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HOSTILE _VALLEY ms 1 CHAPTER XII—Continued —18— "Sheriff! I’ve got a hold of the answer to it now!” Her tone was ringing; her coun tenance triumphant. ‘‘Listen here!” she cried. “If Bart had left his gun belt, with the bait can and the gun, there on the ground in all that rain while he fetched Huldy over here, the belt’d be soaked through and wet as a string; and there'd be rust on that gun I But there ain’t a speck of rust, and his belt is dry as a bone!” Saladine had not noticed wheth er Bart’s gun were rusted or not; yet he perceived the justice of this argument, and turned to hear what the sheriff would say. But Bart laughed, and he protested: “Maybe that belt looked dry to you, Granny, but it’s wet enough! I can feel it right through my over alls. And the holster kep’ the gun dry.” He told Sohier: “I’ll show you, when we get over to my place. Sheriff. You can see for yourself.” Sohier accepted this. “All right, ma’am,” he shouted to the old wom an, over the engine’s roar. “I’ll look at it, sure!” And Marm Pierce, after a mo ment's hesitation, drew back al most reluctantly. She stood there, small and straight in the darkness, as they drove away. It was no longer raining, although beside the road the leaves were dripping, and the headlights re And Instantly Ha Saamed to Diva Straight Upward, Out of Thair , Sight. vealed black mirrors of muddy wa ter in the ruts. At the turn that led down to Carey’s, Saladlne swung that way, carefully, since the clay was slippery; and so presently he saw the farm buildings, the - pale white blur of the house, and the barn with Its high peak black against the gloomy sky. He turned into the barnyard and stopped by the kitchen door, and switched off the engine. The head lights, fed by the magneto, died as the engine died; and darkness em braced them there. In the deep silence and the dark, Bart said hospitably: "You folks go Inside and light the lamp. I’ll feed the critters and come right In. Won't take me a minute.” % He and the sheriff swung to the ground. Bart started toward the barn, bat the sheriff, standing here beside the car, called: “I'll be wanting to look at that belt of yours, Bart!” “Certain,” Bart agreed, without stopping. “Til be right In!” “Need a light yourself, won't you I" the' sheriff suggested doubt fully; and Bart said: “There’s a lantern In the barn!” He had not paused; he did not now. The wide barn doors were open, so that there was a gray rec tangle of light against the black bulk of the structure, and Bart's figure, as he moved toward the barh, was In silhouette against this gray. So they were able to aee, though Indistinctly, wbar happened. Bart reached the barn, walking steadily enough; and then suddenly his hands Jerked toward his head, and Instantly be seemed to dive straight upward, out of their sight And at the same time, with a ter rific splintering Impact and a metal lic clank of Iron, something fell shatterlngty upon the barn floor. Then silence; and In this silence a rusty, creaking sound. tifei. • CHAPTER XIII 'OR a moment after Bart dlsap peared In this fashion so mys terious, the sheriff’s bulky figure was motionless beside the car; but Saladlne scrambled to the ground, and tripped on the running board and fell hard on hands and knees, his fingers digging deep Into the soft and spongy sod, and there was a wet chill of water on his shins. He was on his feet, Instantly. From the barn came, diminuendo, that rusty, creaking sound. They went forward at last like wooden soldiers, stiff kneed, on tip toe, warily; till as they came close to the barn, looking up they saw something dark and bulky swinging a little to and fro above their heads. In the peak of the roof above them there was a projecting beam from which the horse fork was rigged. It was from that beam that this object was suspended. Blurred and foreshortened, it was yet unmistakable; and the sheriff uttered a stammering exclamation, and he went blundering into the barn, groping here and there. He stumbled over something, and Sala dine struck a match, and the sheriff demanded hoarsely; “A knife? Got a knife? Quick!" As hft^spoke, he looked up at Saladlne and above him. Saladlne, very stiffly and warily, turned his head to look that way. Over his shoulder, following the sheriff’s eyes, he saw a man sitting cross-legged on a timber, his hands hanging Idly over his shins, his eyes bright as a cat’s eyes In the dark, and