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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance Times, 1931-03-12, Page 61:9�e-�il►R"1��4 y Morning Publisher. ed at ONTARIO es -- One year $2,00. $1.60, in advance, $2.50 per year. es on application, ritual Fire ce Co. ed 1840 all class of insur- .le rates, ice, Guelph, Ont. ENS, Agent, Wingham :• W. DODD ors south of Field's Butcher shop. RE, LIFE, ACCIDENT AND HEALTH INSURANCE AND REAL ESTATE . 0. Box 366 Phone 46 WINGHA•M, ONTARIO J. W. BUSHFIELD Barrister, Solicitor,Notary, Etc. Money to. Loan Office -Meyer BIock, Wingham Successor to Dudley Holmes 1 H. CRAWFORD Barrister, Solicitor, Notary, Etc. Successor to R. Vanstone Wingham _.. Ontario J. A. MORTON BARRISTER, ETC. Wingham, Ontario D.R. G. H. ROSS DENTIST Office Over Isard's Store H, W. COLBORNE, M.D Physician and Surgeon Medical Representative D. S. C. R. Successor to Dr. W. R, Hambly Phone 54 Wingham DR ROB'S'. C. REDMOND M.R.C.S. (ENG.) L.R.C.P. (Load). PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON DR R. L. STEWART Graduate of University of Toronto,. Faculty l y of Medicine;Licentiate. of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. Office in Chisholm Block Josephine Street. Phone 29 DR. G. W. HOWSON DENTIST Office over John Galbraith's Store. F. A. PARKER OSTEOPATH All Diseases Treated Office adjoining residence next to Anglican Church on Centre. Street. l..; Sundays by appointment, Osteopathy Electricity j Phone 272. Hours, 9 a.m. to 8 o.m. A, R, 43S F, Et DU Y AL Licensed Drugless: Practitioners Chiropractic and Electra Therapy. Graduates of Canadian Chiropractic College, Toronto, and National Col- lege, Chicago. • Out of town and .night calls res- ponded to. All business confidential. Phone 300. J. ALVIN FOX Registered Drugless Practitioner CHIROPRACTIC AND: DRUGLESS PRACTICE ELECTRO -THERAPY Hours: 2-5, 7-8, or by appointment. Phone 191. THOMAS FELLS AUCTIONEER REAL ESTATE SOLD A thorough knowledge of Farm Stock Phone 281, Wingham RICHARD B. JACKSON. AUCTIONEER Phone 513r6, Wroxeter, or address l R. 1, Gorrie. Sales conducted any- where, and satisfaction guaranteed, RS. A. J & A. W. IRWIN DENTISTS Office MacDonald Block, Wingham. A. 1 WALKER LIRHITURE AND PtINERAL SEI%VICl1, A. J, 'Walker icensed Funeral Director and Enibaim er, ffice :Phone 106. Res. Phone 224, heleusitie, Funeral Coach, T1I1, WINGHAM ADVANCE -TIME'S BLUE 1AKE1ANCU #jacksQJtOregory Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons WHAT HAPPENED SO FAR Bud Lee, horse foreman of the Blue Lake ranch, convinced Bayne Trev- ors, manager, is deliberatly wreckin the property owned by Judith San ford, a young woman, her cousin Pollock Hampton, and Timothy Gra decides to throw up his job. Judit arrives and announces she has bough Gray's share in the ranch and wi run it. She discharges Trevors. The men on the ranch dislike tak orders from a girl, but by subd ing a vicious horse - and proving he thorough knowledge of ranch lif Judith wins the best of them ove Lee decides to stay. Convinced her veterinarian, Bil Crowdy, is treacherous, Judith dis charges him, re-engaging an of friend of her father's, Doc. Tripp. Pollock Hampton, with a party o friends, conies to the ranch to sta permanently. Trevors accepts Hamp ton's invitation to visit the ranch Judith's messenger is held up :an robbed of the monthly pay roll. Bud .Lee goes to the city for` more money, getting back safely with it, though his horse is killed under him; Both he and Judith see Trevor's hand in' the crime. , Hog cholera, hard to account for, breaks out on the ranch. Judith and Lee, investigating the scene of the holdup, climb a moun- tain, where the robber must have hid- den. A cabin in a flower -planted clearing excites Judith's admiration. It is Lee's, though he does not say so They are fired on from ambush, and Lee wounded. Answering the fire they make for the cabin. Here they find Bill Crowdy wounded. Dragging him into the building, they find` he has the money taken from Judith's messenger. Beseiged •in the cabin, they are compelled. to stay all night. Hampton, at the ranch, becomes uneasy at Judith's long absence. With. Tommy Burkitt he goes to seek her, arriving in time to drive the attack- ers off, and capturing one man, who is known as "Shorty." "Shorty". escapes from imprison- ment in the grainhouse of the ranch, to, the disgust of Carson, cow fore- man, who had hien in charge. Lee be- gins to feel a fondness for Judith, tho' he realizes she is not his womanly ideal. Marcia' Langworthy, one of Hampton's party, typical city: girl, is more to his taste. The discovery is made that pig- geons, with hog cholera germs on their feet, have been liberated on the ranch. Lee captures a. stranger Dick Donley, red-handed, with an accom- plice, a cowboy known as "Poker Face". Donley has brought more pi- geons to the ranch. At a dance given in honor of Idampton's friends Lee appears in ev- Bing