Houston home journal. (Perry, Houston County, Ga.) 1924-1994, November 27, 1941, Image 7
MAY W. N. U. Release 'ttHL v |*sty King and Lew Gordon had built up trait string of ranches. King was killed bis powerful and unscrupulous competi j*r, Ben Thorpe. Bill Roper, King’s adopted IM, was determined to avenge his death in •pits of the opposition by his sweetheart. • • • < CHAPTER XXll—Continued Jim Leathers, in spite of his warn ing to Kane, made no effort to move out of the light. Standing square in the door, he drew his gun. A bul let splintered into the casing beside him as the report of a carbine sound ed from somewhere beyond. Jim Leathers fired twice; then stepped inside, closed and barred the heavy door. For a moment the eyes of Kane »nd Leathers questioned each other. “Dry Camp Pierce,” Kane said. “Naturally.” “If it don’t beat hell that they should land in at just this minute—” Leathers was very cool and quiet now. Deliberately he pulled on his gheepskin. “Get out the back, un tie the ponies and get your man aboard.” “Jim, seems like we stand a bet ter chance here, way we are, than running in the open, what with—” "They’ll burn us out if we try to hold. Get going, you!” Dragging Roper after him, Kane plunged into the dark of the back room. He swore as he rummaged for his rifle, his sheepskin. Leathers neither swore nor hur ried. Moving deliberately, he blew out one lamp, hobbled across the room to the other. Then all hell broke loose at once. The single frosted pane of the ten inch window at the end of the room •mashed out with a brittle ring of falling glass. In the black aperture appeared the face of a boy, pale and wild-eyed, so young-looking that he might almost have been called a child. The heavy .44 with which he had smashed the window thrust through the broken pane; it blazed out heavily, twice. Jim Leathers, staggering back wards as if he had been hit with a log ram, fired once, from the level of his belt. The face vanished, but a moment after it was gone the band that held the gun dangled limp within the room. Then the gun thud ded on the floor, and the lifeless band disappeared. As Leathers went down, a broken voar of guns broke out in the store room. Leathers groped for his gun, tried to rise, but could not. Roper, who had been dragged into the dark storeroom by Red Kane, felt the swift sting of the wind as the back door was smashed open, and Was able to tear free as the guns began. He stumbled over piled »acks, and flattened himself against the wall. The blind blasting in the dark of the back room lasted long enough for three guns to empty themselves. Their smashing voices fell silent with an odd suddenness, as suddenly as they had opened. In the dark a voice said, “In God’s name let’s have a lightl” After what seemed a long time a match flared uncertainly, and Rop er’s quick glance estimated the changed situation. In the back room now two men were down—Red Kane and another whom Roper immedi ately recognized as an old King- Gordon cowboy called Old Joe. The dim flicker of the match was augmented to a steady glow as a lantern was found and lighted. Rop •r did not recognize the other man In the room—the cowboy who had lighted the lantern with one hand, bis smoking six-gun still ready in the other. The stranger stooped over Old • oe. “You hurt bad?” “It’s only my iaig, my laig.” The other stepped over the inert ftody of Kane to the door, and sur veyed the silent kitchen. “Jim Leathers! Somebody got Jim Leathers, and got him hard!” He stepped back into the rear iroom. “You’re Bill Roper, aren’t you? Where’s the others?” “There aren’t any others. They *ll went out on Dry Camp’s trail, •ftcr his raid day before yesterday.” “No others here? You sure?” “Kane and Leathers are the only •nes here.” Old Joe, both hands clasped on bis smashed leg, spoke between set teeth. “Where’s Jody? For God’s 4ake find Jody!” The King-Gordon cowboy whom Roper did not know, went out, his •purs ringing with his long strides. “Jody isn’t here,” Roper told Old Joe disgustedly. “She got loose two days ago.” “The hell she isn’t here! She come here with us!” “With you? But you’re from Gor don’s Red Butte camp, aren’t you? I thought Jody went to Miles City with Shoshone Wilce.” “She never went to Miles. She knew Leathers was bringing you here, from what she’d heard him »ay. She come to us, because we was the K-G camp nearest here, and she wouldn’t hear of nothing but we corne and try to crack you loose. Shoshone Wilce—he’s daid.” Bill Roper was dazed. “I thought —I thought—” The other cowboy now came tramping back into the cabin, an awkward burden in his arms; and time Jody Gordon herself fol lowed close upon his heels. Her face was set, and the sharp flush acroe» her cheekbones did «>♦ con *•*l bar fatigue. INSTALLMENT 17 THE STORY SO FAR: Jody Gordon, and her father. After wiping Thorpe out of Texas. Roper conducted a great raid upon Thorpe’s vast herds in Mon tana. Both Thorpe and Lew Gordon placed heavy