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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 11, 1921)
S-M! THE BEE: OMAHA. SUNDAY. SKPTEMBER 11. 1921. THE ROAD OF, HATE By charles saxby THE October day was diawiiur to tit co Walking Ann reached th fill of th Hanho de la Palomas y Mar. Behind her the road dipped abruptly to the beach, a dusty ribbon betwixt th bM of th mountain! end th surf; before her It wound venly over th ahelf of bean flats upheld by th bluffa An enticing road, smoothly metaled, fading away across tha tawny bean atubbla Into tha golden halt of tha California, aftarnuon, sapphire of aca on tha ona hand; on tha other he peaks of tha Cuyama, amber and languid with fall, between thtm tha narrow, :o-mll streti-h of the Itanch of tha Doves and tha Sea, but that road waa not fur ehanca feet, for acroaa tha whole manna ran a wlcked-Iooklng barrier of mingled barbed wire and prick ly-pear, broken by a five-bar (ate brUUInf with locks and chains, b.-arlng tha sign: "Private. Keep out. Absolutely no paus ing acroaa this ranch. " "By order, , ELLEN OLTNDE." "Looks like some folks' Idea o' heaven," Ann murmured aa aha gaied. "All Just Ilka It oughter be, an' most everybody U outside." She knew that gate; with Ita counterpart to mllea north It waa known to tha whole coast Irom Santa Barbara to tha Montaraa; known even to all California, now l hut the county's suit to force the Glyndes to open tha road wna before the atata supreme court For nearly SO years It had been closed, cutting- off the dwell ers In the mountain ranchea behind It and especially those in the Naclmlento. Ann pon , red that a moment and there came a picture a bitter-mouthed woman, her eyes haggard with gazing over the road sho might never travel. "Jim If you wants a real quarrel you sure pot to go t your own family to get It," Ann re marked to the unresponsive gate. "Well, I guesa I'll rest me a bit anyhow; not even Ellon Glynde can Jail a body for looking at her ranch." An od'l figure ahe made, a woman alone in . that expanse of mountain, aky, and sea. . . A woman probably older than she looked, since, despite her white hair and puckered, berry brown akin, there was so much unconquered vitality still lingering in her bony frame. In sun bonnet and decent dross of drab denim, pack and rolled blanket on her back, she aat like one aurveylnt the world with a glance of twinkling fchrewdnesa. Just who Ann was it would be difficult to say, since no one really knew and ahe herself vouchsafed no Information. From fall till spring she was swallowed up In that great winter refuge of Los Angeles, far to the south, but with each April, as the skies cleared of the rains and rof.es and poppies flamed In the foothills, would come a duy when her winter haunta knew her no . more. Even whatever name by which she might be known In the city would drop from her, and up through the fastnesses of the coast range r out where the seventh furnace of the San Joaquin dips down to the desert lonely dwellers would begin to wonder if "Walking Ann" would come their way that year. Nor did she give any explanation of that, either, possibly not even to herself. There were many who questioned her, comfortable people following accepted paths, amused or slightly aghast at the s'.ght of her tall old form passing on its solitary way, but to each she would give the aame answer: t "Well, it's kind of good to be on your way . and- It's kind of good to think maybe you're goln' to get somewhere sometime." That was all, and she would go, with never a backward glance, her gaze always before her into that allurement of sheer distance. "Guess I'll fetch round by the Naclmlento and look In on Jane Donohue tomorrow," she planned. "Land's sakes, If the court opens that there road 'Us she as'Il be the first' to go sky hootin' across it and a bitter pill for Ellen Glynde 'twill be." ' (.. "For years I been wantln' to see it," she continued aloud in the manner of one who walka much alono. "The gates o hate they call 'em back thar In the mountains. Well, you be big and ugly enough. Lord knows." It waa an automobile that aroused her from her self-communing, an imported gray-gleam-Ing car which came purring up the slope from the beach in a perfection of