University of Missouri College of Engineering - Shamrock Yearbook (Columbia, MO)

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so cold that he paused frequently and built small fires, over which he filled his lungs with hot air and smoke. He knew what it meant to have the lungs touched It was the morning of the sixth day when he reached the thick fringe of spruce that sheltered Given's cabin. He was half blinded. The snow-filled bliz- zards had cut his face until it was swol- len and purple. Twenty paces from the cabin he stopped, and stared, and rubbed his eyes again-as though that he were not quite sure that his eyes were not playing him a trick. A cry broke from his lips then. Over the door there was nailed auslender sap- ling, and at the end of that sapling there floated a tattered, wind-beaten rag. It was the signal. It was the one common voice to all of the wilderness-a warn- ing to man, woman and child, white or red, that came down through the cen- turies. justice Given was down with the small-pox! For a few moments the discovery stunned him. Then he was filled with a chill, creeping horror. Given was sick with the scourge. Perhaps he was dy- ing. It might be-that he was dead. In spite of the terror of the thing ahead of him, he thought of Mary. If Given was deadi! 'Above the low moaning of the Wind in the tops of the trees he cursed him- self. He had thought a crime, and he clenched his mittened hands as he stared at the one window of the cabin. His eyes shifted upward. In the air was a hlmy, floating gray. It was smoke coming from the chimney. Given was not dead. Something kept him from shouting Given's name,'that he might Twen ty-Three ' 5l Q g S' r iq 2 WEE . come to the door. He went to the win- dow and looked in. For a few moments he could see nothing. And, then, dimly, he made out the cot against the wall. On that cot sat the man that was his friend and the man that held his happi- ness in his Words. With a quick breath George turned to the door, opened it, and walked in. Justice Given staggered to his feet as the door opened. His eyes were wild and filled with fever. You-Lewis! he cried huskily. My God, didn't you see the flag? Yes George's half-frozen features were smiling, and now he was holding out a hand from which he had drawn his mit- ten. Lucky I happened along just now, old man. You've got it, eh? Q Given shrank back from the offered hand. There's time, he cried, point- ing to the door. Don't breathe this air. Get out. I'm not bad yet-but it's the small-poxf' I know it, said George, beginning to throw off hood and coat. I'm not afraid of it. I had a touch of it three years ago, so I guess that I am immune. Besides, I have come two thousand miles to see you-Justice Given-two thousand miles to see you, and bring a letter from Mary Courtleyf, For a few seconds Given stood tense and motionless. Then he swayed for- ward. A letter for me-from Mary? he gasped, and held out his hands. An hour later they sat facing each other. The beginning of the disease be- trayed itself in the red Hush of Given's face, and the fever in his eyes. But he was calm. For many minutes he had

