Part 15

The woman looked at him, and for the first time she really saw him; for the first time the strangeness of an unknown man in the house in the middle of the night was apparent to her. From his face her glance wandered to the chair where the burglar had thrown his mask and tools.

"Yes," he said, answering her look, "I'm a burglar. I heard your husband was out of town, and I came to rob you. You can call the police, now."

"No," the woman interrupted. "Go into the next room and wait until the doctor leaves. I want to help you to a better way of living than this, if I can."

After the doctor had departed the woman went into the next room. The burglar was not there. Going downstairs she found the drawers ransacked and all her valuables gone. On the table was a scrap of paper. On it was written:

"Thank you, madam, for your offer, but I'm used to this life now and don't want to change."

The woman thought of the sleeping baby upstairs, and a tender smile came to her lips. That robbery was not reported to the police.

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THE REWARD

By Herbert Heron

No one knew just how popular Cobbe was till Dick Walling shot him. It was Cobbe's fault, but Walling didn't wait to explain. Like others, he didn't know the degree of the deceased's popularity but he had a fair idea, and left Monterey as fast as his horse could take him. The animal was the speediest in the county.

He stopped at Parl's on his way up the valley. Parl greeted him cordially. For half an hour they talked. The 'phone rang.

"That's for me. I told Cobbe I'd stop here," and with that Walling took down the receiver.

"Hello! This Mr. Parl's. Oh, yes, you want me. What? Well, I'm damned! Not a sign. I'll watch. Sure. What? How much? Whew!" He ended in a long whistle, and hung up.

"I'll be sliding along now." He shook hands, mounted, and rode toward Monterey till Parl shut the door. Then he circled, and went on up the valley. A thousand dollars reward, dead or alive! He knew now how popular Cobbe was.

They hadn't even waited till the sheriff had failed to get him.

There are few ranches above Parl's, and these have no telephones, so he rode by, unconcerned. Toward midnight he came to a place owned by a girl and her brother. He had loved the girl, but decided that she didn't care for him. The brother liked him, though, and he could get some food for his stay in the mountains till things quieted down and he could leave the country.

The brother came to the door, pale and troubled. "He can't have heard----" The thought was dispelled by the sudden relief on the boy's face.

"Thank God, it's you, Dick! Mary's dying, and----" Walling followed him into the room where the girl lay, high in fever. "I couldn't leave her alone, to get the doctor, but now you can go----" Something in Walling's manner stopped him. "I'll go, and you can stay with her. Are you on Firefly? I'll take him. It'll be quicker." Before Walling could think what to say, the boy was gone. He went to call him back. The girl moaned. What could he do? He couldn't refuse this duty fallen on him from the sky, even if the girl were a stranger; and this was the woman he loved, ... but she was dying.

"Dick!... Oh, Dick!... Dick!..." The voice from the bed startled him. He went softly over to see what she wanted. In her eyes there was no recognition: she had spoken in delirium.

She loved him! But the rush of joy was swept away by the sight of her suffering. He bathed her face and hands. By and by the fever seemed less. She passed into a light sleep.

He made some coffee. While he drank it he had time to think of himself. When the doctor came from Monterey.... The doctor would know, and....

"I must clear out when I hear them coming." Then another thought forced its way in: "Go now, while you've still a good lead. Go now!"

He went to the stable, saddled a horse, and led him out. Then the face of the girl came over him. He left the horse tied to the gate, and went back. She was sleeping still, but brokenly. He couldn't go.

It was a two hours' ride to Parl's, where the boy could 'phone.... If the doctor left Monterey immediately, he'd get to the house about five. It was now nearly two.

The girl slept. Walling knew it was the critical time. If she woke better, she would probably recover. The thought was sweet to him. If she went again into delirium.... He sat still, thinking. The hours passed very slowly.

Suddenly Walling heard a step outside. He had heard no horse coming. He looked out cautiously and saw four men with rifles. Walling cocked his revolver, took down the boy's rifle from the wall and loaded it. He could account for some--and those who were left might depart. It would be a battle, anyway. There was no use being taken alive. Better be shot than hanged.

The leader made a signal. Walling raised his gun. And then--Mary stirred. Her battle, like his, was still undecided. If she slept on, and woke refreshed, she would get well. If not....

Walling laid down his rifle and stepped outside. The men covered him. As he was taken down the road to the waiting horses, the doctor and the girl's brother drove up.

"She's asleep," said Walling.

The boy showed no surprise--he had heard the story from the doctor--but his voice was pitiful:

"Why didn't you?... I didn't know.... Oh, my God! ... and you stayed ... when you could have got away!" He turned to the men with a hopeless look. "It's my fault!" he cried. "He stayed with my sister. I thought she was dying. He didn't tell me he _couldn't_ stay! He'd be safe in the mountains by now.... Oh, my God!"

