
They broke down the sickly branches
with their horns and rubbed them In
the sand to free them of the worst Of
the thorns. Herders rode the rounds
on weakening horses and dismounted
time and again to pull out spines from
the snouts of passive, painting cows.
Bulls died of broken pride. They
would not subject themselves to the
pain of eating cactus. The rlver-the
great river-was no longer great. It
grumbled with a weak voice from deep
down in the gorge Gerry watched its
| falling level with anxious eye and one
day sent an urgent call to Lieber for
help.
Lieber came. He brought with him
an army, every man bearing with him
the tool that had come soonest to his
hand. Spades were few and hoes; the
bright shares Of pick or two caught
the light like lances. Most of the men
depended on the heavy sheath knives
they carried at their sides They
looked like an army of sansculottes
as they swarmed into the ditch and
began to dig. In two days they had
sunk 1t TO the required level. When
they finished Gerry rode back with
them to help bring down Lieber's
weakening stock.
Kemp had stayed in sole possession
at Lieber's. Digging was not in his
line, so he had volunteered to hold the
fort against the return of the garri-
son. He welco ned Lieber and Gerry
to a supper of his own making in APP
proved cowboy style: sour-dough bis
cults made by a master hand, steaks
cut from freshly killed calf and fried
before toughness set in, pile OF
creamy mashed spuds. There was
LONELINESS about the meal that made
them eat in silence. They felt as
though for years they had been wor-
Shipping false culinary gods. The pile
of steaks, the heaped potatoes, the hot
biscuit, were exOtics, strayed into q
land Of pepper sauces and garlic.
The silence on the yeranda that
night was even longer than usual. Ger
rvs mind went back to French book
that he had bought in desperation at
Pernambuco. He had ploughed through
half of it and with a catch in his
thoughts he remembered that it lay
open on the table when he left his lit
tie room in Piranhas on the morning
of mornings that had broken life in
two. Some of it's phrases, conned
over and over again in his struggle
with the half-forgotten idiom, came
back to him. ia parole est du temps,
lie silence de reternite." He smiled to
himself at the twisted meaning the
long silence of his companions gave to
the words.
Then the smile left his face. He re-
membered the argument. The instinct
we all have for superhuman truths
tells us that it is dangerous to be ST.
lent with those we would keep at a
distance, for words pass and are for
gotten between men, but silence-ac-
tive silence-is forever ineffaceable
True life-the moments of life that
leave a trace-is made up of silence.
Not passive silence; that is but anoth-
er name for sleep. But the active si-
lence that breaks down barriers,
pierces walls and turns the life of ev-
cry day into a life where all is in
tense, where there is no ban-nothing
forbidden-where laughter dare not
enter, where subsection is submerged
and where all-all. is remembered.
Gerry felt that this active silence
had come upon them. These men were
being borne into the silent sphere Of
, his own soul. He felt restless-afraid.
He decided to speak. He was on the
point of speaking when Lieber let
down his chair softly, clasped his
hands and broke the silence.
I Last night dreamed l heard the
. blast of a steamers horn and when 1
woke up the cold sweat was on my
forehead because know that there is
no desert, no wilderness, so far from
the things you would forget that
dreams cannot follow you to it."
He stopped and silence fell upon
, them again. Lieber stared straight in
front of him, out into the night His
, face worked as though he were strug-
Cling to keep his lips closed. When he
began to speak again, the words were
, scarcely audible. az don't know why
1 want to tell you two about why am
here, unless it is that as we sat here
so quiet 1 felt that you knew it all
, that you knew all that know and
that was on the point of knowing all
, that you have known. The little lies
of life suddenly became big and hate
full and l saw in my life a monster lie
that the silence was exposing.