The Cody enterprise and the Park County enterprise., November 22, 1922, Page PAGE SIX, Image 6

About The Cody enterprise and the Park County enterprise. (Cody, Wyo.) 1921-1923

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PAGE SIX
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I Jiuthor of Riders of the Purple Sage, Wildfire, Etc.
iM i
Copyright by Harper i Brothers. C4|
GALE RUSHES ROJAS, THE BANDIT
Wheeling, Gale rushed at Rojas. It was his old line-breaking
plunge. Neither Rojas nor his men had time to move. The black
skinned bandit’s face turned a dirty white; his jaw dropped; he
would have shrieked if Gale had not hit him. The blow swept him
backward against his men. Then Gale's heavy body, swiftly fol
lowing with the momentum of that rush, struck the little group of
rebels. They went down with the table and chairs in a sliding crash.
Gale, carried by his plunge, went with them. Like a cat he
landed on top. 4s he rose his powerful hands faster., d on Rojas.
He jerked the little bandit off the tangled pile of struggling, yell
ing men. and, swinging him with terrific force, let go his hold.
Rojas slid along the floor, knocking over tables and chairs. Gale
bounded back, dragged Rojas up. handling him as if he were a
limp sack.
A shot rang out above the yells, Gale heard the jingle of break
ing glass. The room darkened perceptibly. He flashed a glance
backward. The two cowboys were between him and the crowd of
frantic rebels. With a cry Gale slung the bleeding Rojas from him.
The bandit struck a table, toppled over it, fell, and lay prone.
Another figure closed in on Gale. This one was dark, swift.
A blade glinted—described a circle aloft. Simultaneously with a
close, red flash the knife wavered; the man wielding it stumbled
backward. The din became a roar. Gale heard shots that sounded
like dull spats in the distance. The big lamp behind the bar seem
ingly split, then sputtered and went out. leaving the room in
darkness.
That's how Dick Gale, American, rushes Rojas, the Mexican bandit,
in “No Man’s Land,” just over the border. He is doing it to give Lieut.
George Thorne, American cavalryman, a chance to get his Spanish
sweetheart, Mercedes Castaneda, out of the bandit's clutches. It’s a
pretty tale, this romance of George and Mercedes. And still more ro
mantic is the love story of Dick and Nell Burton. For Dick, to save
Mercedes for Thorne, cast* his lot with the two American cowboys who
shot out the lights and goes into a new world of adventure in which he
finds hardship, romance, desperate endeavor, fighting, love and gold.
The author? Why, no less a writer than Zane Grey, author of “The
Heritage of the Desert,” “Riders of the Purple Sage” and more than a
dozen other first-class tales of the West. Os pioneer stock, with a college
education and wide athletic and outdoor experience, his literary work
since 1904 has made him probably the most widely-read author of
western stories of adventure.
PROLOGUE
—l—
A face haunted Cameron —a wom
an’s face. It was there In the white
heart of the dying campfire; it hung
in the shadows that hovered over the
flickering light; it drifted in the dark
ness beyond.
Th*s hour, when the day had closed
am ;ne lonely desert night set in with
its dead silence, was oue in which
Cameron’s mind was thronged with
memories of a time long past—of a
home back in Peoria, ot a woman he
had wronged and lost, and loved too
late. He was a prospector for gold,
a hunter of solitude, a lover of the
dread, rock-ribbed infinitude, because
he wanted to be alnne to remember.
Then a snarp clink of metal on
stone and soft pads of hoofs in sand
prompted Cameron to reach for his
gun, and to move out of the light of
the waning campfire.
Figures darker than the gloom ap
proached and took shape, and in the
light turned out to be those of a white
man and a heavily packed burro.
“Hello th are,” the man called, as
he came to a halt and gazed about
him. “I saw your fire. May I make
camp here?”
Cameron came forth out of the
shadow and greeted his visitor, whom
he took for a prospector like himself.
Cameron resented the breaking of his
lonely campfire vigil, but he respect
ed the law of the desert.
The stranger thanked him, and then
slipped the pack from his burro.
Then he rolled out his pack and began
preparations for a meal. The camp
fire' burst into a bright blaze, and by
Its light Cameron saw a man whose
gray hair somehow did not seem to
make him old, and whose stooped
shoulders did not detract from an im
pression of rugged strength.
Another of those strange desert
prospectors in whom there was some
relentless driving power besides the
lust for gold I Cameron felt that be
tween this man and himself there was
a subtle affinity, vague and undefined,
perhaps bora of the divination that
here was a desert wanderer like him
self, perhaps born of a deeper, an un
intelligible relation having Its roots
back In the past. A long-forgotten
sensation stirred in Cameron’s breast,
one so long forgotten that he could
not recognize 1L But it was akin to
pain.
