The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-07-31

dalliance. Those five years had served
to accentuate her spinsterish quail
ties; had made her more and more
powerful; less human had slowed the
machinery of her emotional equip
ment. Asman in the house. A possess
sive male, enfolding her in his arms;
touching her hair, her throat with ur-
gent fingers. She was embarrassed
almost. Besides, this man had neg
lected her, deserted her. had left his
children to get on as best they could.
She shrugged herself free. Anger
leaped within her. He was a. stranger.
Don't touch me. You can't come
home like this-after years-after
years"
"Ah, Penelope!"
She stared. "Who" .S
"'Strange lady, surely to thee above
all womankind the Olympians have
given a heart that cannot be softened.
No other woman in the world would
harden her heart to stand thus aloof
from her husband, who after travail
and sore had come to her to
his own country"
you and your miserable Miltoni"
He looked only slightly surprised
and did not correct her.
One by one, and then in groups and
then in crowds, the neighbors and
townspeople began to come in-the
Wyatts, Louie Hefner, Cass Peery,
Mott Bixler, Ike Halves, Graf Gotch,
Doc Nisbett-the local politicians, the
storekeepers, their wives. They came
out of curiosity, though they felt
proper resentment toward this strange
this battling creature who had rid
den carelessly away, leaving his wife
and children to fend for themselves,
and now had ridden as casually back
again. But at sight of Yancey Crayat
in his Rough Rider uniform of khaki,
u. S. v. on the collar. they were
shared again in the mesh Of his en-
chantment. The Rough Riders. Re-
member the Maine, to hi with Spain!
There'll Be Hot Time in the Old
Town Tonight. He became figure
symbolic of the war, of the Oklahoma
country, of the territory, of the South
west-impetuous, romantic, advertur-
ing. The renegade was hero; the
outcast had returned conqueror
Alaska. Oklahoma had not been so
busy with its own growing pains that
it mad failed to hear of Alaska and the
gold rush. Alaska! Go on, you
wasn't never in Alaska! Heard you'd
turned Injun. Heard you was buried
up in Boot hill along of the Doolins."
He got out the little leather sack.
While they gathered round him he
poured out before their glistening eyes
the shining yellow heap of that treas
ure with which the whole history of
the Southwest was intertwined. Gold.
The hills and the plains had been
honeycombed for it; men had hun
gered and fought and parched for it;
had died for it; had been killed for it;
had sacrificed honor. home, happiness
in the hope of finding it. And here
was the precious yellow stuff from
far-off Alaska trickling through Yam
cey Cravat's slim white fingers.
On it all, Yancey, some folks has
all the luck"
Luck Call 1t luck, do you, Mott.
to be frozen, starved, lost, snow
blinded! One whole winter shut up
alone in a one-room cabin with the
snow piled to the roof-top and no liv-
ing soul to talk to for months. Luck
to have your pardner that you trusted
cheat you out Of your claim and rob
you of your gold in the bargain All
but this handful. was going to see
Sabra covered in gold like an Aztec
princess"
The eyes of listening Usage swung
to the prim blue serge figure Of the
cheated Aztec princess, encountered
the level gaze, the unsmiling lips;
swung back again hastily to the dash
ing, the martial figure of the lately de-
spised wanderer.
A tale of another world; a story Of
a land so remote from the brilliant
scarlet and orange of the burning
Southwest country that the very sound
of the words he used in describing it
fell with strange cadence on the
ears of the eager listeners. Yu-
kon. Chilkoot Pass, Skagway.