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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 1928)
HEPPNER GAZETTE TIMES, HEPPNER, OREGbN, THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1928. PAGE THREE WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE Dr. Long, out fishing with Alexander Pierce, a detective, tell of hU projected trip to Southley Downs. Pierce advisee him to keep his eyes wide open while there. On the way In a train Dr. Long is attracted by a girl, who later faints. Dr. Long treats her, and looking Into ner Dag, is astonished to find a loaded revolver. Dr. Long meets Ahmad Das, an Ori ental, who conducts him to Southley Downs, where he meets Mr. Southley and his son Ernest Southlev. Mr. Hav- ward and his son Vilas, and then Jose phine Southley. who Is the elrl he had met on the train. Josephine tells him the story of Southlev Dwns and Its ghost, which is not the ghost of a numan Deing put or a tiger. Now read on CHAPTER m "My father and some of the ser vants went out both Ernest and I were away at school. They couldn't see In the shadows but my father aays that beyond all chance- of doubt some living creature bounded through the thickets In front of them. It might have been a calf or even a large dog. "A few weeks ago the details be gan to vary: It was after my fa ther's old friend, Mr. Hayward, and his son came to visit -us. But tell me this first Would you say the younger Mr. Hayward would be troubled with faulty nerves?" "I Baw him jump tonight when the owl hooted." "Remember he has spent nearly a month In this house. After a month In it, you'll Jump, too. I mean, under ordinary conditions, away from this atmosphere." "I would certainly say that Vilas Hayward had no nerves to trouble him." "Just a few nights after his ar rival, Vilas Hayward came In to dinner with a curious look of ques tion on his face. He said he had seen something." Josephine's eyes were full and in tent upon mine, and the sentence died away. The silence of the vast room was the kind to be listened to in remote deserts, or In the moun tain nights. "Yes?" I urged her. "It Isn't very pleasant," she warn ed. "A doctor has the right to know all the symptoms." "He said when he came through the long hall that leads from the drawing-room something walked before him. It was In the shadows, and he could not see It plain. He asked us If we kept a great yellow and black dog, a hound as large, or larger, than a Great Dane." The elder Hayward and I were strolling on the course, and a few minutes before our host had been with us. He had gone into the house on some errand. Josephine was with Vilas on the veranda, and his chair was drawn close to hers. At first I wasn't thinking about Hayward or Ahmad either. I was remembering with what astounding fortune Vilas and Josephine always seemed to be alone together. It was a baffling thing. I couldn't think of any conscious effort In that direction. Yet seemingly pow ers In the sky were always throw ing them together. In one Instant, all the occupants of Southley Downs would be on the veranda together; In the next, a group of us would have wandered off, and Vilas and Josephine would be alone. I wondered how much of this curious development was engineer ed by Josephine herself. It wasn't a particularly pleasant thing to think about Of course, girls In this age have a right to play all their cards to win the love of a de sirable man. It was all legitimate all fair. But sometimes It seemed to me that she would have prefer red to stay with the rest of us, but that some Inscrutable power, mys terious and immutable, denied It That power was either Josephine's aged father, the elder Hayward, or both. Hayward and I were having a good night cigar together. My wrist watch indicated a few minutes after ten. And then Hayward saw a shadow waver In the moonlight of the golf green. It was hard to see at first Some living creature was advancing along the slope toward us something that seemed dark and not very tall. We stood still and waited. There was nothing else for us to do. Then all at once the creature's form seemed to change. I can't de scribe It except to say that upon one instant It appealed to me as be ing low and rather long, and on the next tall and narrow. The change was so abrupt that the creature seemed fairly to leap. Yet It easily could have been the effect of the moonlight or the shadows. It might have been simply a matter of per spective. At once we saw the ad vancing form that before had seem ingly had the dimensions and out line of a huge dog was Just the form of a man. But I had been enough In the mountains to know that the moon and the darkness and the jungles play strange tricks on fancy and vision. It was Ahmad Das. He was com ing In from one of his long walks. Hayward gasped behind me, and as I moved back the back of our hands touched. Hayward's felt cold. Whatever had been fancy and wrong perspec tive before, this was the truth. His blood wasn't In his hands, as It should have been. Evidently It had all gono up to his