dress. He is recognized by one f the party as an old aequaintance, Dave Lee, once wealthy but ruined y trusty"ng false friends, Judith, its et womanly finery makes such an ppeal to Lee that, aloi5e with :her, e forcibly .kisses her, reed ing , r 'V $ the g• , publicly he is' a liar, and agree to y, leave the vicinity. h After the kissing incident, Judith t` ignores' Lee, who would go away, but n finds himself' unable. Judith sees- a letter to Pollock Hampton from 'a k- firm with which Trevors has been con- -unected, offering to buy a large con- r signment of cattle and horses at a e, ridiculously low figure, Hampton is r. addressed . as "general manager" of the. Blue Lake outfit. Judith is vag• 1 uely unseasy. In her absence Hamp - ton decides to acceptthe offer. Lee. d protests strongly. He learns from Marcia Langworthy that Judith is z supposed to have gone, to see her y lawyers at San Francisco. A tele - grain from her orders Hampton to d Word is sent to Lee that Quinnion has been casting slurs on Judith's name because of the night she and Lee were together inthe cabin. With Carson, Lee finds Quinnion, worsts him in a fight and makes him confess, 0 h li sell the stock at the prices , offered. Lee refuses to accept the message as coming from Judith,, the conviction forcing itself upon him that Trevors has kidnapped her and is holding her prisoner, NOW READ ON - Well, still there was a race to be run and the odd not entirely uneven. Ruth must descend the other side of the canyon, get down into the gorge, make the crossing, which so far as Judith knew, might be farther up or farther down stream, come to the cliffs below Judith.,before Judith her- self made her way down. Again Judith took' what risks the night and the rocks offered her and thanked God inher soul that it was given her to take a chance in the open, to use her own .muscles in her own fight, not to lie longer, playing the part . of a do-nothing. Now and then, across the void, there floated to her a little moaning cry from the mad woman's lips. Now and then she heard a curse from Quinnion above;. often from above her, from below her. own feet, from across the chasm, dropping stone, falling almost sheer, told of haste and death which night come from an unlucky step, Fast as Judith went now, having a fair sort of Cliff trail under her,. Mad Ruth went faster. The gorge measured a scant fifty feet between. them and the girl's alert senses told her that already Ruth was on a level with her. Ruth was winning in the desperate race, She knew her way down so perfectly, her heart was so filled with madness, that clanger was nothing to her, Down and down climbed Judith, caution wedded to haste, as she told' herself that she bad a chance yet,• that that chance must not be tossed away in a fall, though it were brit a few feet, She must have no sprained an- kle if shemeant to sec the sun rise tomorrow, The £1sh had brightened in Lige sky Where the moon was so near the ridge. The moon, too, had joined in the race, With one quick lance t ward it, Judith agent discarded cau- tion for haste, She must get down into the floor of the canyon before the moonlight did; she must be run- ning before its radiance showed her out to Quinnion and Ruth. I»Xer' hands were cut and bleeding, her heart was beating wildly, already her body was soreand bruised. But these things she did not know. She only knew that Quinnion was still coming 'on above her, and coaling more swiftly now, quite as swiftly as. she herself moved, since his feet, too, werein the better trail; that Mad Ruth had.. completed the descent across the chasm and by now must be crossing the 'stream upon some fallen log or ` rude bridge; that one minute more, or perhaps two would decide her fate. She could see the stream, glinting palely in the • starlight, It seemed very near; its thunder filled her ears. Down she went and down, down un- til at last she was not ten feet above its surface, with a• strip of gently,slop- ing bank just under her. She stop- ped, took firm hold upon a knob • of boulder, prepared to swing down and drop to the bottom. And, as she stooped, she heard a little whinging moan just under her and straightened up, tense and terrified, Mad Ruth was there before her, Mad Ruth was waiting. CHAPTER XV Alone- in the Wilderness And Quinnion wascoming on. She was trapped, caught between the two of them. She heard ,Quinnion laugh again; he, too, had heard Ruth. "OI, God help me!" whispered Ju- dith. "God help me now!" There was no time to hesitate. If she stood there, Quinnion would in a moment wrap his arms about her; if she dropped down, she would be in the frenzied clutch of Mad Ruth. A second she crouched, peering down into the gloom below her, seek- ing to make out the form of the mad woman. Then she did not merely drop, but jumped, landing fair upon the waiting figure, striking with her boots on Mad, Ruth's ample shoulders. A scream of rage from