Loading...
The Wingham Advance Times, 1935-12-19, Page 14Y t 04 .X !1.011 fi �•,M h.1v n fir OURTEN WING}IAM ADVANCE •TJ Mi S Thursday, December -19, 1935 FINAL INSTALMENT iWh.en Fisk cancelled their second reservation Gloria went to bed. There seemed to be nothing seriously wrong yvith her and in fact there was nothing the matter—except a broken heart. Racehorses are like that -they will run until their hearts break, un- til there is not another gallop in them —and. Gloria was from thoroughbred .stock. The desert had beaten her. must be the latter, however, for has grief was too abysmal for tears. Late in the afternoon Fisk heard the little brown Goya children play- ing in lay-ing'in the road. They were laughing! He groaned aloud. Children! Gloria and he had wanted children, but there again the desert had thwarted them. This was no country for white wo- men. A man might as well lock ..his wife in a furnace and expect her to bear children. A few days later Fisk wired to the So Gloria was dying! And he had port for the best doctor available, and killed her! He rose and creaked the latter came up on a special locb- about the house, wringing his hands. motive. What the doctor said drove out of the husband's mind all thought oil, of fishing jobs, of Homestake d as Number One. A nurse was secure quickly as possible and meantime the Physician stayed on. Fisk did not return to the well; he hung about the house, a dumb fig- ure of suspense. Gloria no longer knew him and that was terrifying. He was like a frightened child, deserted and alone. Every whisper that issued from her lips was like a knife -thrust. He did • not sleep;. his eyes grew bloodshot from the tears that came whenever he left the sick room. The doctor and the nurse watched him covertly and more than once they found -hm 'muttering' words as senseless as those that fell from the sick wife's lips.. He wildly cursed himself and the desert. Nature finally exacted toll for the way he had cheated her, and although he ached intolerably for sleep, he ar- rived at a condition where he could not close his eyes; when he lay down his brain began to race and black. ncien drove him sighing out of his bed One morning when the brazen sun rose over the hills and began again. to pour its hatred into the valley, the :doctor told him as gently as possible that the end was near and that ` he must prepare himself. It was merely a question of time now, a question of hours, when the tired heart would. cease to function. Gloria was in no. pain; further stimulants were useless, they would merely serve to hasten that inevitable moment when the weight of her: lungs would prove too heavy forher feeble breath to lift. Donald groaned, If only she would revive enough to recognize hirn, to give hill One Word, one look! He would know then that she forgave trim. But for her to Shp away with- out even a smile, a kiss -God, no! "It isn't a ease where any sort of snedieine can do much good," the doc- tor explained. "I've had other cases *Act it. Nothing oganically wrong, but —you understand! It's the country, guess. The heat or the monotony or --hope deferred, maybe. We have a lot of it down here. If your well had come in, I'm sure she's have ral- lied." The,: husband sat most of that day in a, trance waiting for his hideous dream to end. Sometimes he bowed. his head in his hands, but the other -watchers could not tell whether it was tears or sweat that ran down be- tween his fingers. They fancied it His Mental numbnesswas wearing off no wand agony consumed him. His ?Hind was galloping, running away, and he talked incessantly, but with The car shot away and went rock- ing, pitching down the road. McKay and his men were - asleep when their employer arrived; h'e did not„ awaken them. The desert moon was bright enough to read by, so lie flung himself out of the car and .pick- ed his way to the shanty where the nitroglycerine was stored. The ex- plosive was just as he had left it three weeks before; he carried it' out into the light and poured it into the long tin container designed for lowering into the well. He worked swiftly and with no more caution than if he were handling so much lubricating oil, The torpedoes, when filled, he carried in upon the derrick floor; then he ran a thin manila line through a block,. and Then in the open doorway appeared the figure of a man. a thick tongue and without finishing his sentences. Yes. He had killed her! He had staked her out on the blistering desert as the Apaches stak- ed out their prisoners, leaving the sun to wreak its torture. What was that the doctor had said? If Homestake had come in she would have lived? Oh, there were devils in this valley!' They were in the air, in. the dagger points that armed the cac- ti and the bloodbushes, Yes, and oth- er demons were in the Nate beneath the hills. Those latter were the worst —for they collected in the bottom of oil wells and cut cables; they deflect- ed fishing tools; they filled threads and sockets with mud and grit Mal- ignant devils! The Homestake was full of them. An insane determination took slow. hold of Fisk. He went out and cranked up his flivver, mumbling to the .nurse that it was necessary for him to go out and look after the job. Company affairs, he told her, wildly, had to proceed, even if girl wives died and their husbands went crazy with grief. Companies were like that soulless and unfeeling—just like dev- ils—great joke on -company managers,. wasn't it? They put in , their lives, they sweated their souls white, and got - this. Damn all companies! ed him. They stood strained, alert. At first the hush ofthe desert was as complete as that of a tomb; thea from somewhere came a long, sigh- ing exhalation, not unlike breath is- suing from the lungs of a wounded giant, It was an eery, penetrating sound, close yet far away; it came from nowhere, from everywhere, . and, it raised the hair upon the necks of. the listeners. Together they tumbled out of the shanty. There was nothing in sight except the Homestake derrick, a gaunt skel- eton silvered by the moon; neverthe- less that sigh grew, second by sec- ond, and as it continued it changed into a whistling moan, indescribably blood -curdling. The men realized fin- ally that it came from the well. And yet that was impossible) The soil be- neath their feet was trembling now; from the casing mouth issued a vib- rating rumble, a rasping, gasping, gurgling roar. • Then before their staring eyes an amazng thing took place. Homestake Number One vomited into the night a geyser of blackmud and water 'and broken stone. The burden came with a great retching, as if coughed out from the very vitals.: of the earth, but oddly enough, instead of diminishing, the jet mounted higher, moment by moment, along with the pitch of the sound that came with it., It sprayed up, up, climbing the eighty -foot der- rick section by section, until the. crown block was hidden. It stood there finally, a tremendous fountain belching its rage up towards the emp- ty sky. There was the rush of many waters; the desert was drowned be- neath . a deluge; there came a raw, penetrating odor of gas and perto leum, .s Homestake Number One had come int The valley had flung off its suffo- cating shroud of heat; for a few hours at least there was respite. In the liv- ing room of the Fisk home the doc- tor and the nurse were talking quiet- ly, soberly; occasionally they stopped and listened, for out of the night cane a monotonous note like the. hoarse blast of a, siren many miles away. Finally through this irritating monotone came another sound, the approaching rattle of a rickety auto-. mobile. The road was illuminated' by the glare of headlights, then in the opendoorwaythere appeared the fig- ure of a man in dripping, oil -soaked garments which the dust of the road had rendered indescribably foul. His hair was matted, his face was smear- ed, his shoes were sodden, and when be stepped they oozed a sticky liquid the color' of tar. He had, it seemed, been plunged into a lake of oil, then, rolled in dirt, for he reeked with the smell of crude petroleum. It was Donald Fisk. He stood reeking upon the threshold; the whites of his eyes' glared idly as he fixed. his gaze upon the bedroom dor; he triedto voice a question, but the dust -was thick in his throat and he failed. The doctor approached him, laid .a hand upon his greasy sleeve, and spoke in a low tone: "She is—asleep! Fisk flung off the grasp, lifted his arms on high and uttered a cry of despair. "Gloria! Gloria —" He clenched his grimy ,fists andshook them, he began to curse in a hoarse, horrible, croaking voice. "Hush)" The . doctor - seized him again, struggled with him. "Man! You don't understand: She's alseep! the end of this he made fast to the first cartridge. So! Those little devils would drop his tools, would they? They'd wreck the well, bankrupt the company, and make him lose his boat, eh? Murder- ers, that's what they were. They had murdered Gloria. By Heaven!' two could play at that game! He let the long, shiny torpedo slip quietly into the casing mouth. so as not to give them warning of what he had in mind. 