■ When he awakened he found, to his
surprise, that his companion had de
parted. A trail in the sand led off to
the north. There was no water In
that direction. Cameron shrugged his
shoulders; it was not his affair; he
had his own problems. And stralght
**ay he forgot his strange visitor.
Cameron began his day, grateful for
the solitude that was now unbroken,
for the canon-furrowed, cactus-spired
scene that now showed no sign of
life. While It was yet light, and he
was digging in a moist white-bordered
wash for water, he was brought
sharply up by hearing the crack of
hard hoofs on stone. There down the
canon came a man on a burro. Cam
eron recognized them.
"Hello, friend,” called the man, halt-
Ing. “Our trails crossed again—that’s
good.”
“Hello,” replied Cameron slowly.
“Any mineral sign today?”
“No.”
They made camp together, ate their
frugal meal, smoked a pipe, and rolled
in their blankets without exchanging
many words. In the morning the same
reticence, the same aloofness charac
terized the manner of both. But Cam
eron’s companion, when he had packed
his burro and was ready to start, faced
about and said: “We might stay to
gether, if it’s all right with you.”
“I never take a partner,” replied
Cameron.
“You’re alone; I’m alone,” said the
other mildly. “It’s a big place. If we
find gold there’ll be enough for two.”
“I don’t go down into the desert
for gold alone,” rejoined Cameron.
His companion’s deep-set, luminous
eyes emitted a singular flash. It
moved Cameron to say that in the
years of bls wandering he had met
no man who could endure equally with
him the blasting heat, the blinding
KW
“Hello, Friend,” Called the Man, Halt-
Ing. “Our Trails Crossed Again—
That’s Good.”
dust storms, the wilderness of sand
and rock and lava and cactus, the ter
rible silence and desolation of the
desert. “I may strike through the
Sonora desert. I may head for Plna
cate or north for the Colorado basin.
You are an old man.”
“I don’t know the country, but to
me one place is the same as another,”
replied his companion. Then with
gentle slaps he drove his burro in be
hind Cameron. “Yes, I’m old. I’m
lonely, too. It’s come to me just
lately. But, friend, I can still travel,
and for a few days my company won’t
hurt you.”
“Have It your way," said Cameron.
They began a slow march down
into the desert. At sunset they camped
under the lee of a low mesa. Cam-
eron was glad his comrade had the
habit of silence. Another day’s
travel found the prospectors deep In
the wilderness. Then there came a
breaking of reserve, noticeable In the
elder man, almost Imperceptibly grad
ual In Cameron. And so, as Cameron
began to respond to the Influence of
a desert less lonely than habitual, he
began to take keener note of his com
rade, and found him different from
any other he had ever encountered In
the wilderness. This man never
grumbled at the heat, the glare, the
driving sand, the sour water, the
scant fare. He was tireless, patient,
brooding.
Cameron’s awakened interest brought
home to him the realization that for
years he had shunned companionship.
In those years only three men had
wandered into the desert with him,
and these had left their bones to
bleach in the shifting sands. Cameron
had not cared to know their secrets.
But the more he studied this latest
comrade the more he began to suspect
that he might have missed something
In the others. In his own driving pas
sion to take his secret into the limit
less abode of silence and desolation,
where he could be alone with it, he
had forgotten that life dealt shocks to
other men. Somehow this silent com
rade reminded him.
One afternoon late, after they had
toiled up a white, winding wash of
sand and gravel, they came upon a
dry waterhole. Cameron dug deep
Into the sand, but without avail. He
was turning to retrace weary steps
back to the last water when his com
rade asked him to wait. Cameron
watched him search in his
bring forth what appeared to be a
small, forked branch of a peach tree.
He grasped the prongs of I e fork
and held them before him with the
end standing straight out, and then
he began to walk along the stream
bed. Cameron, at first amused, then
amazed, then pitying, and at last cu
rious, kept pace with the prospector.
He saw a strong tension of his com
rade’s wrists, as if he was holding
hard against a considerable force. The
end of the peach branch began to
quiver and turn, kept turning, and at
length pointed to the ground.
“Dig here,” said the prospector.
“What!” ejaculated Cameron. Had
the man lost his mind?
Then Cameron stood by while his
comrade dug in the san a. Three feet
he dug—four—five, and the sand
grew dark, then moist. At six feet
water began to seep through.
“Get the little basket Ln my pack,”
he said.
