■ ■■ —- * - — - — - —
Ithe desert moon
MYSTERY
BY KAY CLEAVER STRAHAN
CHAPTER XXII
The Pact
A21 Me while I was getting
a i air shift dinner ready,
that Had thought of mine kept
ho&taerfsg me like the smell
•of «emefihktg burning. So, as
nm as dinner was over (I
jmeed aat have bothered with
tt; ftayme straggled in and
rtfamtad out again, without
doing any Justice to good
food. Ms* Ricker and Martha j
did aat even come down.) I
laid Me Indian girl, whose
'name was Zinnia, to manage
ihr dales the best she could,
aEd I wait of I up to my room.
1 took ap some dinner on a
tray wMb me, for Mrs. Ricker
and Car Martha. When Mrs.
■fiiekw opened her door, I
men*aged to get the informa
tion Mod Martha was awake,
at tad, and that Mrs. Ricker
had fad been helping her
with ter bath.
“Is she all right, now?” I
questioned.
*%—suppose so.” She edged
the dear shut, in my face.
1 want into my room and
ctHKtaolflny hair. I can always
think better when I am doing
some absolutely unimportant
thing Nte that. But, to-day,
It was as if someone had put
an egg-beater into my mind,
and was beating it to best
time. My thoughts whirred,
tossed and foamed.
Ssutis pipe ashes. The key .
In zap pocket. Chad’s suicide.
note of confession.
'Ga.by'k fear. Mrs. Ricker alone
In the house What It was that
Dump knew and dared not
tcH? Hot all plainly, and
separately, as they look in
wriiitig; but all Jumbled, and
card! one seething with its own
delate and complications.
Sami’* pipe ashes—Lands
atU'et What had been the
matter with me? Sam was the
only member of our household
whoamokcd a pipe, but he was
not the only man in creation
who did; nor was his the only
plpq.1 supposed, that had ever
dropped and spilled its con
tents. A very nice and com
forting thought, if I could
* have fooled myself Into be
lieving it
Try as I might, I couldn’t
keep (ram thinking that part
of Sam’s talk was bluff—that
(s, man as I got away from
lUml thought that. Did it
mean that he was trying to
shield Chad? No. It could not
mean Ghat. Besides, Chad him
self had surely been trying to
shiedd someone. Sam? Gaby
had feared someone, when she
AadHeft the house. No woman
bad ever feared Sam.
Mcl Ricker had hated Gaby.
Bui, «* had John hated Gaby. I
Mrs. Ricked had said—John J
had said—
I Jumped to my feet, hold
ing my head in my hands. It
seemed to me that the only
•decent thing I could do, since
tt held my brainpan, was to
wrracb the disloyal thing off
and sting it away. How dared
3 ttttak such thoughts of
people With whom I had spent
the tint part of my life? They
were the only friends I had
4n the world. I had never seen
one of them do an unkind
thing. Never. Mrs. Ricker was !
as queer as Dick’s hatband,
hut she had always been gentle
and patient. She was always
the first to spread crumbs
•uq the snow for the birds in
winter. Though, of course, she
bad said to Hubert Hand—I
vu «£! Again.
5 amid not endure the
thinking of such thoughts. I
trunk stop it. I must find work
to do; someone to talk to. I
m across my room and
flatted open the door, just in
time to see Hubert Hand
Atnrfgttien from where he had
been stooping to my keyhole.
He brazened it out. “Sorry,
Hsacy. But I guess it will be
dtoglcBl dog around here, from
maw «a."
“Hubert Hand,” I said.
"" niwttei States of India.”
Prom New York World.
Tie second part or the Simon
•Knuatekon report is conservative in
aer, feat It proposes a plan of
magnitude. It recommends that
fbe (adore ftidia Shall be a feder
ative* «( provinces, eight at first and
osase fewer; and that authority be
dsiddi between the prlvinclal aov
anmnti and a strong federal «ov
mrumsut at Dehll. It proposes that
duwflfep—tfee present system by
■dAcIi the Indians are granted pow
er* to certain governmental fields
sfefe ethers are reserved — be
won«M|. and that the mechanism
U! gsommuent t* unified. It C04
“what I want to know is, why
are you listening at my key
holer*
“I wasn’t listening. I was
looking, or trying to. This
keyhole peering is the bunk, .
Mary. You might as well cut
it out yourself.” With that he
turned and walked on down j
the hall.
I stood watching him, try
ing to account for an odd
sense of relief that had come
to me. In a minute I under
stood. Since he had been at
my keyhole, he must have had
some suspicion of me, for
something. Possibly he had a
good reason for that suspicion, i
As good a reason as I had, for
suspicioning Sam, and John,
and Mrs. Ricker. He was clear
off the track with his sus
picion. Probably, I was Just
as far off with mine.
