Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

THURSDAY. MAY 19, 1921. BLUE MOON Jl Tale of the Flatmoods By DAVID ANDERSON (Ooprilbt bj th* Bobbt-Kemu Company) '"“The little girl—little Hesper Dawn ■—must be quite a woman now. As 1 have written you, her grandfather, old Godfrey Dawn, died last year. He re pented in his last hours and left her sole heir to his fortune, which, as you know, is even more considerable than your own. The estate is in my hands ready to convey to her. The legal age of a woman in this state is eighteen. If old Godfrey has n§t misinformed me, she will be twenty the twentieth of this present month. So. she has been for some time legally competent to come into her estate. If, under the terms of your will, she should fall heir to your fortune as well, which she bids fair to do, as no word has come and none likely to come at this late day, she will be quite the richest heiress in my knowing. * “Now, my dear Colonel, let me hear from you. Why should a famous sol dier, and the greatest cellist of his time, longer isolate himself from the world to nurse his sorrow? For the sake of the little girl, if not for your own—and ours—leave your Flatwoods hermitage and come back to us. “Awaiting—urging—an early reply to this letter, I beg to remain, as ever, “Your obedient serv’t, “GEO. ESKRIDGE.” A voice out of the big world she had Tislted only in dreams. She glanced again at the letter, looked hard at th opening of the third paragraph, dropped her hands in her lap and turned to her companion. He had bent forward and sat staring at the floor. “What does it mean?” “It means.” he said slowly after a time, with his eyes still on the floor, “that you are a rich heiress; and you’ve got a —name.” “A name!” she repeated, her wom an’s intuition instantly catching the minor note. “So have you, and” —she reached in her bosom and drew out the draft —“a fortune. And you made them both yourself.” He glanced at the draft; waved It away without lifting his head. “Keep it, please, for me till after •tonight.” She put it back in her bosom, picked up the letter and sat pondering, steal ing an occasional glance at his glum face. “Seven years the letters came,” the man mused, half aloud, “and you never received them. The postmaster has a stroke —you receive the very next let ter that comes —” “You don’t reckon—?” “Reckon! It’s a plain case. Let’s see —every month —six hundred a year —seven years—seven times six hun dred —no wonder he could build that new house —” “Oh, well! Poor old man! He’s paying for it." “And do you thick that’s the way a man pays?” “Sometimes —maybe.” The man raised his eyes after a time to the bright stpots of metal in the gathering gloom above the mantel. “The letter called him a famous sol dier. Maybe that’s his sword, and spurs?” “They are.” “And you keep them shining bright like that?” “Always.” The man was silent a long time. One other question had come to him, but he dreaded to ask it. He twisted him self around so as to look into the face of his companion. It was deeply thoughtful. Things had recently hap pened in his own life that had brought the question to his mind. Finally very softly, reverently, he ventured it forth. “And your mother?” The girl caught her breath; dropped one hand, doubtless uncqpsciously, up on his shoulder. Her lashes drooped low. “I never saw her!” she said, after a time. “And she—never saw me!” There was a pause. “Her grave is on a hill that overlooks the river. Dad dy took me and came up here in the Flatwoods to forget. I guess he couldn’t forget, for he never went back.” The Pearlhunter was sorry he had asked the question. The grave that overlooked the river! Was there not another such grave—not three days old; the orchids upon it still alive! The gray eyes followed the blue into the pensive shadows. “I wonder what it means,” he medi tated half aloud. “You are to fall heir to his fortune, if no word comes. Whnt word, do you suppose? And why should any word prevent you falling heir to his fortune. —your father’s?” “I wondered about that I guess It’s just lawyer talk. Do you think I should answer that letter?” ‘-I think you should.” "But what would I say? As I said a while ago, I never wrote a letter.” “Neither did I.” He saw the answer did not relieve the perplexity on the thoughtful face, and went on. "But I’d tell him about your life here, and about your father’s —accident, and that this is the first, letter you’ve re- celved for seven years.” He hesitated, seemed to study his next word, finally added: “And I believe I’d ask him to come; yes, I believe I would—ask him to come.” “Why, of course; why couldn't I think of that? Now you’d better lie down while I get you a mite of sup per.” In an instant he was on his feet, protesting. “I shall have to get supper for Daddy, anyhow,” she emphasized. “And I wouldn’t think of