The West Virginian. [volume] (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1914-1974, 1920-01-29
THE DAILY
SHORT STORY
On Chatterton's Slide.
BY WILL T. AMES
4 Copyright, 1920. by the Mcclure
-. Newspaper Syndicate.O

ANO"oPopSA SyA0iSoIG'J
ssyUIE'RE to pick up four more
wv lengths at the Red Barn."
Wv announced Peltier, the train
boss, TO Member, the engineer of the
log train.
"who said so?" demanded Nc
Nider, hating in his task of tinker
ing the leaky cylinder of the queer
little locomotive.
His Nibs," replied Peltier with a
fhrug of his shoulders that con-
firmed the indication of French de-
scent, provided by his name.
Il thought his sister was going out
with u.s." Evidently McNider couldn't
reconcile the presence of q woman on
the log train, with the gratuitous per-
lis of a nine-length load over the tor
tuous curves. and GREATNESS gradients
Of the Burke company's road.
$50 she is" coroborated the train
boss.
Well, I'll be damned"
what are you going to do with
fellow like Greener?" exclaimed Pei
tier. II asked him If he had forgotten
that Miss Janice was going on the
train, and he bawled me out; asked me
who thought ! was; said they often
hauled eleven and twelve on the Nick
smaug's road"
"Sure! I'd rather haul twenty there
than six here" commented the engi-
neer.
s'well, there you arel We haul the
nine, and Miss Greener goes-and
like enough she'll get smashed flat be-
tween couple of.twelve-inch butts!"
And the train boss took himself SOM
berly OFF to see that the five lengths"
of great spruce logs were slowed as
safe on their trucks as human care
could make them.
Dave Peltier, middle-sized, strong
and 1.-THE, had been born to the
woods like his father before him.
But he had yielded to the pm desire
of the father and had gone to
senior, was making little money as
a woods jobber and was possessed TO
spend 1t on an education for the boy:
which is often the way with men who
have had no schooling themselves.
The war came when Dave was in his
sophomore year at Tech and he had
gone over with the first contingent OF
foresters.
When he got back 1t was to find
his father dying, the little business
melted away and the task of getting
a living before him. He had been
train boss for the Burke outfit when
the new manager, Greener, came; and
he had at once attracted the attention
OF Mss Janice Greener when tnat
Young woman arrived, n month ago,
to;Eisit her brother and, principally to !
get new material for the paintings of
wiT;tef woods and lumber camps which |
had already brought her some meas
ure OF success.
The girl, pfuIping herself on an ar
lists contempt fer the convertionali- |
ties had permitted herself and permit
ted Peltier degree iof intimacy in
their friendship that led, as the down /
hill flow OF water to a frank confess
sion OF regard by the young woods |
man; for Dave Peitier mad never
thought OF himself as the inferior of
any being on earth.
The consequences had been cal |
anxious. Janice Greener suddenly
discovered that her artist colony de-
mociS"-y vas only skin deep-and she
had stung Peltier as a woman can
sting man only when she realizes !
that 1t is the difference in their So
cial positions which alone makes his |
proffered love impossible of accent |
-ance. This was two DAYS before Ian
ices departure from the camp.
Miss Greener should have Travelled
in the cab. Instead she had insist /
ed in riding somehow on the logs. |
So Peltier. obeying an order of the
manager had built an ingenious little
platform of planks over the rear truck
of the fifth length, above the logs.
Here, nestled among half dozen old
fur coats, the headstrong girl was /
snugiy perched as the lurching train
bumped along on its twenty mile jour-
ney TO lns mills. At the Red Barn
came to her Peltier urged on by visi-
BILE worry.
MISS ereener," he said, won't you