burning strangely. His grinning teeth were white. It was Zeke Dace, with that big hat, Its brim curled so jauntily, pushed far back on his head. Zeke, above them, said In a drawling tone: “Here’s a knife! Help yourself!” And something thumped on the barn floor. The sheriff found the knife even In the darkness, and twisted open the blade, and Saladine beard steel saw on hemp. Then a pulley whirred, and something fell heavily on the ground outside the barn door. The sheriff was quick that way. He became busy there, and he said over his shoulder: “Find the lantern, Jim I One somewhere 1” Zeke spoke calmly. “It hangs right here under me!" Saladine was a man not easily daunted; but his hands were shak ing now. He tried fruitlessly to light the lantern, broke two or three matches in an absurd futility before Zeke dropped from his perch and said: “Here! Let me!” And he took the lantern and with steady hand had It lighted In stantly. So they turned to where Bart lay. The sheriff had Bart’s wrists In his hands, pushing Bart's arms up and back and down to the ground above Bart’s head; then bending the el bows, pressing the folded arms hard home on Bart’s chest He repeated this In a rhythmic persistence. Zeke said at last, in tones which had a peculiar terror of their own: “I ’low you won’t do him any good that way, mister. His neck’s broke 1" He added contentedly: “Or If It ain’t. It ought to be!” The sheriff relaxed his efforts. “It’s all I know to do,” he admitted helplessly. He bent forward, exam ining the dead man. "I guess yo’re right,” he said at last, and stood up slowly. “You must be this Zeke Dace they tell about,'” he reflected. “That’s so,” Zeke assented. “That’s who I be!” The sheriff looked down at Bart there on the ground. “You done this to him, did you?” “Guess I did,” Zeke assented; and after a moment, he explained as .though proud of his grim device: “I 'lowed he'd come to tend the critters In the barn here, give him time. So I run a fall through the tackle of the horse fork, and got enough purchase with it to hUst the grindstone Into the upper mow. } didn’t know as It'd be heavy enough; so I fastened some trace chains and such truck onto It. Then I balanced It up there on the edge, so’s It’d tip over easy, with one end of the fall fast to It, and • running noose In t’other end. I fetched the noose end down here and waited; and when Bart come In, all I had to do was drop the noose over bis head and twitch the grindstone off Its perch.” The sheriff tipped back his hat, ran his fingers across his brow. "Well, we’d ought to get Bart in the house,” he decided. “Can’t let him lay out here!" And he said to Sal adine: “Take his feet, Jim. will you? I’ll carry his head.” And he spoke to Zeke In a mat ter-of-fact tone. “You hold the lan tern,” he directed. “Open the doo< for us.” So they carried Bart Into the kitchen, and laid him on the floor. Zeke closed the dour, and he set the lantern on top of the cold strive; and the sheriff mopped • his brow and turned to face this man. “You done this, you said?” Zeke seemed almost to chuckle In assent. ‘‘How come?” the sheriff protested. “Why, they don’t hang for a kill ing In Ualne,” Zeke explained. In a saturnine satisfaction. “But It looked to me that was what he needed!” "You mean to say," Sohler prompted, “he was the one killed Mis’ Ferrin?” ’’Certain!” “Know that for a fact, do you?” “I 'low I do,” said Zeke, without vehemence; yet there was slow pas sion in his tones. The sheriff considered; and then on a sudden thought he knelt down to fumble at Bart’s belt, feeling It with his fingers. He looked np at Saladine, nodding. “His belt’s dry as a bone!” he said hoarsely. “The old woman hit on It, finally! That was one thing he couldn’t lie out of, and that was enough to nail him!” He wagged bis head.