brain, playing strange tricks with It. Ahmad bowed to ub as he passed. "Good Lord!" Hayward breathed. "I wasn't looking for that wretch." "He was just coming In from on of his walks." "Those walks of his! Why don't Southley forbid 'em? I will If he don't I'll be damned If I'll have -him walking through those jungles and creeping up on us this way!" "Creeping up on us? I echoed. "What way?" - "Besides, what would a man want to walk around in those Jungles for?" he went on, unheeding me. "Tell me that?" Then his voice changed dropped tone by tone un til it was almost a whisper. "And tell me this, too, Long and tell me the truth." "Yes." . "Did did you see anything curi ous about about Ahmad's posture as he came up the hill? Of course, It was probably Just the moonlight yet there was something puzzling about It" "I'll oonfess I didn't recognize him at once. "That Isn't it. That Isn't quite it Long. Oh, the devil! It's nonsense. anyway." We walked up to the veranda and halted for an instant on the steps for a last look over the marsh, There was a ring round the moon that promised rain. We listened to the night birds and the noise of the insect world, like the strum of a banjo infinitely remote, above the drear, gray wastes. Then Hayward touched my arm. "If you'd go in, Long, and look at Ahmad's hands," he told me, "you'd find 'em with mud on em." "Why, Mr. Hayward?" "Because he was crawling up that hill on hands and feet!" Then his face grew Into a scowl, and he entered the house. I had a pipe by myself after he had gone. At first I thought about what he had said. But it didn't make particularly good sense. It was true that Hayward didn't like the Indian, yet this would have scarcely led to an accusation so bi zarre. The glare with which Hay ward's eyes followed him, when the servant walked about the rooms was little short of deadly I had ob served It too many times to be mis taken. Orders he gave were always in the most insulting tone. It seem ed to me just an unjustified aver sion, and the taste of the thing was open to question. There was a tenseness, a heavi ness, in the air. It was obviously the calm before one of those blind ing, crashing Floridlan thunder storms. I thought I had better warn the occupants of the house. There might be windows to close, or other pre parations. The library was empty; but I heard voices in the den that opened from it And maybe it was a sign that already the atmosphere at Southley Downs had Instilled its poison into my nerves that I did not remember to stop and knock. With' the memory of that myster ious , calm behind me, I hurried across the soft rug. The door open ed softly beneath my hand. The scene in the candle-light was like a tableau. The light was so yellow and soft, the shadows so startling black, the actors stood so motionless. With arms leaning up on the little mahogany table in the center of the den stood Vilas Hay ward. There was a drunken look about him; yet I knew it was not from wine. His face was flushed. Intent With the table between them, as if for a shield, Josephine faced him. Don't come a step nearer," she said as the door opened. Her face was white as the candle that burned between them, its lines were deep, and her dark eyes were smouldering. The little silken week end bag I had seen on the train lay before her on the table, and her hand was lost in the lace of its mouth. There were wild, primal passions at play In the room. One of them was lust; and one was the fury of murder. There is no use of minc ing words. They were bared and unmasked before me. Vilas turned to me with an oath. The girl slipped fainting to the floor. I answered him without re straint and lifted the girl Into my arms. I crossed with her to the little sofa at the side of the room where the two had evidently been sitting; then turned to meet the man. He had followed me across the room, and not six feet was be tween us. "I think, Dr. Long," Vilas cried, that you're altogether too officious. You'd better keep out of this." I am not just sure what I an swered him. But primal passions had awakened in me, too, and the words were straight He leaped at me, and I met him with a blow. He reeled, then caught at the ta ble. And his hand reached for the silken bag on the table, I knew that the girl was scream ing. The sound rose above the noise of the storm. I leaped for him, but he whirled about the table before I could reach him. He tore the pistol from the bag. Its glit tered in his hand. ' I had no delusions about what he would do with It The drawn face, the smouldering eyes, told all too plainly. He was too far for me to leap at him. So I struck out the candle. The dark fell over us. The sound of the storm obliterated his breath ing . It was the truce of darkness a truce remembered from primal days. I don't know how long It had continued when Hayward and Southley came. Their forms sud denly appeared in the opon door; and each of them carried candles. Vilas still held the pistol; and It gleamed in the candlelight. "Vilas!" his father called. 