'McKay and his. crew were .awak- ened by a peculiar sensation; it was as if their beds had been lifted a few inches by the upward thrust of a thickly padded piston and then drop- ped. . - "Hey! Who kicked my bunk?" in- quired the driller as he sat up. A startled voice answered him "That's funny! Me too. Did you fel- lows hear anything?" One man had, another had not Somebody suggested an earthquake— anything was likely to happen in this accursed country. They were arguing stupidly in the dark when McKay spoke with all trace of sleepiness gone from his voice: "Hark! ... My God, listen!" An instant, then he was out upon the floor and the others had follow, She's better!" Fisk apprehended, nothing at first except the sharp admonition for sil- ence; that' was all his brain could compass. "The change came an lour ago. She has a chance. Heaven only knows what happened-" There was a breathless pause while Donald Fisk slowly groped. his way up out of utter blackness, In the sil- ence could be heard that same faint monotone. It sounded like the dis- tress signal of some distant liner, the whistle rope of which had been tied down. "It was a miracle, Mr. Fisk!" the nurse piously asserted. "Strength came to her out of nowhere. • She began. to breathe more easily, her heart grew stronger—" -"It was the well! She was wait- ing—waiting. 1t came in an hour ago! Don't you hear it?" "Quiet! Not so loud." But the husband was deaf to cau- tion. "Her soul was waiting, hover- ing—she wouldn't leave me as long as there was hope-" A convulsion racked the oil -soaked figure. "Horne - stake carne, in like a lion, like a thou- sand .lions, roaring, belching-" His voice broke, he choked, "It's the big- gest well in the country! Twenty thousand barrels a day or more. My head's splitting from the noise. It drowned me—deafened Hie! When 1 saw it was oil I—I cursed God." The speaker turned, lurched blindly to the wall, and resting his head in his hands, began to sob like a little boy. "I stood there with my face to the sky and cursed God!" Towards morning Gloria stirred, opened her eyes, listened, then smiled contentedly at her husband. He had to bow his head close to catch her whispered words: "Our boat! I was so tired! I thought I couldn't wait any longer. Then—I heard it coming in—our ship!" "Yes, dear." He pressed his hungry lips to her • cheek. "You waited and our ship came in.'•' THE END 1936 Master and Standard Chevrolets Replete with New: Features • i f .•. •r;cu; ,:,: ,;;div New Master and Standard Chevrolets for 1936 show marked advances in appearance and hi engineering. Perfected hydraulic brakes, high - compression engines .with full-length water packets, and balanced ear- Wrotioix are aznot g the Pleaanicai improvements. The solid steel. Turret 'I'op Fisher body is'now ttsed ott the Standard as well as the Master' models. Ink The illustrations show: Top left, the Master Six special sedan, with built- in trunk; top right, the re -styled, deeply moulded' radiator grille, used on all models; lower left, the simple arrangement of Chevrolet's perfected hydraulle brakes, all models; .and, lower right, a Standard, sedan.'; 6th INSTALMENT OF MISS CURRIE'S TRIP (Continued from page 9) He poked out a parcel. "What's in that?" "Talcum powder." W. A. CRAWFORD, M.D. , Physician and Surgeon Located at the office. of the late` Dr. J. P. Kennedy. Phone 150 Wingham "You see, that's pert une." "You say powder is perfume," I said, "and I'll say fish wear straw hats." He chalked every piece, closed them magically with no strings dang- ling out, calleda taxi, and hustled me o'ffh The tari driver stopped at the Queen's Park Hotel. The boys rushed nay. bags in. I had to follPow, The room clerk held' out :a pen. I . said, "Wait a minutes, what is your rate for a week?" He said, "Flat rate, $4.00 a day." "Maybe," I told him, "I'll go to another hotel." "You wouldn't like it." He firmly shoved the pen into my hand, giving the boy a key. As a last stand for my independ- ence I asked, "Haven't you a better room at my disposal?" He only smiled as at a bothersome child and waved the boy on. A woman can struggle and strug- gle in this man's world, but she hasn't got the weight. So then I came down to breakfast in low spirits. I glowered at the menu aiid grumbled that I didn't want a thing of it, The waiter's black eyes disappeared and his white teeth carne out, He assured me that if; I would suggest, he would be glad to attend to it. I told him to go away and re- turn in five minutes. There was a man at the next table facing me. 1 could read his mind, even to the dots over the "i's," "There is a lone_ unfortunate wo- man, I'll have. to do something about I' frowned and disregarded him, but Sunday he followed me into the Lounge because as he said I seemed so alone and I; seemed to be Canad- ian I remarked that I was proud to know that like a Canadian nickel I bore the imprint of. the Maple Leaf. He remarked that I expressed myself more as an American. I reminded him that a Canadian can rightly claim to be Canadian, British, and North American, being part of all three and. therefore, super people. 1 warned him that I would pick his life history out in detail. His home is in England and he was married during the war. He hadn't had ,leave in a long time because he was interpreter for some branch of the service and they felt they cduldn't replace him. 