Cameron complied, and saw his
comrade drop thO basket Into the deep
hole, where it kept the sides from
caving in and allowed the water to
seep through. While Cameron watched,
the basket filled. Os ail t-.e strange
Incidents of his desert career this was
the strangest. Curiously he picked up
the peach branch and ]jeld it as he
had seen It held. The thing, how
ever, was dead in his hands.
“I see you haven’t got it,” remarked
his comrade. “Few men have. Back
In Illinois an old German used to do
that to locate wells. He showed me
I had the same power. I can’t ex
plain. The old German I spoke of
made money traveling round with his
peach fork.”
“What a gift for a man in the des
ert I”
Cameron’s comrade smiled —the sec
ond time in all those days.
They entered a region where min
eral abounded, and their march be
came slower. Generally they took the
course of a wash, one on each side,
and let the burros travel leisurely
along nipping at the bleached blades
of scant grass, or at sage or cactus,
while they searched In the canons and
under the ledges for signs of gold.
Each succeeding day and night
Cameron felt himself more and more
drawn to this strange man. He found
that after hours of burning toil he had
Insensibly grown nearer to his com
rade. He reflected that after a few
weeks in the desert he had always
become a different man. In civiliza
tion, In the rough mining camps, he
had been a prey to unrest and gloom.
But once down on the great billowing
sweep of this lonely world, he could
look into his unquiet soul without bit
terness. So now he did not marvel at
a slow stir stealing warmer along his
veins, and nt the premonition that per
haps he and this man, alone on the
desert, driven there by life’s mysteri
ous and remorseless motive, were to
see each other through God’s eyes.
One night they were encamped at
the head of a canon. The day had
been exceedingly hot, and long after
sundown the radiations of heat from
the rocks persisted. Cameron watched
his comrade, and yielded to Interest
he ha'd not heretofore voiced.
“Pardner, what drives you Into the
desert? Do you come to forget?”
“Yes.”
“Ah I” softly exclaimed Cameron.
Always he seemed to have known that.
He said no more, but grew acutely
conscious of the pang In hts own
breast, of the fire in his heart, the
strife and torment of his passion
driven soul. He had come into the
desert to remember a woman. She
appeared to him then as she had
looked when first she entered his life
—a golden-haired girl, blue-eyed,
white-skinned, red-lipped, tall and
slender and beautiful. He had never
forgotten, and an old, sickening re
morse knocked at his heart. He rose
and climbed out of the canon and to
the top of the mesa, where he paced
to and fro and looked down Into the
weird and mystic shadows, like the
darkness of his passion, and farther
on down the moon track and the glit
tering stretches that vanished In the
cold blue horizon. In that endless,
silent hall of desert there was a
spirit; and Cameron felt hovering
near him what he Imagined to be
phantoms of peace.
He returned to camp and sought
his comrade.
"I reckon we’re two of a kind," he
said. "It was a woman who drove me
into the desert. But I come to re
member. The desert's the only place
I can do that.”
"Was she your wife?" asked the
elder man.
"No."
A long silence ensued. The camp
fire wore down to a ruddy ashen heap.
"I had a daughter,” said Cameron’s
comrade. "She lost her mother at
birth. And I—l didn’t know how to
bring up a girl. She was pretty and
gay. It was the —the old story."
His words were peculiarly signlfl.
cant to Cameron. They distressed
him. He had been wrapped up In his
remorse. If ever in the past he had
thought of anyone connected with
the girl he had wronged, he had long
forgotten. But the consequences of
such wrong were far-reaching. They
struck at the roots of a home.
“Well, tell me more? asked Cam
eron earnestly.
"It was the old, old story. My girl
was pretty and free. The young bucks
ran after her. I guess she did not run
away from them. And I was away a
good deal —working in another town.
She was in love with a wild fellow. I
knew nothing of it till too late. He
was engaged to marry her. But he
didn’t come back. And when the dis
grace became plain to all, my girl left
home. She went west. After a while
I heard from her. She was well —
working—living for her baby. A long
time passed. I had no ties. I drifted
west. Her lover had also gone west.
In those days everybody went west.
I trailed him, intending to kill him.
But I lost his trail. Neither could I
find any trace of her. She moved on,
driven, no doubt, by the hound of her
past. Since that I have taken to the
wilds, hunting gold on the desert."
"Yes, it’s the old, old story, only
sadder, I think," said Cameron; and
his voice was strained and unnatural.
"Pardner, what Illinois town was It
you hailed from?"
"Peoria."
"And your—your name?" went on
Cameron, huskily.
"Warren —Jonas Warren."
