Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1919-05-30
CHAPTER XIII.
A White Woman and a Brown.

For a few weeks Mrs. Hardin found
the mess tent diyerting. Before the
Data had expanded the capacity of
the camp her soft nook had been over
taxed, her hospitality strained. The
men of the reclamation service, thrown
into temporary inactivity, were eager
to accept the opportunity created for
another. Failing that other, her zeal
had tagged. Events were moving
quickly at the break; Richard was alb
sorbed. Mrs. Hardin told herself that
it was the heat she wished to escape
not to her own ear did she whisper
that she was following Richard, nor
that the percolator and chatting dish,
her shelves and toy kitchen were d
wasted effort. She kept on good terms
with herself: by ignoring self-confi-
dences.
Richard, the discovery unfcldeG
slowly, took his meals irregularly. His
breakfast was gulped down before the
women appeared; his dinners where
he found them.
''No wonder!" reflected Gerty Har-
''Lings cooking is SO bad" Small
wonder the manager foraged fOi his
meals
She worked out a mission as she
! lay across her bed that hot afternoon.
Her duty became SO clear that she
could no longer lie still. Immediately
she must retrieve her weeks of idle
ness; what must Richard think of her?
She buttOned herself thoughtfully into
frock of pale colored muslin, cream
slipping toward canary. White was
too glaring on red-hOt day like this.
Pink was too hot, blue too definite. A
parasOl of pastel green, and she looked
like a sprig of fragrant mignonette.
She found the open space Of the
/ trapeZium swarming with strange
dark faces. So silent their coming she
| had not heard the arrival Of the tribes.
She isolated the Cocopahs, stately as
! bronze statues, their long hair stream
! ing, or wound mud-caked under the
brilliant headclOths. FOregathering
with them were men of other tribes;
these must be the Yumas and Degui-
nos, the men needed on the river.
| These were the men who were to work
on the RATS, weave the great mat
| tresses. A squad Of short haired Pr
mas with their sQuaWS and babies
and their gaudy bundles, CAPPED at the
| fair-haired woman as she passed. The
central space was filling up with Pi
mas and Maricopas, Papagoes, too;
10 I'm NV hot
short hair. These were brush cutters.
| This, then, meant the beginning of
real activity. Tom would at last be
satisfied. He would no longer sulk
and rage alternately at the hold-up of
| the work.
Before she reached Richards RAJ
mazda she saw that another woman
was there. She caught an impassioned
gesture. Her only surmise rested on
lines. Gerty saw that she was dark
she looked the halfbreed. The brown
woman drew back as the white woman
entered. Gerty smiled an airy reas-
surance. She herself would wait. She
did not want to be hurried. She told
Richard that she had plenty of time.
"There is something you want to tell
me-" Richards patience was cour-
| teous but firm. He would hear her err
rand first. Gerty, remembering the
imploring attitude of the stranger, de-
termined that she would not be sent
away.
'Will you excuse me, sonora? 1t
will be only a minute"
She was to tell her GRAND, and
briefly! Gerty swept past the intruder.
"Sit down, Mrs. Hardin"
Resenting the infection. she said
she. would stand. Her voice was a
| little hard, her eyes We're yelled, as