letting you go without.” When a woman talks like that. It’s no use to argue. The Pearlhunter didn’t —which shows that he was learning—fast. "Will you eat with me again?” She swept him a deep courtesy. “If the famous finder of the Blue Moon is not ashamed to eat with his cook —” He bowed low. It cost him a pang in his side, but It didn’t get to his face. “If the rich heiress, Miss Hesper Dawn, is not above eating with the — the Pearlhunter —” Wonderful Is the resilience of youth. With a gay lnugh she danced away to the kitchen. He tramped after her. His two old friends, the Boss and dour-faced Bull Masterson, would have been astonished at the sounds that came through that kitchen door. The slow, deliberate, serious-faced Pearlhunter! He was dancing about the cook stove, carrying dishes, and laughing as lightly as if half the neighborhood was not out hunting him with every sort of weapon the Flat woods could furnish. That supper! Bacon and eggs, browfl toast, and coffee! And the hands that poured that coffee and put the sugar In, and spread the toast! It had to be eaten In semidarkness, for It wouldn’t do to risk a candle —semi- darkness, but not In silence. He for got that the girl just around the cor ner of the table had turned out to be a rich heiress —the “princess” of his fairy story—while he was only the Pearlhunter —a man without a name. Twilight at the windows warned him that the dark was hovering like a night raven over the woods. His time had come. The business of a man was afoot. She closed the rove hearth to hide the fire light He opened the east door of the kitchen, once more the grave, cautious woodsman. She held out her hand; he laid it upon the arm in the sling; covered it with his own. “Wild Rose!” he said. “You’ll al ways be that, no matter what they call you.” The fancy went through him that her hand thrilled, ever so slightly, up on his arm. He closed his great palm over it “The woods shall be safe tomorrow for you—and me,” he said, and fol lowed the words with the boldest act of his life —picked up the hand from his arm and laid it to his lips. The next instant he had slipped away into the gathering night Buried in the bushes, he spared a second to look back. She was still In the dark frame of the door. A sound like the passing of a whis per, like the breeze playing with soft leaves, caught his quick ear. A gray ghost—the Wild Man of the Flatwoods —flitted along under the cliffs and en tered the cabin. CHAPTER, XIII. The Sheriffs Nudge. The sheriff’s barn stood against the hillside, the distance of half a block back of his house. He had been in the saddle most of the day. It was dark when he rode into his barn lot to put up his tired horse. So intent was he upon his task, so eager to hurry it over and get hack to the house to supper, that he failed to notice a dark form stealing down off the bluff, through the bushes, and along the barn wall. The task finished, the sheriff closed the barn door and turned toward the house. “Sh-h!” He whirled, and found himself gaz ing down the wrong end of a steady six-gun in the hand of the very man he had been hunting all day. The sheriff was a brave man, but he knew where bravery ends and foolhardiness begins. His hands went up as tjuick ly as he could get them up. The man with the six-gun carried his arm in a sling. It must have cost him torture to take it out, but he did it; reached over and plucked the sheriff’s revolver out of his holster, thrust it into his blouse and put his arm back into the sling. “Listen!” There was no misunder standing that whisper. “I’ll not hurt you if you do as I say. Creep up the hill to the top of the bluff. Keep out of sight as much as possible. I’ll be right behind you.” The sheriff was not a brilliant man, but he did have a saving grain of horse sense. He crept—along the ham wall, up the hill through the hushes and into the thick woods at the top of the bluff. The shadow be hind him was noiseless, but he knew that it was there. “To Fallen Rock,” came a low, in cisive command. “You know the way.” He knew the way. He took it. He never liked to remember that journey. It brought the sweat out on his head to recall it. Not even a sheriff —a Flatwoods sheriff, to boot—has a stom ach for a trump through the dark at the point of a six-gun in the hands of such a man. At the spring aroffnd back of the west end of the old cabin, he heJd tated, undecided whether that was the final destination, and yet dreading to make the mistake, if it wasn’t. The gun muzzle prodded him onto the brink of the pool under the falls. Barely out of reach of the spray, the shadow came around and faced him. “You think I’m the Red Mask. The whole town thinks I am. Like a pack of hounds you’ve hunted me today, but you hunted the wrong man. The real “The Timber Buyer Is Your Man," Red Mask was one of the pack. That timber