Williams news., 1919-10-10

If Walt had not been young and | trusting he'd never have answered the | advertisement. but when you've spent your life in western Nebraska, per sonally conducting squads of cattle from range to railroad station, and | thereafter riding with them and | punching them into submission to an | all-wise Providence. you're apt to be in receptive condition for romance. Walt was. From the first day when he found the advertisement he knew the star path his feet must tread. He was sitting on baggage truck in the cool shadow of the Three Bears ex- press office. peacefully sleeping. Runty, the agent. laid over his face copy of the Omaha Eagle. When Walt walk ened his glance wandered idly over it's want columns. It was down among the Personals" Walt read it over careleSsly at first, then carefully, look ing up once to gaze at the demure but forbidding face behind the telegraph office window. Then he read over the ad again.
 WANTED YOUNG EASTERN WIDOW; with western ranchman. not over thirty. Object matrimony
 He held the newspaper firmly in both hands. There was no reason why he should not answer the appeal. He didn't have a ranch all his own, but Bill and he had been good partners with the Triple Star outfit. The house wasn't so bad-three rooms and a lean-to. He'd fix it up for her. chuck all the old clutter he and Bill had put up with, and send up a load of mail- order honeymoon things for her to make her know she was welcome.
 Here Walt took a second look at the unfriendly face at the window, but the girl never turned her head or noticed his existence. Presently he Sauntered around into the station doorway and leaned over the little partition at the ticket office. Could he have tele- graph blank. please? Cherry did not glance up at all, just passed one to him coldly. He spent half an hour writing his message, took a long drink from the water cooler and handed the telegram to her to count up.
 "Send it off any time it's handy" he remarked, trying to be nonchalant also. Cherry ran her pencil over it.
 Dear Madam; ms: Seeing your IT.. ad in omahs sias honorable intentions. Have 7s2-aere ranch. in partnsrshi1 ne h with la ,,, one Bill Owens: Ne nnh Mh firms Hstgnt six & fHGt r 1rs
 WALTER K RAMsDELL
 Might message?" asked Cherry. pleasantly. as she drew her pencil through Dear Madam"
 Walt resented her air of aloofness and lack of curiosity. He hauled out a pigskin wallet and extracted vel low bill.
 "Send it now and get 1t there this afternoon. I don't care what 1t costs. Any corrections to suggest?"
 Cherry's blue eyes looked him over slowly, in one sweeping summary of suitor. and shook her head aggravat- ingly, with a certain little curl to her short upper lip. Some months previ- ously she had been courted assidu- ously by MT. Ramsdell and being the only attractive and desirable girl in a radius of forty miles she had failed to take his offer at its proper valuation. Walt waited grimly until she had dis patched the message, then rode away with a new aggressive tilt to his hat dUu d 100IILS III HIS HodTC dI the desperate step he had taken.
 In the days of waiting for his an- swer he haunted the telegraph office. Cherry was likewise postmistress, and Bill warned him of his danger.
 .'It's just as dangerous hanging around some female you've been once attached to as it is getting measles the second time. I wouldn't put it past Cherry a bit to try and get ahead of the eastern widow and think she's do- ing something mighty smart"
 But Cherry held serenely to her own course of action. Instead of being scornful she became sympathetic and rather remorseful. When she found Walt boring painfully over a mail order catalogue that guaranteed to furnish honeymoon equipment at so much per room she aided him instead of laughing. Walt found himself de- ferring to her taste in snowflake cur tafns and golden oak sideboards It was Cherry who suggested cutting out the photograph and putting in a studio willow set instead, and low book case. Walt had hesitated over a red velvet set.
 "It isn't becoming to blondes" she said thoughtfully.
 Waits gaze travelled to Cherry's brown, short curls and wide, brown eyes. alert as squirrels, and for one Instant he thought of how she would look surrounded by the studio willow set He leaned over the little wooden I barrier between them eagerly, forget ful of windows.
 'It's awfully good of you to tend to all this stuff for me. Cherry. I'd never thought of that fireless cooker or the