wrought-iron lugs. As the chauffeur alighted with jingling key chain .the other occupants of the car turned a battery -of cold Inquiry on Ann. Entirely out of place she seemed, sitting there unmoved, yet with something of the naturalness of those chaparral bushes at her back, and a hint of their barbed potencies as well. ; The woman In, the car spoke first, gray hslred, with a certain controlled sweetness in face and voice, every detail aa soberly perfect as those of her equipage. "My good woman, are you in trouble?" Il "Not a I knows on, thank you, Mis' Glynde," Ann precisely answered. She sat still, her browned face quiet under the eaves of her sunbonnet. The answer seemed ' hardly what the other woman had expected, and a shadow of authority crept into her conscious benevolence. , . . . . . ' , Vlt seems very strange, your being here alone." ' -. . .' r, '.''.' ' "There's many strange things in this world, ma'am," Ann mildly answered. '... It was the man In the front seat who spoke next; a little fellow, already portly, his face over laid, as by a mask, with an awareness of heaven given authority. - ' . .. "We don't allow strangers to cross the ranch." . " 'Ceptin' funerals," Ann . amended. "I've heerd you allow 'cm to bring out their dead, but I ain't quite ready for -that." - "What are you doing here?" he rasped. "A setting on the public lands, elr, and If I set long enough maybe I'll hatch something." "Oh, Fred, perhaps the poor old lady is lost." That ww hardly more than a murmur, such as might, come from one accustomed to being disregarded. It was the girl who spoke; seated in the tonneau. overshadowed by the presence of Ellen Glynde, she had escaped Ann's notice. Now. as she ' leaned forward, she showed of a fragile, drooping prettlness, like that of a plant kept too long in a sunless place. -: "No, I ain't lost, miss, thank you." said Ann, with a trifle less of hostility. "Body and soul, I knows Jest where I be." She turned to the older woman, a hint of malice In her tone. "I was restin at your gate, Mrs. Glynde, be cause 'tis here the trail turns off to the Nacl mlento. I'm almin' to fetch thar right soon, and if you have a message for your sister, His' Donohue, 'tis me as'U be glad to take it" At that name it was as though a shade had been drawn over the faces of Fred Glynde and his mother; something blankly decent to hide whatever might be behind it - Only in the eyes of the girl came a hint of something human' desperation, perhaps, or possibly appeal. Her hand, slirnly ungloved, fluttered an instant over the side of the car, and aa the great machine tolled on through the opened gates Ann saw a leather wrist bag lying in the dust in the road. She sat on, regarding it in motionleses silence, wondering what waa to come. A few yards on the other fide of the gate the car stopped again, and Mrs. Glynde's voice came on the breeze, clear and concise: - - - - 1 ' - "You say you dropped your bag. How on earth did you do that?" A moment of alienee, probably covering an apologetic murmur that did not pass the car. . "Really, Lucy," Mrs. Glynde spoke again. In the Irritated surprise of ona whose own belong ings' were permanently In their proper place, "you are a most extraordinary KirL Now Harrla will have to get out and go back after it t The tonneau door swans open at that and the girl sprang out with a swiftness evidently intended to forestall the chauffeur. "No. please, aunt don't let me trouble any body it won't take me a minute. I'm so sorry - It was tha overemphasised tone of an accus tomed under place, With her delicate prettlness W JrW , flushed as by a concealed excitement, the girl hurried back along the road; the bag lay there !n full view, but her gaze seemed deliberately to avoid it as she made a slight detour that brought her close to where Ann sat. "I I dropped my wrist bag," she laughed nervously. "Did you, now?" Ann queried with some astonishment. Their glances met In a bland un consciousness of the lost article lying within three feet of them, and with come embarrass ment the girl went on: "It isn't valuable at all, there's no money in - it I mean I never have any of my own." "8he wants me to do somethln' and she's tellln' me as she can't pay me foi it," Ann si. . lently translated