Cheyenne record., February 17, 1916, Image 2

About Cheyenne record. (Cheyenne Wells, Cheyenne County, Colo.) 1913-19??

Image provided by: History Colorado

                
The
SCARIET PLAGUE
by JACK LONDON
<ropyßro»-rr 1914" akclurb nbwjpapca sy/fpicATß*
SYNOPSIS.
—2—
In a California valley an old maa, one
of Ihe few survivors of a world-wide
plague that has destroyed civilization,
tells the story of the Scarlet Plague to
tils grandsons.
CHAPTER I—Continued.
The boys were overwhelmed with de
light at sight of the tears of senile dis
appointment that dribbled down the
old man's cheeks. Then, unnoticed,
Hoo-Hoo replaced the empty shell with
a fresh cooked crab. Already dismem
bered from the cracked legs the white
meat sent forth a small cloud of sav
ory steam. This attracted the old
man's nostrils, and he looked down in
amazement. The change f his mood
to one of joy was immediate. He
snuffled and muttered and mumbled,
making almost * croon of (Might, as
be begat co j ,t. Of this the boys took
little notice. f or it was an accustomed
spectacle. Nor did they notice his oc
casional exclamations and utterances
of phrases which meant nothing to
them, as, for instance, when he
smacked his lips and champed his
gums while muttering: “Mayonnaise!
Just think—mayonnaise! And it’s sixty
years since the last was ever made!
Two generations and never a smell of
It! Why, in those days it was served
In every restaurant with crab."
When he could eat no more, the old
man sighed, wiped his hands on his
naked leg 3, e~d gazed out over the sea
With the cor tent of a full stomach, he
waxed reminiscent.
“To think of it! I’ve seen this beach
alive with men, women and children
on a pleasant Sunday. And there
weren't any bears to eat them up,
either. And right up there on the cliff
was a big restaurant where you could
get anything you wanted to eat. Four
million people liv'd in San Francisco
then. And :iow, in the whole city and
county there aren’t forty all tcld. And
out there on the sea were ships and
ships always to be seen, going in for
the Golden Gate or coming out. And
airships in the Mr —dirigibles and fly
ing machines. They could travel two
hundred miles an hour. Mail contracts
with the New York and San Francisco
limited demanded that for the mini
mum. Therj was a chap, a French
man, I forget his name, who succeeded
In making three hundred; but the thing
was too idLky for conservative per
sons. But he was on the right clue,
and he w'ould have managed it if it
hadn’t been for the great plague.
When I was a boy there were men who
remembered the coming of the first
aeroplanes, and now 1 have lived to
see the last of them, and that sixty
years ago.”
“But there weren’t many crabs in
those days,” the old man wandered on.
“They were fished out, and they were
great delicacies The open season was
only a month long, too. And now
crabs are accessible the whole year
around. Thi. k of it —catching all the
crabs you want, any time you want, in
the surf of the Cliff house beach!’’
A sudden commotion among the
goats brought the boys to their feet.
The dogs about the fire rusheu to join
their snarling fellow who guarded the
goats while the goats themselves
stampeded in the direction of their
human protectors. A half dozen forms,
lean and gray, glided about on the
sand hillocks or faced the bristling
dogs. Edwin arched an *rrow that
fell short. But Hare-Lip, with a sling,
such as David carried into battle
Hgainßt Gollrth. hurled a stone through
the air that whistled from the speed of
Us flight it fell squarely among the
wolves and caused them to slink away
toward the dark depths of the eucalyp
tus forest.
The boys laughed and lay down
again in the sand, while Granser
sighed ponderously. He had eaten too
much, and with hands clasped on his
paunch, the fingers interlaced, he re
sumed his maunderings.
