come to her in his new uniform. He had poked a bit of fun at himself, but she would not have it that way. "Take off your belt," she had said, rejoicing in his strength and vigor. Then she had kissed the belt and buckled it on again. "I have girded you for battle," the words still sang in her ears; "You are my Knight now, and the West's!" To-day, it was not a drama, but life! Her Knight and the West's! The carriage stopped in front of the Chemistry Building and Geraldine hurried up the steps, and ran down through the long laboratory, into the private room where David Epsteen was at work. His room was a curious, cluttered-up place, with boxes of ore about on the floor, mixed in with coils of copper wire; tables, covered with test-tubes and beakers and bottles of reagents. Epsteen was smoking a stubby pipe, his dog from a corner noting with quick eyes his master's every movement. "I need something else in this blamed solution," and he tilted a large porcelain dish back and forth. "You know what it is, Ramsey, you villain, but you won't tell." The dog beat his tail on the floor with joy at being spoken to. "This may fix it," and Epsteen lifted a bottle of sulphuric acid, which he added drop by drop. Geraldine came in, but he did not look up. Ramsey and I have almost perfected the solution," he said whimsically, and then he saw the girl's face and the bottle fell with a crash. "What is it? What has happened?" he asked. "Your company is to start at once for the coal-mines. How proud you must be of the chance. O, I hate myself for being a girl!" Epsteen's face went white, and she could feel how cold he was and see his face quiver. "You 're not afraid?" Geraldine was trembling now, and the color was all gone from her face. To love a man who was afraid. . . nothing that could come to a woman would be worse. Like a great wave of freezing gas the thought went through her. "No, not that way,”—the voice seemed far away and impersonal. "I could stand up and be killed for a good cause . . . though I've liked being alive . . . until now. But to lead the power of the state against men who want a little more life just a little more daylight, perhaps everything so one-sided, for we 've got to win with the state behind us . . . I can't do it!" Geraldine's eyes seemed frozen to his face. "I am afraid," he went on, "afraid of your scorn, of everybody's hatred. I've been dreading this hateful thing for days . . . but there's one thing sure for me: I can't fight the miners!" Geraldine sank down on a stool and buried her face in her arms. Epsteen put his arm across her shoulder, only to feel her flesh creep and cringe at his touch. "Do n't," he begged. You can 't take sides with me; I've known that right along, but if you'd only understand that I'm doing a hard thing, and not hate me.' 66 The girl looked up, her eyes wet but defiant. "I knew you had some curious notions; I felt it since you came back this fall. And father warned me. He said that socialism and anarchy were in the air, and that it would take everyone who lacked moral fiber, and that he was afraid for you." "Will you listen," David asked, "while I tell you about my summer? I should have told you before, only I hoped there would be no need. I can't hope you 'll see my way, but if you could only feel that I must stand away from the others." Geraldine bowed her head, and David took it as permission and plunged into his story. "I started out with Newstead and Blair for a vacation trip on my new car. Well, Blair was driving one day, at a terrific pace, when a tire went flat and I was thrown into a ditch with a broken shoulder and a twisted knee. There was a house near, a miner's shanty . . . I was there a month. The miner and his wife did everything possible for me, but I could see that the woman hated me. "You must n't mind her ways,' the husband said to me one day; Things have gone bad with us. I'm to blame . . . I could have saved her more if I'd thought, but she thinks it's all because we 're poor. “You see the baby were n't ever very strong, and when it took heart-trouble nothin' would save it. The doctor was foolish enough to say that it might live in California.' The poor fellow's voice broke when he added, 'I had n't the money, but I reckon I was n't savin' enough.' “Geraldine, I could n't look in that woman's face after that without remembering the dead baby. I did n't wonder she hated me. The price of my car would have given her boy a chance for life. That little pearl brooch you wear would bring enough at a pawn-shop to buy a ticket to the coast. "Your own brother's life has been saved by a trip to the South more than once. How would you have felt if there had been no money to send him?" "The idea of comparing my brother, with all his splendid possibilities, to a common miner's child!" the girl spoke hotly. would have given her life its true meaning ... it was an awful accusation I saw in her eyes. . . I resolved then that I would help on every man's cause toward freedom and light.” "Toward bad whiskey and gambling," the girl answered. "Ask my father and he will tell you that every hour's reduction of work means added time for drink and carousal.” "To some miners, yes. Not to Joe Dallas and his kind. There are plenty of fine fellows at Houston,-clean, decent men who deserve a little of God's good sunshine. They both looked involuntarily out across the campus, with its stretch of level greenness, and its vines and trees rich now with the glory of autumn coloring. Beyond were the mountains, one glorious peak reaching right up into the purple shadows. Geraldine moved nearer the window, and in a moment Epsteen had her hand in his. "We love it, dear," he pleaded, and through the window came the glad, sweet call of the meadow-lark and the hum of a bumble-bee in the hardy clover. "Why should we wish to shut others out from this? All the mines in the world might shut down, but the crimson and gold of the fall, the shadows of the hills, the warmth of the sun would remain. The world might be even richer in life, "You ought to see that the mother and that is all that is worth while." cared just the same." “Bah,”—the girl shrugged her shoulders,-" such women can't care in the same way. They always have more children than they want anyway. You're talking nonsense!" sorrow. "Perhaps," David answered sadly, "and there is no good going on only I wish I could make you feel that woman's There were no more children for her... she had worked too hard before Benny came, the man told me. He blamed himself that he had n't helped out, but how could he when he was working twelve hours a day? Geraldine, you must see the awful pathos of it. The poor woman, maddened by the thought that we had used for luxury, money that He looked down upon her with infinite pleading in his eyes, strong, virile, and magnetic, and Geraldine found herself thinking his thoughts. . . of the robbery of men and women, and worst of all the robbery of little children. Tears stung her eyes. "It will be easier now that underyou stand," David said, but the softened face, showing delicate beauty in every line, beneath a glorious mass of auburn hair, touched now by the sunlight with reds and golds, made him a coward. "I cannot lose her; I will not give her up," he thought bitterly, but a row of saddened, hardened faces came before the girl's beauty and held him fast to his ideals. Geraldine drew her hand away and .. 