San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-09-09
Begin Here Today.

| Begin 1efe lOudys
Ned Cornet is sent by his father,
| Godfrey Cornet, on voyage to North
ern Canada and Alaska TO exchange
two thousand silk and velvet gowns
with the Indians for fine furs. The
profits are to be split 1925, the lions
share to Ned.
Cornet is accompanied on the voy-
age by his finacee, Lenore Harden
worth, and the latter's mother, Bess
Gilbert is hired to go as seamstress.
Mrs. Hardenworth objects to eating at
the same table with Bess.
At Vacouver, the night following
their departure from Seattle, they
loaded on certain heavy stores. Cap
tain Knutzen, in charge of the craft,
is ably assisted by McNab. Bess
makes IN her mind to avoid the three
aristocrats as much as possible. They
in turn ignore the girl. Now go on
with the story.
There was such a little group of
them. only eight in all. The ship was
mere dot in the expanse of blue.
Around them endlessly lay the sea,
swept by unknown winds, cursed by
the winters cold. like death itself in
its infinity and it's haunting fear. The
life they had left behind was already
shadowed and dim: the farewell
shouts. the teeming crowds that moved
and were never still were all like some
thing imagined, unspeakably far off.
Only the sea and the sky were left,
and the craft struggling YEARLY, ever
farther into the empty North.
Lenore found herself oppressed by
an unreasoning fear. Realities were
getting home to her. and she was
afraid Of them. 1t would have been
wiser not to come, yet she couldn't
have told why. The launch was wholly
comfortable; she was already accus-
toned to the cramped quarters. The
men of the crew were courteous, Ned
the same devoted lover as ally. .ys. The
thing was more an instinct with her !:
such pleasure as the trip offered could
not compensate for an obscure uneasi-
ness, vague but ominous shadow over
her mood and heart that was never
lifted. Perhaps wiser and secret
sui NltHiii inc sti, odDSoioNAo"'
ness which was wise with the knowl-
edge of the ages before ever her being
emerged from the germ plasm was even
now warning her to turn back. 1t
knew her limitations; also it knew the
dreadful. savage realm she had dared
to penetrate. The North would have
no mercy for her if she were found I'M
worthy.
Perhaps in her heart she realized
that she represented all that was the
antithesis of their far northern do
main. She was the child of luxury and
ease: the tone and spirit of these win
try seas were travail and desolation.
She was the product of generation
that knew life only as structure that
mems civilization had built: out here
was life itself. raw and naked. stripped
and bare. She was lawless, undisci-
plined. knowing no code but her own
desires: all these seas and the gray
fog-laden shores they swept were in
the iron grip of law that went down
TO the roots of time. She had never
looked beyond the surface of things !;
the heart that pulsed in the breast OF
this wintry realm lay so deep that
only the most wise and old, devotees to
natures secrets, could ever hear it
beat. She had the unmistakable feel
ing that, in an unguarded moment. she
had Numbered into the camp of an
enemy. Ever she discerned a male
violence in the murmur of the wind, a
veritable threat in the soft voices of
the night.
The nights, her innate sense of ar
tistry told her. were unspeakablH beau
tiful. She had never seen such stars
before. They were so large. SO white,
and yet so unutterably aloof. Some
times the moon rose in splash OF
silver, and its loneliness on the far seas
was a thing that words couldn't reach,
Yet Lenore did not like things she
could not put in words. For all their
beauty those magic nights dismayed
and disquieted her. They, too, were OF
the realities. and for all her past atti-
tude of sophistication, she found that
realism was the one thing she could
not and dared not accept. Such reali'
ties as these, the wide-stretching seas
and the infinity Of stars. were rapidly
stripping her of her dearest decisions