'According to British military regulations, he told me, a soldier can be denied leave for every reason 'including his moth- er's funeral or that of any other mem- ber of the family, including his own. But, they must grant leave for a sol- dier to get married. There was an English girl, so he got married. With- in two months the Armistice was signed. "SO what?" I asked. "We never regretted it." he said. Eighteen months ago she died. 1 enjoyed a recital of his travels over the known World with the ex ception of Canada and the 'United. States, He told me that when in Dominica he was served with moun- tain chicken, Ile became curious, about these mountain chickens. He: inquired of the maid. She showed him, Putinto a sort of back yard where chickens w@re scratching. She • open- ed a sort of penand out frogs) ass big .as dinner plates. I wouldn't swear to it. EverySunday the Chef makes o-• y go loo, It is made of the big blue crabs, which lurk in holes along the beaches,, mixed with native :leaves and boiled, with dumplings. They leave the bone- work of the blue beast in your bowl to prove he really is in the gooloo, One day my waiter thought my ap- petite -was failing and he brought me another island delicacy called Crab Back. Atfer the first mouthful .it Mast cd fairly good. The flesh is removed from the shell, mixed with bread crumbs and celery, packed back into the shell and baked. The horny claw which in life is used for scaring us is poked into the middle and at the bot- tom on a pair of antennae protrude the two poor'little eyes. I made the waiter pull out the wicked looking pincher and I shut my eyes to the rest. While I was typing a big something with lots of legs and things crawled in front of my horrified eyes and dis- appeared underneath the table. As r was in, shorts I was afraid the thing would jump down on my unprotected nethers. I commenced to look up un- der the table, but decided it would; be too awful if he fell into my eye. I went on typing, sitting on one chair and the rest of me uncomfortably draped out of danger over another. After a lapse of time I saw the critter hunched agauast the baseboard, scar- - ed to death of the strange clatter yet apparently absolutely fascinated. Now if he doesn't call at least once a day,. I get lonesome. The other evening in the diningroom I felt something scratch my side. I wondered if it were -a pin although I couldn't re- member using one. On my way upf. stairs I felt a scratching on my back This time I investigated and felt' something lively between my fingers. (Continued on page 15) MONUMENTS at first cost Having our factory' equipped with the most modern machinery for the exe- cution of high-class work, we ask you' to see the largest display of monu- ments of any retail factory in Ontario. All finished by sand blast machines. We import all our granites from the Old Country quarries direct, in the. rough. You can save all local deal- ers, agents' and middleman profits by - seeing tts: E. J. Skelton & Son at West End Bridge—WAL KERTON" e Professional J. W. BUSHFIELD Barrister, Solicitor, Notary, Etc. Money to Loan. Office — Meyer Block, Wingham Successor to Dudley Holmes. H. W. COLBORNE. M.D. PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON Medical Representative D. S. C. R. Phone 54. Wingham A. R. & F. E. DUVAL CHIROPRACTORS CHIROPRACTIC and ELECTRO THERAPY North Street Wingham Telephone 300. Directory I.R. S. HE THEE INOTO N BARRISTER` and SOLICITOR Office - Morton Block, Telephone No., 66 Dr. Robt. • C. REDMOND M.R.C.S. (England) L.12.C.P. (London) PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON F. A. PARKER OSTEOPATH All Diseases Treated. Office adjoining residence next to Anglican Church on Centre St. Sunday by appointment. Osteopathy Electricity Phone 272. Hours, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. J. H. CRAWFORD Barrister, Solicitor, Notary, Etc. Successor to R. Vanstone. Wingharn Ontario DR. W. M. CONNELL PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON Phone 19. J. ALVIN FOX Licensed Drugless Practitioner CHIROPRACTIC - DRUGLESS THERAPY RADIONIC EQUIPMENT, Hours by Appointment. Phone 191. Wingham Business Directory ADVERTISE IN THE ADVANCE -TIMES THOMAS FELLS AUCTIONEER REAL ESTATE SOLD A Thorough knowledge of Farm' Stock. Phone 231; Wingharn. Aoki, Immoweimmenmalowin Wellington Mutual Fire Insurance Co,. Established 1840. Risks taken on all classes of insur- ance at reasonable rates. Head Office, Guelph, Ont. ABNER COSENS, Agent. Wingham. It Will Pay You to Have An EXPERT AUCTIONEER' to conduct your sale. See T. R. BENNETT At The Royal Service Station. Phone 17IW... HARRY FRY Furniture and Fal Service I,a:SLIE GORl)ON Licensed Embalmer and ru►ieral Director Ambulance Service, Phones: Day 117. ' Night 109. T'JIOMNIAS E. SMALL LttENSED AUCTIONEER 20 Yeats' Experience• in Patin Stock and Implements Moderate IPrices. Phone 3311. r�,