•• ‘The fleeting systems lapse like
foam,’ ” he mumbled what was evi
dently a quotation. “That's it —foam,
and fleeting. All man’s toil upon the
planet was just so much foam. He
domesticated the serviceable animals,
destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared
the land of Its wild vegetation. And
then he passed, the flood of primordial
life rolled back again, sweeping his
handiwork away—the weeds and the
forest Inundated his fields, too beasts
of prey swept over his flocks, and now
there are wolves on the .Cliff house
beach " He waa appalled by the
thought "Where four million people
disported themaelTes, the wild wolvei
roam today, and the savage progeny of
our loins, with prehistoric weapons.
defend theme lives against tne fanged
despoilers. Think of it! And all be
cause of the Scarlet Death —”
The adjective had caught Hare-Lip’s
ear.
“He’s always saying that,” he said to
Edwin. “What is scarlet?”
“ ’The scarlet of the maples can
shake me like the cry of bugles going
by,’ ” the old man quoted.
“It's red.” Edwin answered the
question. “Ar,d you don't knew It be
cause you come from the Chauffeur
tribe. They never did know nothing,
none of them. Scarlet Is red —I know
that.”
“Red is red, aln t it?" Hare-Lip
grumbled. "Then what's the good of
gettln' cocky and calling it scarlet?"
“Red is not the right word," was the
reply. “The plague was scarlet. The
whole face i.nd body turned scarlet In
an hour’s time. Don't I know? Didn't
I see enough of it? And I tm telling
you It was Bcarlet because —well, be
cause it was scarlet. There Is no other
word for it.”
"Red is good enough for me," Hare-
Lip muttered obstinately. “My dad
calls red re ’, and he ought to know.
He says everybody died of the Red
Death."
“Your dad is a common fellow, de
scended from a common fellow," Gran
ser retorted heatedly. “Don’t I know
the beginnings of the Chauffeurs?
Your grandsire was a chauffeur, a
servant, and without education. He
worked for other persons. But your
grandmother was of good stock, only
the children did not take after her.
Don't I remember when I first met
them, catching fish at Lake Temes
cal?”
"What Is education?" Edwin asked.
"Calling red scarlet,” Hare-Lip
sneered, then returned to the attack
on Granser. "My dad told me, an’
he got it from his dad afore he
croaked, that your wife was a Santa
Rosan, an’ that she was sure no ac
count. He said she was a hash-sling
er before the Red Death, though I
don't know what a hash-sltnger is.
You can tell me. Edwin.”
But Edwin shook his head ir. token
of Ignorance.
"It is true, she was a waitress,”
Granser acknowledged. "But she was
a good woman, and your mother was
her daughter. Women w< ,-e very
scarce in the days after the Plague.
She was the only wife I could And,
even If she was a hash-slinger, as
your father calls it. But it is not nice
to talk about our progenitors that
way."
"Dad says that the wife of the first
chauffeur was a lady—"
“What's a lady?" Hoo-Hoo de
manded.
“A lady's a chauffeur squaw,” was
the quick reply of Hare-Lip.
“The first chauffeur was Bill, a
common fellow, as I said before," the
old man expounded; "but his wife
was a lady, a great lady. Before the
Scarlet Death she was the w-lfe of
Van Warden. He was president of
the board of Industrial magnates, and
was one of the dozen men who ruled
America. He was worth one billion,
eight hundred millions of dollars —
coins like you have there In your
pouch. Edwin. And then came the
Scarlet Death, and his wife became
the wife of Bill, the first chauffeur.
He used to beat her, too. I have seen
it myself."
Hoo-Hoo, lying on his Jtomach and
Idly digging Ills toes In the cand, cried
out and investigated, first, his toe
nail, and. next, the small hole he had
dug. The other two boys joined him,
excavating the sand rapidly with
their hands till there lay threo skele
tons exposed. Two were adults, the
third being that of a part-grown child.
The old man nudged along on the
ground and peered at the find.
“Plague victims,” be announced.
"That's the way they died every
where In the last days. This must
have been a family, running away
from the contagion and perishing
here on the Cliff house beach. They
—what are you doing, Edwin?"