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shmoe ee A elif X 1916 to that lonely man in the Great Silent. One night, as he sat alone by his HFC in the chill of September darkness, he took the letter from its sack, and saw that the contents of the bulging en- velope had sprung one end of the flap loose. He had set a pail of water on the fire, and a cloud of steam was rising from it. Those two things-the flap and the steam-sent a thrill through him. What was in the letter? What had she written to that man? In a few seconds the steam would free the rest of the flap. He could read the letter and no one would ever know the difference. Then like a shock came the thought that the few letters she had written to him were always sealed with a red sealing wax, and that this letter was not sealed. She had trusted him. Her faith was implicit. And this was her proof of it. Under his breath he laughedfand his heart grew warm with new happiness and hope. I have faith in you, were her parting words, and now these words came back to him, I have faith in you. So he replaced the letter in its sack. That night had seen the beginning of the struggle with himself. The autumn and the winter came early in this coun- try. It was to be a winter of terrible cold and snow, of famine, and of pesti- lence. The Hrst oppressive gloom of it added to the fear and suspense that be- gan to grow in him. For days there was no sign of the sun. The clouds hung low. Bitter winds came out of the North, and nights these winds wailed desolately through the tops of the trees under which he slept. And day after day and night after night the tempta- tion came upon him more strongly to open that letter. He was convinced that the letter- and the letter alone-held his fate, and that he was actingblindly. He wanted Mary. He wanted her above everything else in the world. Then why Should he not fight for her-in his own way? And to do that he must open the letter and read its contents. If there was nothing in it that would stand between them, he would have done no wrong, for he would still take it to Justice Given. So he argued. But if the letter ruined his chances of possessing her, his knowl- edge of what it contained would give him an opportunity to win her in an- other way. He could even answer it himself and take back to her false Word from Given, for these awful. years in the North would have changed his hand- writing. His treachery, if it could be called that, would never be discovered. And it would give to him the woman that he loved. This was the temptation. The power that resisted it was the spirit of that big, clean, fighting North which makes men out of flesh and bone. Ten years of that life had been drilled into him, and so he hung on. Deep snows fell, and fierce blizzards shot like gun blasts from out of the Arctic. Snow and wind were not what brought the deeper gloom to the coun- try. Smallpox- red death -was gal- loping through the wilderness, and a hundred messengers of the forests were riding swiftly behind their dogs to spread the warning. Hfe traveled very slowly. For three days and nights the air was filled with the Arctic Dustv snow that was as hard as Flint and stung like shot and it was Twontx'-TWG

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spoken in a quiet voice, and LeWiS sat with scarcely a breath and a heart that at times had risen in his throat to choke him. In his hand Justice Given held the pages of the letter he had read. Now he went on: So I'm going to tell it all to you, Lewis-because I know that you are a man. Mary has left nothing out. She has told me of your love, and of the reward that she has promised you-if I send back the word. She says frankly that she does not love you, but that she honors you above all men-except her father and one other-and that other- that other is myself. Years ago the woman that you love-was my wife. Her name was not Givenf' he went on, and a smile fought grimly on his lips. That's one thing that I will not tell you, my name. The story itself will be enough. p Perhaps there were two other people in the world that were happier than we two. I doubt it. I I got into a deal. I made an enemy, a deadly enemy. He was a blackmailer and a thief and the head of a political ring that lived on graft. Through my efforts he Was ex- posed. And then he laid for me-and he got me. I must give him credit for doing it so cleverly. He set a trap for me and a woman helped him. The trap sprung and got me. 'Even my wife would not believe me and the papers could End no excuse for me. I have never blamed her for getting a divorce, On the day the divorce was given her, my brain went bad. The World turned red and then black and red again. I went to his oiiice. I gave him a change to confess and redeem himself. He laughed at me, exulted at my fall. And so-I g ml? A killed him. And then in his office, With his dead body at my feet, I wrote a ,note to Mary. I told her what I had done and told her again of my innocence. I wrote her some day that she might hear from me under the name that I now bear, as the law would always be Watching for me. She has kept my secret, while the law has hunted for me. And thisi- He held the letter out to Lewis. Take it-go outside and read it. I want to think, and then come back in a half hour. Back of the cabin George read the let- teri and at timeshis soul seemed as if it were being smothered and at others it seemed to quiver with 'a strange joy. For nearly seven years she had known of the innocence of her husband. The woman-the dead man's tool-con- fessed. And during that time Mary had traveled over the world seeking him- the man who bore the name-Justice Given. Each night she had prayed God that the next day she might End him, and now her prayer had been answered, she begged that she might come to him, and share with him for all time a life away from the world they knew. The woman breathed like life in the pages that he read, yet with that won- derful message to Justice Given she pil- loried herself for those red and insane hours in which she had lost faith in him. She had no excuse for herself, ex- cept her great love, she crucified her- self as she held out her arms to him across that two thousand miles of deso- lation. She had written of the great PFICC She was offering for this one Chance of life and happiness. She told him of his friend's love, and the reward she had offered him should Justice 'l tl