Man's Responsibility

Man's Responsibility By Mrs. L. H. Roylance

Five men sat in front of the little frame commissary Larry, :

Ryan, and Lynch, smoking; Hal, whittling, and the old doctor, quietly looking out across the stream at the new green-plumed firs on the opposite hill. The great derrick at the other end of the steel bridge was outlined against the sky like some giant monster, its huge arm outstretched as if ready to clutch its un- suspecting prey. From the little white tents across the grade came the flicker and twinkle of lamps and candles. In front of the three black, tarpapered shacks that were the bunkhouses, a camp fire burned. A little nearer the grade, in the shelter of some rocks, two men were boiling clothes in a can suspended on stocks. Half hidden in the pines, on the hill, were three tents, the homes of the wives of the walker, shovel engineer, and one of the bridge crew. From one of these came the sound of a phonograph, and to it all five men were listening. Twilight in the Cascades is very solemn, very still, and very beautiful. The purling rip- pie of the creek, the sigh of the wind in the pines, the touching melody of old songs, were not without their appeal even to men inured, as were these, to the mystic thrill of the wild. "Annie Laurie," "Killarney," "Nellie Gray," "My Old Ken- tucky Home," all the sweet old songs sounded on the still night air. Sometimes Hal in a clear youthful tenor hummed the fomiliar parts, Larry whistled softly the chorus of Killarney. Then, "She Has Fallen by the Wayside," floated to them. The words were peculiarly distinct, as if sung by an unseen singer. The song ended. They waited silently a few minutes, but evi- dently it was the last. Then Larry Keegan arose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, to hide deeper emotion, remarked casually, "Great song, that." t

"True, too, a girl can't make a mistake unless everybody s right there to push her down," said Lynch. "Humph," it was the old doctor who spoke, "you feltows are the kind that strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. You can sob about a song, yet, when you've made your stake, you 11

town and add to the crime already be among the first to go to there."

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"That," it was Larry who answered, "is entirely different. We're not responsible for what those women are. It's the girls like the misled girl of the song we're thinking of — somebody's sister or daughter. The other kind," scornfully, "are bad any- how, bad from the start, and nothing we could do would make any difference." "That's false," the old doctor answered vehemently, "too many, only God knows how many, of the fallen women of the world come from the best families. They are somebody's — daughters or sisters, too and invariably the beginning is be- cause of the base treachery of some man. Then there are always plenty of other men ready to make the downward path easy. I tell you when the judgment day comes, it's the men who will have the most to pay. Sometimes I think the women pay enough here." "You hadn't ought to been a 'physish,' Doc, you'd ought to been a preacher," drawled Ryan, the concrete foreman, a man almost illiterate, but with eye so true and judgment so sure that in his work the use of level and square were almost super- fluous. "The doctor's always handing it to the men, always holding them responsible," chaffed Larry, not unkindly. The old doctor, despite what they called his "preaching ways," was very dear to the boys. That he was no fairweather friend, more than one of them had had occasion to know during a hard period. "Down and out" times are not at all unusual among the men of the road who live sumptuously when they have a dollar, then lend and borrow to an incredible extent till "flush times" come again. " 'Tain't much use handin' out theories to a bunch like us," remarked Lynch dryly. "Seems to me like the kid," nodding at Hal, "is the only one among us who has anything to learn." "And if you had any conscience," said the doctor sharply, "you'd want to save him from traveling the road you have gone. I can't see why it is, when men are in the mire they want to drag everyone else in," he finished bluntly as he stamped off toward his tent. Larry laughed ringingly, "Don't let him scare you, kid; we won't bite, and this little old world is only half bad at that." "But isn't there some truth in what he said about the women?" Hal questioned, half timidly. Larry was his idol, but the old doctor's words were strangely in accord with the teach- ings of his own mother. Larry laughed again, this time a bit harshly, "You can't spoil a bad egg, kid. There are only two kinds of women, the — good and the bad the good will never be bad, and the bad 'ud

