Evening star., 1921-08-07
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might have been ray of hope in
the situation. They might still climb
together. the girl and he. But he
had nothing more than trim figure
and a fresh young face. And he had
She found that out when she SO dis
creetly and guardedly sounded him
on the matter. His ambition was
to have a sheep ranch in the foot
hills, three-roomed wickiup to rest
in at night and a broncho to ride by
day, roomful of books for the win
ter. month of trout fishing for the
summer. and a bit of shooting up in
the mountains for the autumn. That
was his future. And that, she knew.
was the placid and ox-like existence
ne had been whispering into the ear
bait he was dangling before the girl
whose entire life had been made up
Of early trains and untidy day coaches.
of cheap hotel life and rehearsals on
musty-smelling stages. of hurry and
glare and vulgarity in a little tinsel
world of tfnsel excitements.
Already she had escaped from that
world in spirit, if not in body. And
the thing that impressed the tragic
eyed watcher was the incommunica-
BILE happiness of the girl. the happi-
ness which she had neither the cour-
age nor the wish to share with her
mother. They were so happy, the
two Of them. that they betrayed it a
dozen times a day. They thought
they were hugging their secret. but
it was as plain as light now to the
keen-eyed older woman so covertly
watching them from the dark corners
of her misery. Her days were too
through her daily and nightly round
of work with the feeling of silent and
sinister forces undermining her house
of life. She knew that her daughter
was still an innocent girl. She knew
it by the uncontrolled exaltation
which she sometimes caught from the
brooding and barricaded face. 1t was
the exaltation of purity stirred by
emotions which it had not yet been
able to fathom. And once, indeed,
even in the teeth of the tenacity with
which she knew the girl would pro-
tect her secret, the troubled watcher
decided to give the two Of them their
cided to call them into her dressing
room and have it out with them. But
In the half-light at the end of a stack
OF dusty paint frames that afternoon
she happened to catch sight of them
in each others arms. 1t was the
first time she had seen any such thing
on their part. The sight Of it went
through her like a spear. 1t warned
her of more things than one. She
knew. then. that it was already too
late for words. And she knew. re-.
membering the headstrong blindness
stice about her could not go on for
long. Some night. she knew. the girl
would no longer be there.
And the harried watcher waited,
helpless to avert the inevitable She
waited until that night Of lucid Sleep
Inc- 4, IT,
lamp on the broken ceiling and the
ribald sounds of merriment assailing
her through the thin partition of her
cheap temperance hotel when, through
the strangling fog of her hopeless
ness struck the flash of her final
chance. the chance that would come
to her when she had killed Wallie
Craswell.
And she went about. once that
night Of troubled thought was over,
hugging her own secret to her breast.
THERE was no need for undue
haste, she kept reminding herself.
Haste. indeed, was the one thing she
would have to guard against. For
she must see to it that her tracks
were covered at every step Of the
way.
She knew by this time exactly how
it was to be done. 1t would happen
in the last act of 1.-The Range Wolf"
where the innocent flower of the
rancho. impersonated by Anada, was
about to be despoiled by the schem-
ing young Mexican already. played
some half-dozen- times by Wallie
Craswell himself. Katherine Kinsella
invariably took the part of the girls
mother. for it was the "fat" part of
the production and one of the few
roles where the actress who had
grown old in the manipulation of
secondhand emotions could get a
genuine thrill Of power, This mother
was represented as the bad woman Of
the settlement, the bad woman who
was compelled to remain silent as to
her true relationship to the girl. For
two acts of tangled crime and in
trigue she must watch over her
daughter from distance. For two
acts she must keep bottled up in her
tainted bosom the mother love which
she dare not disclose. But in the
last act, when life has come to mean
nothing to her. she let's loose the
then, and at the end of that moment
she shoots the intriguing young
grandee, shoots him point blank.
through the heart, to save her daugh-
ter from a fate worse than death it.
self.
It was antique and tawdry enough,
she knew, but it held its big mo-
ments Of rough passion and worked
up to q climax which never failed
to grip the house, grotesque and crude
as the units making up that house