as she listened, f "Of course, my aunt is most generous," the girl amended. "I have really everything I want" "Exceptln' a dollar of two to spend as she pleases," commented Ann to herself. Then, ris ing, she spoke aloud.' "We'll have to look for 't, that's all." " Like the girl's, her own gaze seemed suddenly and violently astigmatic as, bending over the. road, she passed within six inches of the bag without seeing it So this was the niece old Peter ' Glynde had left without a cent and to whom his widow had given asylum. "It must be here somewhere," Lucy Glynde, faltered on. "I know Just where I dropped it Are you the lady they call Walking Ann?" "I be," Ann nodded shortly. "I have heard of you from from young Mr. Donohue," Lucy breathlessly continued. "He wrote to me all the time ha was at the war, and I 'heard you say you were going around by the Naclmlento and and " '',-' : "You wants me to take a message to him," Ann finished for her. "Well, I'll do it 'tis a pity you ain't got a chanst to write him a line." - Lucy Glynde's flush deepened as with a fright ened glance toward the car she fumbled in the recesses of her motor coat . "I I have one written." Ann stared straitly up from her search of the road, a search so perfect that it had achieved the feminine pinnacle of deceiving herself. She knew nothing of the opera, she would probably have dismissed It as " apassel o' dog e.-ln'." but as the girl drew out that note her chuckle was an echo of Figaro's at sight of Roslna's "viglietto." "So you got it writ, have you?" she twinkled. ."Don't you hand It to me, gal you Just drop it as you pick up that thar bag. That Fred Glynde's got his head outer the car a-watchln' of you." ; , "Oh" ' .:. ' - An added wave of red flowed up over the girl's face; her glance met Ann's with a look, part fear, part guilt, largely courage, some gratitude, and completely of a strange mutual understand ing. The next instant she had stooped, caught up the bag, and was flying back to the waiting car. And Ann, looking- down at the dust, saw a folded note plainly inscribed "Mr. Terry Dono hue, Rancho Nacimiento." Not until the gates were locked again and the car had disappeared in a dip In the road did she pick it up. Raising her skirt, she stowed it away in a little bag slung from her waist which con tained her most intimate belongings "So Terry Donohue wrote her durin' the war, did he?" ahe mused as she adjusted her pack again. "Them letters couldn't come to Ellen . Glynde's housed I'll lay that gal rented a post box with a bit o pawned jewelry and told her aunt as she'd lost it Them as is always so dern right themselves can sure be a fruitful vine o' wrongdoin' in others." Her mouth grew caustic as she turned away, following the trail through the chaparral where dried stalks of yucca bloom rattled in the breeze like skeletons of bygone springs. Into a canon it led, a mere cleft heavy with shadow in the dy ing afternoon. The loganberries were red on the slopes; below them madronos and sweet bay . arched over the blue-gray bowlders of the dried stream bed.' Hither she came on occasional pools of brown water, then at last a flowing thread, clear and coo I. "The summer's gone," Ann commented as rhe saw it "The streams Is riain' to meet the rains." ' "Ellen Glynde and that chesty llttlo sparrer of a son o hern." she muttered hotly. "I'll teach 'em to saas me. - In deliberate silence she made her camp by Tho gM mpt oof into tho night jj fl. ''' I from tho great Aooae among jSllnl V ! I I a orystal pool where water beetles skated on the surface and a huge black and yellow butterfly called on a festal barge of a fallen leaf . Laying out her blanket with neat exactness, she took from her pack a coffee pot and folding fire grid, kindling a clean.hot tire of ;dry chips. Her si , lence grew deeper as she set Out hor meal, the scanty fare of tho seasoned "hiker," a pile of oatmeal crackers, a bunch of Tokay grapes, redly translucent on a platter of green leaves. With a self-control that was almost ominous she waited Until the coffee boiled, biting deli cately into a cracker meanwhile. Then that con trol brokt, the coffee pot flew through the air . and crashed against a tree, and after it, pungent and scalding as its contents, went