rewards upon Roper’s head. He was captured by Leathers and Kane, two of • * * • • Bill Roper started to say, “Jody, how on earth—” Jody did not seem to see him; she appeared to be thinking only of the slim youngster whom the cowboy carried. The cowboy laid the limp figure on the floor of the kitchen, ripped off his own neckerchief and spread it over the youngster’s face. Jody Gordon methodically shut the door. Then she dropped to the floor beside the fallen youngster, lifted his head into her lap, and gave way to a violent sobbing. The high keyed nervous excitement that had sustained her through the hard ne cessities of action was unstrung abruptly, now that her work was done; it left nothing behind it but a great weariness, and the bleak con sciousness that this boy was dead because of her. Roper and the King-Gordon cow boy stood uncertainly for a moment. Then the cowboy picked up Leath ers where he lay struggling for breath, carried him into the back room and put him down on a bunk. For a moment he hesitated; then closed the door between the two rooms, leaving Jody alone. “Seems like the kid got Jim Leath ers; but Jim Leathers got the kid.” “Daid?” Old Joe asked. “Deader’n hell! Jody takes it aw ful hard.” The cowboy cut loose Bill Roper’s hands, and together they lifted Old “Now you go and keep Miss Gordon company.” Joe onto the other bunk. Roper cut Marquita free. “Get me that kettle of water off the stove,” Bill Roper ordered Mar quita; and when she had brought it he said, “Now you go and keep Miss Gordon company for a little while.” Marquita left them, closing the door behind her. Old Joe kept talking to them in a gaspy sort of way, as they did what they could for his wound. “The kid was scared to death to come. Jody seen that, and tried to send him back, with some trumped up message or something. Natural ly he seen through that and wouldn’t go. Now most likely she blames herself that he’s daid. Lucky for us that Leathers’ main outfit wasn’t here.” “You mean just you three was go ing to jump the whole Leathers out fit, and the Walk Lasham cowboys, too?” “Not three —four,” Old Joe said. “Don’t ever figure that girl don’t puff her weight. We been laying up here on the hill since before dusk. She aimed we should use the same stunt you used at Fork Crick—bust into ’em just before daylight. Then somebody fires off a gun down here, and she loses her haid, and we come on down. It was her smashed her horse against the door, trying to bust it in. She blindfolded him with her coat—threw it over his haid— and poured on whip and spur, and she bangs into the planks. Broke his neck, most like; cain’t see why she wasn’t killed—” “Just you four,” Roper marveled, “were going to tackle the whole works, not even knowing how many were here?” “We tried to tell her it couldn’t be done. But you can’t talk any sense into a woman, once she gets a no tion in her nut.” CHAPTER XXIII Marquita, closing the door of the storeroom behind her, for some mo ments stood looking down at Jody Gordon. Jody still sat on the floor, upon her lap the head of the boy who had | HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL, PERRY, GEORGIA Thorpe’s men. Leathers’ girl, Marqulta. loved Roper. She made a desperate effort to save him but was soon overpowered. The men were dragging Roper outside to hang him when they heard the sound of running horses. • * downed Jim Leathers. The sobs that convulsed her were dying off now, leaving her deeply fatigued, and pro foundly shaken. “You might as well get up now,” Marquita said. Her soft Mexican slur gave an odd turn to the blunt American words she used. “The fight’s over; and that boy you’ve got there is dead as a herring.” With a visible effort Jody Gor don pulled herself together, and gen tly lowered the head of the dead boy to the floor. She got up shakily, and for a moment looked at Mar quita. “Why did you come here?” Mar quita asked at last. Her voice con tinued gently curious—nothing more. “I knew Billy Roper was alive,” Jody told her. “Because I was watching when Leathers left Fork Creek with him. I already knew they meant to take him to Ben Thorpe at Sundance, for the reward. That would be death, to him. And I knew they meant to stop over here on the way. So I got the boys, from our Red Butte camp, and I come on . . ” “You are a very foolish littlo girl,” Marquita said. “Luck saved you; but if this camp had been full of men, it would have been suicide.” “Wouldn’t you have done the same?” Marquita shrugged impatiently. “I feel very sorry for you,” she said. “Why?” “Because 1 think you are in love with this Billy Roper.” “Why do you say that?” “Es claro,” Marquita said. “It is plain. And it’s a pity; because this kind of man is not for you.” At first Jody Gordon did not an swer. But behind the softness of Marquita’s voice was a cogency as strange as her American words —a cogency that would not be ignored. Here Jody found herself facing a woman whom she could not possibly have