*“He had a cold nerve,” he said, almost admir ingly. “Stood up to her good, didn’t he? You wouldn't ever have thought he was lying.” And he decided; “But I guess he see he was done. Likely he aimed to duck and run, just now. If he could have got to the barn, he could go on through, and cut for It, and we wouldn’t have a chance to catch him, In the dark.” Saladine was curiously pleased that old Marm Pierce had been able to prove her case In the end. But—that was, over now, and Zeke was here and must be dealt with. Saladine turned to him. “How do you know Bart did it?” he asked. Before Zeke could speak, the sheriff warned him gravely: “You don’t have to say a word, less’n yo’re a mind.” Zeke stared at them in an ab stracted fashion. “I’ve got no rea . son to hold back,” he said. He stood with his shoulders against the door, his hands behind him, and his eyes flickered from one of them to the other as he spoke. “How come you didn’t try to get away?” the sheriff asked. “Here after you’d finished him?” Zeke shook his head. “With Huldy dead,” he said, “I hadn’t no place to go, nor nothing to go for!” “I’m going to have to take you along to jail,” the sheriff reminded him; and Zeke said humbly: “Why, the way it is now, I’d full as lief be in jail as anywheres.” And after a moment, when they did not speak, he added: “Likely you know about Huldy and me. It was kind of desperate and dreadful for me, right from the start; like having holt of a live wire when you cjin’t let go." He stood tall in the dim lantern light; he went on, as though speech eased him, to tell all that remained now to be told. It fell to Saladine to repeat to Will Ferrin and Marta Pierce and Jenny what Zeke told them now. When half an hour later they re turned to the house divided, Will and Jenny came to the door; but the sheriff stayed with Zeke and that other in the car. “Jim, you go tell them what hap pened !” he said. So Saladine alighted and came into the warm kitchen and while they listened without question, he told the tale. "You were right, Marm pierce, he said. “It was Bart His belt was bone-dry!” Will stirred, but Sala dlne added quickly, restraining the other man: “But Bart’s dead a’ready, Will. Zeke killed him.” And he related the manner of that killing; then harked back. “Zeke was upset when Huldy took me down to the brook," he ex plained. “As soon as Will left him, he tried to find her at the ledge; but she was gone. She must hare tried to follow me." He hesitate^, struck by the percep tion that his own coming here today had precipitated all that ensued.' “Zeke didn’t see her,” he explained. “But he traipsed down brook, and caught up with me, and he thought she was bound to meet me, some where; so he followed me till I got over here He was hiding outside when Bart come through the barn, carrying her. , “Zeke was too far away to stop Bart; but he knew It was Hnldy by her dress, and he was wild; and he crawled Into the other side of the house, to try to bear wbat had happened to her." “It was him I heard In there?” Jenny whispered. Saladlne nodded. “And It was him In the shed, after that, Harm Pierce," he said. He looked at Jenny. “Zeke heard Huldy tell you that Will killed her,” he explained, “and he set out to Bnd Will, ready to do for him I But on the way home, he see Bart’s tracks in the woods, and back-tracked Bart to where he picked Huldy up after she fell "It had rained, but the ground was all soft before the rain, and Zeke was tracker enough to make out what had happened. Bart didn’t come np from the brook to where sbe felLx There’d have been tracks to show, if he had, but there wa’n’t. But bis tracks was all plain where he’d come down from the ledge and across to where Huldy was laying.” Marm Pierce Interjected sharply; “There was tracks coming up from the brook when I went over there, while yon and Bart was here!" Saladlne considered, admiring the old woman’s thoroughness, yet per ceiving an explanation of this mat ter, too. “Bart must have laid a fake trail,’’ he suggested. “On his way back here from Will’s. But you see, Zeke got there before Bart had a chance to do that after Huldy died.” He added: “And If Bart told the truth, bis rod and all would have been there then; bat they wa’n’t!” And he explained: “Zeke went np to the ledge, and found enough to let him make out that Bart and Huldy had Md some kind of a scuffle there; so he knowed Huldy had lied about Will; and he raced over to Bart’s house, meaning to kill him; but Bart wa’n’t there; and Zeke come back here and missed Bart again; and he spent the rest of the day like a dog be tween rat holes, trying to find Bart and to get at him In some way so Bart couldn’t use his gun.” He concluded: “And he finally waylaid him over at the barn! That’s all!” Jenny clung fast to Will’s arm; and Marm Pierce exclaimed: “Well, good riddance!" There was never any sentimentality In that stout old woman. “Huldy wa’n’t worth it; but I'm right glad to know that Bart got his comeuppance! It was high time.” But Will said: “Pore Zeke. He won’t live long In jail!” “Pore fiddlesticks!” Marm Pierce protested. “I sh’d say