Ann's words. "Rats bite 'em take that! I wish , 'twas Ellen Glynde as I am almin' at. I'd teach her to 'my good woman Walking Ann." "I'd better hit the trail again, I be too bilin' to make camp," she scolded on. "Tis a plumb sin for folks to be goln' around makin' a body so mad a? I be right now. - But 'tis queer, too; the wickeder I gcte-the spryer I be. I'll lay as I fetch the Nacimiento afore I quits hikln' this night." ' , - Carefully drenching the ashes of her fire, she struck again up the trail. The short twilight had gone, the full moon still a pale promise be hind the ridge. The spring chorus of the mock ing birds was stilled, and even the stream's voice hushed by the long months of summer drouth; all was silence as, leaving the humid coolness of the beach behind her, she went on and up into that Calif ornian reversal of the higher the hotter. A dry-heat, the breath of the desert seeking the sea, bringing a sense of vastness as though the dark bubble of the night were dis tended by it. .From behind Cuyama peak the moon cam up, reddish and huge, poising an in stant on the crest like some strange beacon fire before it swung off into limitless spices. - It was at the Nacimiento Forks that she came upon Terry Donohue. She had heard him , for some time, the beat of a horse's hoofs, an occasional quieting word as its rider urged it along the narrow trail. Then, suddenly he came upon her round a bend, his pony, shying violently in towards the bank as she stepped down from the outer edge to let it pass. Leaning from his saddle, Terry Donohue scanned her closely. .,- - ; : "Walking Ann, is that you? Thank God!" "Amen to that, though what it be about I ; don't rightly know." Ann answered.. "It's mother she has one of her spells," he went hastily on. "I was riding out to see if I could get some, one from one of the ranches; Iher's only old Telesfora with her now." "Them Mexicans is no good," sniffed Ann. "If you don't watch out she'll be stickin' needles into your ma to drive out the devil. You take me right to her." "That's sure a relief," he said as he dis mounted. : "Give me your pack. Could you ride my pony?" ' " "Young feller," returned Ann severely, "when the Indians quit the reservation back' in the '80s 'twas me as rid 40 mile to Laramie to take the word." The moon was flooding the canon as they turned up it, the bare bank of the trail gleam ing yellowly amongst the chapparaL Scarlet stemmed madronos with glossy leaves, mottled , ghosts of sycamores sere with fall, rock pin nacles fantastic and macabre under the eerie light Ann rode silently considering Terry Dono hue as he strove ahead, slim-legged, erect, her pack and blanket on his shoulders. "So you got back fom Siberia at las.?" : "Yep. . Just my luck to get sent there." , "I guess yon be right glad to be back." "I suppose so." . ' Ann thought about that for a while, feeling dimly that this was a different Terry from the irresponsible lad who had marched away nearly three yearn before. "Don't it seem good to be home?" 1 "It ought to," he answered dully; then came a hotter tone:- "Home! Good God, after all I've seen and been through, and here they are In the muio old place with the Mine old bate!" "Well, you done a good work, Ud. helpln' to make the world safe," Ann soothed, but the ' young fellow's amulderlng resentment burst out again. "Yes, afe for Kred Glynde, and that Jap partner of his U corral all the potatoes from here to th Mexican line and hold up the price,'' "I could help break that If mother would only listen," he went on. "There's men would finance me in putting a road through the back range to strike the S. P. at Carmelo; it would make the ranch worth half a million at least - But no, mother must go out over Las Paloma or not At all, and here I am, poor as a cholo, with all this land going to waste." . He had turned, standing bareheaded on the trail, the stralghtncss of his features accentuated by the deep shadows of the moon, his eye blackly bright under blacker brows and hair. Even, ko his father might have stood before him, Ann thought; that dead Terence Donohue, too handsome, too winning, too Impulsive In : short, too Irish; Ellen Fall, they said, would have' given the heart from her body for him in those