understood. Marquita’s care less, even reckless mode of life, her uncoded relationships with men— there was not an aspect of Mar quita’s life which did not deny ev ery value of which Jody was aware. Marquita appeared to thrive and flower in a mode of life in which Jody incorrectly believed she her self would have died. “I don’t understand you.” Marquita’s glance swept the room —the bare chinked walls, the dead boy. Her glance seemed to go be yond the door, where they were dressing Old Joe’s wound; beyond the walls, to the cold wind-swept prairie, where men still rode this night, though morning was close. “What do you know,” she said— “what can you know of the lives of these men? Jody lifted her head, then, and looked at Marquita; and again the simple words and the mask-like face of Marquita seemed to have a mean ing for which she groped. In the ' silence that followed, it came to Jody that the night’s fighting was not yet over, that she must still fight for herself and for Bill—and some how for that foolish house in Ogalla- , la, with its tall tower overlooking the plain. “Do you ride with them?” the gentle, inexorable voice went on. 1 “Do you share their blankets? Do you ride under their ponchos in the rain? Where are you when their guns speak? Who prays for them at dawn, knees down in this God-for- ' saken snow?” Marquita paused, and her body : swung, lazily assured, across a shadowy angle of the room toward ; the closed door that had hid Roper. ( working now over the wounded men the doorposts and it seemed to Jody, watching her, as if Marquita were a barrier between what might have been Jody’s, and that she had lost now. “You don’t have to bar the door,” she said. Marquita’s hands came away from the doorposts. “I know I don’t.” The words were so indolently ca denced that they might have been spoken in Spanish. And at their soft assurance something awoke in Jody Gordon Something was still worth fighting for. Perhaps it had nothing to do with Bill Roper, but it flowed deep into the roots of her life; deeper than her life with one man—with any man—could ever flow. As Jody looked at Marquita, strange things came to her, that she herself could not have put into words. She knew that Marquita anc all her kind would presently pass Perhaps Bill Roper, like all the rest of his bold riders, must also pass, but now suddenly Jody knew that whatever else might vanish from this prairie, what she herself stood for would remain. When she spoke at last, she scarcely recognized her ! own voice. "I guess I was wrong,” she said Her words had a strange echo of Marquita’s own directness. “You’re Bill Roper’s girl—is that what you wanted to tell me?” The dance hall girl’s words fe'l ' softly. “Si. that is what I want*'' you to know ” (TO BE CONTINVED ; IMPROVED UNIFORM INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY I chool Lesson By HAROLD L. LUNDQUIST, D. D. Dean of The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) Lesson for November 30 Lesson subjects and Scripture texts se lected and copyrighted by International Council of Religious Education; used by permission. CHRISTIAN LOVE LESSON TEXT—John 13:34. 35; I Corin thians 13:1-13. GOLDEN TEXT-We love him, because he first us.—l John 4:19. Many important things enlist the interest of the Christian, but we need to beware lest we neglect what Jesus declared to be the first and great commandment—that we love God; and its necessary sequel— that we love our neighbor. If love is forgotten (and who can deny that it often is in our day?), the very foundations are shaken. We need a revival of Christian love. I. Love—A Mark of Discipleship (John 13:34, 35). Do you want to know whether a j man is a Christian? Find out j whether he loves his brethren. Such | is the test Jesus gives in these verses. 1. Commanded. It is the will and purpose of God that the follow ers of Christ should have a real love for one another. It is not to be a matter of impulse or chance, but the love God has for us should con strain us to love one another. Thus is love 2. Exemplified. God has loved us. He does love us. How infinitely much is wrapped up in these simple words! He even gave His Son to die for us because He loved us (John 3:16). How then can we with hold our love from Him and from one another? 11. Love—A Christian Grace (I Cor. 13). In a world where hatred prevails, and is in fact glorified, this chapter needs to be read and reread. We find that love is 1. Essential (vv. 1-3). Life has many excellent gifts and men quite properly seek after them. How do they compare with love, and what do they amount to apart from love? Glowing, angelic eloquence; the far seeing eye of the prophet; the at tainments of knowledge and cul ture; mountain-moving faith; lib eral-hearted charity; martyr-like self-sacrifice—without love they are all as nothing. Apart from Christ and His love operating in our hearts and lives the worthiest at tainments of men are vain and empty. Love is the very essence of a satisfying and useful life. 2. Effective (vv. 4-7). Does love really work, or is this just a fine sounding but obsolete theory? It works. Think of the things in life which irritate and depress us; then put opposite them the qualities of Chris tian love as given in verses 4 to 7, and you will agree that what this world needs most of all is love. Remember that talking about love or reading about it or studying it in the Sunday school will not make it effective. We must put it into practice. Why not start now? You will be surprised at the results. 