Garber Sentinel. (Garber, Okla.), Vol. 23, No. 41, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 6, 1922 Page: 3 of 8
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the r.ARRER SENTINEL GARBER. OKLAHOMA
The Big-Town Round Up
By WILLIAM Mac LEOD RAINE
Copyright by Willi«m MseLeod Reine
BEATRICE WHITFORD
SYNOPSIS—A foreword tells
this: Motoring through Arizona,
a party of easterners, father and
daughter and a male companion,
stop to witness a cattle round up.
The girl leaves the car and 1b at-
tacked by a wild steer. A master-
piece of riding on the part of one
of the cowboys saves her life. Then
the story begins thus: Clay Lind-
say, range-rider on an Arizona
ranch, announces his intention to
visit the "big town," New York.
On the train Lindsay becomes in-
terested in a young woman, Kitty
Mason, on her way to New York
to become a motion-picture actress.
She Is marked as a fair prey by a
fellow traveler, Jerry Durand, gang
politician qfid ex-prize fighter.
Perceiving his intention, Lindsay
provokes a quarrel and throws
Durand from the train.
CHAPTER II—Continued.
Clay stopped in front of Kitty and
said lie hoped she would have no
trouble making her transfer in the
city. The girl was no fooJ. She had
sensed the antagonism that, had flared
up between them in that moment when
they had faced each other live minutes
before.
"Where's Mr. Durand?" she asked.
"He got off."
"But the train hasn't stopped."
"It's just crawlin' along, and he was
In a hurry."
Iler gaze rested upon an angry
bruise on his cheek. It had not been
there when last si:? saw him.
"I don't understand it," she mur-
mured, half to herself. "Why would
he get off before we reached the de-
pot?"
She was full of suspicions, and the
bruise on the westerner s cheek did
not tend to allay them. They were
still unsatisfied when the porter took
her to the end of the car to brush
her clothes.
The discretion of that young man
had its limits. While he brushed the
jrirl he.told her rapidly what he had
seen in the vestibule.
"Was he hurt?" she asked breath-
lessly.
"No'm. I looked out and seen him
standi!!' beside the track jes' a-cussin'
a blue streak. He's a sho-'nough bad
actor, that Jerry Durand."
Kitty marched straight to her sec-
tion. The eyes of the girl flashed
anger.
"Please leave my seat, sir," she told
Clay.
The Arizonan rose at once. He knew
that she knew. "I was intendin' to
help you off with yore grips," he said.
She flamed into passionate resent-
ment of his Interference. "I'll attend
to them. I can look out for myself,
sir."
With that she turned her back oa
liim.
CHAPTER III
The Big Town.
When Clay stepped from the station
at the Thirty-fourth Street entrance
New York burst upon him with what
seemed almost a threat. He could hear
the roar of it like a river rushing down
a canyon. Clay had faced a cattle
stampede. He had ridden out a bliz-
wtrd hunched up with the drifting
"Might You Would Want a Good Suit
of Quality Clothes, My Friendt?" He
Suggested.
herd. He had lived rough all his young
and joyous life. But for a moment he
felt a chill drench at his heart thnt
was almost dread. Me did not know a
soul In this vast populace. He was
alone among seven or eight million
crazy human beings.
He had checked his suitcase to be
free to look about. He had no destina-
tion and was In no hurry. All the day
was before him, alJ of many days. He
drifted down the street and across to
Sixth avenue.
Chance swept him up Sixth to Her-
ald squat*. lie was caught In the
river of humanity that races up Broad-
way. He wondered where all this rush
of people was going. What crazy im-
pulses sent them surging to and fro?
And the girls—Clay surrendered to
them at discretion. He had not sup-
posed there were so many pretty, well-
dressed girls in the world.
"First off I'm goin' to get me a real
city suit of clothes," he promised him-
self. "This hero wrinkled outfit is
some too woolly for the big town. It's
a good suit yet—'most as good us when
I bought it at the Boston store in
Tucson three years ago. But 1 reckon
I'll save it to go home in."
