The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-07-24

had had an editorial about it in which
the phrases insult to the fair woman
hood Of America" and "orgy rivaling
the Bacchanalian revels of history"
(Yancey's library stood her in good
stead these days. figured prominently.
It was-this red brick brothel-less
sinister than these good and innocent
women suspected. Dixie Lee, now a
woman of thirty or more, ruled it with
an iron hand. Within 1t obtained GER
tain laws and rules Of conduct so rigid
as to be almost prim. 1t was, in a
way, club, rendezvous, salon.
sFor hundreds of men who came there
it was all they had ever known Of
richness, Of color, of luxury. Here
they lolled. sunk deep in rosy comfort,
while they talked territory politics,
snapped yarns of the old cattle days,
played cards, drank wines which tasted
like sweet prickling water to their
whisky-scarred palates. They kissed
these women, thought tenderly of
many of them, and frequently married
them and these, women, once married,
settled down contentedly to an almost
slavish domesticity.
A hard woman, Dixie Lee; q bad
woman. Sabra was morally right in
her attitude toward her. Yet this
woman, as well as Sabra, filed her
place in the early life of the territory.
The Oklahoma Wigwam had flour
ished in these last five years Of Sabra's
proprietorship: She was thinking
seriously Of making it daily instead
Of weekly; Of using the entire build
ing on Pawhuska avenue for the news
paper plant and building proper
house for herself and the two chill
dren on one of the residence streets
newly sprung up-streets that boosted
neatly painted houses and elm and cot
tonwood trees in the front yards.
Some one came up the steps of the
little porch and into the office. 1t was
Mrs. Wyatt WELT" she exclaimed,
simply, but managing to put enormous
bite and significance into the mono.
syllable. Her glance followed Sabra's.
Together the two women, tight Tipped
condemnatory, watched the gay parade
Of Dixie Lees girls go by.
The flashing company disappeared.
A Whit of patchouli floated back to
the two women standing by the open
window. Their nostrils lifted in dis
dain. The sound of the horses hoofs
grew fainter.
It's a disgrace to the community
Mrs. WAITS voice took on it's plat
form note-''and an insult to every
wife and mother in the territory.
There ought to be a law"
Sabra turned away from the win
dow. Her eyes sought the orderly
rows of books, bound neatly in tan
and red-Yancey's law books, so long
unused now, except, perhaps, for occa-
sional newspaper reference. Her face
set itself in lines of resolve "Per-
haps there is"
A man like Yancey Crayat-spec-
tacular, dramatic, impulsive-has a
thousand critics, scores of bitter enc
mics. AS the weeks had gone by and
Yancey failed to return-had failed
to write-rumor, clouded by scandal
leaped like prairie fire from house to
house in Usage, from town to town in
the Oklahoma country, over the South
west, indeed All the old stories were
revived, and their ugly red tongues
licked sordid path through the new
ly opened land.
They say he is living with the
Cherokee squaw who Is really his
wife.
They say he was seen making the
Run in the Kickapoo land opening in
1895.
They say he killed a man in the
Cherokee Strip Run and was caught
by posse and hung.
They say he got section Of land,
sold it at high figure, and was seen
lording it around the bar of the Brown
Palace hotel in Denver, in his white
sombrero and his Prince Albert coat
They say Dixie Lee is his real wife
and he left her when she was seven
teen, came to Wichita, and married
Sabra Venable; and he is the one who
has set Dixie up in the brick house.
They say he drank five quarts Of
whisky one night and died and is
buried in an unmarked grave in
Horseshoe ranch, where the Doolin
gang held forth.
They say he is really the leader of
the Doolin gang. They say. They
say. They say.
1t is impossible to know how Sabra
survived those first terrible weeks that
heightened into months that length
ened into years. There was in her the
wiry endurance of the French Marcys :,
the pride Of the southern Venables.
She told herself that Yancey was
dead She told the world that he was
dead. She knew, by some deep and
unerring instinct, that he was alive.
She ran the paper compaently;
wrung from it a decent livelihood for
herself and the two children. When
it had no longer been possible to keep
secret from her parents the fact of