'Tut down that thing!" He hastened about the table, and my "aged host leaped in front of me. I tried to push him away; and his answer was a laugh one grim syl lable of laughter, ironical. "He wont kill me," he said. "I'm the goose that lays the golden eggs. He won't kill me." Vilas screamed at us. The murder-madness was on him yet "He struck me," he cried. "The devil struck me. He's got to apolo gize. He found me with Josephine, and he struck me as if I were a dog." " His father "look the pistol from his hands, and put It in his pocket Southley sighed a little, and placed his candle on the table. The girl rose up behind us, and I was amaz ed at her self-control. It had all come back. "He struck me," Vilas said again and again. "What are you going to do about it Southley? You ve got just ten minutes to turn him out of this house or else I'll go instead." "Let's forget it " the old man answered with utter weariness. "Forget nothing, Southley!" he exclaimed. "We've got to get to the bottom of this. If my son was struck, he s got to have satisfaction. I lived long enough on the conti nent to know that, and so has he. And so have you. It isn't the way it's done over there. If a man's struck the other pays." "Your son is sufficiently able to take care of himself, I hope," I sug gested, "If he'd taken care of himself, you'd be luying under this table now with your blood spoiling a good Oriental rug," the elder Hay ward answered with startling mal ice. "I'm not sure but that he'd ought to have done It I believe it's up to you, Long, to give satisfactory explanation." "I have nothing to explains" Then I turned my back upon him, and faced the broken old figure that was my host Sir, if there is any expla nation to be made it will have to come from your daughter." It was a curious expression that came to the old man's face. Its lines seemed to grow slack. There was hopelessness in it and the weakness of long years, and above all things else, hopeless, utter im- potency. ' It seemed to me that the girl opened her lips to speak. But be fore the words came, the elder Hay ward had answered for her. "What has this young pup to do with the relations between Joseph ine and my son?" he asked, queru lously. "They have already been settled. If that is the issue, it only makes it more certain what course remains. They can't go on living here, guests in the same house, with this between them. Tell him. South ley that he has two choices. One Is to apologize. The other is to leave the house." "Is that the truth?" I asked my host "Tell him It Is the truth," Hay- ward's Indomitable words went on. The tone was of a threat ominous, determined. The eyes of the two elder men met 'She has nothing to explain," Southley told me falteringly. I looked at the girl, and no man can measure or describe the ang uish that was In her eyes. But she dldn t look straight at me. First she glanced at the strong, bull-dog figure of the elder Hayward. Then she searched for her father's time dimmed eyes, and here she found her answer. He's right Dr. Long," she told me. "You must make your own explanations." It seems the odds are against me," I told them simply. "Mr. Southley, I have only done what any American man would have to do, and I can't and won't apologize to anyone. I have carried out the obligation of a guest to his host in the way my Instincts told me. Noth ing will make me believe that I did wrong. It Is evident that you up hold what theBe other men say and your daughter upholds them, too. And if you will have my bag brought to me, I will go at once.' The girl clasped her father's hands. A world of appeal was in her dark eyes. "He can't go in this dark storm," she told him. "The road along the levee isn't safe. Tell him he can't go till the storm is over." The elder Hayward chortled from beyond the table. "A good wetting might teach him manners," he suggested. "What about It Southley?" The tone was insistent, and per haps it had a scornful quality, too, "Of course, he can't go until the rain is done. I won't send out my cars on a night like this." The girl whirled to me. Appeal was all over her. "You won;t go till tomorrow?" she pleaded. "Tell me, doctor. You won't go 1111 the storm's over." "I can't very well, if your father won't let the cars go out" I tried to speak bitterly; but even after her betrayal, the very look of her soft ened me. I found young Southley sitting before a little fire in the library, and he called to me as I passed. In spite of the warmth of the night the little flame looked hospitable and kindly. ., "Heavens, what a night!" Jie ex claimed. 