The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1940-01-18

bemedaled war veteran who had
come to the Okanagan and bought
himself a fruit ranch.
"Just a matter of changing from
sheep to fruit for Lin," he remarked.
.tIt's great to have an easy con-
science"
And so they talked in quiet anna
bility, while the freight fiickered
pleasantly on the ruddy pine beams
of the ceiling and coquetted with
the shadows that lurked about the
furnishings.
Ever since Autumn had left that
morning, an inexplicable sadness
had lain upon Jarvis Dean, heavi-
ness of heart that was more than
mere regret at her going. She would
be back again tomorrow, he told
himself, and they would still have
few brief days together before she
left the Castle for good It would
be for good this time, and when he
joined her in England in the fall,
that would be his own farewell to
this land in which he had known
the heights and depths of all pas
sions. Searching his heart for the
cause of his melancholy, he came
with acute anguish upon the truth.
Jarvis Dean had reached an end
an end of everything that had really
mattered in life. An abyss of MOTH
ingness yawned before him.
Without these stark hills and un-
guessable valleys that had witnessed
with silent compassion the drama
of his life, he would be as a player
upon stage without an audience.
Frequently during the day, his
eyes had roved hungrily over the
noble prospect that had been his
for more than quarter of CEN
tury BY toll of mind and body and
soul he had made it his own, and
his being. in turn, had been deliv-
cred over in its entirety to the mag
nitude of this earth
All that he had known of Joy and
sorrow, hatred and love, the saga
of his failure and triumph, was writ
ten across the bright tablet of this
land, inscrutable to all but himself; /;
when he left it his epitaph would be
| craven there.
The sun marked noon, and the
| less explicit hours of the west. To-
ward the latter end of the day Jar
Wis went on foot to the temporary
! camp where his young Irish herder,
Clancy Shane, was tending the few
hundred sheep he had brought down
| from the range to be sold. II had
been a matter of great pride to the
boy that he had brought the band
down single-handed and Jarvis had
expressed his dry pleasure by rails
ing the lads salary.
In a wooded hollow before he
reached the rise from which the
! flock could be seen, Jarvis halted
| abruptly to listen. An unwonted
clamor of excited barking was COM
ing from the direction of the flock,
mingled with the mad bleat of sheep.
In alarm, Jarvis scrambled up
through the woods to the crest,
where a furious spectacle met his
| eyes.
The low, red sun shone obliquely
across a turbulent lvid sea of gray
! bodies, a sea which, while Jarvis
stared at it aghast, seemed to be-
come a vortex spinning closer and
closer to the brink of deep arroyo,
sandy cleft in the ground that had
been washed deeper by freshets of
the last spring. The dog, in fren-
w, was striving to head the crazed
| flock away from the danger. Sud-
denly the Irish lad leaped into the
maelstrom and began beating his
way toward the churning center.
Jarvis shouted hoarse warning and
began to run.
Before he reached the arroyo,
however, the outer fringe of the
band had run off tangent-wise and
were plunging headlong into the gap
ing earth. Instantly the whirlpool
broke, the main body of it follow
ing the mad course of the first few
into the arroyo. When JARVIS came
at last and looked over the edge of
the cleft, he found the pit filling with
writhing, kicking, screaming bod
les. A few had escaped and were
struggling up the steep bank, bleat-
| ing dementedly, their oblique, crazy
eyes aglare.
In the thick of the struggle, fail
ing out with both arms and sobbing
| frantically, Clancy Shane bobbed
about, with hideous righteousness,
| like cork. Jarvis yelled to him
and plunged dow,l the embankment,
hurling out of his way the few half
| stunned animals that rushed up at
him. With all the strength of his
powerful frame he fought his way
to the boy. lifted him bodily above
the descending stream of gray
forms, and flung him free.
AS he did so. a dozen grizzted
| shapes came down upon him and
Jarvis fell back among them.
Bruce Landor was driving home
| from town. On a sharp decline in
the road where it approached the
Dean place, his gaze was arrested
by wild figure that rushed fren-
ziedly toward him, apparently from
nowhere. Bruce drew to the side of
the road and stopped his car. The
mailman was young Clancy Shane.
The boy collapsed against the run
! ming board, his breath a raucous
wheeze. Bruce leaped from his car