He turned, quickly, and
came back to me. He looked up
and down the hall. He lowered
his voice to Just above a
whisper. “Mary,” he said,
“I’ve gone at this all wrong.
I’m off my nut to-day—that’s
all. I've discovered that I—
Well, I guess I cared a lot
more for the girl than I
thought I did. By God, I be
lieve I loved her. It is hell—
having her clear gone. But
my hanging for her murder
isn’t going to do her any good;
not now.”
Horrified, I backed away
from him. For one wild mo
ment I thought that the man
was confessing to me.
“No;” he said. “Not that! I
swear to God I’m innocent.
But they are going to try to
pin it on me, and they may
not have much trouble doing
it. I want to make a bargain
with you. You’ll get the best
of it, for I know damn well
that I'm innocent, and I don’t
think that you are—entirely.
It Is this. If you’ll keep your
mouth shut, I’ll keep mine
shut. Fifty-fifty. Will you do
it?”
“Hubert Hand,” I said, “I
don’t know one solitary thing
about you that would be of
any Importance if I told it to
the world. Anything that you
think you know about me, I’m
glad and willing to have you
broadcast, or publish in the
papers.”
“Sure of that? Sure you are
willing to have me broadcast
that you found the body; that
you didn’t scream; that you
stayed there, quiet and alone
with it for ten minutes, be
fore you gave the alarm?”
Fool that I was, I said, “It
wasn’t nearly ten minutes. It
wasn’t more than four or
five.”
He smiled. I saw what I had
done. “It took me that long to
discover the truth. I thought
she was asleep. I had to run
up the steps—”
Double fool, to try to ex
plain.
“Say it took you a minute
to run up a few steps. An
other minute to discover that
she was dead. Should it take
you three or four minutes to
run down again, and give the
alarm?”
“I was sick, dizzy with
horror.”
“Probably any jury would
believe that, all right. Just the
you a lot of trouble, now and
same, I’ll bet it would save
later, if no one knew anything
about your lonesome five
minutes, or longer. I’ll tell you
how I know. I came out of my
room at the minute you
opened the attic door. I saw
you leave the hall to run up
the steps. I went on down
stairs. Chad was kidding
around down there, collecting
keys. I didn’t know what he
wanted with them, fortunately
for you, or I’d have said you’d
gotten the door open—”
I interrupted with a new,
and it semed to me a clever
Idea. “What you are forget
ting,” I said, “is that I fainted
dead away.”
templates giving the Indians en
larged powers and an enlarged fran
chise in the provinces, which are
to be their training ground. It
; would also give them larger scope
j in a new central assembly, federal
, In basis. But at the top it would
keep the Federal Council or State
and the Executive under strong
British control—for the present.
This plan is already being at
tacked by Indian nationalists and
British radicals. But it is at least
clear that its main principles have
been well tested in other lands A
country so large, populous and di
versified as India cannot be prop
erly goviiied except on the same
"Gosh, Mary, but you are a
| rotten liar. Don’t try it. Sam
i and I both saw you totter and
go down, just as we got to the
top of the stairs, after Chad
had shrieked the news down
at us. That was close to fifteen
minutes after I’d seen you
open the door.”
“And—and,” I couldn’t keep
my teeth from chattering,
"you think I killed her, then?”
‘Rot! She had been dead
for hours. Rigor was complete.
No, all I think is that you
were—trying to cover some
one, maybe. All that I know
is, that you know more than
you are telling.”
“I did tell you. I was frozen,
stiff, with horror.”
‘‘All right. Tell the jury. Tell
them, too, why you came
rushing out of your room, as
you did just now, white and
trembling. Don’t like your
thoughts, all by your lone
some, do you? Come on, Mary.
Be a sport. We are both inno
cent. But—Fifty-fifty? Shut
mouth for shut mouth?”
His talk about telling a jury
scared me. I had heard of
third degrees. I knew that if
I ever told anyone but Sam
himself, about those pipe
ashes, the words would choke
the life out of me, as I would
want them to do.
“Dog kill dog, then?” he
asked.
“Hubert Hand, I’m going to
be honest with you. I don’t
know what it is you want me
to keep my mouth shut
about.
“Don’t? Well, I want you to
keep still about that con
versation you overheard be
tween Ollie Ricker and me in
the cabin. She went back to
r<fj her parasol and saw you
coming out. We know you had
been hiding there in the
closet, listening.”
With the sense I had been
showing, it is a wonder I
didn’t speak right up and tell
him that I had not been in
the closet, but in the chest. I
did not.
“Lands alive!” I said. “I’d
had no idea of telling that,
anyway. It was none of my
business.”