days. It might have been a match had not her sister Jane returned suddenly from tho east. In two weeks Donohue had married her and carried her off to the Nacimiento; a month later Ellen had married old Peter Glynde of Las Palomaa and promptly sealed Its gates. "So your ma'a sick again?" Ann queried as Terry turned ono mon to the trail. "Was you by any chance talkln o leavin the ranch?" He stopped in his tracks, casting a surprised question over his shoulder. "What makes you ask that?" ' "Mayhap because I be a woman myself," said Ann shortly. ' '! ' Topping the ridge, the trail descended to tha vale of Nacimiento. A softer place, a richer luxuriance, its arable bottom lands Wreathed in silver mist; far off between the slopes showed the dark line of the sea; a single light that told of the Palomas ranch ' house and a ribbon of faint gray that was the road of hate." Down they went .between high hung orchards of pear and j prune, of -tlives and algnonds, or figs still heavy ' with fruit. A spicy breath of pine, a mingling of palm, oranges, and untended shrubs, a long,' , low house half burled in purple creepers. "There's many a soul would think they was in heaven could they pass their days hore," Ann thought, "while Jane Donohue--but 'tis what a body's got inside of 'em as makes the difference, not what's outside." . Dismounting, Ann stalked into the house, a place of that precise neatness which only a small soul seems able to achieve, heavily shut in against the glory without A bedroom full of dark mahogany and the hot glare of an oil lamp. By the bed a Mexican woman crouched and fingered a rosary, casting glances of emo tional pity at the thin form outlined by the eheets. Of tha beauty which had seduced Terence Donohue only her hair remained, its masses hardly touched by gray, spread out on the pillow ; about her. Thare was something almost start ling in the contrast between those lustrous curls and the face , between them, narrowed and pinched by years of self-pity, the lips compressed to a line of unconquerable' stubbornness. Her eyes, large and brilliant, were open, but at the sound of Ann's footsteps outside they closed with almost a snap and the whole face fell Into an expression of patient suffering. ' "Is that you, my son?" she murmured as Ann came in. She paused, her lips still closed, apparently spent for breath. Then her voice went on again, a faint trickle of desperate pathos. , "You are right, Terry, and you must do as you please about putting that road through. Do not regard my -feelings, my boy I am but a dying woman and this world is for the young and stromr. Do as you please, Terry. I can bear it and I will never reproach you it is only for a little longer that I must suffer. , . ." . Standing by the bedside. Ann listened while the voice flowed on in all the snapping tyranny ' of helplessness. Then suddenly her. words came down across It like an acid-dipped chopper. - "Jane Donohue, you quit them carryin's on." The eyes opened at that and there followed an exclamation. ' "Walking Ann!" , "Aye, 'tis me all right, and I ain't no poor inner-cent lad to be took In." For an instant their glances countered and clashed, a pampered willfulness on the one side, on' the other an understanding grim and im partial. Mrs. Donohue spoke eagerly. "What is the news outside?" "As I came through San Luis Obispo they was bettln even money that the courts -would open the road." ' -Oh the coart" -.-", The woman sighed with the hopeleaaneaa of 19 yvars "f unhvulllng litigation. IUr bnmm, pinched and meager as though all Its vitalities had been dralntd away by her consuming re- sentment, rose and fell In convulsive ganps. "I'll never Hv to ae It. Juat hoavrn, what hait I done that I should be tormented so?" "TU you as be doin' the tormentin'," Ann put In. "Terry could have a road through to the valley In three months If you'd but lot him." "Terry owns the ranch and I have told him to do aa ho pirates." "Yea, I heard ou tellln' him so at I come In," Ann returned. Again their glances met and Jane Donohue raised heraelf on her elbow. "I can't give up I can't. Oh, If I could but ride once across that ranch and laugh In Ellen's face as I go" Her hand, a mere bunch of fevered bones, fell on Ann's wriat and at