Evening star., 1921-12-18
By Courtney Ryley Cooper

1t. walked through without even
glancing at the passengers and out
upon the rear platform. Ono man
with q rife was there. but he paid no
| attention to the greasy "railroader"
as the latter set his lantern on the
floor. A blow on tho wrist! The
rifle flew over the brass rail Of the
observation car, and a gasping guard
stared into the muzzle of six-gun
and into Bart Carson's grinning coun-
tenance.
Into the coach, boy, and tell 'em
I'm coming"
The door opened. The usual shot cut
through the room. A trembling, fear
dumbed crowd obeyed his orders. Bart
Carson laughed with a joy he had not
felt before. 1t was his last hold-up!
Christmas is comm" he Knocked
as his revolver waved the passengers
from tbeir chairs. only few more
and
The gun suddenly trembled and
sagged in his grasp. His grin faded.
His eyes became set and a green pal
lor crept upward under the natural
BROWNIES of his skin.
You. eh" The snarl was almost
beastlike. Forgetting for the instant
all others in the car. he stared down
at small, dark-haired woman.
clothed in black, whose eyes were red
from weeping. But Carson, appar-
emily, did not observe that-he only
knew that it was she-she who had
kissed him-and lied. The lines Of
! his face deepened into hard, black
cutters. The eyelids twitched. the
corners Of the lips grooved into
straight lines.
"Goin' to him, eh? Trying to beat
me? You won't do it! I'll get there
I've got his address: it's ON that let
ter. And IL he's gone I'll trace him
Ill"
He stepped backward suddenly. one
hand extended. His gun hand dropped
to his side.
DON'T" he pleaded as he backed to-
ward the door. IL can't fight
woman!"
But the plea was in vain. The
woman had drawn a small revolver
from her handbag and covered him.
The hammer clicked upon a dead
shell! Bart Carson turned his eyes.
dull now, and beaten, upon the others
in the car.
Il can't fight woman" he gasped.
II can't
There was a flash and a biting sting
cut through Bart Carson's extended
! hand. He stared at it. A blue spot
then blood. Blood-and outside clean.
| white snow:
x = * X
THE bandit sprang straight forward
One sweep Of his wounded hand
and the weapon was knocked from the
grasp Of the woman and sent crash
! ing through a window. Thereupon he
whirled. oblivious of the suddenly
brave crowd, seized newspaper from
a lounging chair as he ran. and. wrap
ping it about the bleeding hand
crashed out upon the rear platform
| A vaulting leap which carried him
high above the platform rail, cata-
putting journey through the air, and
he landed in a snowdrift. The lights
| Of the train far down the track indi-
Gated that no one as yet had thought
to pull the signal cord.
| Bart Carson wrapped the cold paper
tighter about his wounded hand
plunged to his feet, and, fighting his
i way out Of the drift, scrambled foI
the scraggly underbrush beyond. Far
! ther on he came to a stream too swift
even for the grip of zero weather
where. hardening his nerves against
the shock to come, he splashed into
the icy current in which there woule
be left no trail.
A mile, and gasping with the clutter
| of the cold, he dragged his numoee
legs toward the bank, there to stamI
his feet and kick them against
i scrubby tree in an effort to restore
circulation. A dull aching had begur
to creep from his injured hand up
ward toward his elbow. for the bull
let still lay embedded in the flesh
There was no blood now, for the paper
had long since frozen against the
wound, sealing it. Doggedly he struci
forth, on toward the shadowy nils
and black ravines of the far-awa3
country Of Pilot Butte, lonely. unfre'
ouented, haunted by death in hun
dred forms, but to Bart Carson
haven of shelter in this time OF storm
/ He was safe for a space, he knew
safe from humanity. The wind hae
risen. bringing with it the first flake:
of another snowfall. 1t would DC
hours before the posse train coule
reach the drift into which he hae
plunged from the observation plat
form. Hours more must follow II
useless accommodating. And by tina
time his trail, even from the Greer
where he had emerged, would De los
in the thickening snow.
This was his country. He knew
Il every foot Of it, every gully. Times
without number he had ridden It II
lust such weather as this in search o,
a. lost bunch Of cattle. blinded ano
driven from the home feeding ares
|, by the fury of midwintel
blizzard. Two miles over the hill, 5us'
before the country became mass Of
drift filled gulleys. he knew he woule
find the first Of a series Of cattlemen's
caches, a small, low-set log cabin
with dry fuel beside the square, sheet
; metal camp stove, heavy, coarse
. clothing and big leather boots-await
ing the cowpuncher who might be-
| come lost as were his cattle-cannet
L.,x>. port corann fool