“Fine! I didn’t have any
idea of telling anything,
either. It was none of my
business. Shake on it.”
I let him take my hand. I
said yes, when he made me
promise. I felt like I’d been
associating with a sidewinder.
I went on down the hall,
wracking my brain to re
member exactly what I had
heard in the cabin. Mrs.
Ricker’s threat. That would
incriminate her, not him. And,
though the threat had proven,
of itself, that she was in love
with him, I had certainly
come away with no idea that
he was in love with her. His
mention of a previous attempt
at murder, made by her.
Again, that was nothing
against him. No; what he was
afraid of having told, must
have been said in the room
with the closet. I found slight,
but some comfort in realizing
that, though I had probably
been a fool to make the
promise to him, he had prob
ably been a worse fool when
he made the one to me.
CHAPTER XXIII
An Omen
As I was trying to hurry
past Gaby’s door, Danny
opened it, and asked me if I
would come In and sit with
her for a while.
I should have been there,
long before. I went right in,
apologising, and trying to ex
plain. But, when I saw that
she meant for us to sit in
Gaby’s room, I suggested that
we go somewhere else.
“No, please Mary,’’ she said.
"I don’t want to be alone; but
I do want to sit here. I feel as
if here, with all her things
around me, I might—get in
touch—I m e a n—something
might come to me. They say,
you know, that people who
have died—violent deaths, do
not leave the earth sphere at
once. I don’t know whether I
believe that or not. But. it
could be true. If she is still on
earth, she would come here.
Wouldn’t she? And she would
try, I am sure, to give me a
sign. Something to help me—
to help all of us. If it should
federal principle that has worked
so successfully in the United States.
J Canada. Australia and Brazil. The
; use of the provincial governments
as training fields is logical. Tire
i American colonics had more than a
century and a half of training in
provincial government before they
embarked on national self-govern
, ment. The Australian and Canadian
I provinces went through a long tute
lage before achieving federation and
dominion status. It is to be noted
that the Simon report lavs em
phasis on what it calls “the healthy
J method of growth," and that it
come, I want to be here to re
ceive it.”
"It won’t come, Danny,
dear,” I said.
"No. I suppose not.” She
leaned back in her chair and
sighed, and her arms dropped
straight down over the chair’s
arms—a position that showed
how tuckered she was. The en
gagement ring that John had
given her slipped from her
finger and came rolling over
toward me. I scrambled to
pick it up. When I rose from
the floor she had Jumped to
her feet. She was ashy, shak
ing and trembling as if she
had a chill.
"Mary! Promise me that
you’ll never tell that, not to
anyone. It didn’t—It couldn’t
mean anything.”
"It means,” I said, handing
her the ring, “that you are
wasting away. You’d better let
me go down and bring you up
some god, hot soup; or an egg
nog.”
She clung to me. "Don’t
leave me, Mary. I am afraid.
I am dreadfully afraid.
Promise that you won’t tell
about the ring. It—didn’t
mean-anything.”
I will admit that I did not
like it any too well myself.
There, just as she was asking
for a sign, the ring, which had
fitted snugly enough, I had
thought, had dropped off. But,
of course I had to put up a
brave front to her.
"Nonsense,” I said. "I won’t
tell anybody, because it is
nothing to tell. All that it
means is that the ring is too
large for you.
"It is to large,” she agreed.
“I’ve been losing weight lately.
I have meant to ask John to
send it to have it cut down—
but I hated to be without it.
Still—just as I was asking for
a signa sign Though it has
dropped off several times be
fore this. I shouldn’t think it
meant anything, this particu
lar time, should I?”
"Of course not, dear,” I said,
relieved to hear that it had
dropped off before. “You had
your hand hanging straight
down, that’s all. You are all
overstrung, and no wonder,
j Anyway, what could it have
meant?”
How a person will babble,
along, seemingly for no reason.
I had paid no attention to
what I was saying; but the
minute I had said- it, the
question needed an answer.
It could have meant that
Gaby did not want Danny to
marry John. Or, since nothing 1
in the house could have signi
fied John’s name as plainly
as that ring could, it might
have meant—I refused to go
on with it.
Danny must have been
answering the question to her
self, as I had been doing. She
sat down in a deep chair, op
posite me, her hands clasped
on her knees, and leaned for
ward, and looked into my
eyes.
"Definite things, Mary,” she
said, "are always so wise. A
definite answer to your
definite question proves, as
nothing else might have, that
this was a silly, futile little
accident. The ring has
droppedff, I suppose, half a
dozen times this wek. Gaby’s
last note to me wass all af
fection. Living, if Gaby could
have taken John away from
me, for herself, she would
have done it. Dead—she wants
us to marry. I know that. As
lor any other implication—”
As I had done, and in spite of
her talk about definite things,
she refused that. "If only Sam
finished.
