Middletown transcript., 1916-05-13
CHAPTER xXII-continued.

anu nC nACh Oul lnC OAhCsE
ter and the curl in his lip Strengthened
out to a line of sweetness and the
light in his eyes turned to a fiery, blind
alteration. The letter had been sent
to him. sealed, by J. Y, who had ac-
companied it with a note. The letter
began, '[To my boy at Thirty" and
signed, with undying love, your
friend and Mother" In life he could
not remember his mother, but he saw
her now in three pages of laboring
words traced by a dying hand. In her
self, dying at thirty, she had seen her
boy revealed. She had had no
strength-nO time-left for slow ap-
proaches. With the first words of her
letter she laid a cooling hand on his
burning soul. She spoke the ali-seeing
to her heart and fed him with her life's
blood. All that she had been, all that
she had learned. all that she foresaw,
was crowded into those three pages
They were brittle with age, the ink
yellow and faded in words that no
eyes but his and hers had ever seen.
They gripped his soul and held it
steady. Without this letter he would
have torn up the other. But the other
had come as a complement and he kept
1t because it helped him to see himself
AS Alan weakened the bridge ap-
preached completion. Batches of men,
as special work was finished, were
dispatched to the coast. With each
batch McDOugal strOve to send his
master, but Alan was too weak to go,
though he did not say so. He had
realized 1t with terror and then with
calm. mo, McDougal, not this time"
he would say, and finally, 81 think
might just as well stay on till they
send up to take over. It's unprOfes-
sional to chuck it before. It won't be
long now" And McDougal had cursed
low. rolling oaths and taken 1t out on
the men.
Alan seemed to have become child
fish in his weakness. He spent what
strength he had left In cutting words
into a board ripped from a kerosene
box. When he had finished he called
McDOugai and showed him his handi-
work. "McDOugal," he said, IF any
thing should happen to keep me here
permanently just cut these words into
some big rock and lay me under it.
Be careful you get them just so. The
French are mighty particular about the
way we use their lingo, and while it
wasn't a Frenchman that wrote this
bit, guess he'd be just as particular. {"
"Aweel, sir" said McDougal. sitting
his rage within him, ''I'n do as you
wish.' He took the board and looked
at it. The words meant nothing to
him but the scene meant much. He
went out and concluded his agreement
with twelve quiet. lowering men gath
cred from the countryside. They were
pioneers without knowing it. They
and their fathers and fbeir fathers
fathers had held these far depths of
the world against wild beasts and
drought and flood since, centuries ago,
the Jesuits swept through the sHbcOn-
tinent and left a trail of settlers be-
hind them. They were proud, narrow,
independent. They were uninventive,
unimaginative. No man among them
had ever thought to lie. They did not
steal, though they were robbed when
ever they invaded civilization with
their wares.
From them McDougal had learned
that due east, halfway to the sea, was
a place called Lieber's and that this
Lieber was known as the Americana
and had fame as a curador of fevers.
Four men could carry a sick man to
Lieber's in a hammock In four days.
Twelve men could do it in two, and
quicker than that hundred men could
not go. For the price of three steers
each-two-year-olds-they would un-
dertake to deliver the sick man at
Lieber's in two days. McDOugal pom
Nered. 1t was chance. If he sent
Alan to the rail-head there wouldn't
be even chance. There was no one
who could help at the rail-head, nor
along the thin line, nor even at the
coast.
"In two days." said he despairingly,
''the master will be dead"
They gathered at the door Of Alan's
tent and looked in at him as he lay
half comatose. NO" said the oldest
of them, "he will be dead in seven
days time"
As McDougal picked him up and