The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-26


 forth upon ccal black charger. I merely paused to bid you haste inside lest you ruixs the orux c. the svanips, When withdrew the Hon. Archie was already searching with bravely, con- cealed distraction for the fair daughter of the house. The hour has struck. It's masks off-masks off from eyes and hearts"
 He laughed again. White face whiter still against the background of his somber vestments, debonair and drunkenly insecure in the saddle, Gar ret Devereau tore out into the main road and thundered off into the night.
 "1s that true| Steve asked quietly.
 She made no move to answer.
 "Is that true?" his low and gentle voice commanded this time. "You still mean to-marry-himY'
 What I have done tonight I can never hope to explain" she answered, recovering herself. q can only hope that some day may cease to despise myself as utterly as you have taught me to at this minute. And stnce you choose to regard it now as your right to ask that, question I'll answer it for you. I inean to marry him. ehall be proud to be his wife"
 The light that streamed over her shoulder fell full upon his face. She saw the blood pour up, staining throat and cheek and brow, and then cbb away. She gave him time to answer, but he did not speak, and suddenly she knew what scene of another day he was remembering. Her eyes dropped to her imprisoned hand.
 '"You are detaining me-" she said
 He released her immediately. and yet she did not move. And while she wait ed he turned and stocped and turned to her again. She stood like stone while he wrapped her fur edged sapphire cloak about her and fas- tened it close beneath her uptilted chin. He waited, bare of head, in the hedge gap until she had crossed the lawn to the house that lay a sprawling glowworm in the darkness. A tumult of voices leaped out to him when he opened the door-a Hitting crash of syncopated melody. And then it was quiet again.
 After glimpse of his chiefs eyes that night Fat Joe essayed not so much as one facetious protest against turn. ing the Jagged team homeward with scarcely any rest at all. He remained as quiet as that too quiet man beside him.
 He fell to whistling later, and almost immediately his thin tenor was rolling ahead of them through the black alley between the pines, to continue in soul full reiteratiOn until the construction camp clearing loomed up ahead. Sud denly Fat Joe frightened the reins above the Jagged team; then he shot forward and laid the whip across their tired Hanks as they cleared the breastwork of trees.
 Steve's head was jerked backward by the abruptness of their first plunge, and then he saw what Fat Joe had seen second. before. High up on the hillside there was | light glowing from the windows of the shack which served the chief engineer of the East Coast job as office and tomicile too. While Eat Joe laid on the whip a man came hur- tling past the outfung door, sprang to his feet and, running low to the ground, disappeared into the blackness of the brush. Joe swung the horses up in a galloping curve and with one cat-l like leap, incredibly light for man of his chunky build. was down from the seat and crashing through the bushes on the trail of that fugitive whose noisy flight bad already become faint crackle in the distance.
 Flame poured from Fat Joe's revolvA CT. Two whiplike reports shattered the night quiet before Stephen O'Mara moved. Then he lifted himself heavily from the seat. Something nuszled his shoulder while he stood listening to the diminishing tumult of the pursuit, and even before he turned he knew what 1t was. He paused moment to stroke the soft nose of the black horsef stand ing there with reins a-traiL 1t was Ragtime, wet with lather and cakedl with dust. But even then he was not prepared for the sight which met him when he entered the shack. Seconds must have passed while he stood star ing from the threshold, for Fat Joe came putting back from bis fruitlesS chasd in time to see him bend and lift black robcd, iifeles:V limp body from the floor and stagger with it to- ward a bunk. Fat Joe's steady flow of profanity, oddly, double vicious in bis thin. complaining vpice. was checked short. He, too, btood and stared from the doorway-stood and lifted his nose and sriiffed.
 "Seems to be our night for callers,s he remarked, with bad mildness, "and. say, this ones got peach of load"
 Then GGpy Devereau's fsad rolled over, ghastly loose and sfack, and the plump one caught sight of ragged gash in the senseless mans temple.
 500, that's it?" he droned, and his complaining voice was deadly again. "So that's it! But he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't put up tsdy lit- tie battle. was hef Funny about that. too, but I could always do my best llt- tie jobs of man handling when was about half over myself"
 His pale eyes swept the door. He bounced forward and recovered a sheaf of blue prints from a corner.
 This, I take it." he muttered, was what they was arguing about wben NO busted in. Steve, them's our bridge es- timates-and there want no copies of lem either. It wouldn't tnke us more'n two weeks to replace 'em neither--not