The daily Alaskan., 1920-10-05
The lron.GraY.Woman
CHAPTER


 deck of small and very dingy house boat filing fish spear. Riding at the end of storm-blackcned rope strung from q clcnt nt the bow to tree on shore, the boat rose and fell with the pulse of the river, lazy and languld under the beat of the hot afternoon sun.
 He was so tall, with such a spread of shoulder, that he seemed out of place upon so small q deck. Wind season and weather wear had worked their will upon hlm. But there are forces that grave deeper than wind and weather. Youth can hold wind and weather at bay. It is powerIess against those other fOrces-those ln- ner forces that grave the soul. Under the chafe of them his face had become the face of man who had looked upon life and found 1t not to his lik' ing. Ills eyes held the keen, quick hardness that comes to eyes that see only llfe'S Sterncr side.
 The Pparlhunter, they called hlm the river men, not that he had found his pearl, possibly because he had not found It. Failure names men, as well as success. in the wilderness.
 The space between the fore and after decks of the houseboat was occu- pied by q kind of cabin, with a cur talncd entrance fore and aft and a single small window on each side. The man suddenly stopped filing the fish spear and glanced with quick anxiety toward this cabin. A woman was courhing. He crossed the narrow deck At stride. showed aside the solled ana rumpled curtain and entered. A dark iron.gray woman sat bumped forward fin a r!ckcty old rockingchair by the window on the shore side. As If con- scious of his inability to help, possibly calloused by long familiarity with sim Uor scenes. he stood looking down upnn her. with no expression Of sym unthv other than vince of pity in his eyes.
 She straightencd after time. and lay back against the bed quilt spread in the chair, spent and quiverinG, the trembling shell of what had once been very beautiful woman, The man crossed the cabin. dipped up a tinful of water out of bucket by the cook stove and offered it 10 her. She waved it away.
 "Ir's sa warm-and fiat 1t'has been long from the spring"
 Without a word he set the cup back on the bench picked up the bucket, passed out to the front deck, crossed inc narrow gangDlank, and hurried away up the slope toward the cliffs that rosS>abovc the trees T few rods back from the river shore.
 The spot WIS known the length of thp Wabash for who has not heard of Fallen Rock. with the broad, thin wa terfall pitching over the ShGrp-edged shelf between its two breasts and lap ping the stonc-strewn pool at its base? And the spring breaking out from m- der the shale lodges of the cliff near thr west cnd of the old cabin and trickIIng its waters down a little sul- phur-stainpd gutter into the pOOl-who has not heard of 1t? Not to have drunk of Its waters was considered a misfortune in the FIatwoodS, just as in ancient Greece it was considered calamity to die without having seen the statue of Olympian Zeus.
 Fallen Rock Is the highest front of naked stone along the Wabash. At the present day seven towns can be seen from its summit; in the late for ties. two Buckeye, a mile up the river, and the City twenty miles farther on.
 When the man returned to the househoat the IrOn-Gray-Woman still lay back in the shaky rocking chair. Dipping the battered cup full of fresh water. the man stepped to her side.
 Your cool drink. mother"
 The thin lids raised. The eyes she turned toward him must have been wonderfully beautiful in her day large and deep and usrOus. The cough that wasted her breast seemed pOwerleSs to dim their luster.
 The man crossed the cabin and laid his hand on the rumpled curtain over the doorway, about to return to his task of sharpening the fish spear.
 Tt looks COOl-and calm-up there."
 He paused; glanced back over his shoulder at her, and waited for her to go on.
 "Is that q log house I see up there under the ClifTS?"
 The floor of the housebOat crcaked under the weight of him as he came to the window. He had to stoOp low to bring his eyes level with the open ing
 "A log house; old and empty"
 The Iron-Gray-Woman sat muSlng a moment, her eyes astray among the trees nOdding languldly In the serene June afternoon.
 q wish I might live again upon the shore. The sun beats down so hot upon the hOuseboat, and I grow weary of the eternal throb of the river. If