Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (July 8, 1917)
FICTION 0 SUNDAY, JULY 8, 1917. Illustrated by F. McAnelly By ARTHUR JAMES HAYES S i iKS& &272 iletnen Curious i ... I Chapter I. Kregnoyak. I VI AN TRENNI- SON was tired or sketching the Marching Men. They seemed o march intermina bly up and down the cliffs of Kreg noyak. 'Why they marched so assidu ously, with stiff- legged stride and glaring eyes, she couldn't imagine. But she wondered if the Insistent Alaskan mosquitoes had buzzed about the original artist's head as he scratched his angular legions on the face of the cliff. She hoped they had. What could be more utterly absurd than drawing whole miles of ugly figures on the beetling face of precipitous cliffs? After tracing their erratic processional for half a mile she hoped that the orig inal artist or artists had all been bitten b"y rattlesnakes. She knew that this blissful consolation was not to vbe cher ished by one of a scientific turn of mind. Her father, the eminent naturalist, An gus Trennison, had said that that species of reptilian life was not found in Alaska. But there was no avoiding the spiteful hope that the mosquitoes had been big ger then, and more vicious. In the aged crater a lake had formed, walled on all sides by the spiked green of the closely clustered sprue trees. The lake was deep, and in the long, hot days not too cold. On a shiny bowlder, sheltered from the sun's rays by the western wall of spruce, she cast off the hot and Irksome garb and plunged joyously in. In the midst of her aquatic abandon the dark haired water sprite found time and occasion to be acutely discontented. She was tired of Kregnoyak and its soli tudes and Marching Men. She was sick of her father's scholarly discourses on the varieties of mosquitoes there abound ing. They all bit and tortured, whether the exact type they represented was spelled with three latin words or five. She wished that she had stayed horn and married Dean Mallory. Stroking lustily about the tiny island in the little lake, she wondered with puckered brows if that horrid red-haired girl really had been his cousin. So he had said. But despite all protestations his ring had gone back by special mes senger. And she and Dad had boarded the smelly old boat for Alaska, to draw pictures of aboriginal art and make close-up photographs of mosquitoes. It was all perfectly nauseating. And Dean had exhibited the white tiled bathroom, and the cunning kitchen ette, and all the other perfectly adorable features of the little house, with such manifest pride in his eyes. A mosquito had entangled itself in her hair, and another was biting her nose, and she was crying! It was all too utterly awful. Even Dad was thirty miles away, for supplies, in the chuggy launch that Bmelled of fish and pelts. There was no more auspicious occa sion for crying! Dad was away, and she was tired sketching, and she wished that Dean were thee. Treading water at a point where the gnarled roots of a great cedar sprawled over a bowlder like a dragon's claws, she pondered the situation. Overhead the mosquitoes waited, droning and dancing and nearing tenta tively, in zig-zag flight. To dress on the bowlder was to invite them to do their worst. To run up toward the cabin, flailing with one's garments, was by all odds preferable. The enemy would be disconcerted by the speed, and the snap of the flourished khaki skirts And once In the cabin, behind Its filmy barrier of mosquito netting, she could cry In a fash Ion befitting one whose fiance was 2,000 miles away, flirting with other girls, while she, whom he had sworn to love eternally, was being eaten by mosqui toes! Erupting abruptly from the flakily golden -green water, she grasped such of her garments as might be assembled in a trice and fled down the needle-carpeted path. And then she perceived that smoke was lifting lazily upward from the rust ed chimney. Panic seized her. Her father had gone that morning for a three-day stay. She had elected to re main alone rather than ride again in that abomination of fish and fur smells. And some one, in the two hours interven ing, had pre-empted her cabin! Desperately she fled into the cedar thicket. Dressing with the boughs ham pering and scratching and the mosqui toes attacking in legions was the acme of misery. She simply couldn't take time to put on her stockings and fix her hair. She was well enough attired to order the in terloper from the place! Again she sped down the pathway. , At the threshold she paused. Within, a tall, angular, red-haired individual was groping in the cupboard. He was bare footed, and his shoes and sodden socks and coat were scattered ' about on the floor behind him. BuP he whistled and groped in the cupboard, while little rivu lets from his saturated clothing formed pools on the floor. "What are you looking for?" exploded Vivian wrathfully. "Matches," replied the searcher with out troubling to look around. "They're on the window," said Vivian. The man turned. "Hello. Vlv." he said, brightening. "I finally got here!" The young man was clean shaven and his lean, good humored face was sprin kled with brown frepkles. But his eyes were rather large and very blue, and patently honest. But "Viv" refused to be conciliated. Going into one's cabin half dressed and flushed and damp and tousled, to weep over one's former fiance, is one thing. Finding the object of one's tears already there, even wetter and more draggled, and concerned chiefly over matches for a smelly pipe, is another. It kills romantic grief. She