buyer Is your man.” The sheriff started. The cold voice went on. “Did you ever know him to buy a timber option? Did you ever hear of any that lie bought?” “No—!” The sheriff was surprised to find his mouth dry, his tongue stiff. “And you never will. He deliberate ly planned to lay the murder of Louie Solomon on me. He’s the real mur derer, and has the Blue Moon at this minute. I knew It all along, but I had no proof. Tonight I expect to get my proof und I brought you along to help me get It.” The Pearlhunter briefly explained what he had chanced to learn the eve ning before after escaping from the JaiL “Had you never noticed that he comes down this way every night?” he concluded. “Yes, but I understood It was to see a girt.” The Pearlhunter winced. His Jaw tightened. He was thinking of the talk that had probably been bandied back and forth over the bar of the Mud Hen. “He came to feed his horse. There’s no glri down here his mouth’s dt to mention. He’ll come tonight any minute now. Quick 1 Out on that flat rock.” Without a word, the sheriff bounded over the two intervening stones to the flat rock. The Pearlhunter waited just long enough to sound the woods. The noise of the falls made It Impossible. With a searching look back up the bluff as far as his eyes would carry In the gloom, he joined the sheriff. "Jump. I told you how.” A prod of the six-shooter empha sized the command. The sheriff Jumped. There was nothing else to do. He was still floundering about on the inner margin of the pool be hind the falls when the Pearlhunter landed lightly beside him, almost up on him. The passage was dark —dark as the Inside of a pistol barrel. It was a very reassuring fact. It meant that there was no candle burning far ther ahead In the cave. He was in time. Making sure of that very Im portant fact he thrust the revolver Into the holster pocket at his hip, grasped the sheriff by the collar and hurried up the passage. By the same subtle instinct that had served him the night before, he knew when he reached the point at which the passage widened into the cave. There he loosed the sheriff’s collar and struck a match. The sheriff caught his breath and stared. The horse, the candle in the cranny, the saddle and spurs, the feed —all Just as It had been described to him. “I never knew there was anything like this under Fallen Rock.” "You’re probably the third man that ever did know it. Pick your steps across those slivers of shale there and get into that pocket behind the hay. Hurry! We mustn’t show much light. He’s due any minute.” The one match served. So urgently did the Pearlhunter consider the need of haste that before it wns gone they were crowded well back in the pocket behind the hay. “The instant you’re convinced I’m not. the Red Mask, nudge me, and I’ll your revolver back. And I needn’t tell you that when the time comes to net, we’ve got to act quick.” The two men had stood in the pock et for what must have been half an hour, and the throb of the Pearlhunt er’s wound was becoming almost un bearable, when the horse grew sud denly quiet. The Pearlhunter sank low In the cover and pulled the sheriff down beside him. A match scraped; a sputtering flame hunted the candle in the cranny; the cave, the horse, the Jaunty form of the mnn they awalt ed sprang out of the dark. itVmtinued next week.) Have you eaten any sausage yet >om M. E. Rogers’ Cash Market? It : just like your mama used to make it. "ry it. Price 20c per pound. Call 105, prompt delivery. THE WINDER NEWS C 1 Ino Silvertown Cords are included in the Goodrich §Tire Price Reduction Among tires SILVERTOWN is the name that instantly conveys the thought of the highest known quality. Their genuine value has given them first place in the esteem of motorists. Motor car manufadurers and dealers are quick to emphasize to their prospeds that their cars are equipped with Silvertowns— r knowing that neither explana tion nor argument is necessary. This makes all the more impor tant the fart that Silvertown m'wr m* 'Cords are included in our re \ M giU, 1 adjustment of tire prices which \ took effed May 2nd. \ THE B. F. GOODRICH RUBBER COMPANY \ Your Goodrich dealer U prepared to supply you with \ Goodrich Silvertown Cords, Goodrich Fabrics and Goodrich Red and GrayTubesat the 20* price ~dud*. "Bes? in the Long %un” You Can’t Do It You might as well try to lift yourself in a bushel bas ket as to save money by carrying it in your pockets. It is spent too easy. It’s always there to be passed out for something you can do without. It's been tried time and again by people, but without success. One sure way to save money is by opening a savings account in our ? bank. If you once start you will be surprised how the savings habit will grow on you. i 4 Per Cent Interest Paid $1 Starts the Account. J mm**™ '*> I Winder National Bank SUBSCRIPTION: f1.50 A YEAR