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be bad anyhow, if you and I had never lived." And the boy, more than half convinced, sauntered off to his bunk reconstruct- ing and readjusting all his old ideals to fit with the new and, to his adventure-loving soul, real conditions of life. A month later, their work in Oregon was finished. The same five men were in San Francisco awaiting definite word from the contractor about work he was planning to do in the San Joaquin valley. They had been waiting more than a week, and were getting very impatient. Then, one morning, Hal burst suddenly into the hotel room that he and Larry had shared since their arrival: "Good news," he cried eagerly, "Layton says we're to go out in the morning; everything's ready." Larry looked up, "Good," he answered, but not with his upual enthusiasm. Something in his voice made Hal look at him keenly; somehow he seemed a different Larry, as he sat there by the window fingering lovingly a little leather-covered book that lay on the sill. There was a certain softness in his usually sparkling blue eyes, and a tenderness in the rugged features; even the leather-covered skin seemed smoother and less withered. His heavy, black hair was rumpled, as if he had been running his fingers through it, a habit he had when think- ing. "What's up?" questioned Hal. Larry stood up leisurely, shook his great, loose-jointed frame lazily, and drew another chair to the window. "Oh nothing," a trifle sheepishly, "nothing only memories, memories of when I was a kid." Hal's eyes opened wide in surprise. Larry with memories! Larry Keegan, the strongest and least emotional man in camp, that is, except in rare intervals of anger when it was said there wasn't a temper like his on the road. Larry, who had spent four years in Africa, been in a South American revolution, mined in Alaska; a hero in a Filipino insurrection, who had tramped over nearly every state in the Union, not to mention little excur- sions to the Islands and Canada. Larry who persistently refused to shave in camp, but could dress like a Beau Brummel in the city! Somehow Hal had never thought of him as having mem- ories, at least not the kind that would bring that tender light into his eyes. He dropped obediently into the chair and waited. Larry tramped back and forth across the room, his hands behind his back and head slightly bent— in just the attitude he assumed when solving some perplexing bridge problem. Then he sat down beside Hal. "I was thinking about home," he said, as he fingered the leaves of the little book. "It's fifteen years since I left. See,

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this is the old homestead, these were maples along the walk, then this was a stretch of lawn, and back of it, just here, was mother's garden. That's where I remember her best. She was always among the flowers. Father had been dead many years. He died just after Annie, my only sister, was born. See?" and he turned the leaves rapidly till he came to a much-fingered picture of a girl, "this is Annie." It was a young, sweet-looking — face, with soft, dark eyes, and a head of fluffy, black hair a face that was very pretty, very feminine and, contrasted with Larry's rugged features, a little weak. "Annie was eight years younger than I; she was our baby" -Larry's eyes were very tender. "You can't know," he added simply, "just how dear she was to me. She was only fifteen — when I ran away. I don't know why I went love of adventure, I guess. I stayed four years, hardly ever writing home. Then I went back. Sometimes I wish I'd never gone. Things were so different. Annie'd gone away, too, eloped the year before with some artist fellow; and mother, the little mother who'd always — been so busy and so sunny, was old years older. She'd sit for — hours every day in the garden just quiet and silent thinking, I guess, of Annie. I hadn't been home long when she died, and her last words were: "Find our little Annie for me, Larry take care of her if she isn't happy." "I telegraphed the news of mother's death to the little town in Kansas, where Annie's last letter came from. She wasn't there, and no one seemed to know anything about her. Then I sold the old place, and went west in search of her. I spared neither money nor effort, but Annie had disappeared I've never heard of her since. I think that's why I am what I am. When a man hasn't anyone to work for, he well he — — doesn't care." Larry stood up and raised the shade higher, "Looks like rain, in the west," he said, in his normal tones, and Hal knew that the door to old memories, so unexpectedly opened, had been as definitely closed. An hour later the camp doctor came in and announced brusquely that he was to travel with them: "We leave here to- night, and go by train to Oldsvale, breakfast there, then we take the stage, have dinner out of our pockets, and no supper till we get to the Ferry. Then we walk out to camp, we ought to get in by ten, tomorrow night." "Sounds rather slim. Are you sure we can get supper at the Ferry?" "Yeh; Layton says there's a Halfway house there, run by a woman and her daughter. The woman, thev say, is a demi monde, and the girl is headed that way, but the place is clean,