still wanted to cry. But there would be no gentle melancholy in her sobs. She was raging. "After youfve cleaned up this mess," she commanded , her lips curling scorn fully, "please go away. And don't call me 'Viv.' It suggests a measure of fa miliarity. I never heard any anything so r-ridiculous as your tagging me up here!" The young man's crooked grin faded by degrees. He seemed to have forgotten about the matches. To Vivian, struggling In a chaos of moods and emotions, he looked unutter ably ludicrous. But his eyes held at once a seriousness and a dignity that froze her smile on twitching lips. "I'm sorry I couldn't present a better appearance. I can't navigate these In the midst of her aquatic abandon the dark haired water sprite found time and occasion to be acutely lTE THINK that Arthur James Hayes new novel, "Gentlemen Curious' is the best thing he has ever done. It is a story of love in a wilderness love that prompted Dean Mallory to follow Vivian- Trennison to the towering cliffs of Kregnoyak and woo her in this primal setting after he had won and lost her in the big city. Gentlemen Curious" is as fine a romance as has been penned this year. Begin it today. You will be watching for the second installment next week. her lap and writhed and whimpered his sympathy. CHAPTER IL The Man of the Cave. THE sun set mistily over the Dorokite peaks in blurred crimson glory. Clouds banked high out of the west mittent blue-white crackling flare of the lightning made the vision uncertain. In the gloom she whispered and pointed. "Look, Tuffo!" she cautioned. . "Look there, now!" Tuffo stirred and a growl trembled In his throat. Then again the white flare of the storm and the flattened face against it open. The dog roared again and sped out into the wind-driven rain. There was a medley of angry sound, and then silence. The girl took her rifle down from the wall Abruptly, out of the darkness, leaped a long shadow. It blundered against her and whim pered piteously. Choking a startled sob in her throat, ehe dragged Tuffo within. He was gashed over the eyes and was blinded by the blood and distracted with the pain. He ran wildly around the room, spat tering blood over the floor and walls. She calmed him at last, tethering him in the corner, and bathing the wound with cold water. It had been made by some sharp ob ject, possibly a knife, and left no doubt that the brown face against the pane had been that of some actual and un doubtedly hostile individual. The memory of it kept her awake that night, staring Into the darkness over head and visualizing it out of the shad ows. There were the little beady, oblique eyes, alight even through the blurred pane with avid curiosity: the flattened features, the yellow, crooked teeth, and tfv'-v. .. .:v',:-:,i,'r--v -. r' zs&-m-.. . ZJW:- .... "ZZ breakers very well. My landing was a sort of climax to thirty miles of tragic seafaring. If you mean that you don't want me around even while I take a emoke why, of course, there isn't any. argument." "You can smoke on the way back," declared the girl stormily. Tears were smarting in her eyes, and she felt so ashamed of herself that it added a barb to her speech. "You had better set out at once. I'd hate to think of your being out In the dark. You're such a hopeless incompetent. Please go!" "Certainly," said the red-h.aired one. Slowly he gathered up his bedraggled socks and shoes and coat' and tucked them under his arm. And with his red hair glinting copper in the sunlight of the trail he started away. To Vivian, watching furtively through blurred vision, he had the air of one not knowing precisely where he was going. Then a bend in the trail shut his Jean figure from view, and a squirrel chat- tered from the ridgepole of the cabin. Miss Tennlson's leisurely cry was spoiled. Forgetful of the mosquito net ting, and unmindful of the onslaught of the triumphant mosquitoes, she collapsed in a camp chair and sobbed as whole heartedly as if the stage settings for her grief had not been utterly ruined. An hour later, from the pine-clad headland of Kregnoyak, she eagerly scru tinized the leagues of choppy sea for his departing boat. But it wasn't in sight. She hadn't thought herself capable of crying again so soon. But she did. And Tuffo, the - slant-eyed malamute. came var and. thrust his lean wolf muzzle into t ' " " .. , ' ' ! '' . i, " j, .... ' , -a and rolled eastward, flashing and rum- bling. The whispering of the spruce forests, suddenly grown slate-gray in the gloom, seemed menacing to the girl. She grasped Tuffo's thick mane in her hands and sat Quietly peering out into the storm. . ( The rain roared and echoed hollowly upon the sounding cedar boards beneath the tar paper of the roof. Lightning crackled over the little lake and from the west came the roar of the mighty North Pacific, smashing its foam crested legions impotently against the great rock fortress of the island. Suddenly between two flashes, it seemed a human face had flattened . against the opposite window;' The inter- the pane. It seemed very brown and ugly, distorted possibly by the racing raindrops, but flat and repulsive withal. Tuffo's roar of rage rose sharply against the walling of the wind in the trees. He bounded away and threw his weight against the door. Trembling in every Umb, Vivian threw single straggly lock of hair, pendant over the low forehead. There was a savagery and a brutish strength about that peer ing visage, a savagery that poor Tuffo's mutilated face attested. Her imagina tion Infested every corner with