--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Fox, Joseph W. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 19 number: 2 published: 1915-12 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Fox, Joseph W., "The Man with a Scar," *Improvement Era* 19, no. 2 (December 1915): 145–147.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1902unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1902unse start_page: 145 end_page: 147 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-12) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1902unse publication_year: 1915 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The Man with a Scar The Man with a Scar BY JOSEPH W. FOX The threshing crew sat in the grateful shade of the water tank with the full satisfaction of a well placed dinner, awaiting the termination of the noon hour, when the long-drawn shriek of the whistle would send them back to the ever swirling, choking cloud of dust and chaff, and the wearisome thump, thump, of the separator. The new man, a stranger, transient, old in the experience of the road, but young in years, came out of the cook-shack and joined the crew, whose freshly washed faces contrasted oddly with their clothes and hair and hats of the same unvarying, uncertain, dusty color. "My name is Gleason, Jack Gleason," said the new man, by way of introduction, and paused. "Have a shot in the arm ?" he smilingly invited, producing a large flask of amber liquid, in full confidence that, in a dry county in Idaho, such a treat would not go unappreciated. The young boss shook his head and passed it to the sack buck who passed it to the grizzled old separator man ; he glanced at the rest of the crew and, meeting no assent, short circuited it to the owner, not a drop missing. There was an awkward pause, then the stranger said bitterly : "So you 'Mormons' are too clannish to drink with me. It's not cheap stuff, either; cost me three bucks, and I brought it from Evanston. I'm just as white a man as any of you, and I'm willing to prove it to any one that doesn't think so." His challenge un- accepted, with no explanations, he turned to the boss : "Get my money for me tonight." "Hold on, not so fast," said the engineer, a man of middle age. and prepossessing countenance, had it not been for a livid scar that ran from his left ear down the entire side of his face, leaving it hairless and hard, like a terrible birthmark. When angry or excited the scar would suddenly pale to a waxy white- ness, with sudden flashes of red. The stranger turned questioningly. "Sit down, and I'll tell you a few things." He complied. "In the first place." said the engineer, "it is against the laws of this county to have intoxicating liquor in your possession, or 146 IMPROVEMENT ERA to offer to sell, or to give it to others. In the second place, I am a deputy sheriff, and sworn to uphold the law, and, in the third place," laying a kindly hand on the young man's knee, who was rather agitated at the unexpected statement of the other, "I want to tell you a story." The crew sat up to strict attention as he began: "It is just eight years ago since I was engineer for a big threshing outfit in Oregon, carrying a cook-shack and seventeen men. We had had a good season, and a good run, with but little rain. Of course, the boss was well pleased, and to show it he gave us an afternoon off, and brought up a keg of beer, and some bottled brandy and rye, as a treat for the men. By midnight there was not a sober man in the crew, and when we went to move in the morning, I backed the engine over a pig pen, killing a litter of pigs and breaking the water glass, which I had a deuce of a time to plug up. We moved and set, but my head was rather bad, so I hit the bottled stuff pretty hard, and felt better. We pulled the water tank close to the engine and went in to dinner. After dinner, eight of the crew lay down in the shade of the water tank, and the remainder in the shade of the stack. I filled the lubricators, and looking at my gauge saw that I had forty-odd pounds of steam, not being able to tell much about the water the glass being broken, I tried the gauge cocks. No water. "I went over to the water tank to ask the tank man if he had put in the water, as I had asked him to when he came back with the full tank, but found him dead drunk and incoherent, so I de- cided to give him the benefit of the doubt, as I knew the boss would be 'sore' if I drew the fire and delayed the outfit for two or three hours. So I pulled the whistle cord twice and the men in the shade of the tank sat up and cursed everything individually and collectively. Then I turned on the injector, but it didn't work very well ; but it suddenly picked up and began to work faster than I had ever seen it. If I had not been half drunk I would have known instantly what was the matter, and shut it off, but by the time a suspicion had entered my head and I had glanced at the gauge, it was too late. I remember that it showed one hundred and seventy-eight pounds. I remember shouting a warning and jumping off the foot-rest to run, but stumbled and fell just as the engine boiler let go. How or why I got out of it with my life, and nothing but this scar, is something I do not know. After the terrible concussion, however, I got up dazed but sober. I could not see a thing for dust, and took but three or four steps before I ran into the water tank wheel. It was tipped up on its side. I called, and a man on the far side of the stack answered, 'What in is the matter?' "The dust settled, and I saw that the water from the ,tank THE MAN WITH A SCAR 147 had run out and made a big pool around it; but I saw something else that I shall remember with horror when everything else shall have faded — something that booze and I were responsible for— a sight that wakes me up in the stillness of the night to punish me, and that compels me to turn down a drink on every occasion. 1 saw eight fine young men dead in the mud and bloody water in the pool under the water tank." For the space of ten counts there was silence, and no one looked at the engineer in his sorrow, or at the stranger who should make apology for hasty words to the sheriff, who otherwise would have a disagreeable duty to perform. An accurately thrown bottle broke the silence with a sudden crash, as it struck the hub of the toll wagon wheel. "I don't blame you a bit," said the stranger softly. "All right," said the boss snapping shut a watch, and forty seconds later the dust again commenced to rise above the hum- ming, flashing cylinder teeth, as the first bundle of grain slowly approached them, and suddenly disappeared. MURRAY, UTAH A BEAUTY SPOT AT THE PANAMA-PACIFIC EXPOSITION The Palace of Fine Arts, from a distance, appeared like an ancient ruin overgrown with vegetation sprung up in the course of centuries The building is 1,100 feet long, and the rotunda to the right, 16o feet high A Corinthian colonnade followed the line of the building. There were weeping willows, and groups of evergreen shrubs on the islands and inlets of the lagoon. Thousands ot periwinkles, violets, calla lilies and calla bulbs, to say nothing of the marvdous ami costly *tatuarj in the-surrounding grounds, and the unparalleled display of fine a.t from a 1 parts of the world, in the building, made this structure one of the most remarkable artistic achievements of the wonderful Exposition.