Mrs. Jerome had 'phoned to the home of her maid, Susan, as soon as she reached the city. Luckily the girl was in. Mrs. Jerome directed the girl to go to the house of her employer at once. She had been in a highly nervous condition when she left the Ten Oaks Ranch. and the gloom of the empty rooms did not tend to lessen this condition; she confided everything to the faithful Susan. "It was our misfortune to have been born with an appendix. Mrs. Farrel's you don't know her, Susan-was removed at the psychological moment. She has it where she can look at it whenever she wants to, and she doesn't have to worry for fear she'll swallow a seed or something. It is in a bottle of alcohol. Her husband paid Dr. Hoffman Gordon one thousand dollars for the operation. Mr. Farrel that a thousand dollars is entirely too much to pay-so she told me. I think most men are such ungrateful creatures." says She twisted in her seat; and the alarmed Susan asked: "Have you a pain now, Ma'am?” "No." Mrs Jerome's eyelids quivered slightly, but her gaze was unswerving. "Speaking of operations set me to thinking of my side. It does feel sore." "A cup of tea and toast would set you up," Susan suggested. "And then if you'd get into your kimono and slippers and let down your hair, I'd brush it for you. I think it's more nervousness than anything else" "No special soreness," Mrs Jerome murmured, following her own train of thought. "But Mrs. Farrel said that she didn't have any; and after the operation Doctor Hoffman Gordon told her that if she had waited another moment gangrene When Mrs. Jerome finally had been made more comfortable, she ordered: "Darken the room, please, Susan. Don't come to me until I ring. I'm going to try to sleep off some of my depression.' rang. A short time later Mrs. Jerome again As Susan entered the room and pulled up the shade so that she could see, her eyes widened with quick alarm as she looked at Mrs. Jerome's pale, worn face. "It's chronic appendicitis, Susan, and I only found out a short time ago that I have it," she harped. "You don't seem to have any fever, Mrs. Jerome," ventured Susan. "No-no-no fever?"-with a slow, hesitating movement of the head. "Mrs. Farrel didn't have fever either; but she would have died if they hadn't taken her appendix out. Send for the doctor quickly. Minutes, even seconds count. Hurry, Susan! Go to the White's next door and phone. Mercy! It's eleven o'clock!" "You didn't say as to who you wanted, M'm. Did you want Doctor Bryce?" "No! It's a wonder I'm alive after having had that old-timer so long. I must have a sub-normal temperaturesighing her fatigue. "I feel all a-flutter and strange. I'm so sorry I went to the house party!" After Susan had 'phoned and succeeded in getting the doctor, she returned to the bedroom. "Did you get him?" "Yes'm. He'll be here immediately." "You shall have extra pay on your next pay-day, Susan, for all you've done if I live. If I don't-" sadly— "tell the Jerome family it was my wish. I intended to have the operation tomorrow; but no doubt it should be done at once.' "Would you mind, M'm? I have a thermometer with me. Let me take your temperature. It must be either above or below normal for you to have appendicitis. I was in training, M'm, for six months at the Hospital, and that's what I remember." "Mrs. Farrel says not. She didn't have any change in temperature," replied the invalid, pushing back her hair with an abstracted gesture. "If an appendix has to be such a bother, why wasn't it put where it's easily gotten at?" Susan made no answer, but placed the thermometer beneath Mrs. Jerome's tongue, and after several moments removed the instrument. Janice Jerome's gaze followed uneasily as her maid maneuvered to get exactly the correct light for reading the scale. "Absolutely normal, Mrs. Jerome." "But I feel so badly! It must be my appendix," she replied as she turned to the wall. How I wish Mr. Jerome were home!" did not anticipate, today, as we were motoring in, that your case was so urgent." Her lips narrowed to a thin, white line. "Make arrangements at once," she commanded, determinedly, rising on her elbow, "and I'll sign whatever you have for me to sign." Susan and Doctor Hoffman Gordon assisted her. "Now, lie perfectly flat, Mrs. Jerome. Don't move that side any more than you can possibly help. Leave all the arrangements to me, and you'll not be sorry. Janice Jerome bit her lips to keep back the tears. "This is the first time I have ever done anything without consulting Mr. Jerome; but I'll do just as you say, Doctor," she replied, docilely, for she was beginning to feel the polite antagonism in his manner. Susan's thoughts coincided; but Doctor Hoffman Gordon had been summoned. A half-hour later he entered the room, his well-groomed figure and genial smile radiating confidence. As he crossed to where the invalid lay, she, too, felt as did her friend, Mrs. Farrel. Doctor Bryce was surely a professional pessimist compared with Doctor Hoffman Gordon. He counted her pulse and took her temperature not once, but twice. She watched him with wistful, melancholy eyes. "What is it, Doctor?" she asked. "Is dollars in the bank!" "If you and Mrs. Farrel were not such near friends and had not talked so freely about her case, my professional delicacy would not have allowed me