The leader glanced at his companions. They were stern men, but they were moving uneasily. The situation was unbearable.

"How long have you been here?"

"Since about midnight," answered Walling, though he couldn't see what difference it made. The leader took out his watch.

"Twelve minutes past five now. Say, we've been twelve minutes getting you, that leaves five hours. We'll stay here and rest our horses. At twelve minutes past ten we'll start again. That suit you, boys?"

"What do you mean?" asked Walling.

"I mean you still have your five hours' start; you haven't lost anything by staying with the sick girl."

Walling went back to the house. Mary was still sleeping. He touched her hand. It seemed cooler.

"Tell her I'll write--if I can."

"Good-bye," said the boy.

As he went out Walling saw the men unsaddling their horses. He took off his hat to them as he rode away into the mountains.

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THE FIRST GIRL

By Louise Pond Jewell

They had been talking of the Marsdens, who had just gone down with the torpedoed ship; and among the kindly and affectionate things said about them, the exceptional happiness of their married life was mentioned. Some one spoke of this as being rather surprising, as they had married so late in life; then, naturally enough, another remarked what a different world it would be if every man had been accepted by the first girl he had proposed to. And he added, that sometimes he thought that first choice was one of truer instinct, less tinctured with the world's sophistication than any later one. The bachelor contributed with a laugh that that first girl had one advantage over the wife, no matter how perfect the latter--that she remained the ideal. And then, little by little, they came to the point of agreeing to tell, then and there, in the elegance and dignity of the clubroom suited to the indulgence of their late middle years, each one about that first girl, and what she had meant to him.

The Explorer began.

"I met her in the Adirondacks, and knew her only one summer. After that, I couldn't see her just as a friend--and she was unwilling to be anything else to me. So, all my life, I've associated her with the woods and lakes, with the sincerity and wholesomeness of the great Outdoors. She had the freedom of Diana, and her lack of self-consciousness. I never saw her except roughly clad, but she always suggested that line of Virgil--'She walked the goddess.'

"She was strong and lithe as a boy, could climb mountains, row, play golf and tennis with any of us; and what a good sport. She never fussed over getting caught in drenching rains, being bruised and torn by rocks and thorns; and once when a small party of us lost our way, and had to spend the night on a lonely mountainside within sound of wolves and catamounts, her gayety made a 'lark' of it. She could drive horses with a man's steady hands; she knew the birds by name, and all the plants and trees that grew within miles, and she was familiar with the tracks and habits of all the small creatures of the forest. To me she was--simply wonderful, and, I confess, always has been."

"What became of her?" they asked.

"Later, she married--a man who didn't know a pine from a palm! I always wondered...."

The Diplomat came next.

"That sort," he said, "is a little too independent and upstanding to belong to my type of woman. The rough, tanned skin, the strong, capable hands--big, probably--the woolen skirt and blouse--they'll do very well in a girl chum, for a summer. But when it comes to a _wife_, one's demands are different. The girl I wanted first--and I've never forgotten her; she was a queen--I knew during my first winter in Washington. You talk of Diana; I prefer Venus--wholly feminine, but never cloying. She was the kind that looks best in thin, clinging things. I remember yet a shimmering green and silver 'creation' she wore at the Inaugural Ball. She didn't take hikes with me through scratchy forests, but she'd dance all night long, and her little feet would never tire. She didn't handle guns or tillers, but you should have seen her pretty fingers deftly managing the tea things in a drawing-room, of a winter's afternoon, or playing soft, enchanting airs on the piano at twilight; or, for the matter of that, placing a carnation in a man's button-hole--I can feel her doing it yet! She probably didn't know birds, but, by George! she knew men! And there wasn't one of us young fellows that winter that wouldn't gladly have had her snare him. Only--that was the one thing she didn't do!"

"Didn't she ever do any snaring?"

"Oh--finally. And--the pity of it!--a man who couldn't dance, and had no use for Society! Sometimes...."

"How about you?" the third member of the group was asked, an Engineer of national reputation. "Was there a first best girl for you, too?"

"Guilty!" he replied. "But my account will sound prosaic after these others. You know, my early days weren't given to expensive summer camps, nor to Washington ballrooms. I made my own way through college, and 'vacations' meant the hardest work of the year. But when I was a Senior, all the drudgery was transformed. Paradise wouldn't have been in it with that little co-educational college campus and library and chapel and classrooms; for I found _her_. Just a classmate she was. You tell how your girls dressed; I never noticed how _she_ dressed; it might have been in shimmering green and silver, and it might have been in linsey-woolsey, for all I knew. But--she could _think_, and she could _talk_! We discussed everything together, from philosophy and the evolution of history to the affairs of the day. I spent every hour with her that I could, and in all sorts of places. There's a spot in the stackroom of the old library that I always visit yet, when I go back--because of her. I've never known a woman since with such a mind, such breadth and clearness; and it showed in her face--the face of Athena, not Diana or Venus! I believed that with such a companion at my side, to turn to in every perplexity, I could make my life worth while. But she--saw it differently."