This question was asked In sudden
dismay, as Edwin, using the back of
his hunting knife, began to knock out
the teeth from the jaws of ine of the
skulls.
“Goins to string 'em," was the re
sponse.
The three boys were no t hard at
It; and quite a knocking and ham
mering arose, in which Granser bab
bled on unnoticed.
“You are true savages. Already
has begun the custom of wearing hu
man teeth. In another generation
you will be perforating your noses
and ears and wearing ornaments of
THE CHETENNE RECORD.
bone and shell. I know. The human
race is doomed to sink back—farther
and farther Into t}ie primitive night
ere again it begins its bloody climb
upward to civilization. When we in
crease and feel the lack of room, we
shall proceed to kill one another.
And then I suppose, you will wear
human scalp locks at your waist, as
well—as you, Edwin, who are the
gentlest of my grandsons, have al
ready begun with that vile pigtail.
Throw it away, Edwin, boy; throw it
away.”
“What a gabble the old geezer
makes,” Hare-Lip remarked, when,
the teeth all extracted, they began an
attempt at equal division.
They were very quick and abrupt in
their actions, and their speech, in mo
ments of hot discussion over the al
lotment of the choicer teeth, was
truly a gabble. They spoke In mono
syllables and short, Jerky sentences
that were more a gibberish than a
language. And yet, through it ran
hints of grammatical construction,
and appeared vestiges of the conjuga
tion of some superior culture. Even
the speech of Granser was so corrupt
that w'ere it put down literally it
would be almost so much nonsense to
the reader. This, however, was when
he talked with the boys. When he
got into the full swing of babbling to
himself, it slowly purged itself Into
pure English. The sentenc-i grew
longer and were enunciated with a
rhythm and ease that were reminis
cent of the lecture platform.
“Tell us about the Red Death, Gran
ser,” Hare-Lip demanded, when the
teeth affair had been satisfactorily
concluded.
“The Scarlet Death," Edwin cor
rected.
“An 1 don’t work all that funny lingo
on us,” Hare-Lip went on. “Talk sen
sible, Granser, like a Santa Rosan
ought to talk. Other Santa Rosans
don’t talk like you.”
The old man showed pleasure In
being thus called upon. He cleared
his throat and began:
“Twenty or thirty years ago my
story was in great demand. But in
these days nobody seems interest
ed —”
"There you go!” Hare-Li cried
hotly. “Cut out the funny stuff and
Hare-Lip With a Sling Hurled a Stone
Through the Air That Whistled
From the Speed of Its Flight.
talk sensible. What's Interested?
You talk like a baby that don’t know
how.”
“Let him alone," Edwin urged, "or
he’ll get mad and won’t talk at all.
Skip the funny places. We’ll catch
on to some of what he tells us.”
“Let her go, Granser,” Hoo-Hoo en
couraged; for the old man was al
ready maundering about the disre
spect for elders and the reversion to
cruelty of all humans that fell from
high culture to primitive conditions.
CHAPTER 11.
The Beginning of the End.
The tale began.
“There were very many people In
the world in those days. San Fran
cisco alone held four millions—”
“What is millions?” Edwin Inter
rupted.
Granser looked at him kindly.
”1 know you cannot count beyond
ten, so I will tell you. Hold up your
two hands. On both of them you have
altogether ten fingers and thumbs.
Very well. I now take this grain of
null—you hold It, Hoo-Hoo." He
dropped the grain of sand Into the
lad’s palm and went on: “Now that
grain of sand stands for the ten
fingers of Edwin. I add another
grain. That's ten more fingers. And
I add another, another, and another.
until I have added as many grains
as Edwin has Angers and thumbs.
That makes what I call one hundred.
Remember that word—one hundred.