66 66 Socialist!" Anar 66 "Thrash him! Killing 's too good for such!” "Friends," said the captain, "no more of this! Leave him. The contempt of friends, repudiation by all who respected him, is punishment enough." shook off the influence of his pleading. Mob him!" A shout greeted him as he came down the steps. The Company halted in front of the Chemistry Building and a man came forward from a great white autocar, to harangue them on patriotism and their duty to their commonwealth. Epsteen spoke to the captain. "Impossible; I could n't hear of such a thing." But Epsteen insisted. "You could say you let me out for the good of the service." "Great heavens! Do you know what you ask? You'd be marked for lifeit would be worse than having a cattlebrand upon you!" "But I can't go; I'm quite determined upon that. I can't shoot down people I think in the right." 'Well, I'll give you the chance," he said bitterly, and he stepped out in front of the soldiers. "If there is a man here who will not serve Eldorado in her hour of need, this is his chance for dismissal." Epsteen stepped out of the ranks. 66 Epsteen looked neither to the right nor to the left, but with a face that might have been carved from granite, so cold and gray it looked, he passed back into his laboratory. It was his last sight of it. He knew that Eldorado would never give him place again. He had been a traitor to his class. He did not care then; he was stunned with blows and he thought nothing else would move him, but when he turned to go he found Geraldine waiting for him on the porch. The crowd had passed on, but there were still echoes of cheering from far down the street. She held something out to him. "Take it," she said. "I hope I shall never see you again!" It was a plain little ring of Navajo silver. Geraldine's mother had opposed an engagement while they were in college, but young hearts are not to be bound by convention. Epsteen took it in his great palm. Someway it awoke him to suffering again. "The poor, little thing," he said sadly, and remembered the glowing triumph when he had at last persuaded her to wear it as a pledge. It brought back the fragrance of springtime and the radiance of a mountain moonlight. 66 Could n't you," he asked brokenly . . . "I should like to keep mine as a memory.. . You must n't think I'd hold you to your pledge. But life seems pretty rough and our dream was very sweet The girl had turned to go down the steps, with a look infinitely bitter and resolute on her face; still, without a word or a backward look, she held out her hand and took back the ring. It was just at dusk that Epsteen walked down to catch the Western Limited. He only glanced at the closed home back among the trees, where Geraldine lived, but his dog's quick sense told him that the girl who was his friend was near at hand. He knew that he was going away, so much of his master's sorrow had penetrated his doggish brain, and now his tail hung limp between his legs and he shuffled as he walked. "We make a poor showing, Ramsey, old boy," David said; "our enemies will rejoice, if they care enough to think of it, to see us so down in feather." The dog rubbed against his master's legs. He would have liked to have told him of the girl and her tears, but—well, perhaps it was as well that David could n't know, for Geraldine belonged to the world in which he had lived-yesterday. WILMATTE PORTER COCKERELL. Boulder, Colo. THE MOUNTAIN ROBBERS, THE FALSE GREAT CITIZENS, AND THE PLUNDERED PEOPLE T OF THE PLAINS. A PARABLE OF THE HOUR. HERE was a certain great city on the edge of a mountain range. Now in the fastnesses of the mountains were certain bands of robbers who coveted the wealth of the people of the city of the plains. So they conspired together and sent emissaries into the city to certain men of wealth and position, and to them they said: "We will greatly increase your power and help you by the gift of much booty to gain political influence and increase of worldly goods, if you will allow us to name the men who shall be the watchers appointed to guard the entrances to the city." But the wily men of power said: "It costs much money to make watch ers of the men the people distrust." "True," replied the emissaries of the robbers, “but we will supply you with ample funds to conduct your campaign and we will rely entirely on our dexterity in recouping ourselves after the watchers are appointed, if you will but select the men who find favor in our eyes.' Then the great men who were called the leaders, and whom the vulgar called the "bosses" covenanted with the robbers for the selection of faithless watchmen, knowing that thereby the city would be spoiled of millions of dollars for every thousand given to the leaders to maintain their power and their political machine. And it was so. After the faithless servants were appointed they did even as the robbers desired and gave them the keys— called franchises-to the homes of all the people, both great and small, so that every man was robbed by the many bands; and when the people protested against their servants, the great men waxed indignant and said: "The men whom you accepted to guard the city have all power and have the right to say who shall enjoy the keys to the treasure-boxes. If you propose to set a guard upon your servants or try to prevent them from allowing the men of the mountains to enter at will, we will call you anarchists and will say you believe in mobrule, and we will have our servants far and near denounce your proposals for self-protection as 'half-baked' propositions 'born of agitation.' But the people took counsel together, saying: "Shall this, our city, become a government of bandits, bosses and cravens, or shall our people overthrow the corrupt bosses and take the keys away from the watchmen and establish a government of freemen, for freemen, and for the overthrow of the bandits?" And they determined to be free. Chorus of Muck-Makers alias High Financiers, Political Bosses and Office-Holding Servants of The Interests: "If we can get a few more men like Taft to become a screen or fence for us, we can continue our work undisturbed; otherwise, the days of graft, high finance and political jobbery are well-nigh over.” Drawn by Ryan Walker expressly for THE ARENA. |