Evening star., 1925-07-07
One of a series of
best short stories
published dur
ing the past
year.

trude could not hold it, She twisted
her mouth to an expression of high
| disdain and marched out of the door,
| the very flip of her coat expressing
| contempt. Jim was sitting his horse,
watching the pantomime with interest,
but he said nothing. Gertrude scram
bled aboard the bay mare and set off
down the valley, Jim following in be-
hind her.
Ruth closed the door. She and Susy
stared at each other.
How'd Susy tell you?" grunted the
squaw. Quaker woman won't fight
for her buck"'
There was sudden naked desolation
in Ruth's voice. Hes not mine,
Susy."
The squaw hissed disparagingly.
| ANY man belong to woman that go
after him. You take him, he be good
white man; you no take him. Gertrude
Topping make him bad man."
Ruth paced up and down beside the
stove. Hes weak-weak! Father in
heaven. that I should come to this"'
The old face lifted with patient trag
edy that exceeded the younger WON.
ans He like all men. You go fight
for him. Save him. Then he save
Old Tom"
Ruth pressed her knuckles against
her lips. She knew how to be patient;
she did not know how to burst the
bonds of her patience. to express the
| wild longing that somewhere surged
within her. She knew how to serve
others to the last ounce of her great
strength; she did not know how to
serve that despairing, hungry self
that lay deep hidden beneath her daily
constituencies. She knew how to give
of herself-devotion, loyalty, pain,
love; she did not know how to take
that for which every race desire with
in her soul pleaded. So do habit and
character forge our containing bonds.
After a time she paused beside the
squaw. AT least they shall not Sec
rifice Old Tom. Where is he, Susy?"
The old woman's eyes fiared. You
know spring where you and Susy
make camp last summer? You know
cave up back of spring by lone cedar?
Old Tom, he keep traps there. He
there"
Ruth nodded and began to pull
pair Of arctics over her high laced
boots. you say here, Susy. Eat all
you want"
Maybe stay; maybe better co. re-
piled the squaw.
Again Ruth nodded and buttoned her
sheep-lined- coat high above her ears
Then she went to the corral for her
the bitter cold, but she managed clev-
erly enough and shortly she was trot-
ting up the trail into the forest re-
serve. There was a deer trail in the
snow, widened by coyote tracks that
led for several miles along a brook.
Ruth followed this through the trees
blue spruce against blue snow, with
glimpses of a bluer sky-until the
stream turned abruptly south. Then
she spurred her horse on westward
through trackless drifts She and
Susy had blaZed the trees the Summer
before.
BY noon she had worked up into a
narrow valley, helly-deep to the horse
in snow. Here, for the first time since
leaving the cabin, she glimpsed the
! colossal peaks to the north. Snow
spirals were twisting upward from
their crests to form tissuelike clouds
| that sailed toward the sun. High on
either side of the narrow valley rose
| the spruce-clad slopes of the reserve,
line on line of black trunks, endless
marching regiments of trees.
She had travelled perhaps two miles
up the valley when the horse slipped
| on ice beneath the snow. She turned
| him abruptly to the right and urged
him UP the slope. AS she gave a last
| glance at the peaks before she
| plunged among the trees she saw that
the snow clouds had reached the sun
and veiled it. The trees were very
thick here and there was less snow be-
meath the mighty wing sweep OF the
| spruce.
| The slope became acute. The horses
shoulders were quivering with fatigue
when Ruth tied him and crept up
ward alone. The twisted bronze roots
| of the spruce now buttressed the
mountainside, and Ruth made her
way from one to another above until
| the sound of water beneath Ice
brought her to pause on a ledgehke
projection beneath a dead spruce
Green ice like crystal lava spread in
soft curves from the spruce roots
downward until it lost itself in the
dappled green shadows below. The
| gentle murmur of water boiling up
through sand mingled with the ttnkle
of water dripping beneath Ice.
Ruth perched on a root to rest be-
fore the final squirt to the cave. AS
she paused thus, chain clanked
family. The sound came from among
the trees beyond the spring. After a
moment. Ruth followed the sound
Some distance on, among the roots
lay the skeleton carcass or steer.
Here Old Tom had set several traps
and three of them had been sprung
The chain clanked again, and Ruth
| gdSped with amaZement.. "A lynx Cat,
a brown and yellow shadow. leaped
and fell back with a snarl, paws
across the body of another cat, which
lay quiescent, yellow eyes burning. AS
the first cat fell back. a coyote, a
tawny gray shadow, crept from the
launches Of the skeleton steer toward
the recumbent lynx. The first cat,
| hind leg stretched back taut by a
steel trap chained to a stake beneath
the skeleton head, struck venomously
at the creeping coyote with alternate
forepaws and the coyote fell back to
the limit of a trap chain attached to
its leg.
Ruth moved closer. The fighting
cat was a female. The injured cat
for which she fought. held round the
fore shoulder by a huge steel trap,
was male. He showed no sign Of
life save In his flaming eyes. The
battle must have ragged for many
hours. There were ruts in the ground
worn by the chains of the ccmbatants.
AS regularly as the rise and break of
a wave, the lynx cat jumped, drove
the coyote back and was brought