Its hot clap the other tarted In genuine alurm. , "Woman, you are real sick." "Hick I am aick to death," moaned Mrs. Donohue as ahe fell back on her pillows again. "But I will never give In." A quiver of pity cronned Ann's face. Waated, narrow, hold by that almost fanatlchm nf stub born na, the woman lay between her manses of hair, and from her eyes, as from two windows, there seemed to her the very presence of that obseasing demon the name one that, except for those drawn shades of blank decency, might have looked from the eyes of Ellen Glynde and her son. As Ann ralaed her an uncontrollable apasm shook her frame, causing her to fight for breath. "There's naught will cure her but to get what ahe wants," Ann thought "And ao long as she lives she'll keep Terry cooped up hero and begin dyln' whenever he talks o' quittln'." "Lie you still, Jane Donohue," he went on aloud. "I got to speak to Terry a bit nnd then you and me is due for a talk." Terry was silting on the veranda steps, chin In hand, staring gloomily down the moon-flooded vale toward Las Palomas. Holding out the note picked up In the wake of the Glynde car, Ann spoke: He did not stop to ask how she had obtained It; his eyes raced greedily over the lines, then sought the gleaming night dial of his wrist watch. , "Ten o'clock already," he exclaimed. "Most likely ahe'll be waltin' for you," Ann encouraged. "She's been watting since before the war." said Terry bitterly. "If mother would only let me do something I'd have had her out of Las Palomas long ago. I'm only waiting until I have something to offer her." "' "She won't thank you none for that waltin'." "How do you know that?" "Becauso I been a gal myself you didn't think that of old Ann, did you? But I know, and you take her, lad take her quick." "How can I ask her to come here from all ahe has down there?" "She's awonderln how you can't." "She wants to see me tonlghi but there's mother sick again," he hesitated wVh a glance at the house. "Don't worry none about yyur ma. I'll stay with her till you gets back." A glance of gratitude, warmly fleeting, and he was mounted and off, galloping down the vale with a lover's recklessness. Seated on the steps Ann pictured him passing on his' way. Insulated from all the world about him by the joy of that coming meeting, In his face a light that shamed the mild 'radiance of the .moon. Then the girl, seemingly so maek and fragile, creeping out into the night' from the great hOuse among the cy press trees. . ' . - "I'll lay she has to He to get out," Ann mused. "Land'i sakes, the lovers' lies the Lord has to listen to! Million o' years of 'em, and all the same since the world began and I'll bet there's a kinder twinkle in His eyn when He hears em." Her face softened as she sat there, her sun bonnet thrown back from her white hair, her features puckered and brown, almost mystic, in . , their stillness. . , - "One o my own he might be, if they'd but lived.. 'Twas such a night as these their father ,came acourtln me under the cotton woods down ' ' by the Platte" .She thought of the fence at' the bottom of the vale, . high,' barbed, grown through by thorny, prickly pear. ; ; . "They has a way through it, them kwo. Th'era ain't no beatin' two young things in love." '.".'! "Now for' Jane. Donohue," she muttered as she rose. "And maybe for a lick at Ellen Glynde. -as well. I be as mild as milk so long's I be let alone, but if a body tries to sit on Walking Ann they'll think they've sot plumb on a cactus." Lovers' meetings are beyond time, and it was latejvhen Terry Donohue returned. ' Anxi- ,' ously tiptoeing, aghast at the hours' flight, he came along the veranda to where Ann stood, austerely outlined in a bar of yellow lamplight . , "Lad 'tis over." .. . . : '.' , ' "What do you, mean?" be gasped. At her gesture he followed to where Jane ..Donohue lay in heavy shadows on her bed, pale ly still, her hands crossed on her depleted breast "You can get a coffin ready this night," said Ann. "And send word through the moun tains to all the neighbors. Them Glyndes will have to open their gates to your ma at last.'' - Through the midst of his tears the form of the woman on the bed seemed almost to .quiver. Her mouth, willful even in that deathly still ness, was