'I suppose you've heard about about the tiger?" "Of course, I know the legend. Anything new?" "Hasn't old Hayward told you? He and my father have been out talking to the servants, just a little while ago. He's quite an old beast you know. Well, the colored peo ple say he is walking again tonight" "Nice little thing to think about as I drop to sleep," I suggested. "Isn't it? We have an old gar dener that we call Mose. Mose was in town today, and he came back riding a horse about eleven o'clock. Rather it was somewhat before eleven, because you and the older Hayward were out on the golf green for your late evening's walk." "Go on," I urged. "Mose was riding hpme. I suppose he saw the ghost-tiger floating through the air, or riding a broomstick " "Nothing quite so bizarre as that I'm sorry to say. Maybe I talk lightly, but I'm feeling rather seri ous,. Long. If our tiger had done nothing except ride a broom, or fly, or something, it would have been a good legend to tell our children and toast to in good vintages. But unfortunately our tiger took other ways of manifesting himself. All he did was frighten Mose's horse and leave his track in the earth." The man spoke wholly without emotion. He smiled a little, too a rather wan, hopeless smile that was singularly upsetting to the spirit "His track!" I echoed. "You don't mean that" "He saw a great yellow and black cat almost as large as a pony. But that isn't quite all. Mose kept his head. He told himself it was a delusion, just as you and I have told ourselves many times. So he con trolled his horse; then looked down at the moonlit road. It was cov ered with dust and he could see very plainly. And he saw just what I told you." I spoke very quietly. "Tracks?" "Yes as big as his two hands, clear across the road. He wanted to take father and the Haywards and I down to see them. I think all of us except father, who is rath er old for such excursions, were going but something has evidently diverted them. They were to meet me here." I suppose the rain has spoiled them now." "Weakened them, anyway. Of course, the colored people are terri fied. The night the tiger first went wild was just on such a night as this in the middle of the storm. They say on such nights as these he likes to come back into the warm, dry house, and play in the curtains. In a few minutes more we were Pioneers Grangers Chautauquans ' Welcome Farmers & Stockgrowers National Heppner Bank egon out where the rain beat upon us. The road was already washed with water. It didn't seem possible that If there had really been mysterious tracks in the dust, that they could have endured the storm. "I've got some fine plans for to morrow if it Just clears up," the youth told me joyously as we tramped up the road. I think he was trying to divert his mind, as well as mine, from the business in hand. "I'm sorry, Ernest," I told him. "I'm going borne tomorrow." He stopped in his tracks, and I urged him on. "Going home? Good Lord, why? I thought you'd stay to see us through. Of coarse, I can't blame you " "I've got to make a living," I told him lightly. "It's time I went to work." "But you were going to stay a full week and you promised sis last night that yqu would make it ten days or two weeks." "Did she tell you that?" "Tell me? I should say she did. She danced a highland fling." It didn't make the scene of the hour before any more pleasant to remember. She had seemed glad when I told her I had postponed my departure. And even now Er nest's words filled me with a strange soaring gladness that I tried to fight off. She had proved the hour before how much she really cared. She belonged to Vilas, not me, in spite of the fact that she had been ready to kill him when I opened the door of the den. I remembered every smile each had been an epoch every softness in her dark eyes, every tremor of her lips. We tramped through the down pour, and soon we came to the point that the negro had described. Then we began to search about with the lanterns. It must have made a strange picture the distant light ning, the glowing lanterns, our own tall figures in the yellow raincoats. The great house was dark behind us. , (Continued next week.) NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNERS. Property owners of Heppner are hereby notified to clear away all grass and weeds from buildings on their premises, that may act as a fire hazard during the dry season. Prompt compliance will obviate fur ther action and help safeguard the city. By order of the Common Council. E. G. NOBLE, Mayor. NOTICE OF ESTRAT. I have at my place one brown mare, about seven years of age, branded circle T and weighing about 1350 pounds. Owner may have said animal upon calling at my place and paying for this adver tisement O. G. HAGUKWOOD, lone, Ore. 10-12. FOR SALE Pair Chippewa high top shoes; heavy; size 7. - Inquire this office. - lltf. JkumwidiVoitablc See It Hear It Here! GORDON'S ears of Service in Model T Fords Expenditure of few dollars may enable you to get thousands of miles from your old car . THE Model T Ford is still a great car. It led the motor industry for twenty years and it is used today by more people than any other automobile. More than eight million Model T Fords are in active service in city, town and country, and many of them can be driven for two, three and five years and even longer at very small up-keep expense. The cost of Model T parts and of necessary labor is unusually low because of established Ford policies. 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