He stopped In front of a store above
| which was the legend "I. Bernstein,
Men's Garments." A small man with
j sharp little eyes and well-defined nose
was standing in the doorway.
| "Might you would want a good suit
of quality clothes, my friendt," he sug-
gested.
"You've pegged me right," agreed
the westerner with his ready smile.
"Lead me to It."
Mr. Bernstein personally conducted
his customer to the suit department.
"I wait on you myself on account you
was a stranger to the city," lie ex-
plained.
The little man took a suit from a
rack and held it at arm's length to ad-
mire it. Ills fingers caressed the woof
of it lovingly. He evidently could
bring himself to part with it only after
a struggle.
"Worsted. Fine goods." lie leaned
toward the range-rider and whis-
pered a secret. "Imported."
Clay shook his head. "Not what 1
want." ills eyes ranged the racks.
"This is more my notion of the sort of
thing I like." He pointed to a blue
serge with a little stripe in the pat-
tern.
The dealer detached the coat lov-
ingly from the hanger and helped his
customer into it. Then he fell back,
eyes lit with enthusiastic amazement.
Only fate could have brought together
this man and this suit, so manifestly
destined for each other since the hour
when Eve began to patch up tig leaves
for Adam.
"Like a coat of paint," he murmured
aloud.
The cowpuncher grinned. He under-
stood the business that went with sell-
ing a suit in some stores. But it hap-
pened that he liked this suit himself.
"How much?" he asked.
The owner of the store dwelt on the
merits of the suit, its style, its dur-
ability, the perfect fit. He covered his
subject with artistic thoroughness.
Then, reluctantly, he confided in a
whisper the price at which lie was go-
ing to sacrifice this suit among suits.
"To you, my friendt, I make this
garment for only sixty-five dollars."
He added another secret detail. "Below
wholesale cost."
A little devil of mirth lit in Lind-
say's eye. "I'd hate to have you rob
yoreself like that. And me a perfect
stranger to you too."
"Qvality, y' understan" me. Which
a man must got-to live garments like
I done to appreciate such a suit. All
wool. Every thread of it. Unshrink-
able." Mr. Bernstein caressed it again.
"One swell piece of goods," he told
himself softly, almost with tears In his
eyes.
"All wool, you say?" asked Clay, feel-
ing the texture. He had made up his
mind to buy it, though lie thought the
price a bit stiff.
Mr. Bernstein protested on his honor
that there was not a thread of cotton
in it. "Which you could take it from
me that when I sell a suit of clothes
it is like I am dealing with my
own brother," he added. "Every gar-
ment out of this store takes my per-
sonal guarantee."
Clay tried on the trousers and looked
at himself in the glnss. So far as he
could tell he looked just like any other
New Yorker.
The dealer leaned forward and spoke
In a whisper. Apparently he was
ashamed of his softness of heart.
"Fifty-five dollars—to you."'
"I'll take it," the westerner said.
The clothier called his tailor from
the rear of the store to make an ad-
justment in the trousers. Meanwhile
he deftly removed the tags which told
hint in c(pher that the suit had cost
him just eleven dollars and seventy-
five cents.
Half an hour later Clay sat on top
of a Fifth avenue bus which was jerk-
ing its way uptown. His shoes were
shlned to mirror brightness. He was
garbed In a blue serge suit with a little
stripe running through the pattern.
That suit just now was the apple of
his eye. It proved him a New Yorker
and not a wild man from the Arizona
desert.
The motor-bus ran up Fifth avenue,
cut across to Broadway, passed Co-
lumbus circle, and swept Into the Drive,
It was a day divinely young and fair.
The fragrance of a lingering spring
was wafted to the nostrils. Glimpses
of tne park tempted Clay. Its wind-
ing paths! The children playing on
the grass while their maids in neat
caps and aprons gossiped together on
the benches near! This was the most
human spot the man from Arizona
had seen In the metropolis.
Somewhere In the early three-figure
streets he descended from the top of
the but and let his footsteps follow ills
Inclinations into the park. He struck
across the Drive into a side street. An
apartment house occupied the comer,
but from the other side a row of hand-
some private dwellings faced him.
