White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1926-04-09
Continued from last week

Continued from last week
81 s'pose you've had breakfast. Can't
you eat a little more? Sit down with
me, anyway. Come, do; it'll make
these flapjacks go better" He rat
tied on for moment more, uneasily
studying her, and then suddenly &C.
cused her: Amy, you didn't sleep
again last night"
ooh, slept all right" She averted
her face, her tone slightly cold. Ar
nett absently flooded his plate with
syrup, and then suddenly pushed it
away from him with an exclamation
that was half angry, half penitent.
you didn't, know! I'm sorry.
wish you wouldn't worry so. l can't
help it - being away. I've got to
help
az can't help-I've got to help
she quoted him with sudden fearful
Impotence. "If you'd put that the
other way around, if you'd put u.s."
nodding toward the wide-eyed child,
before them, before Cougar and its
law-making- Oh, l don't mean that;
[ know you do. But how can l help
worrying every minute I'm away from
you? And these meetings-and you
away at night! / just couldn't wait
till you came after me, to find out if
if
eff l was still alive, eh?" he laugh
ed rather jerkiy. ooh, pshaw, Amy!
There isn't any danger like that. Any
way, there's no more meetings. We've
got things fixed now for election"
Eyes, and after election, then what?
| could hope you're not elected.
know why no one else would run
against Helme-they were all afraid
Then you had to do it. Oh, you
shouldn't have done it, you should
Mt
Arnett stared at his coffee modify;
he had been telling himself the same
thing when his wife had entered. A
hundred times he had regretted the
fit of temper which had really been
responsible for his candidacy.
He knew, even putting his family
out Of the question, that he was not
the man for the job. He had been
a New England farmland before
coming to California and thence to
this wilder country, and he had NO
knowledge Of crooks and their ways
Why, he could not even shoot! But
the same instinct for the soberer
ways of life that had caused him to
be a carpenter in San Francisco and
a stock-raiser here, when everybody
else was mad for mining, had made
him the more impatient with law
lessness. Now, looking at his wife's
distressed face, he admitted that she
was right.
But / can't stand it," he de-
Tended himself, Seeing Helme run
things You know the way he got
in. Most Of us never saw the cleo
ton notices till the day after cleo.
ton. They were posted up where
we wouldn't see them, till the crooks
, pointed EN- out. And you know If
OF how in, hn r,,i,,
selves. More than third TO our
horses have been stolen this winter.
Then all these killings, too; 1t
can't go on. Two murderers caught
almost red-handed and turned loose
by miners court because every man
knew if he voted to hang 'em he'd
be killed himself. And after I'd said
all l did, calling EN- towards and
all, how could l back down when
they wanted me to run for sheriff
How can l back down now? I'm sor-
ry, but
But his lean, hard frame had stiff
fened as he talked, his fiery blue
eyes had gone hard and angry, and
his stubborn jaw was thrust out
Mrs. Arnett looked at him, sym
pathized with him, admired him in
spite of her own distress. She knew
how he had builded his hopes on this
business of stock-raising, how he
had planned ahead to stay with the
country and to rise with it, how it
had hurt to lose three years profits
and to find their whole joint future
threatened by this rule of thieves.
She understood without wholly shar-
ing it his zeal for the community
welfare and, better than he, she un-
derstood how few others were pos
sessed of an equal zeal. Transients
they We're, the miners, with their de-
sire all for gold and safe return to
the East; but to pioneer John Arnett
this virgin land spelled home.