you didn’t have any call to pity him!” “I dunno,” Will confessed. “I al ways was kind of sorry for Zeke. And It wa’n’t his fault He tried to hold out against her. But Huldy, I guess she could outnumber most any man.” Saladine felt himself an outsider here. ‘‘The sheriff’s in a hurry,” he remembered. “We’re taking Zeke— and Bart too—to town; so I'll be moving on." And turned toward the door. “I’ll come see you folks again, sometime,” he promised. “Do so,” Marm Pierce assented, and Will seconded the invitation. So Saladine bade them all good by, and went out into the night where the sheriff and Zeke were waiting in the car, and began the long, wearisome drive to town. He forgot his rod and fish bas ket; but it would be long before he came to claim tljem. Zeke Dace, as Will had foreseen, did not live to face trial. He died in late August, in the Jail on the hill above East Harbor. "He wa’n’t sick,” the sheriff told Saladine, stopping at Jim’s farm on the Ridge above Fraternity one day. “He was always kind of thin and shaky, but no worse than always. He just died, that’s all!” They talked together of Zeke for a little; and then Jim asked a word of the other folk in Hostile Valley. “I was out there last week,” the sheriff explained. “To tell ’em about Zeke. ,Marm Pierce had made it up with her brother. Win's living with her now, and fixing up his side of the house to keep the weather out. He swears he’s never going to touch another drop of rum as long as-he lives, prob’ly.” Saladine asked for Will and Jenny. “They’re fine,” the sheriff as sured him. “They're aiming to get married, here in a week or so!” “Not married yet?” Saladine ex claimed in surprise. Sohier shook his head. “You’d ought to go out and see ’em,” he suggested. “They spoke kindly about you.” “I left my rod out there,” Sala dine recalled. “Forgot it, that night, and I never did go to fetch it May be I will!” (TO BE CONTINUED) Custer Held by Indians Bravest of Hero Band In the coarse of the Sloax war of 1876, which originated over the lust for gold In the Dakota country, Gen. George A. Custer came with his regiment upon a full force of Indians camped along a river. A most courageous youth, Custer ordered his men to strike, and they struck, but the redskins were wait ing for them. Custer and his men were soon surrounded, with no chance for es cape and little chance for victory against the savage horde of reds who greatly outnumbered the whites. In this battle not only the New Burnley (Ohio) (toy but his two brothers, nephew, brother-in-law, and his entire command of nearly 300 mounted officers and men gave up their lives. Not one man was left As not one white man was left to tell the story, all Is left to con jecture, except what may be gath ered from one touching scene. In the midst of a circle of dead bodies tlay the corpse of the young hero, with a bullet In bis brain and one In hls breast but he was unmutllat ed—the only body untouched by the scalping knife. This shows that of all that band of heroes who were found lying on the Held of battle, brave as they were. Caster may be Judged to be the bravest For so greatly did the redskins regard his valor that they left him untouched. — Cleveland Plain Dealer. Ancient Tree Pests Mank fossil trees in the Petrifled Forest of Arlsona show fine bur rows and ‘‘tunnels’* left by larvae, which seem to have been similar to pests on trees today. PERUVIAN VISTAS Switchback Railway In the Peruvian Andes. Prepared by National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C.—WNU Service. 1—'FOM the old-fashioned diver sions of hanging around can -1- Unas, standing on street cor ners, or attending bull fights and cock fights, Peruvian men and boys have turned largely to athletics, and association football has become to them what san'J-lot baseball Is In our country. The bull ring Is still there and cocking mains exist, but they are rapidly losing their ap Lima, the Peruvian capital. Is most fortunately located'with ref erence to both winter and summer resorts, whither the people can go quickly whenever climatic condl Uons tend to become oppressive. A fifteen-minute motor ride brings one to Mlraflores; and the wealth of Its flowers and foliage justifies Its name. The streets are lined with double rows of trees, and some of them have central parking, while a few ramble about lif that charm ing Informality of a fine old Eng lish town. Barranco begins where Mlra flores ends, and delightfully