"Is she a feminist now?" slyly inquired the Explorer.

"She, too, married, after a while--a fine fellow, but--anything but a student. I can't help...."

"Mine," said the fourth, the Socialist, "will sound least dramatic of all--though I assure you the time was dramatic enough for me. You talk about your goddesses; my pedestal held just a sweet human girl,--a nurse, serving her first year at the hospital, that time we had the smash-up in '80. And you talk of beauty, and style, and brain; but with me it isn't of a pretty face or graceful form I think when I recall that magic time; and least of all is it of any intellectual prowess. I'm not sure whether she knew the difference between physics and metaphysics, or whether she'd ever heard of a cosine. But she was endowed with the charm of charms in a woman--sympathy. She would listen by the hour while I poured out to her my young hopes and ambitions; I could tell her all the dreams a young fellow cherishes most deeply--and would die of mortification if even his best friend guessed at their existence. She always understood; and though she talked little herself, she had the effect of making me appear at my very best. I felt I could move the world if she would just stand by and watch. But in spite of her kindness and gentleness she turned me down. Many times I've questioned...."

"That was all right for a sick boy," commented the Diplomat, "but for a _wife_, a girl like Alison----"

"'Alison,'" echoed the Engineer, involuntarily, "a nice name, anyway; that was _her_ name."

"Why----" the Explorer mused--"that's an odd coincidence; so was _hers_--Alison Forbes."

"Alison Forbes"--breathed the Socialist--"Alison Forbes--Marsden!"

And suddenly there was a silence, and the four friends looked strangely at one another. For they knew in that moment that there had been in those lives of theirs left far behind, not four first girls, but one--seen with different eyes.

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A SOPHISTRY OF ART

By Eugene Smith

On the station platform in Quanah, one morning, I stopped "waiting for the train" for a moment to watch a man and woman painting on a large signboard across the way. The inevitable wiseacre in the little group of travelling men explained that they were really talented artists, a man and wife.

The husband had contracted--er--a throat affection in their studio back East, and physicians had ordered him to the open air and high, dry altitude of west Texas. So they had come, and were earning expenses, making a series of paintings on signboards, advertisements of a lumber corporation, throughout the Panhandle country.

I walked out across the tracks near where the slightly stooped husband, in overalls, and his little wife, looking very attractive in her neat apron and sunbonnet, were at work.

There was a pathos about the thing that went straight to my heart. The loyal little woman and the stricken husband there in the clear, crisp morning air and sunshine, earnestly striving, undismayed. Something--a common sympathy--thrilled me.

And now the painting seemed artistic. The general idea was a lovely cottage home (built, of course, with Oakley's lumber, as was intimated). But the cottage was not glaringly new--rather mellowed a bit with time, it seemed, and was the more homelike for it.

In the front stood a sweet little woman, looking down a winding road, and in the expression on her face, painted by the real little woman, was joyous hope--almost certainty--of seeing the husband coming down the road to her and home, after his day's work.

The colours of sunset added to the beauty of the conception, which altogether made desirable the having such a little wife to wait for one each evening at such a little cottage home. And that was the purpose of it; when you thought of home-building, you also thought of Oakley's lumber.

The painters were happy in their work--happy as two birds building a nest. The wife, seated on her little stepladder, with palette and brushes, was deftly pointing up the vines about the windows, as all good wives should. She hummed something of a tune, now and then looking gayly down at him, who laughed back up at her from his work on the winding road and distant trees.

A courteous inquiry and my being an Easterner, was a passport into their confidences. "We only paint a little while in the cool of the morning and afternoon of each day," he was saying to my remarks on the weather. "It's dangerous to lay on much paint at a time," he continued, "for the sand ruins it."

"Oh, if it wasn't for the sand storms!" she chimed in. "But we love the country, and the folks, too; they seem so much a part of the out of doors, you know. Though we hope--we expect--to go back home before long." She was looking fondly down at him.

"I had a little trouble with my throat," he explained depreciatively. "But this western air has just about put me in the running again. It's wonderful." I could see the thankfulness in his eyes, as he smiled up at his companion. I didn't blame him for loving life.

In the smoking-car of the belated train we travelling men discussed the case of the painters.

"It's only his throat that bothers him a bit," I denied with some heat. "Besides, he is nearly recovered, and looks it."