That name might as well have been
a bullet. Cameron stood erect, mo
tionless, as men sometimes stand mo
mentarily when shot straight through
the heart. In an instant, when
thoughts resurged like blinding flashes
of lightning through his mind, he was
a swaying, quivering, terror-stricken
man. He mumbled something hoarse
ly and backed into the shadow. But
he need not have feared discovery,
however surely his agitation might
have betrayed him. Warren sat brood
ing over the campfire, oblivious of his
comrade, absorbed in the past.
Cameron swiftly walked away In
the gloom, with the blood thrumming
thick in his ears, whispering over and
over:
"Merciful G—d I Nell was his daugh
ter!"
11l
As thought and feeling multiplied,
Cameron was overwhelmed. Beyond
belief, Indeed, was it that out of the
millions of men In the world two who
had never seen each other could have
been driven into the desert by memory
of the same woman. It brought the
past so close. It showed Cameron
how inevitably all his spiritual life
was governed by what had happened
long ago. That which made life sig
nificant to him was a wandering in
silent places where no eye could see
him with his secret. Some fateful
chance had thrown him with the fa
ther of the girl he had wrecked. It
was Incomprehensible; it was terrible.
It was the one thing of all possible
happenings in the world of chance
that both father and lover would have
found unendurable.
Something within him cried out to
him to reveal his identity. Wnrren
would kill him; but it was not *nr of
death that put Cameron on the rack.
He bad faced death too often to be
afraid. It was the thought of adding
torture to this long-suffering man. All
at once Cameron swore that he would
not augment Warren’s trouble, or let
him stain his hands with blood. He
would tell the truth of Nell’s sad story
and his own, and make what amends
he could.
Then Cameron’s thought shifted
from father to daughter. She was
somewhere beyond the dim horizon
line. In those past lonely hours by
the campfire his fancy had tortured
him with pictures of Nell. Bu£ his
remorseful and cruel fancy htyl Hod
to him. Nell had struggled upward
out of menacing depths. She had re
constructed a broken life. And now
she was fighting for the name and
happiness of her child. Little Nell 1
Cameron experienced a shuddering
ripple In all his being—the physical
rack of an emotion born of a new and
strange consciousness. He felt that
it had been given him to help Warren
with his burden.
He returned to camp trying to
evolve a plan. All night he lay
awake thinking.
In the morning, when Wnrren
brought the burros to camp and began
preparations for the usual packing,
Caitieron broke silence.
“Pardner. your story last night made
me think. I want to tell you some
thing about myself. In my younger
days—it seems long now, yet It’s not
so many years—l was wild. I wronged
the sweetest and loveliest girl I ever
know. I went away not dreaming that
any disgrace might come to her. Along
about that time I fell into terrlt.le
moods—l changed—l learned I really
loved her. Then came a letter I
should have gotten months before. It
told of her trouble—lmportuned me to
hurry to save her. Half frantic with
shame and fear, I got a marriage cer
tificate and rushed back to her town.
"Warren Hold On I Give Me —a
Minute—l Married Nell—Didn’t You
Know That?”
She was gone—had been gone for
w’eeks, and her disgrace was known.
Friends warned me to keep out of
reach of her father. I trailed her—
found her. I married her. But too
late! . . . She would not live with
me. She left me—l followed her west,
but never found her."
Warren leaned forward a little and
looked into Cameron’s eyes, ns if
searching there for the repentance
that might make him less deserving of
a man’s scorn.
Cameron met the gaze unflinchingly,
and again began to speak:
"You know, of course, how men out
here sometimes lose old names, old
Identities. It won’t surprise you much
to learn my name isn’t really Cam
eron, as I once told you.”
Warren stiffened upright. It seemed
that there might have been a blank,
a suspension, between his grave In
terest and some strange mood to come.
Cameron felt hls heart bulge and
contract in hls breast; all hls body
grew cold; and it took tremendous
effort for him to make his lips form
words.
"Wnrren, I’m the man you’re hunt
ing. I’m Burton. I was Nell’s lover I"
The old man rose and towered over
Cameron, and then plunged down
upon him, and clutched hls throat
with terrible, stifling hands. The
harsh cortfact, the pain awakened
Cameron to hls peril before it was
too late. Desperate fighting saved
him from being hurled to the ground
and stamped and crushed. Warren
seemed a maddened giant. There was
a reeling, swaying, wrestling struggle
before the elder man began to weaken.
Then Cameron, buffeted, bloody,
half-stunned, panted for speech.
"Warren—hold on! Give me—-a
minute. I married Nell. Didn't you
know that? ... I saved the child!”