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and the 'eats' are good; anyhow, it's the only place we can get a meal at all." Larry shrugged his shoulders. The character of the place was of small moment to him, but to Hal the little trip promised to be in the nature of an adventure — a stepping just inside the fringe to catch a glimpse of a brilliant variegated Bohemia be- yond. California, in late summer, when the grass is dried and brown and the very trees seem lifeless, is not attractive, and the long, dull journey did not add to the favor with which they viewed the old roadhouse, when at last the stage drew up in front of it. It was a tall, ramshackle old building with many- paned windows guiltless of curtains. At one side was a small, general store and postoffice; on the other, a motley group of shacks designated by a staring white sign as a Chinese laundry. "Ye gods, 'tis the end of the earth," exclaimed the ever elo- quent Larry, as they gathered grips and bags from the stage and stepped up to the door marked, "Entrance." The interior was scarcely more inviting. A rickety flight of stairs, uncarpeted, — faced the entrance a pair of portiers, hung crookedly, screened a door at the left. A counter, with rows of bottles and glass cases, reached half way across the lobby to the series of alcoves that served as a dining room. — At the desk sat a girl, a very pretty girl a girl with lips and cheeks that were too red, eyes too alluring, and hair too — obviously fluffed the kind of girl who at maturity would incline to contralto tones, diamonds and splashed Oriental silks. Larry looked at her questioningly. She flashed a smile that revealed two rows of dazzling white teeth. "Some chicken," he said to Hal in an undertone, somewhat louder than a whisper. The girl dimpled; apparently such doubtful compliments were neither distasteful nor unusual. A sign, Soft Drinks, hung over the low glass case on the counter. "Two root beers," said Larry. She looked at the sign then at them, meaningly, "With a punch," she said suggestively. "No;" Larry spoke gruffly, "straight." Then, as he sank — into a chair at a table in one of the little alcoves "a kid like that; what's the matter with the laws in this state!" Hal looked at him; evidently even Larry, seasoned as he was, had qualms and standards. Then the old doctor hustled in and seated himself at their "It's supper time," he announced, drawing out his watch table. — — "and I'm starved. I say" turning to the girl "call us a wait- ress, will you?" The girl tapped a bell, and a woman came quietly in from the rear. The doctor looked at her curiously, as she glided

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quickly about arranging the table. Somehow, this was not the type of woman he had expected to see. There was something of refinement in the slim figure, and the beautifully arranged — hair black hair streaked with pure white; the slender, well- groomed hands spoke of better days. A soft, black gown accen- — tuated the pallor of her face a face heavily marked with the ravages of sin and sorrow. Eyes that were dull, as if veiled and set deep, heavily underlined with purple, a brow strangely fur- rowed, hollow cheeks, lips that were drawn tight, as if in useless, eternal protest. A wreck, a haggard, broken wreck, of what had once been a beautiful woman. Larry, who had been deeply absorbed in the menu card, looked up "I say, Molly," he began in his genial way, "can't we ;

