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,