Ruth, a little, strangling cry from Judith, and the two fell together. Ruth clutched as she went down and a hand closed 'ov- er „'the, girl's ankle. Judith rolled, struck again with the free boot, then twisted sharply and felt the grip -torn loose from her ankle. She was free. She jumped up and ran and knew that Ruth was running just behind her, screaming terribly. Judith fell, and, her heart grew sick within her. But again she was up just as Ruth's hand clutched at her skirt, clutched and was torn away as Judith ran on. Quinnion cursed from above as she had not yet heard hint curse. Ruth reviled both. her and Quinnion for having let her go. Judith was running swiftly and felt that she could get, the better of the heavier, older woman in a race of this sort. She stumbled and fell, and fear again gripped her; St seined so long before she could rise and clam- ber over a fallen log and race on. But the darkness which tricked her protected her at the"sanve time, play- ing no favorites now. Ruth, too, had fallen; :Ruth, too;was frenzied at the brief delay. Stumbling, falling, rising, stagger- ing back from. a; tree .into which she had run full tilt, bruised and torn, the girl ran on,' At every free step hope shot 'upward in her heart; at ev- ery fall she grew sick with dread. The canyon broadened rapidly, the, ground underfoot grew less broken and littered with boulders and loge.: Through tangles of brush she went blindly, throwing herself forward, fall- ing, rising, falling, rising "again It was a nightmare of a race, with Ruth stream as. she could, keeping undo the cliffs where there was fess brnsl where the way was more open, yeber the shadows were thickest, She was outdistancing .Mad Ruti Ruth's weird voice came from greater distance; the w•oinan was tea maybe twenty feet, behind her, r ward she could follow the course of i; the bigger streams, rid soon or late, e if her strength 'held, she would come to some open valley where amen ran r, stock. Now, she would go down into a the little meadow lying a mile away ra, yonder andseek to find something to eat. If she could but, dig a few d wild onions, wild potatoes, they would keep her alive. West she would go, if for iio other reason than The moon at last rose pale gol above the western ridge, And no Judith could thank God for it. Fo the canyon had widened more an more, the banks of the river wer studded with big trees, there wer wide open spaces between them through which she shot like a fright- ened deer, turning this way and that, darting about a clump of little firs, plunging into the shadows under great sky -seeking cedars, running as she had never run before, and as she knew Mad Ruth could not run, Free! She was free. The triumph of it danced in her blood. On she ran and now Quinnion's voice and Ruth's were confused with the roar of the river. On she ran and on and On, and but faintly there came to her the sound of breaking brush some- where' behind her. Never had her blood sung within her as it sang now; never had the dim moonlit solitudes of the mountains opened their shelt- ering arins • to one more grateful to slipinto them, like a _wounded child into the soothing embrace of its mo- ther. Now again she turned so that her flying steps brought her close to the water's edge. Louder and louder grew its shouting voice in her ears, little by little drowning out the sounds of Ruth and Quinnion behind her. Now, in all the glorious night, there was no sound to reach her but thesoundof running water and her own beating feet. She was free. because thus she would be setting her back squarely upon the cavern where e Quinnion •-and Ruth were, ' But still she ran, summoning all of the reserve of strength and will -pow- er which was hers to command, The sky was brightening to the climbing moon. She must round many a sweep- ing curve of the river, pass under many a sheltering, shadowing tree be- fore shedared slow her steps. When she left that she was over- taxing herself, she dropped from, the wild pace she had set herself, into a little jogging' trot. Whenher whole body cried out at the effort demand- ed of it, she slowed down to a brisk walk. She was shot through . with pain, her throat ached, she wasS •row- ing` dizzy, But on she went stub- bornly. It was a full hour after the last sound of pursuit had died out after that she flung herself down at the water's edge to drinkand bathe her arms and face in the cold stream. And; even then, she chose ,a spot where the shadow of a great pine lay like ink over the bank. The moon was high in the sky, the world bright with it, when Judith left the valley into :which the canyon had widened and made her way slowly up- ward along.a timbered ridge to the west. Of Quinnion and Mad Ruth she now had no fear. Their chance of oniing upon her- . was less than :ne 1g igible. She could creep into a clump of thick -standing young trees and 'ev- en if they should come, could watch them go past. But