hostile eyes and punctuated the occasional lulls In the storm with -the faint creaking of stealthy footsteps over the aged boards of the cabin floor. When this terror was not an obsession there rose to torture her the vision nf Dean Mallory. hopelessly lost on the mountainous seas of the roaring North Pacific. He had obtained a launch at Kishawlk, no doubt, one of the leaky, treacherous little craft that are the only kind available for hire. It would be a poor enough affair for calm water, and with the seas rolling skyward in tum bled tons of water it was almost a for lorn hope. Morning saw the dripping forest trees glistening In the sunlight. The storm had subsided abruptly and the clear air of dawn found the lake still as mirrored silver. The breeze, when it whipped across the point, set the spruce to dripping fh strange, short gusts that sounded like miniature showers. Vivian would have liked to swim, as had been her practice. But Tuffo. the wound swollen over his slanting eyes, wa., concrete evidence that all had not been a fantasy. She bathed his head again with cold water and then set out for the spring. In one hand was the lit tle granite bucket that always accom panied her on the trip. In the other, thrown forward Into the crook of her rm. in approved pioneer fashion, she tarried the rifle. Tuffo. the dejocted. walked listlessly at her heels. The spring welled up In a tiny glade, from which a long arm might easily have broken cover and seized her. The very thought sent an electric thrill of ap prehension prickling over her whole body. She straightened up with the brimming pail and watched Tuffo for igns of apprehension. But the mala mute was yawning In a bored fashion, and the little procession wended Its way back to the house. 1-Yying bacon and making coffee are prosaic pursuits that militate again.t worry and retrospection. Before hr meal was on the table Vivian Trennison was humming cheerfully and rallying the phlegmatic Tuffo on his ill-starred flank attack. A pickerel laaped In the watr of the lake, and the curious red squirrel stood in the open door, chattering volubly at Tuffo. the only obstacle to an onslaught on the crumbs. Vivian tossed him a rrust, and he made off with it, scamper ing into the shadowy green of the spruce. Ho was back presently, accompanied liv another squirrel. But Vivian, her gun. easel and dog had departed to the haunts of the Marching Men. L'p on Dorokite, she scrutinized tie tumble of granite, spruce and sea below her without remarking any signs of hfr latest visitor. Then faintly against the somber purpie of Little Dorokite she sa-.v a wisp of smoke. The stiff-legged" ver milion and ochre men, who marched with stolidly staring eyes along the blank places on the bare face of the mountain, were forgotten. She cached her pa.lnts and easel under a windfall and started determinedly for the smoke spiral. Whoever was en camped there must be sternly warned from nocturnal peering Into her cabin. She wished she could warn him off the island, but was rather uncertain about her legal rights In the matter. Tuffo kept at her heels, and through the damp, cool muskeag. yielding like a carpft until her feet were submerg''! the anklfs, she walked for the better part of a mile. Then there was the Kunyar Hidge to cross, and a clear viw Into the tiny valley of Little Dorokite. At the top, cautiously screened against a clump of red cedar, she halted. Around a little bluff, approachable from the top of the ridge, along a narrow exposed ledge of rock, came the purple pl nines of wood smoke. Tuf.o. obediently concealed In the ce dar, waited. Carefully, that the moHs might not Slip off the rock and precipitate her into the camp lire of her foes. Vivian stole alont? the ledge. Cautiously, lying prone, she wriggle! forward. Be.low her rose the crunching of footsteps upon dry branchen. Her en emy was there! She hitched the rifle for w ard, crept another yard and peered over. Below, on a narrow ledge of rock, a fire was burning smokily. A tall, bare headed man was bending over It, cooking something on a forked stick. In the fresh sunlight of the Alaskan morning his hair shone like burnished bronze. Vivian's breath came In a startled gasp. Smoke blew into the face of the red haired one and he coughed, wiping his streaming eyes on his sleeve. At the end of the forked stick a part ridge breast smoked and sizzled. Other pieces of the meat lay in orderly array on a strip of birch bark. Te tall figure with the red hair was very intent upon the process of broiling the meat. "W what in the world are jcu do ing?" queried a voice from above. The holder of the forked stick let it drop Into the blaze, and thi made has to extricate it again. Looking up. b aw a young lady with very pink c heeks and dark eyes staring down upon rirr. She was lying prone upon the rock. ar,d her blue flannel waist was slighiiv opened at the throat. Beside her peered the sinister eye T.r a fle, brought to bear upon the sceno below. The sunlight glinted upon the waves f her hair and shone upon the sle k boots, with the square, boyish toes and buckskin thong laces. The girl's flushed countenance had grown even more rosy, if that were con ceivable. She reflected that she should leave at once. But curiosity held her. "I shouldn't think it it would taste very good that way," she asserted. "Better with salt. I suppose," conced ed the manipulator of the forked stick. "Havent you any salt?" "Just out of the commodity." - "Why do you do such silly things?" Exasperation sharpened the tone and 7.