3. Eternal (vv. 8, 12), Many gifts are only temporary in their usefulness; in fact, almost every ; thing that man makes or does i (apart from his service for God) is ! transient. Even so vital a matter | as prophecy shall one day find its end in fulfillment. Hope shall eventually find its longing expecta tion satisfied. Faith will be justified in seeing what it has believed. Childish things will be put away by | the full-grown man, knowledge will increase and darkness disappear. But love—love is eternal. It never i fails, and will never fail. God is ( love and God is eternal. From all | eternity and unto all eternity love | continues. Therefore, we agree I with Paul who in the verse preced ing this chapter (I Cor. 12:31) says that while you may covet the best gifts, here is the more excellent way l —love. Let us be clear about this. Love is not a substitute for regeneration, and certainly regeneration is no ex cuse for lack of love. Read John 13; 34, 35 again and remember that if we are Christ’s disciples we will count it a high privilege to keep this first and great commandment of love. Dependence on God Poverty in any shape helps to stir in man a sense of need, a disposition to consider himself as dependent . . . The real puzzle of life consists not in the fact of widespread poverty but in that of widespread affluence; in the fact that so many are suf ficiently endowed with “goods” as to believe they can live by them, and so cease to look for their true life to' GcJ their Father.—E. Lyttleton. Death Becomes Transparent And so the empty tomb becomes the symbol of a thoroughfare be tween life in time and life in the un shadowed presence of our God. Death is now like a short tunnel j ■ which is near my home; I can look through it and see the other side! In the risen Lord death becomes transparent. “0 death, where is thy [ \ sting? O grave, where is thy vie- | tory?”—Dr. J. D. Jowett. by WNf *.,VK, Un r.MurM ' * Eleanor Roosevelt WOMAN'S ACTIVITIES One day from 10 o’clock until after five, the heads of many women’s national organizations met at the Labor Department auditorium. Miss Eloise Davison, who has . been lent to the Office of Civilian Defense by the New York Herald Tribune, and who is in charge of all plans for women’s activities, ar ranged this meeting. I think it was one of the most interesting that I have ever attended. The speeches given in the morning by the various government officials were informative and interesting, and brought home many facts we need to know if we are going to do constructive work in our communi ties. I do not feel that we can over emphasize the importance of co ordinating all of our resources on a community basis to serve us now and in the future. ♦ * ♦ STRANGE REPORT A strange report comes to mt j from Now England. It appears that j volunteers are reluctant to go to ! work unless they can do some work which is distinctly a war-time oc cupation. They do not realize that improving social services in a com munity is basic defense work. Ev ery time any volunteer takes a course in nutrition or child care, and sees that the community as a whole is better fed, she has done something which will be invaluable if we are attacked, and useful in the future as well. After the meeting, everyone came to drink tea and coffee at the White House and to talk over the day. The consensus was that Miss Davidson had provided a very stimulating program. In the evening, my cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Robinson# and some other fiends, went to see a new play, “Junior Miss.’’ It is light and amusing and I can think of no batter way to take your mind off serious matters. In Lenore Loner gan, I am beginning to look for the perfect “enfant terrible.” It must be almost second nature for her to play these parts. My only other friend in the cast, Mr. Alexander Kirkland, seemed to me to do his part very well. In fact, the whole oust was good. ♦ • ♦ WAVE OF ECONOMY I received a rather pathetic lettei from a woman who runs one of the small specialty shops in New York city. She sells dresses and milli nery, and I imagine such things as costume jewelry, bags and acces sories of all kinds. She is worried for fear that a wave of economy will sweep over our people and that small businesses such as hers will be ruined. She says they do not want charity, they want to earn a living, and they want to keep their people at work, many of whom have