have some grapes?" At the sound of his voice, the woman started, then turned, and looked full at him. A sudden startled light leaped into her eves. She grew deathly pale, one trembling hand reached out to a chair-back for support. "Larry!" it was as if the word had been wrenched from her. Larry half arose and stared at her, intently. Surprise, in- credulity and finally conviction struggled for supremacy in his mobile features. "Annie!" he breathed huskily, "Annie!" Instantly the pictured face of Annie leaped to Hal's consciousness. Surely this wreck of a woman could not be that sweet-faced girl! Yet, as he looked, he knew that it was. The same deep dark eyes, the broad, high forehead with the hair rolled softly back! There could be no doubt. It was the face of the girl of old memories. The Doctor, alert and self-possessed as ever, glanced quickly about. Two or three men stood in the lobby. The bright- eyed girl was chatting vivaciously with the young stage driver. He arose, and his quiet voice brought Larry and the woman to a sense of present conditions. "Isn't there a private room where you can talk?" he asked, in a low tone, "and Hal and I will be back." The woman turned to a side entrance, but Larry spoke peremptorily, "No; don't go, Annie," he explained, "you don't mind, do you? I want them to know, because they are the nearest friends I ever had." She nodded assent, and they followed her into the little parlor. She was very calm, too calm, as she drew up chairs around the table for them and seated herself where she could command a view of all three faces: "It's my story you want, I suppose?" Larry nodded. "There isn't much to tell," she began, her voice a dull low monotone that had in it yet an echo of contralto. It was like some old instrument, tuneless now, but holding still a faint tone of the wonderful music that had once vibrated in it. Her face.

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clearly outlined against the dull leather of the big chair, showed the traces of many tears; and, deeper still, traces of tears un- wept. As he looked, Larry's own words, so carelessly uttered, ran through Hal's mind, "The good will never be bad, and the bad are bad from the start." "I ran away because I had gone wrong, and I couldn't tell mother. Maurice took me straight to New Orleans where the marriage was performed. I meant to go back home, after a few months, after the birth of the baby, I — — thought" there was a hint of tremble in the tone "I thought mother might forgive me easier then. I wrote to her a few times, and told her of our marriage, and told her I'd come to see her as soon as I could. But we kept drifting farther west. We were in western Kansas, when Monica was born. When she was two days old, he told me there had never been a mar- riage. The ceremony had been performed by a friend, with no authority. I wanted to go home, then, but pride forbade." The tragic sentence came with as little emotion as if she had been passing the time of day. There was no hint of the shock ehe must have felt, no word of the struggle of pride and con- science. "Maurice never seemed to work, yet he always had plenty, and I, never having known the value of money, never stopped to ask where he got it. Then, one night, several months later, he came home at eleven o'clock looking very pale and ex- cited, and told me to be ready to catch the 12:10 train west, and travel as light as I could. I thought it strange he brought along two massive trunks that I had never seen before, but when we arrived in California he told me all about it. He was the leader of a gang of counterfeiters, and had narrowly escaped arrest and certain conviction. Then we set up this place, and for several \ears he carried on his operations here, and I sold liquor under cover of soft drinks, like Monica does now. He threatened to — — give himself up to the law if I didn't, and well I couldn't bear publicity, nor did I want Monica's father known as a crim- inal. When Monica was eight, he was killed in a runaway acci- dent, some of his pals carried away his outfit, and I was left with nothing but this place. I tried at first to make a living honestly, tried for two years." The hunted look in her eyes deepened at the memory of those two years. "But I couldn't. — Then Monica became ill, very ill, and well I couldn't see my baby sick and hungry. I couldn't see her slowly dying, so she — — threw out her hands in a gesture of utter despair I took the way." easiest "And since then you have been — " Larry's cold, stern eyes .flashed the unfinished question. Her face grew, if possible, a shade grayer, as she answered in flat tones stripped of all emo- tion, "We had to live." Larry's face grew harder, colder. It is ever thus, the man