to mention her name in this matter; but you and she are so near and dear to each other, I know you'll understand when I tell you that your case is much worse than hers. Fifteen hundred dollars is a reasonable fee, in this instance." it as bad as Mrs. Farrel's case?" He feigned not to hear. "You say that Mr. Jerome is away?" as if going on with his thoughts. Her eyes did not leave his face as she replied: "Yes. It will be three days before I get word to him, unless he has started home." "That's bad," said he, frowning. And again he paused. "I wish to know, Doctor," she said impatiently. "Well, I think I'd better get you into the Hospital at once." A feeling of fear swept over her as she watched him making out a check for her to sign. This finished, he wrote a statement also for her signature. Then he motioned for Susan to act as a witness. "What we need in your case, Mrs. Jerome, is quick, decisive action," he said, patting her hand reassuringly. "I "But I haven't more than six hundred "You can give me your cheque for six hundred dollars, and sign a note for the balance. Of course, had your daughter remained my affianced wife, it would have been 'all in the family', so to speak; and the expense would have been much less-" "Hasn't she has she-? She has?" Janice Jerome gibbered, incoherent in her amazement. He nodded. "But we are not discussing Miss Charlotte-it is you of whom we must think. Why worry your family?" he continued. "In an hour, or less, you'll be off the operating table. I'll go out and 'phone for the ambulance while your little maid looks after you. At the same time, I'll call up the Hospital and make all necessary arrangements." "What time is it, Doctor Gordon?" "It is twelve o'clock-midnight; but that need not worry you, my dear Mrs. Jerome. Everything will be easily arranged. At two o'clock, or a little later, I will be here for you." As soon as the door was closed, Janice Jerome asked for ink and paper, and wrote a holographic will. Then she broke into violent sobbing. She looked mournfully at Susan through wet, silken lashes. "My porch plants, the birds, and all the things I love! Who'll look after them? Mr. Jerome and Charlotte have each other; but-" Susan tried as best she could to comfort. "If you'll only 'phone Miss Jerome!" she pleaded. Janice Jerome shook her pretty head. "Never! My daughter has enough to fret her! I wonder why she broke her engagement to Dr. Hoffman!" Susan busied herself gathering up the necessary things for Mrs. Jerome's suit case. "D-don't tell Mr. Jerome, Susan, that I blame the black opal but I do. If I die, tell my daughter to bury it, or throw it into the ocean. Never let another Jerome wear it!" Susan flushed. thought they'd make such a stunning feather turban; and I never dre-amed that they were unlucky. Now I know; and I'll burn every last feather!" It was after three o'clock when an ambulance rumbled to a stop before the Jerome home. There was the sound of hurried footsteps. A tap at the door sent the color from Janice Jerome's cheeks. "The ambulance is here, Mrs. Jerome." It was Dr. Hoffman Gordon who made the announcement. "Don't jar that side, Mrs. Jerome, or there'll be a penalty to pay." He went expertly about the business of directing the ambulance men. Janice Jerome, before she realized it, had been lifted and placed upon the stretcher. They carried her down the richly carpeted stairs, through the hall, ghostly gray in the faint dawn, down the steps Mrs. Jerome gave a last despairing look at the place that shrined her heart as the ambulance door closed, shutting out her world, shutting in a badly frightened little woman who realized, at last, that she had been caught in the trap of her own credulity. Susan, gazing after the rapidly disap "Mrs. Jerome, please don't blame the pearing ambulance through a mist of opal. It's my-" "Your what, Susan?" "My-my bunch of peacock feathers. I tears, did not for the moment observe the shabby automobile that had drawn up to (Continued on Page 95) THE CALL FROM WOODLANDS By B. J. Wyman When the sun has lured the em'rald And I heed the call from woodlands Where the vagrant winds like spirits Shaded nooks where mosses grow; I forget my cares and sorrows The Files Narrative Which Unexpectedly Made Bret Harte a Literary Celebrity The Author's Opinion and the Publisher's Objections. By E. Clarence O'Day Exactly 52 years ago, in the August number of the Overland Monthly, Francis Bret Harte, editor of the magazine, published his "Luck of Roaring Camp," which was to place him, at once in the front rank of American fiction writers. The story was to have been printed in the first number of the Overland in July, 1868, but the publisher was apprehensive that the new note it struck would jar the sensibilities of the pioneer public. Harte's literary judgment was sustained in the verdict of the magazine's readers and the praise of Boston critics. The principal publishing house of Boston at once offered to pay the editor of the Overland Monthly his own price for all the stories he wished to send them, and it soon became apparent that the Pacific Coast would find it difficult to meet the competition of the older centers for its famous author. The Overland Monthly paid Harte a salary of $5000 a year and $100 for every story he contributed, but it