Cameron felt the shock that vibrated
through Warren. He repeated the
words again and again. As If com
pelled by some resistless power, War
ren released Cameron, and, staggering
back, stood with uplifted, shaking
hands. In his face was a horrible
darkness.
"Warren! Wait—listen!” panted
Cameron. *Tve got that marriage
certificate—l’ve had it by me all these
years. I kept It—to prove to myself
I did right.”
The old man uttered a broken cry.
"And when I saw hen—l went
atark, staring, raving mad over
her.”
(TO MV CONTINUED.)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1922.
(Copg for Thia Department Supplied by
American Txnrlon New Service.)
THE LEGION OATMEAL COOKIE
Recipe Submitted by Mrs. Frederick
Gehlman, Springfield, 111-, Wins
international Contest.
Mrs. Frederick Gehlman of Sprlng
field, 111., presents the national cookie
to the country.
Os the 400 recipes
which have been
pouring into na
tional headquar
ters of the •Jltoer
ican Legion aS^. :
lliary during the''
past two months,
the Gehlman “Oat
meal Cookie" has
been selected to
fill the Jars in
military hospitals
throughout the
United States.
Although no
prize whatever
was offered in
this unique con
test, recipes came
in from every
state in the Union
and from Hawaii,
Alaska, Canada
•'I
Mrs. Merbert Pin
nell.
and Paris besides. So it was really an
international contest, but the winner
halls from our own Middle West. The
judges selected Mrs. Gehlman’s cookie
recipe for use in the hospitals, be
cause it best combines food value with
little fat content. It makes a mighty
good tasting cookie, too. Here it Is:
* 2 cupfuls sugar 1 cupful raisins
3 cupfuls flour (cut with scls-
1 teaspoonful soda sors)
2 teaspoonfuls bak- 1 cupful lard or
Ing powder butter
3 cupfuls rolled 1 cupful sour milk
oats (ground) 1 ess (well beaten)
Process: Flour the raisins. Cream
the fat in a mixing bowl, adding the
sugar gradually. Add the egg, then
the milk, then the dry ingredients
after lifting them together, then
oats, and lastly the floured
Using a teaspoon, put onto a greased
and floured baking sheet. Put into a
fairly hot oven (350 degrees) and
leave 10 to 15 minutes.
Mrs. W. J. Marks of Indianapolis,
widely recognized domestic science ex
pert, and the members of her “flour"
class acted as judges for the contest.
They selected as an alternate to ,the
Gehlman hospital cookie, another
"oatmeal cookie" which they would
recommend for general vise. It con
tains a larger percentage of fat and
no milk. Mrs. A. O. Wiggin, Lima,
Ohio, sent it in.
The vote gave Mrs. Mary B. Snod
grass of Highland Park, Mich., second
ranking without a rival. She sent
In an “orange cookie” recipe.
The Judges selected as the third
ranking recipe a "cream cookie” with
small fat content, sent in by Miss
Mary E. Robinson, Walla Walla, Wash
ington. ’
Mrs. Herbert Plnnell of Indianapo-
Us is shown mixing the dough for the
National Cookie. She was one of the
elass of Judges and—secret—she hasn’t
been mixing dough for Husband Pln
aell so very long.
OHIO LEGION MAN MISSING
Clair A. Anthony Is Being Sought by
Toledo Poet, No. 319—Hls
Family Needs Him.
Joseph Baker Post, No. 319, Toledo,
0., is seeking the whereabouts of Clair
A. Anthony, who
has disappeared
from his home in
that city, and ,
whose wife and
children are in
destitute circum
stances. Anthony
is described as
twenty-nine
years old, five
feet six inches in
height, weight 180 j
pounds, ruddy l
complexion, dark
hair, blue eyes.
He walks with a i
' I
Clair A. Anthony.
alight limp In the
left leg.
Anyone having information concern
ing Anthony is asked to communicate
with Leland M. Beatley, commander
of the post, 4112 North Haven street,
Toledo, O.
Circumstantial Only.
On the complaint of a farmer, old
Ephraim had been haled into court
charged with chicken shooting. Hls
lawyer had made a fairly good case
for him and for a clincher had the
plaintiff recalled, hoping to make him
contradict his own testimony.
"See here," he said, scowling sav
agely. "will you swear that it was
Ephraim who shot your chicken?"
“Wai," said the farmer mildly, "I
won’t swear to it, but I suspect him."
"That’s not enough to convict a
man. What makes you suspect him?”
"Wai, I saw him In the chicken
yard with a gun, then I heard the gun
g<» off, and then I saw him putting the
chicken into a bag—and it didn't
somehow seem sensible to Agger the
bird committed suicide.” —American
Legion Weekly.