as they had dropped out of her world, another matter had entered it, The mountains had befriended' her; they had o$eiied their arms to her and that was all that she . had asked of them. They had mothered her, drawing her into hiding against their bosom. But it. was a barren, barren breast. And al- ready she was hungry, daring to eat but sparingly of her handful of bread and meat, From this . ridge, finding an open crest, she stood looking out over the world, Mile after mile of mountain and canyon and cliff fell away on ev- ery side, She sought eagerly for a landmark to see yonder in the dis- tance Old Baldy or Copper mountain or Three Fools'` Peak, any of the mountains or ridges known to her, And in the end she could only shake leer head and sigh wearily and ` slip down where she was to fall asleep, thanking God that she was free, ask- ing God, to lead her aright in the morning. ' The stars watched overher, a pale, wornout girl sleeping alone in the heart of the wilderness; the night breezes sang through, the century -old tree -tops; and Judith, having striven to the uttermost, slept in heavy dreamlessness. With the cool . dawn . she awoke shivering. and hungry. . Her hair had tumbled about her face, and sitting up she braided it with numb, .sore fingers. She looked at her hands; they were stained with blood from many cuts:' Iter skirt was torn and soiled; her stockings were in strips; her knees were bruised, But as she rose to her feet and once more sear- ched the riddle of a crag -broken world, her heart was light with thankfulness, Last night the one friend she had th her was the North Stara Today e would seek to push on toward the est, In that direction site believed e Bide Lake ranch lay, though at st it was a guess, But going west- e c Jumped; Striking With Her Boots, on Wi Mad Ruth's Am ple Shoulders. sh alwaysi h Jus there, almost at herheels, th She turned; as far aws.y from the be The, sun rolled into a clear sky andecu unseen. Judith's eyes were closed, warmed her. She made her way in the heavy sleep of exhaustion. The down the long flank of the mountain flames roared and leaped high thy - and into the tiny meadow. For up- ward, burning branches fell crashing- ward of two hours she remained there, nibbling at roots which she dug up with a broken stick, seeking dible growths which she knew, find- ing little, but enough to keep the life in her, the heart warm '.in her breast. Then she went on, over a ridge again down into a canyon and along the stream which rose here and flowed westward. By noon she was faint and sick and had to stop often to rest, her legs shaking under her. Again she made a scant meal, Shehad stumbled on a tiny field of wild. potatoes and ate what she ` could of them, thinking longingly of a snatch for a fire: The match: which Ruth haddropped . she still had, but she carefully reserved it now, thinking how perhaps a trout, caught in a pool, might save her life, In her already half-starved condi- tion and with the demands constant- ly put on her strength, she would grow weaker and weaker if help did not soon come. But she was still filled with the glory of freedom. It was a heart -weary, trembling Ju- dith who u-dith.who late that afternoon made her way upward along another ridge, seeking anxiously to find from this lookout some landmark which she had sought in vain last night. In her blouse were the few roots she had brought, with her from the field dis- covered at noon. Lying in a little patch of dry grass, resting, she wat- ched the day go down and the night drift into the mountains, filling the ravines, creeping up the slopes, rising slowly to the peak to which she had 'climbed, seeping into her soul. Nev- er had the passing of the day seemed to her so majestic a thing, truly fill- ed with awe. Never until now had the solitudes seemed so vast, so ut- terly, stupendously big. ` Never until new as she lay staring up into the limitless sky, having given up the world about her asunkown, had she drunk to the lees of the cup of lone- liness. So great was the weariness of her tired body that as she lay still, watch- ing the stars come out one by one, she was half -resigned` to lie so and let death come to find. her. It seemed to her that here in the rude arms of Mother Earth a human life was a matter of no greater consequence than the down upon a moth's wing. But she rested a little and this mood, foreign to her intrepid heart, passed, and she sat up, again resolute,.. again ready to make her fight as long, as life beat through her blood. At last she took the one match from her pocket. She scarcely dared breathe when, with dry grass and twigs piled against a rock, her dress 'shielding them from the wind, she rubbed the match softly against her boot. A sput- tering flame, making the blue light of burning sulphur, died down, creat- ing panic in her breast, then flared, crackled, ,: licked at the grass. She had a fine and she knew how