The janitor of the apartment house
was watering the parking beyond the
sidewalk. The edge of the stream
from the nozzle of the Hose sprayed
the path In front of Clay. He hesi-
tated for a moment to give the man
time to turn aside the hose.
But the janitor on this particular
morning had been fed up with trouble.
One of the tenants had complained of
him to the agent of the place. Another
had moved away without tipping him
for an hour's help in packing he had
given her. He was sulkily of the opin-
ion that the whole world was in a
conspiracy to annoy him. Just now the
approaching rube typified the world.
A little flirt of the hose deluged
Clay's newly shlned boots and the low-
er six inches of his trousers.
"Look out what you're doing!" pro-
tested the man from Arizona.
"I tank you better look where you're
going," retorted the one from Sweden.
A Smothered "Vat T'ell!" Rose Out of
the Waters.
He was a heavy-set, muscular man
with a sullen, obstinate face.
"My shoes and trousers are sopping
wet. I believe you did it on purpose."
"Tank so? Val, yttst one teng I lak
to tell you. I got no time for d—n fule
talk."
The westerner started on his way.
There was no use having a row with a
sulky janitor.
But the Swede misunderstood his
purpose. At Clay's first step forward
lie jerked round the nozzle and let the
range-rider have it with full force.
Clay was swept back to the wall by
the heavy pressure of water that
played over him. The stream moved
swiftly up and down him from head
to foot till it had drenched every inch
of the pertect fifty-five-dollar suit. He
drowned fathoms deep in a water
spout. He was swept over Niagara
Falls. He came to life again to find
himself the choking center of a world
flood.
He gave a strangled whoop and
charged straight at the man behind the
hose. The two clinched. While they
struggled, the writhing hose slapped
back and forth between them like an
agitated snake. Clay had one ad-
vantage. He was wet through anyhow.
It did not matter how much of the
deluge struck him. The janitor fought
to keep dry and he had not a chance
on earth to succeed.
For one hundred and seventy-live
pounds of Arizona bone and muscle,
toughened by years of bard work in
sun and wind, had clamped itself up-
on him. The nozzle twisted toward the
janitor. He ducked, went down, and
was instantly submerged. When he
tried to rise, the stream beat him back.
He struggled halfway up, slipped, got
again to his feet, and came down sit-
ting with a hard bump when his legs
skated from tinder him.
A smothered "Vat t'ell!" rose out of
the waters. The janitor could not un-
derstand what was happening to him.
He did not know that he was being
treated to a new form of the water
cure.
Before his dull brain had functioned
to action an iron grip had him by the
back of the neck. He was jerked to
ills feet and propelled forward to the
curb. Every inch of the way the heavy
stream from the nozzle broke on Ms
face and neck. It paralyzed his re-
sistance, jarred him so that lie could
not gather himself to fight Clay
bumped him up against a hitching
post, gatroted him, and swung the
hose around the post In sucli a way
as to encircle the feet of the man.
The cowpuncher drew the hose
tight, slipped the nozzle through the
Iron ring, and caught the flapping arms
of the man to his body. With the deft
skill of a trained roper Clay swung the
rubber pipe round the body of the man
again and again, drawing it close to
the post and knotting It securely be-
hind. The Swede struggled, but his
furious rage availed him nothing. When
Clay stepped back to Inspect his job
he knew he was looking at one that
hud been done thoroughly.
"1 keel you, by d—n, ef you don't
turn me loose!" roared the big man in
u rage.
The range-rider grinned gayly at
ltini. He was having the time of his
young life. He did not even regret his
fifty-flve-dollar suit.
"Life's just loaded to the hocks with
disappointment, Olie," he explained,
and his voice was full or genial sym-
pathy. "I'll bet a dollar Mex you'd
sure like to beat me on the head with
u two-by-four. But 1 don't reckon
you'll ever get that fond wish gratified.
We're not liable to meet up with each
other again pronto. Today we're here
and tomorrow we're at Yuma, Arizona,
say, for life is short and darned
fleetin', as the poet fellow soys."
lie waved ti hand jauntily and
turned to go. But he changed his mind.