Now I put this pebble In Hare-Lip’s
hand. It stands for ten grains of
sand, of ten tens of Angers, or one
hundred Angers. I put this pebble In
Hare-Lip’s hand. It stands for ten
grains. Take a mussel shell, and It
stands for ten pebbles, or one hun
dred grains of sand, or one thousand
Angers. . . . ” '
And so on, laboriously, and with
much reiteration, he strove to build
up in their minds a crude conception
of numbers. As the quantities in
creased, he had the boys holding dif
ferent magnitudes in each of their
hands. For still higher sums, he laid
the symbols on the log of driftwood;
and for symbols he was haix. 4>ut, be
ing compelled to use the teeth from
the skull for millions, and the crab
shells for billions. It was here that
he stopped, for the boys were show
ing signs of becoming tired.
“There were four million people ll
San Francisco —four teeth.”
The boys’ eyes ranged along from
the teeth and from hand to hand,
down through the pebbles and sand
grains to Edwin’s Angers. And bach
again they ranged along the ascend
ing series in the effort to grasp such
inconceivable numbers.
That was a lot of folks, Oranser,"
Edwin at last hazarded.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
WERE MEN, AND GENTLEMEN
Cowpunchers of the Old Welt Hav*
Been Rightly Depicted In the
Paget of Romance.
“The old West.” says Edgar Beechei
Bronson, author of “The Vanguard,’
“was just as romantic in real life ai
it appears in fiction. Possibly it is th«
only cas=! of romance standing the test
of one's being actually on the spot
And the cowpunchers were gallant ai
courtiers.
“There is a story of the Cheyennt
coach when a man, a gentleman h«
called himself, from a big Eastern city
got exceedingly drunk and started tc
annoy a girl school-teacher who wai
going out to the school.
“A cowpuncher who was the only
other passenger on the coach, prompt
ly shoved a gun In his face and made
him behave himself. Living-out there
in the open, the only good women they
could remember were their mother!
and sisters, and that’s what good wom
en represented to them always. Sc
some of the Western fiction isn't toe
romant'c, after all.’’
Mr. Bronson may be regarded as an
authority on the matter, for he was a
working ranchman for 14 years.
The Literary Future.
What will be the effect of almost
worldwide war upon the world’s
writers? No one can escape its
psychological effect—the irst stun
ning sense of the futility of one's or
dinary labors and habits of thought, a
profound unsettling of one’s mental
base. But afterward? Perhaps, as a
reaction against the literature of the
war, we shall have a flood of light
comedy of the gayest sort. Serious
writers, finding their usual material
stale and unprofitable, will turn to
making mad farce. With the world
going to pieces about one, what can
one do but laugh? We must laugh,
in spite of ourselves, at the spectacle
of Anatole France, in uniform, editing
the Soldiers' Bulletin! And no one
of course will take seriously George
Bernard Shaw’s advice to the soldiers
of the opposing armies, to “shoot their
officers and go home!” Shaw is the
only literary man to raise a voice
against patriotism —but then of course
he is an Irishman. People are used
to caying: “Shaw isn't serious!”—
Neith Boyce in Harper*. Weekly.
Activities of Women.
Minimum wage laws for women
have been enacted in Oregon, Cali
fornia, Colorado, Massachusetts, Min
nesota, Nebraska, Utah, Washington
and Wisconsin.
If women do not get the vote before
her death, Mrs. Margaret Stockman
of London, is so framing her will that
her son will be disinherited.
Bertha Krupp, head of the Krupp
Gun works at Essen, Germany, has an
income of over $11,000,000 a year.
Miss Elsie Burr, a well-known Bos
ton society girl, has gone to Paris,
where she will act as a Red Cross
nurse.
There are over forty thousand wom
an teachers In the Japanese elemen
tary schools at a salary of eight dol
lars per month.
Iron Cross for a Gypsy.