been with them for several years. There are undoubtedly going to be economies practiced along many lines, but perhaps these small busi nesses, as well as bigger ones, will be able to find ways in which they can adapt themselves to the making of certain things needed in defense. They should apply at once to bu reaus set up in Washington, under OPM, for the purpose of giving them advice and consideration. Many of their employees may have to go into defense industries. If we go into high gear in defense production, there will undoubtedly be a shift in the type of employment which many people have, and a more general possibility of employ ment for people- of middle age, as well as for young people without ex perience. I hope that no one, for the present at least, will curtail their usual buy ing, except where it is necessary. The kind of economy which is un dertaken because of a vague feeling of fear about the future, is bad psychology for us all. * * * STUDENT SERVICE One day in particular here was very busy. First, at the office, then at the White House. A number of people came to lunch and then back to the office and finally home to entertain a group of people at a reception given in the interests of the International Student service. I am always amused when certain writers insinuate that this organi zation must have something wrong with it because I am associated with it. Of course, it existed long be fore I went on the board, and that board chose their general secretary, Mr. Joseph Lash, before I was asked to be one of their number. The j names of those who sponsor this or | ganization and are on the board, should guarantee its complete re i spectability. That afternoon, Mr. Archibald MacLeish gave the explanation for his interest in the International Stu dents service, and an interesting talk. This was followed by an ac count of the work we hope to do in the Washington bureau. Finally, the general objectives and activities were explained, covering aid to refu | gee students, work camps, confer ences on the campuses designed to awaken the young people to an in- I terest in exploring their reasons for a belief in democracy, and to bring j together students and faculty in | helpful discussions. war— I itierll 7114. |DE up-10-thc-minute in gay slip ■*-* pers you’ve crochetfcd your self! Both these smart styles ar« done in afghan yarn and have simple pattern stitches. They’re good bazaar items, too. * • • Pattern 7114 contains Instructions for making them In any size; illustrations of them and stitches; materials needed. Send your order to: Sewing Circle Needlceraft Dept. 82 Eighth Ave. New York Enclose 15 cents In coins for Pat tern No Name , Address |( Pull the Trigger on Lazy Bowels, with Ease for Stomach, too When constipation brings on acid in digestion, stomach upset, bloating, dizzy spells, gas, coated tongue, sour taste and bad breath, your stomach is probably "crying the blues” because your bowels don’t move. It calls for Laxative-Senna to pull the trigger on those lazy bowels, combined with Syrup Pepsin for perfect case to your stomach in taking. For years, many Doctors have given pepsin prepa rations in their prescriptions to make medicine more agreeable to a touchy stom ach. So be sure your laxative contains Syrup Pepsin. Insist on Dr. Caldwell’s I -axat ivc Senna combined with Syrup Pep sin. See how wonderfully the Laxative Senna wakes up lazy nerves and muscles in your intestines to bring welcome relief from constipation. And the good old Syrup Pepsin makes this laxative so com fortable and easy on your stomach. Even finicky children love the taste of this pleasant family laxative. Buy Dr. Cald well’s Laxative Senna at your druggist today. Try one laxative combined with Syrup Pepsin for ease to your stomach, too. Higher Vision Happy those who here on earth have dreamt of a higher vision! They will the sooner be able to endure the glories of the world to come.—Novalis, kmm* BOTTLEkIZis 10*25* Expressed Beauty Beauty is expression. When I paint a mother I try to render her beautiful by the mere look she gives her child.—Jean Francois Millet. Relief At Last For Your Cough Creomulslon relieves promptly be cause It goes right to the seat of the trouble to help loosen and expel germ laden phlegm, and aid nature to soothe and heal raw, tender, in flamed bronchial mucous mem branes. Tell your druggist to sell you a bottle of Creomulslon with the un derstanding you must like the way it quickly allays the cough or you are to have your money back. CREOMULSION for Coughs, Chest Colds, Bronchitis if ■'<& BUREAU OF STANDARDS • A BUSINESS | organization which wants to get the most for the * money sets up standards by which to judge what is offered to it, just as in Washington the govern ment maintains a Bureau of Standards. •You can have your own Bureau of Standards, too. Just consult the advertis ing columns of your news f paper. They safeguard your purchasing power every day of every year. H »»»«!