His eye had fallen on a young woman
standing at a French window of the
house opposite. She was beckoning to
him imperiously.
The young woman disappeared as lie
crossed the street, but in u few mo-
ments the door opened and she stood
there waiting for him. Clay stared. He
had never before seen a girl dressed
like tills. She was in riding boots,
breeches and coat. Her eyes diluted
while she looked at him.
"Wyoming?" she asked.
"Arizona," he answered.
"All one. Knew It the moment I saw
you tie him. Come in." She stood
aside to let him pass.
That ball, with Its tapestried walls,
its polished floors, and oriental rugs,
was reminiscent of "the movies" to
Clay. Nowhere else had he seen a
home so stamped with the mark of
ample means.
"Come in," she ordered again, a lit-
tle sharply.
He came in and she closed the door.
"I'm sopping wet. I'll drip all over
the floor."
"What are you going to do? You'll
be arrested, you know." She stood
straight and slim as a boy, and the
frank directness of her gaze had a
boy's sexless unconsciousness.
There came to tliem from outside
the tap-tap-tap-tap' of a policeman's
night stick rattling on the curbstone.
"He's colling help."
"I can explain bow It happened."
"No. He wouldn't understand. They'd
find you guilty."
To a manservant standing In the
background the young woman spoke.
"Jenkins, have Nora clean up the floor
and the steps outside. And remember
—I don't want the police to know this
gentleman is here."
"Yes, miss."
"Come!" said the girl to her guest.
Clay followed his hostess to the
stairs and went up them with her, but
he went protesting, though with a
chuckle of mirth. "He sure ruined my
clothes' a heap. 1 ain't fit to be seen."
The suit he had been so proud of
was shrinking so that his arms and
legs stuck out like signposts. The
color had run and left the goods a
peculiar bilious-looking overall blue.
She lit a gas-log in a small library
den.
"Just a minute, please."
She stepped briskly from the room.
In her manner was a crisp decision, in
her poise a trim gallantry that won
him instantly,
"I'll bet she'd do to ride with," he
told himself In a current western
idiom.
When she came back it was to take
him to a dressing room. A complete
change of clothing was laid out for
him on a couch. A man whom Clay
recognized as a valet—be had seen Ills
duplicate In the moving-picture thea-
ters at Tucson—was there to supply
his needs and attend to the tempera
ture of his bath.
"Stevens will look after you," she
said; "when you are ready come back
to dad's den."
His eyes followed to the door her
resilient step. Once, when lie was a
boy, he bad seen Ada ltehan play in
"As You Like It." Her acting had en
tranced nim. This girl carried him
back to that hour. She was boyish as
Rosalind, woman In every motion of
her slim and lissom body.
At the head of the stairway she
paused. Jenkins was moving hurriedly
up to meet her.
"It's a policeman, miss. 'E's come
about the—the person that came In,
and 'e's uilkin' to Nora on the steps.
She's a-jollyin' 'im, us you might say,
miss."
His young mistress nouded. She
swept the hall with the eye of a gen-
eral. Swiftly she changed the position
of a Turkish rug so as to hide a spot
on the polished floor that had been
recently scrubbed and was still moist.
Then she opened the door and saun-
tered out.
"Does the officer want something,
Nora?" she asked innocently, switch-
ing the end of a crop against her rid-
ing-boots.
"Yes, miss. There's been a ruffian
batin' up Swedes an' tyin' 'em to posts.
This officer thinks he came here," ex-
plained Npra.
"Does lie want to look in the house?"
"Yes, miss."
"Then iet htm come in." The young
mistress took the responsibility «n her
own shoulders. She led the police-
man Into the hall. "I don't really see
how he could have got In here without
some of us seeing him, officer."
"No, ma'am. I don't see how he
could." The patrolman scratched his
red head. "The janitors a Swede,
anyhow. He jlst guesses It. I came
to make sure av It. I'll be sorry for
troubling yuh, miss."