strag gles along the edge of an uneven cliff about 100 feet above the sea, at the base of which Is a fine beach reached by a long, covered ramp and a peculiar elevator not unlike the Lynton-Lynmouth lift In north Devon. Chorrillos Joins Barranco as the latter emerges out of Mlraflores. Al though totally destroyed during the war with Chile, It has been rebuilt and Is the meeting place of the wealth and fashion of Peru during the summer season. Some thirty miles up the Rlmac, at an elevation of 2,800 feet Is Choslca, Lima's principal winter resort When the low, damp, drip ping fogs of winter hover over the capital city, the suburban trains are crowded with those who know that, however dismal It may be on the coast, at Choslca the sun Is surely shining, for this winter sub urb Is above the range of the coastal clouds. Callao la Lima’s Port Two years after Lima was found ed, Callao, Its port, began to rise at the mouth of the Rlmac. Here were laden the Spanish galleons that carried the wealth of the land back to Spain. Here, too, cen tered for generations the trade of all South America, for the royal edict was that even the. trade of Buenos Aires and Montevideo should clear through Callao. Many were the times that It was pil laged by pirates. And then, on October 28, 1746, came the ter rible earthquake which rivaled In destructiveness that at Port Royal, Jamaica, a half century before. peal. Of the city’s 6.000 Inhabitant* only two remained to tell the story. But, unlike Port Royal, eren such a catastrophe could not forever banish It from the map. A bigger and better Callao arose on the ruins of the destroyed city. Today the government Is planning to build modern docks and custom house equipment which will make It a port where cargo can be received and discharged with as much fa cility as shipments are handled in modern North American ports. Lima Is fortunate In Its larger environs as In Its closer settlhg. Wherever a stretch of the coastal desert can be provided with wa ter, an agricultural El Dorado takes the place of parohed sands ; and very few miles both northward and southward, a One stream sweeps out from the snow-covered summits of the Andes. Irrigation Is therefore a miracle worker ready to transform barren wastes Into fertile fields. So the government Is Irrigating the des ert with matches, paradoxical as that may sound. One of the nation’s greatest needs Is the establishment of new Irrigation projects, through which new areas may be redeemed from the desert Yet this costs money. The government decided that Its smokers should finance these proj ects, and the Swedish Hatch com pany was on hand with an offer of 18,000.000 a year for the exclu sive right to manufacture and sell matches tn the republic. Development of Irrigation. There are four albums In the of fices of one of the larger British houses In Lima which telT an elo quent story of the role of Irri gation and of capital In promoting the living standards of the people. Hiey contain pictures Illustrating i - the development of a large Irriga tion project of this firm. Its destruc tion by the floods of 1925, Its re construction, and Its subsequent operation. The first album shows a desert valley, with here and there a wretched hut Inhabited by an un dernourished Indian family. When the transformation began the avail able labor, recruited from far and wide, was so emaciated and under fed that a full day’s work was entirely beyond Its strength. The contractors set In to build houses for the families of their la borers, to furnish them with ample food, and to abolish the toll of pov erty. The concluding pictures of this album show a contented, happy, and well-nourished lot of laborers and their families and give glimpses of the holidays of 7,500 people who had been able to trans mute misery Into comfortable well being because foreign capital con verted a desert Into a garden. The next album shows the flood of 1925, the first one within the memory of the natives. Higher and higher It rose. The adobe houses melted before the downpour as snow before a springtime sun. The rushing torrents swept away the sugar mills and cotton gins, tore out the railroads, carried the bridges from their abutments, and wrought general havoc. The third collection shows condi tions after the flood subsided, re vealing that it had indeed torn down the whole structure of the erstwhile thriving community, from turret to foundation stone. Back It was to its