set in a wraith of a smile, as though in triumph that after 30 years of waiting she was at last to ride the road so long closed against her. 1 ., . ' v The fog was rolling in as Jane Donohue's procession reached the northern gate of Las Palomas Rancho. . .. . -t Mountain and sea alike were gone, only a dim vista of the mesa, was left bare and brown under the drifting vapor, vibrating to the thud of the. unseen turf, the piles of burning bean trash sending up great wreathes of smoke like funeral torches. . It was Terry who, with Ann at his side, drove the wagon containing his moth er's coffin,' pillowed on pepper boughs, covered by trails of scented jasmine. Behind them the cortege spread out, . representatives of all the mountain families for 20 miles about. Dingles, McMurrays from the back ranges; he Fallons of San Ojos; a score of Sepulvedas, three gene rations of Reyes, 80-year-old Dona Arcadia de Marques, wrapped in. a black reboso, adroitly rolling cigarets with one claw-like hand. So they came, a cloud of witnesses in buggies or on horseback, all the solemn joy of a mountain funeral enhanced, by the adventure of accom panying Jane Donohue on her ride across the forbidden road. They drew up at the gate looming through the fog in exact counterpart of lte fellow to the south, a wind-blown cypress tree drooping above It like a draggled hearse plume. 'There It be, locks and all," said Ann. "Locks or not it will have to open now," Terry snswered somberly. t - "Aye, there Is sure a heap o' virtue In bein' good and dead," Ann agreed. 'Til lay your ma is Just a grinnln' behind us at the thought of what she's about lo do." , ' ,i i "Have you jj decency?" blazed Terry, but she faced him Unabashed. "I got what I got and I know what I know, and that's more nor you do right this minute. Now get you down and have that heathen open that there gate." - It was a black-browed Japanese laborer who lurked behind the gate, sullen with sus picion at sight of such a throng pouring down on Las Palomas from those inimical mountains. "This is a funeral, open that gate," Terry or dered as he strode forward. . "No sabe." "Open that gate," Terry repeated, his face blanching; dangerously, but the Japanese re treated to the rrfuae of hie national, Inf nonuntleratandig, Me o Mb." ' Krom the knt of men at Terry's W murmur went up. "One of thorn 44 Glynde Jape" Refusing to let us bring ol load now " "wadre tU IHoe '4S roea li, from where ahe eat in the et of the (1 decked wagon, came Ann's rracked wan Terry Donohue break that ga'e." The Japanese waa more Imtolent now, ulent as only one of bis race can be when U by white authority. The eight of a gun I hand orougnt an answering una iru of ateel amongst the crowd. "Pulling guns on ft funeral to hell wtf Olyndea!" "Kill the yellow-aklnned devil" Then a sudden, concerted shout: "Come on, boys!" An ugly moment, half hidden by a frei reaa of fog; a snarl Ilk that of fighting 4 the sound of crashing timbers, a ehot ol As the vapors thinned again the solid gd a mass of splinters on the ground and the ueae waa flying down the road, already haj In the smoke wreathed mint. And Ann. catching up the relna with moat ribnld rhuckle, urged the horses fo "Stand aside, lads. I got a score an Inf Glyndea myself and 'tis me and Jan D will itettle It together." There was a bitterness also In the house of the Doves and the Sea that mornj Ellen Glynde took counsel with her son. celled. In the fashion of the 'lOs, Its Id quitted windows looking out on the win of twisted cypresses, the house waa neve thing but a gloomy place. Now. In the chill of fog and keen-edged sra-wlnd, I something of the t heerleaancss of a building. ' . "You are sure that the supremo cou ruled analnst us?" she asked Incredulous Fred Glynde stopped his pacing in Ir remonstrance. "Good heavens, mother, you hear message yourself, didn't you?" "I can hardly believe It," ahe t Gowned In sober perfection even at t hour, still preserving her superficial plac ahe sat there like the superior of some if 1,1 ve Institution of which that room was rice. But beneath that surface It was us her world were being rocked by sub earthquakes. To her the SO-year eal! those gates had almost the sanction of ligion, while their forced opening and the. pect of her sister riding across the ranctt with the shock of sacrilege. "But the railroad lobby promised mi they have always had Influence with the cl ahe protested. 