The Little River news., 1921-01-01

eVcHilS CIOSScu HIS lulltu, NHeH Dy chance he had learned the secret of the mans Identity; secret shared by no one else in the Flatwoods; a secret he dared not reveal for want of proof. He had often thought of it.. Tonight freshened 1t in his mind com pellingly; the strange actions of his mother; her flaring scorn; how she had sprung from her chair and beat the intruder of with the imperious dig nifty of her eyes. Her story, the one all too brief word that had reached him out of the sealed past, came to him again. Long and.long he sat with his head bowed over the table.
 Dawn at the east window surprised him. He stepped to the cabin door. The square of moonlight upon the floor was pale and sickly. Great shafts of bronze thrust up out of the east and dimmed the stars. A mist lay along the river like cloud that had fallen from the sky and loved the warm earth so well that 1t refused to return.
 He stood iH the door and watched the world wake up-his world; the only world he knew. A half sleepy twitter here and there among the trees; croak down by the waters edge; a squawk over in the bayou and on the higher ground trill now and then of distilled witchery-he knew them all, every voice. A crow wal lowed along in the purple light and rasped the silence with his raucous call. He was answered by another from somewhere across in the bot toms. The woods lifted its thousand voices; multitude shouting. as at the coming of hero. And the hero was at hand. The gates of dawn opened and he drove in. Bronze turned to gold; the hills away in the south barred their heads; soft breeze crooned along over the trees and blew out the morning star.
 In the early light the Pearlhunter searched the ground about the door, step for any tracks that might have been left by the night prowler. In the hard and moldy open ground he found the marks of boot The heel had only touched the ground once or twice. He was struck by its small size. It was said by some that the Red Mask had been a gentleman and an artist before he took to the road. The Pearlhunter could well believe it, for certainly no other boot in the Flat woods could leave print so. small.
 The heel had been somewhat worn, so that the nails protruded slightly. They had left a very distinct row of prints around the. edge of the mark. The track was made by the right boot. He hunted one of the left. No nails showed. From the circumstances he concluded that the outer heel-cap of the right boot had come oil. allowing the nails to protrude.
 ofthought the finding of the heel print plunged the man back into as he strengthened and stood crumpling the two patches of stiff cloth in his hand. His gray eyes and passive face were hard to read. An old broken crock
  He picked 1t up, turned 1t upside down over the heel print and went back into the cabin.
 He kindled fire In the cook stove, and when he had 1t going good. dropped both masks in and watched them burn to cinders-and afterward raked the ashes.
 The pearlhunter, with the horse sense 20 years of hard knocks had beaten into him, knew that this was his day--his one first day-his to seize; to have; to hold
 Five thousand dollars; a gray ghost in the easy chair in the cabin of the three gables: a girl that trusted" him -and the big day goingl It wa. enough to make man restless.
 The forenoon was nearly gone when through the trees up the river, he caught the bright glint of the sun upon oar blades. Even at that distance he knew the craft-Louie Solomon's long white six-oared skiff.
 Broom in hand, the Pearlhunter was making prodigious dust and chatter among the chairs and boxes when the pearl buyer, short and pudgy-Jew from his shrewd eyes to his fat feet stepped before the door.
 House cleaning, hain'dt itf"
 "Oh, just digging myself out"
 Standing his broom against the wall he stepped outside. He knew Louie Solomon well-what pearl fisher did not0and Louie Solomon knew him. Like two wrestlers on the mat the two stood looking each other over-a man that wanted to sell something; man that wanted to buy it-with the odds on the one that could put up the big gest bluff. The world could be halved just there.
 Cup by de shpring7"
 "A. gourd."
 The two went around the west end of the cabin and back to where the spring boiled out from beneath the foot of the cliffs. The Jew dipped up gourdful and drank so deep that the Pearlhunter knew 1t was no honest thirst he quenched. The bar of the Mud Hen was famous along the Wa