original despair. What would become of those 7,500 peo ple who bad found a decent live lihood there? Must they go back to the unemployment, the pitiless poverty from which this industry had brought them? Happily, the fourth picture vol ume answers no. For the House of William and John Lockett had a frugal financial policy in days of its prosperity. It had laid aside its savings and bad established a good credit; so it was able to begin Im mediately the work of restoration and on an extended scale. As one turns the pages, it can be seen that every laborer was busy,' and the final pictures show the rebuild ing complete, the crops flourishing once more, and the thousands of natives again in full possession of the opportunities to earn a living wage. At her back door Lima has one of the mightiest mountain areas In the world, and the wealth thnt comes down out of them from such great mines as those of Cerro de Pasco and from the smelters of Oroya rivals in value the streams of precious metals which flowed into the Lima of long ago on the backs of llamas and donkeys. Wonderful Railways. Excursion trains run from Lima nearly to the summit of the Andes every Sunday, oyer the Central railway of Peru and those who make the trip enter Into one of $he greatest wonderlands of the earth. Here nature, ancient man, and modern civilization seem to have conspired to creat the great est engineering show ever staged. The mountains rise to a height of more than 17,000 feet at the low est pass; the eastern faces of their subordinate ridges are smooth, and the western slopes usually are a riot of unweathered rock, where one may read In the thousands of broken and twisted strata the strength of the titanic band with which nature fashioned them. The railroad. In Its turn, shows how modern engineering can tri umph over the obstacles nature has placed In Its path. Rising to a summit of 18,683 feet In the Calera tunnel. It has to pass through 61 tunnels, over 41 bridges, and around 13 zigzags or switch backs. It reaches nearly a mile higher than any standard-gauge rail road In North America, a quar ter of a mile higher N than the summit of Pikes Peak—even high er than Mont Blanc Itself. Here It takes the bed of the Rio Blanco and gives the stream a tunnel. At Puerto del Infier nlllo (the Bridge of the Little Hell) It passes out of a tunnel onto a bridge and into another tunnel Near San Bartolome It enters a covered way of, concrete whose roof is the artificial bed of a stream it did not want to cross. MEANING OF KIDNAPING Kidnaping baa a broad meaning 1 criminal law and many who hay committed this crime unknowing] have been sent to prison. In mot states “Intent” Is not necessary am secondly, the offense includes "keei lng or detaining” anyone against h will. One odd case on record Is thi of a man who was convicted of Hi naplng his wife because he force her to accompany him on a joume; —Collier's Weekly. BOYS! GIRLS! Bead the Grape Nuts ad In anothi column of this paper and learn bo to join the Dicsy Dean Winners an win valuable free prises.—Adv. Might Is Right Often the man with the might I also In the right Don’t think th arrogant are always In the wrong. EATS OATMEAL TO HELP KEEP FIT • It may be one of Nature’s lowest cos foods, but lucky is the boy or girl wbt gets it for breakfast every morning. Many are nervous, poor in appetite system out of order, because their dail] diets lack enough of the precious Vim min B for keeping fit.* Few things keep them bade like a lad of this protective food element. So give everyone Quaker Oats ever] morning. Because in addition to its gen I erous supply of Vitamin B for keeping | fit,* it furnishes food-energy, muscle and I body-building ingredients. For about | per dish. Start serving it tomorrow fora 2-weefa test. Quaker Oats has a wholesome, nut like, luscious appeal to the appetite Flavory, surpassingly good. All grocen supply it. •WimtHramlitmI is dot St lack rf Vitamin B M VITAMIN B FOR KEEPING FIT . .. lc worth of Quaker Oats SoakMofFrMkYMtl ® © c$> Popular Singing Singing that puts the baby to alee; la the most popular kind. Use only one level teaspoonful BAKING POWDER WNU—4 44—8 Old Agn In age one prefers no events to ei citing ones. FREE PLYMOUTHMI AUTOMOBILES! '4,750s 0 in Awards fo FUR Shipper
The Alleghany News and Star-Times (Sparta, N.C.)
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Nov. 7, 1935, edition 1
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