proved insufficient to retain the muchsought writer. Bret Harte in 1868 rude cabin on the outer edge of the clearing. Conversation was carried on in a low tone, but the name of a woman was frequently repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the camp: "Cherokee Sal." Perhaps the less said of her the better. She was a coarse, and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman. But at that time she was the only woman in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in sore extremity, when she most needed the ministration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyrdom-hard enough to bear even in the seclusion and sexual sympathy with which custom veils it-but now terrible in her loneliness. The primal curse had come to her in that original isolation, which must have made the punishment of the first transgression so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expiation of her sin, that at the moment when she most lacked her sex's intuitive sympathy and care, she met only the half-contemptuous faces of her masculine associates. Yet a few of the spectators were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought it was "rough on Sal," and in the contemplation of her condition, for a moment rose superior to the fact that he had an ace and two bowers in his sleeve. It will be seen, also, that the situation was novel. Deaths were by no means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had been dismissed from the camp effectively, finally, and with no possibility of return, but this was the first time that any one had been introduced ab initio. Hence the excitement. "You go in there, Stumpy," said a prominent citizen known as "Kentuck," addressing one of the loungers. "Go in there, and see what you kin do. You've had experience in them things.' Perhaps there was fitness in the selection. Stumpy, in other climes, had been the putative head of two families; in fact, it was owing to some legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp-a city of refuge-was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice, and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked its pipe, and awaited the issue. The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. One or two of these were actually fugitives from justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. Physically, they exhibited no indication of their past lives and character. The greatest scamp had a Raphael face, with a profusion of blond hair; Oakhurst, gambler, had the melancholy air and intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest and most courageous man was scarcely over five feet in height, with a soft voice and an embarrassed, timid manner. The term "rough" applied to them was a distinction rather than a definition. Perhaps in the minor details of fingers, toes, ears, etc., the camp may have been deficient, but these slight omissions did not detract from their aggregate force. The strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand; the best shot had but one eye. Such was the physical aspect of the men that were dispersed around the cabin. The camp lay in a triangular valley, between two hills and a river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illuminated by the rising sun. The suffering woman might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon she lay-seen it winding like a silver thread until it was lost in the stars above. A fire of withered pine boughs added sociably to the gathering. By degrees the natural levity of Roaring Camp returned. Bets were freely offered and taken regarding the result. Three to five that "Sal would get through with it;" even, that the child would survive; side bets as to the sex and complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst of an exciting discussion an exclamation came from those nearest the door, and the camp stopped to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the pines, the swift rush of the river and the crackling of the fire, rose a sharp querulous cry-a cry unlike anything heard before in the camp. The pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, and the fire to crackle. It seemed as if Nature had stopped to listen, too. The camp rose to its feet as one man! It was proposed to explode a barrel of gunpowder, but, in consideration of the situation of the mother, better councils prevailed, and only a few revolvers were discharged; for, whether owing to the rude surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame forever. I do not think that the announcement disturbed them much, except in speculation as to the fate of the child. "Can he live now?" was asked of Stumpy. The answer was doubtful. The only other being of Cherikee Sal's sex and maternal condition in the settlement was an ass. There was some conjecture as to fitness, but the experiment was tried. It was less problematical than the ancient treatment of Romulus and Remus, and apparently as successful. When these details were completed, which exhausted another hour, the door was opened, and the anxious crowd, which had already formed themselves into a square, entered in single file. Beside the low bunk or shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly outlined below the blankets, stood a pine table. On this |