Gypsies of Europe are the outcasts of
outcasts. For centuries they have wan
dered, refusing to be absorbed by
the populations of the countries where
their tents have been pitched. The
bestowal of the Iron Cross on a mem
ber of this despised race for gallantry
in action upsets a whole shelfful ol
race prejudice.
But some day the Idea Is going tc
filter through men's heads that all
mankind is at least M per cent Ins
man —and maybe #5.
Not a Bite of
Breakfast Until
You Drink Water
Says a glass of hot water and
phosphate prevents illness
and keeps us fit.
Just a3 coal, when it burns, leaves
behind a certain amount of incom
bustible material in the form of ashes,
so the food and drink taken day after
day leaves in the alimentary canal a
certain amount of indigestible mate
rial, which if not completely eliminat-'
ed from the system each day, becomes
food for the millions of bacteria which
infest the bowels. From this mass of
left-over whste, toxins and ptomaine
like poisons are formed and sucked
into the blood.
Men and women who can’t get feel
ing right must begin to take inside
baths. Before eating breakfast each
morning drink a glass of real hot wa
ter with a teaspoonful of limestone
phosphate in it to wash out of the
thirty feet of bowels the previous day’s
accumulation of poisons and toxins
and to keep the entire alimentary
canal clean, pure and fresh.
Those who are subject to sick head
ache, colds, biliousness, constipation,
others who wake up with bad taste,
foul breath, backache, rheumatic stiff
ness, or have a sour, gassy stomach
after meals, are urged to get a quarter
pound of limestone phosphate from
any druggist or storekeeper, and be
gin practicing internal sanitation.
This will cost very little, but is suffi
cient to make anyone an enthusiast
on the subject.
Remember inside bathing is more
important than outside bathing, be
cause the skin pores do not absorb
impurities into the blood, causing poor
health, while the bowel pores do.
Just as soap and hot water cleanses,
sweetens and freshens the skin, so
hot water and limestone phosphate
act on the stomach, liver kidneys and
bowels.—Adv.
Some men are regular in their
habits —but their habits are fierce.
“ernes” ffor
SLUGJMOWELS
No sick headache, sour stomach,
biliousness or constipation
by morning.
Get a 10-cent box now.
Turn the rascals out —the headache,
biliousness, indigestion, the sick, sour
stomach and foul gases—turn them
out to-night and keep them out with
Cascarets.
Millions of men and women take a
Cascaret now and then and never
know the misery caused by a lazy
liver, clogged bowels or an upset stom
ach.
Don’t put in another day of distress.
Let Cascarets cleanse your stomach;
remove the sour, fermenting food;
take, the excess bile from your liver
and carry out all the constipated
waste matter and poison in the
bowels. Then you will feel great.
A Cascaret to-night straightens you
out by morning. They work while
you sleep. A 10-cent box from
any drug store means a clear head,
sweet stomach and clean, healthy liver
and bowel action for months. Chil
dren love Cascarets because they
never gripe or sicken. Adv.
Any man whose will power is all iu
his wife's name is to be pitied.
A GRATEFUL OLD LADY.
Mrs. A. G. Clemens, West Alexan
der, Pa., writes: 1 have used Dodd's
Kidney Pills, also Diamond Dinner
Pills. Before using them I had suf-
fered for a number of
M years with backache,
also tender spots on
spine, and had at
times black floating
specks before my
eyes. I also had lum
bago and heart trou
ble. Since using this
medicine I have been
Mri. A.G.Ciemen, relieved of my suf
fering. It is agreeable to me for
you to publish this letter. I am glad
to have an opportunity to say to all
who are suffering as I have done that
I obtained relief by using Dodd’s Kid
ney Pills and Diamond Dinner Pilla.
Dodd's Kidney Pills 50c per box at
your dealer or Dodd's Medicine Co.,
Buffalo, N. Y. Dodd's Dyspepsia Tab
lets for Indigestion have been proved.
50c per box.—Adv.
The Sort
“What kind of ships do they have
dog watches on?”
"Why, barks, of course.”