'They don't want a coast highway i traffic from their valley line," Fred I ."But In theae days why, Dixon actual vised me to lower the price of potatoes tcf aiw Indictment My own attorney givli such advice; what do I pay him for cxd get me out of such things?" "It Is bolshevlsm," declared Mrs. Glyrl V "Why, some of the fellows round ht went to France are actually refusing t to me," Fred exploded. "Just as it l subscribe five thousand to the Y. M. C. hold the mortgages on two of them, too. The telephone bell . cut sharply aorof speech; There was consternation in hi as he' clapped his hand over the Instrume turned to his mother. "It's Goldschmldt at the north-end house. Ho says Matsumoto has just b word that the people have come down fr Cuyama, broken the gate and are riding the ranch." , "What!" , "Several hundred of them. Matsumof all the Reyes, even the Fallons they have got word of that court decision." The room grow acrid with silence el Glynde sat there facing the picture of umphant horde already advancing alon road. - From the fallen receiver the voice distant foreman could be plainly heart plorlng Instructions. Fred stirred uneaallj "Perhaps we had better order the ci clear out to San Luis for a few daw auggested. . But his mother waa of sterner stuff; not for nothing that, before her manias had been known as "the high Fall." AW it was as though the thing' which she long cherished was holding her with In bonds, v. '-. ; '-,:"'' . "The Judgment has "not been- served and until it is'I have the right to ,kJ gates cloned." ' t "But mother " . , ' " " ' " Mrs. Glynde rose. . ; "Frederick, God has given ma th st ship of Las Palomas and until ft Is take me I am mistress here. Those people h right on our lands tell Goldschmldt if 1 not stop them to blow up the bridge acn Lunaa ravine." , r v ' , ,: It wad five miles from the gate t bridge, and two more to the "ranch housi echo of the explosion came to tho ears procession long before they reached the A dreary place under the fog, the road v down between . high banks to where the cut deeply through the mesa, the spl -bridge showing forlornly above the b and shivering windows. :, '. Silently they regarded it, a silence nmtnmia than ' ava. th,. nll oa n tUmt mite had been, as they realized that th was impassable for wheels. . "There's still our legs, a way stream, though," said Terry, through e "My mother will pay a visit to her sistei for the first time in SO years," "We better nail that Ud, I guess." wh one Of the Fallons as thev lifted the tat Jasmine-wreathed coffin from the wagel Ann was Instantly at .his side. "Jud Fallon, you leave that lid loose. as It be, and you carry her gentle aero tnere wash, too." v Her words carried authority and ca tney eased their burden down the Jmrl across the stream. Ann, with pack an stalking grimly by Terry's side In th lea4 up the opposite eide and over its rim in silhouette -against the shimmering tq on across the cheerless bean flats to the gardens and front door of the ranch ho .Ellen Glynde was awaiting them, wit a trifle behind her. Lucy hovering pal . the background; she stood on the steps b) the jigsaw indiscretions of the old hd strange woman, implacable In her convlcl right her external sweetness no more th! yellow moss upon a boulder. But at tW of the burden they laid at the foot of steps in silent accusation, her face broM . "Oh I did not realize " "You can realize now, then, Mrs Take a good look at your work," said mercilessly. "Lad, lift that there lid and show he within. Ann ordered. The bearers and followers turned d away, for the face of Ellen was hardly looked upon in that Instant as Terry lift i-uivi. v ii i j Ajin 'Bviwo erect, ufl twinkling with Inner satisfaction. The heaDed 1iimln felt mA vJ a scream from Ellen Glynde as she saw tH expoeed between the flowers. Then It aw as something happened, a miracla ft which left Ann alone unshaken as thou, had expected it.' ... The seeming dead had awakened. ' A smile of biting triumph on Jane hue's face, a sibilant whisper from art the mocking grave flowers. fm to lage hm K,