to use it! When a log was blazing, assuring her that her fire was safe, she rose swiftly and went in search of the tree she meant to burn. She found a giant pine, pitch -oozing, standing in a rocky open space where there was little danger of the fire spread- ing, Fagged out and eager as she was, she had not come to the point of forgetting what a great forest fire meant, She went back to her burning log, Thursday, A'z:arc l 1.21:1, 1931 She went to 'sleep beyond the cir- cle of bright light, tired and Hungry and striving against.a returning hope- lessness, her young 'body curled up in the nest she had foetid, a cheek cuddled. against her arm, wondering vaguely if some one would see her fire and come—if that some one Might be Bud Lee, CHAPTER XVI Bacon, Kisses and a Confession, Throughout the night the tree blaz- Throughout the Night the Tree Blaz— ed Unseen. ly, to lie smouldering on the rocky- soil, ockysoil, the upstanding trunk glowed, vivid against the sky -line, In the early morning at least two• pairs ' of eyes found the plume of smoke above the still burning giant pine. A man named Greene, one of the government forest rangers, blaz- ing a new trail over Devil's ridge,. came out upon a height, saw it and watched it frowningly across the. miles.. It called him to a hard'. ride, perhaps to a difficult journey on foot after he must leave his horse. He turnedpromptly' from the work in hand, ran to his horse, swung op and'. . sped back to his cabin, to telephone- to nearest station, passing the word. Then with ax and shovel, he began his slow way toward the beacon. Bud Lee, from the mountain -top - where he and Burkitt had taken Hampton, saw it. Lee judged rough- ly that it was separatedfrom hint by - four or five miles of broken country,, impassable to a man on horseback, to be covered laboriously on foot in a matter of weary hours. Lee and Greene approached the sig- nal smoke from • differentq uarters Lee from the west, Greene from the- northeast. henortheast. They fought their way on toward it with far, different emotions in their breasts. Green with the de- termination to do a day's work and kill a forest fine in its beginning, Lee with the passionate hope of finding. Judith. Lee reached his journey's end first. As he came pantingly upthe last g climb he discharged his rifle' again and again, to tell her that he was.. coming, to put hope into her. And, because he was a lover and a lover must be filled with dread when she is out of his sight, he felt a growing anxiety; what might have happsened to her since then? Had she been wandering, lost all these days? If no- thing else, o-thing.:else, then had she watched here half the night and in the end had she gone on plunging deep into some can- yon hidden to him? Would he find her well? Would lie find her at all? Suddenly he called out, shouting tnightily, and began running, though the way was steep. He had seen Ju - for a blazing dry branch which she dith, he bad found her. She was carried swiftly to the tree. Then she standing arnong the scattered bould- piled dry grass and dead twigs, logs ers, her back to a great rock. Her as heavy as she could carry,' bits of lips were moving, though he could brush, The flames licked at the tree, not see that yet, could not hear' her ran up it, seemed to fall away, sprang tremulous: at it again, hungering. Now and then "Oh, thank God, thank God!" a long tongue of fire went crackling - "Judith," he called,,'Jtidltlil" high up along the side of.the tree. Now, near enough to see here dis- Judith went back to a spot where, in tinctly, he saw that her' face was a ring of boulders, there was another white, that the hand she held out was grassy plot, threw herself down and shaking, that her clothes were torn, lay staring at the tongues of fire that that she looked pitifully in need" of g were climbing higher and higher. ' Bina. But at last, when he stood at Some one would see leer beacon, A her side,, one of the old rare smiles forest ranger, perhaps, whose duty it came into Judith's tired eyes, her lips was to ride fast and far' to battle with curved, and she said quietly; the first spark threatening the wood- "Good morning, Bud Lee. You were ed solitudes; perhaps some . crew in very good ----to come to rte," a logging camp, than whom none "Olt, Judith," lie cried sharply, but knew better the danger of spreading no other word came to his lips 'then.. fires; perhaps some cowboy, even one The brave little smile had gone, the of eget own pact --perhaps Quinnion of her face satiot�e him ttr and Ruth? She then would hide am- the heart. And now sheryas shaking ong the rocks until theylead come head to foot,` and he' knew why and gone, Hven rgow, ` against the she had not stepped out to meet him, sleep falling upon her, she drew far- why she had kept her back to the. ther back through the tumbled bond- rock, He thought that she was go. :Perhaps Bud Lee,. , r ; (Continued out Page Seven)