Evening star., 1931-12-13

Berkshire hogs and had introduced them in
Hexter County, and now he was drunk and
mad, and he meant business.
The editorial praising Poland Chinas he had
taken as slap in his own particular face and
as a stab at his hog business, and he had come
down to show that he would not stand any
such thing.
Blarcom reached into the wagon bed and took
out a shotgun and a sledge hammer, He
walked straight-straight enough-to the door
of the Clarion and jerked it open.
Where's that double damned old idiot that
wrote that Poland China ne2" Rance de-
manded
He grasped old Brent by the collar, yanked
the old man up as if he had been a bag of
oats, shook him and ended by beating him un-
conscious and dropping him under the ex-
change table.
Rance glowered at the inert owner of the
Clarion a moment and then picked up the
sledge. His first blow shattered the drive wheel
of the press, causing it to fall in three seq
ments, and Lee Tarcy leaped for the arm that
held the sledge, clinging to it.
Don't! Don't!" he screamed
Rance dropped the sledge long enough to
shake the boy off his arm, and as Lee fell the
drunken man struck him with the left fist.
Then he hunted him with knee and sent
him sliding along the floor, and the boy lay
there, doubled up with pain, grasping his belly,
meaning
The sledge descended ON the decrepit old
press again. Twenty blows and the press was
utter wreck-mere iron junk One blow
crashed the job press into worthlesSneSS. In
five minutes the Clarion Office was ruin.
By that time old Brent had recovered suf1-
ciently to groan, and Lee Tarcy had stopped
groaning altogether. He saw Rance advance
on the exchange table under which old Brent
lay, and he got to his feet and got the shotgun
into his hands, and Rance started to swing
the sledge Lee let him have both barrels.
The drunken hog g-grower pitched forward
those outside the shop who had been drawn by
the Internal racket crowded in.
BY the time Rance Blarcom had been lifted
up and old Brent pulled from under the table,
Lee was bawling like baby.
THAT gun shoots low!" was what he was
sobbing. THAT gun shoots low!"
DOWN in the Gorge they use rifes-hair
l. trigger-and this shotgun of Rance Blar-
CONS had stiff trigger and hard pull, and
Lees two shots had caught Rance in the thighs
and calves. He was full of birdshot down in
those regions, but he was far from dead-not
one-tenth dead as the Clarion was.
The Hexter County Clarion was so to speak,
totally non est Old Brent made that known
to Lee as soon as he could The press and
shop were ruined, the job press smashed, and
old Brent had no money with which to buy
anything hardly food. The only thing Brent
could DO, aside from going 10 tne poor 1arnl,
was to live with son over IN Mississippi
The next day old Brent kept to his bed, but
he had talk with Lee. Up in the next county
there was paper, and the boy might get on
the paper up there, old Brent said That was
enough, and Lee started that very day. just as
he was, with a parcel of food in a paper and
the last copy of the Clarion in his hip pocket.
AS he went out of the gate of old Brents
place and turned northward Lee saw the girl
of the pump. Ske was in the yard next door.
Are you going away?" she asked.
YES" said Lee.
"All right; come back some time" the girl
said I'm sorry the Clarion got busted up"
BY the time Lee was 81 he knew something.