The smile she gave him was warm
and friendly. "Oil, that's all right. If
you'd care to look around . . • But
there really Is no use."
"No." The forehead under the red
thatch wrinkled in thought. "He said
ho seen him come in here or next door,
an' he came up the steps. But nobody
could have got in without some of
youse seein' him. That's a lead pipe."
The officer pushed any doubt thnt re-
mained from his mind. "Only a mud-
dle-headed Swede."
CHAPTER IV
Clay Takes a Transfer.
Willie Beatrice Whitford waited In
the little library for the Arlzonan
to join her, she sat in a deep chair,
chin In hand, eyes fixed on the jetting
flames of the gas-log. A little flush
had crept Into the oval face. In her
blood there tingled the stimulus of ex-
citement. For into her life an adven-
ture had come from faraway Cuttle-
laml.
A crisp, strong footstep sounded in
the hall. Iler fingers flew to put into
place the soft golden hair coiled low
at the nape of the neck. At times she
had a boylike unconcern of sex; again,
a spirit wholly feminine.
The clothes of her father fitted
Lindsay loosely, for Colin Whitford
had begun to take on the flesh of mid-
dle age and Clay was lean and clean
of build as an elk. But the westerner
was one of those to whom clothes are
unimportant. The splendid youth of
him would have shone through the
rugs of a beggar.
"My name is Clay Lindsay," he told
her by way of Introduction.
Mine is Beatrice Whitford," she
answered.
They shook hands.
"I'm to wait here till my clothes dry,
yore man says."
"Then you'd better sit down," she
suggested.
Within five minutes she knew thnt
lie had been in New York less than
three hours, ills Impressions of the
city amused and entertained her.' He
was quite simple. She could look into
Ills mind as though it were a deep,
clear well. There was something in-
extinguishably boyish and buoyant
about him. But in his bronzed face
and steady, humorous eyes were
strength and shrewdness. He was the
last man in the world a bunCo-steerer
could play for a sucker. She felt that.
Yet lie made no pretenses of a worldly
wisdom he did not have.
A voice reached them from the top
of the stairs.
"Do you know where Miss Whitford
is, Jenkins?"
"liin the Bed room, sir." The an
swer was in the even, colorless voice
of a servant.
The girl rose at once. "If you'll ex-
cuse me," slie said, and stepped out of
the room.
"Hello, Bee. What do you think? I
never saw such idiots as the police of
this town are. They're watching this
house for a desperado who assaulted
some one outside. I met a sergeant on
our steps. Says he doesn't think the
man's here, hut there's just a chance
he slipped into the basement. It's ab-
surd."
"Of course it is." There was a lip-
pie of mirth in the girl's voice: "He
didn't come hi by the basement at all,
but walked In at the front door."
"The front door!" exploded her fath-
er. "What do you mean? Who let him
In?"
"I did. He came as my guest, at ray
invitation."
"What?"
"Don't shout, dad," she advised. "I
thought I had brought you up lietter."
"Uut—but—but what do you mean?"
he sputtered. "Is this ruffian in the
house now?"
"Ob, yes. He's in the lied room here
—and unless he's very deaf he hears
everything we are saying," the girl
answered calmly, much amused at the
amazement of her father. "Won't you
come in and see him? He doesn't seem
very desperate."
Clay arose, pinpoints of laughter
dancing In bis eyes. He liked the guy
audacity of this young woman.
A moment later he was offering a
brown hand to Colin Whitford. "Glad
to meet you, Mr. Whitford. Yore
daughter has Just saved my life from
the police," the westerner suld, and
his friendly smile was very much in
evidence.
"You niuke yourself at home," an-
swered the owner of a large per cent
of the stock of the famous Bird Cage
mine.
"My guests do, dad. It's proof that
I'm a perfect hostess," retorted
Beatrice, her dainty, provocative face
flashing to mirth.
"Hmp!" grunted her Tnther dryly.
"I'd like to know, young man, why the
police ure shadowing this house?"
"I expect they're louMll' for we."
"I expect they are, and I'm not sun
I won't help them find you. You'll
have to show cause If I don't."