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with the sin-scarred soul, the one who has written the blackest chapters in the book of life, is the first to demand that every page recorded by the women who are his own, be pure as the driven snow. "And the girl?" the air was tense, electrical, as he threw the question at her. It was as if everything, justice, mercy, his final judgment of her, hung in the balance awaiting that answer. Hal and the old doctor leaned forward in an agony of suspense. Faint color mounted to the woman's cheeks, dull fire flashed in her eyes. "No!" she said sharply. "No!" and they knew that she spoke the truth, "she is a drawing card for the place, but as yet she doesn't know what she represents." Larry drew a deep breath; it was as if a mighty storm had passed and left him limp and weak, but safe. Then the fire and the color receded from the woman's features and the haggard, wearied look came back, as she began in the old, dull monotone: "There are always plenty of men ready to make the down path easy, once you've started, you go so gradually you don't realize how far you've gone, but the life has been too much for me; my health is broken. They say I have not long to live, Larry," she hesitated, and into her eyes came that wistful longing that speaks of a vast yearning for what might have been, "Oh Larry," then the wells of emotion seemed suddenly to burst open. Her eyes filled, and a sob choked in her throat, "how, oh how can I die, and face mother over there?" She leaned across the table and burst into an abandon of sobs. Larry sat motionless, apparently unmoved, watching her. "Remember, son," there was no hint of reproach in the old doctor's voice, "you, too, will have the little mother to meet!" A strange look came into Larry's eyes. It was as if the question of men's morals, hitherto a mere matter of opinion or environment, had become suddenly personal, as if for the first time he understood that to someone, somewhere, the wreck of every woman's life had a meaning, as deep as this. His stern eyes clouded, a little of the old, boyish look came back. Perhaps he remembered his mother's last words, "Find our Annie for me, Larry." He arose, and crossing over to her, laid his hand on her shoulder. "Annie," he said huskily. The old doctor signalled to Hal, and the two left the room. "It is better to leave them alone," he said as he silently turned the key in the door. "Larry has a heart of gold, and she is little Annie to him, still." They stepped out into the street and walked slowly over toward the hills. "Larry spoke of a piece of land —

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"Yes; four years ago he bought a ranch, perhaps he will take her there, and maybe," the doctor's voice was speculative, "maybe there is some chance now for the girl." "Always plenty of men ready to make the down path easy," her words, almost the same words the doctor had used in the little camp in the Cascades. Over and over they pounded in Hal's brain, as the little tragedy re-enacted itself before him. "I guess, Doctor," Hal spoke tentatively, "you were right, a man ought to live straight and clean; for a life wrecked like Annie's, some one will surely have to pay." "It isn't only Annie's life," they were swinging slowly up the hill toward camp now, "think of all the other lives involved." The night was clear and blue and cool. The stars were very bright, a few soft clouds trailed along the misty way. A Cali- fornia night, a night of dreams and fancies! As the old doctor talked, visions of the past, dream-scenes of the "might have been" unfolded like pictures on a screen. "There was the girl's mother — Dimly he saw the little gray haired woman in her garden among the periwinkles and Canterbury bells, grieving alone for the beautiful blossom she had lost, grieving until at last a merciful God had called her to a fairer garden. "And Annie—" The sunny, fair-faced girl, then the haggard world-weary woman, flashed upon the screen, then dissolved again as a dream- scene shaped itself. A little old lady in a garden with grand- children, the happy little family that might have been Annie's the little family that should have brought her youth to her again. "And Larry—" The stern, rugged man whose few pitiful ideals were now so rudely shattered; like dim faces from the shadows came the half-formed vision of what under other conditions Larry could have been, and now would never be. "The girl—" Her face flashed before him, vivid little passion-flower, bom of sin and sorrow, nurtured amid evil, who could say what pictures would be cast upon the screen of life for her! They had reached the top of the hill. Before them lay the little valley. The air was heavy with the scent of grapes and autumn fruits. In the distance the lights of the camp twinkled. The moon, just coming up over the hill, flooded the night with light. It seemed strangely symbolic of the flood of new under- standing, pouring into the boy's soul. "And generations yet unborn"—the Doctor's voice was very closely are low, "we have only seen the beginning, lad, for so one us can sin without in the lives of men knit that not of