"Heartless!” I spoke sharply
Creator ever made a man with
a bigger heart than Sam
Stanley’s, nobody ever saw
him.”
"He has been good to you,”
she said. "But you give him
his own way about every
thing.”
"Well, after all,” I said, "he
does own the Desert moon.”
"And everyone on it, body
and soul,” she said. "Some
times I think he owns every
one in this country.”
I did not want to know what
she meant by that; so I only
reminded her that Sam was
John’s father.
(TO B» CONTINUED)
speaks of Indian nationalism with
i the deepest respect.
Thus laid before India and Eng
land for study, the plan may yet be
largely reshaped. It will go to an
Anglo-Indian conference, to a joint
parliamentary committee, and then
to parliament itself. Perhaps the so
i lution it offers comes too late; Brit
ain would be In a happier position
if she had started this machinery
10 years earlier. But it to a sincere
! approach to a colossal problem.
Q. How many Canadians have
the Victoria Cross? G. A.
A. The names of *6 Canadians
, are on the list.
! Giant Beast* of Prey
Once Roamed England
In the Pleistocene period an ani
mal known >;s tlie cave lion was com
mon in England, south of Yorkshire;
ihl« was larger than the African l!en,
and as remains have been found In
nearly every English county it must
have been well distributed, Itnt there
was a great mammal somewhat sim
ilar to the cave lion ip appearance,
but infinitely stronger; this was ttie
machairodonf, end probably repre
sented the carnivorous mammal
brought to its most amazing devel
opment. Remains of this catlike ani
mal have been found in the eastern
counties.
At the «nie perln-J swarms of hy
enas were seen. Their remains have
been discovered in incredible quanti
ties in eaves, and in tlie same layers
hones of the cave lion and oilier
large mammals have been found.
Probably these hunters shared the
same home, whence they emerged to
prey upon the vast herds of doer.
God and Life
T think (tod is equally concerned
with man and all the animals to
whom lie tins given life, but that,
perhaps, lie has a special leaning
toward dogs.—Piimrix.
Unendi.ig Struggle
Among the most annoying of life's
lips and downs is keeping expenses
down and appearances up.—Life.
How to tie happy, though selfish,
may not be altogether hard.
At home
or away
Feen-m-miat is the ideal nnmertim*
•axative. Pleasant and convenient.
Gentle hat tharoa^h
(’heck summer upsets with Feen-n
mint at boat* or a way.
Woodrrlol »nd eira. Mokes jrnjr skin
beootifol. olio ruma •r«rn*. Prlosfl.M.
1-laakioOinUnont ramovfls frs' kl?r.. U:i«l
pvvr forty yooro. Il .ai and «?. Bnouty
bofcklitooutlrod.AaojiouciUol.-rovWfit-j
! ' Give till it hurts,” sometimes does
1 hurt the recipient.
r are upset
Baby ills and ailments seem
twice as serious at night. A sud
den cry may mean colic. Or a
sudden attack of diarrhea—a con
dition it is always important to
check quickly. How would you
meet this emergency—tonight?
Have you a bottle of Castoria
ready? There is nothing that can
take the place of this harmless
but effective remedy for children;
nothing that acts quite the same,
or has quite the same comforting
1 effect on them.
For the protection of your wee
one—for your own peace of mind
—keep this old, reliable prepara
! IdUiUmn
^ptsmL
alcohol-irt«c«i<T
A^uut^>L*;'r |SH
TkovW fisnoUot Ml
UtnifuMii Mil I"1 '•"“‘l ffsl
Mtttor 0^un'^'<Pl,,r^r( MSi
MiM(»i RoT S^» M
c«~rr|
lomo^s^UL.. leg
ja
if! teW-so^l, P
f;;'
tion always on hand. But don’t
keep it just for emergencies; let
it be an everyday aid. Its gentle
influence will ease and soothe the
infant who cannot sleep. Its mild
regulation will help an older child
whose tongue is coated because of
sluggish bowels. All druggist3
have Castoria; the genuine bears
Chas. H. Fletcher’s signature on
the wrapper.
, , , , CLEANSING
Acknowledged as a soothing
protection against antiseptic
| •
Skin Troubles
(gticurg
I Price 25c. Proprietors: Potter Drug A Chemical
Corporation, Malden, Maas.
Flic is sold only
K« I I I • in this yellow
ill dirty jjl|£
roaches! ffjfgj
X Spray ^
^clcan smelling]
\ . Hie World's ^.-i\ev
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leading druggists Anasrlca over
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»