"His burk is much worse than hit
bite," the girl explained to Cltiy, just
us though her futher were not present
"Hmp!" exploded the mining mag-
nute u second time. "Get busy, young
fellow."
Clay told the story of the fifty-five-
dollar suit that I. Bernstein had 1
wished on him with near-tears of re-
gret ut parting from it The cow-
puncher dramatized the situation with
some native talent for mimicry. Hl
arms gestured like the lifted wl«gs of
a startled cockerel. "A man g «r a
chance at u garment like that on!jr
once In a while occasionally. Which
you can take It from me that when I.
Bernstein sells u suit of clothes It is
shust like he Is dealing with his own
brother. Qvality, my frlendts, qvality 1
Why, I got anyhow a suit which I
might be married in without shume,
un'erstan' me."
Colin Whitford was of the West him-
self. He had lived its rough and-tumble
life for years before be made Ills
lucky strike In the Bird Cuge. He had
moved from Colorado to New York
only ten years before. The sound of
(May's drawling voice was like n mes-
sage from home, lie began to grin
in spite of himself. This man was too
good to be true. It wasn't possible
that unybody could come to tb« big
town and Import into it so nslvely
such a genuine touch of the outfloop
West. It was not possible, but It had
happened Just I lie same. Long befor
the cow puncher had finished his story
of hog-tying the Swede to a hitching
post with ids own hose, the mining
man was sealed of the large tribe of
Clay Lindsay's admirers. He was
ready to hide lilin from all the police
in New York.
Whitford told Stevens to bring la
the fifty-five-dollur suit so that h«
could gloat over It. He let out a whoop
of delight at sight of Its still sodden
appearance. He examined Its sickly
hue with chuckles of mirth.
Guaranteed not to fade or shrink,'"
murmured Clay sudly.
He managed to get the coat on with!
difficulty. The sleeves reached Just be-
low the elbows.
"You look like a lifer from Sing;
Sing," pronounced Whitford joyously*
"(jet a hair-cut, and you won't have
u chance on earth to fool the police."
"The color did run and fade some,™
admitted Cluy.
"Worth every cent of nine ninety*
eight at a bargain sale before tha
Swede got busy with It—and he let)
you have it at a sacrifice for flfty-flva
dollars!" The millionaire wept happy
tears as a climax of his rapture. Ho
swallowed his cigar smoke and had to
be pounded on the back by Ills daugh-
ter.
Jenkins came to the door and an-
nounced "Mr. Bromfleld."
Almost on his heels a young man In
immaculate riding clothes sauntered
Into the room. He had the assured
ease of one who has the run of the
house. Miss Whitford Introduced tha
two young men and Bromfleld looked
Hie westerner over witli a suave im
solence In ills dark, handsome eyes.
Clay recognized him Immediately,
lie had shaken bunds once before with
this well-satisfied young man, and or*
that occasion a lifty-dollar bill hadj
"His Bark Is Much Worse Than HI*
Bite," the Girl Exclaimed to Clay.
passed from one to the other. Thaj
New Yorker evidently did not know>
him.
It became apparent ut once thati
Bromfleld had called to go riding In
the park with uliss Whitford. That;
young woman came up to say good-by;
to her new acquaintance.
"Will you be here when I get back?"
"Not If our friends outside give me
a chance for a getaway," he told her.
Her bright, unflinching eyes looked
Into ills. "You'll come again nnd let
us know how you escaped," she In-
vited.
"H—I's going to pop in about
three seconds," announced Clay
to himself.
(TO BIS CONTINUED.)
Transferred the Attachment
Oldfrlcnd.—I expected to heur of
your marriage before this. If I re-
member rightly there was quite an
atuehment between you and, Miss
Muincliunce.
Lothario—Thnt attachment's br |
ken off. But she's suing me fori
breuch of promise nnd put au ul |
tachweut on my bank account.
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Peters, S. H. Garber Sentinel. (Garber, Okla.), Vol. 23, No. 41, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 6, 1922, newspaper, July 6, 1922; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc145242/m1/3/: accessed March 28, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.