"Yes, I know; that's characteristic. It's what they all say when they begin to perk up in a change of climate," persisted the Pessimist in the crowd. "But the average is 100 to 1 against them. I've seen too many lungers out here in this country."

Damn a Pessimist with his statistics, anyhow!

* * * * *

Several months later I made another trip through the Texas Panhandle country, and at each town going up from Quanah toward Amarillo I saw one of the Oakley lumber advertisements prominently displayed on large bill-boards. They were all the same, like the first one; that is, if your glance was but a passing one. But to me, who had grown interested in Art and things artistic, there was a difference in the paintings. Yes, a difference! I wasn't so sure at first. "It's just imagination," I pooh-poohed the idea. But later on----

Anyhow, I soon found myself going directly from the station, on each arrival, to look up the Oakley bill-board. It was never hard to find. Somehow, I just got to wondering--worrying--about the welfare of the young husband, the artist, I had met.

In the first few of the paintings I found portrayed all the life and glad hope and expectancy that I had seen some time before in the one at Quanah.

Then came the inevitable. Strange as it was, I knew that I had been expecting--dreading--it; though rather in the gossip around the hotels than in the pictures themselves, where I really found it. That was the only surprise.

I remember, in Clarendon--the first town after you get up on the Cap-rock of the Staked Plains--there I saw--or imagined--it first. One is ever instinctively wary of eyesight in that land of mirages.

And in each succeeding village and town as I travelled westward and upward, I felt it--saw it--there on the bill-boards, as if painted in half-unconsciously by the artist: a faint trace of querulous doubt in the face of the little, waiting wife, spirit of melancholia lying dull in the picture.

As I was getting out of Goodnight one afternoon--a little ahead of time--in the automobile that daily makes the round trip to Claude, we drove past the Oakley signboard. I was in a hurry to get on to Claude to see the trade before night, and be ready to leave for Amarillo the next morning. But forgetting all this at the sight of the picture on the bill-board, I asked the chauffeur to stop a minute before it.

She was still smiling, the little wife waiting there in front of their home for her husband's return, but the smile was hollow and lifeless. I knew--could see--she was full of uneasiness and dread, and was only smiling to keep up her courage.

"That's quite a lumber advertisement--there," I ventured. The chauffeur was drinking water from the canvas canteen.

"Uh-huh!" he gulped. "I seen 'em painting it."

"A man and woman?"

"Well, yes; but the woman did most of it. I saw her there every day for some time. Once in a while the man--her husband, I guess--would be tryin' to help paint, but he was all in. You could tell it, the way he looked."

I winced at his words. So here it was, confirmed, what I had been hoping was only imagination. Confound that Pessimist!

"They must have painted a good many of these signs; I see them everywhere," I continued, in a disinterested manner.

"There's another'n over at Claude," yawned the chauffeur. "I think I remember hauling them people over in the car."

"Over to Claude?"

"Yes--I fergit. I never pay much attention to the folks I haul," he remarked casually, eying me in a bored way.

Then we drove on.

A day later I arrived in Amarillo from Claude, glad, for it was my trip's end. I started walking uptown from the station to stretch my legs, besides--well, there across the street, on a vacant lot, was the Oakley bill-board, and the picture. The late afternoon sunlight fell full across it.

I looked at the woman in the picture, whom I had come to know for the real little wife, the artist, painting from her heart. She stood smiling, but behind the smile I read doubt and dread realized, and hope--almost--dying hard. For the smile was but a poor attempt, and the joyous expectancy I saw shining in her eyes months before at Quanah was not there now. There was a subtle air of unmistakable despair about her. Her very frailty and dependency and loyal effort to keep her smile wrung from me a quick sympathy.

I turned back to the drab routine of life sadly, and picking up my grips, saw the Pessimist standing on the sidewalk with his detestable knowing look. There behind him came the Wiseacre. It was one of those little coincidences of a drummer's life which so often find the same parties together again.

"I was just looking at another one of the pictures--the last one, I guess," I said suddenly, feeling unashamed of my concern and sadness.

"Last one!" exclaimed the Wiseacre, full of ready information. "Why, man! That's their _first_ one. Here's where they began last year. I saw them in St. Paul three weeks ago, happy as wrens."

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THE MESSAGE IN THE AIR

By B. R. Stevens

The typewriters were clicking busily in the place. Every one seemed honestly, industriously at work.

Looking out of the aperture prepared for the purpose, Lance Allison saw nothing suspicious. Yet Monsieur the General had been so sure that information was leaking, in some mysterious way, from this very room.

Lance had been surprised that the fame of an American detective should have made any impression in France: more surprised when the General, on learning his identity, had personally solicited his aid.