Belle of Bear City

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 382, 3 September 1903, Page 8

Belle of Bear City

I By WM. PERRY BROWN. j

t I (Copyright, 1901. by Authors Sjndican)

"fllwO YEARS without sight of a I woman? What a fife! If one cotaid have two years without sight a)f a man, now—" She glanced at Sterling meditatively from the hammock, as he swung one long leg over the arm of his chair and twiddled a raw gold nugget doing dubious duty as a watch charm. "Could you imagine such a horror?" fee quizzed. •'lt would be heavenly. Men grow wearisome when they fancy themselves in love. "All of them —O, most sweat satiety?" "M —m —tell me about your life up there," she said, briskly. "Of course the cold must have been terrific, and with no news, no papers, no women, "No anything desirable, you might •dd, except the 'grub,' the fires, the gold dust and— yes, there was one thing else which became to me, at least, more satisfactory than all the rest of our meager comforts." This last with a steady, admiring •tare that caused Miss Lamar to slowly droop her eyelids, as if the long lashes might veil the faint blush that •eemed to ripple beneath the white down of the rounded cheeks below. "And what was this eminently desirable thing?" she continued, imperiously. "We called her the Belle of Bear City. Fun!" he chuckled to himself. "You would have thought it dizzily absurd could you have seen us line up every morning and make our bows. We •ven reserved our smartest small talk for her—seemed as if she could hear, jrou know." "Why not, unless she was 'dizzily' £»af? So the most desirable thing turns out to be feminine after all. I might have guessed it, if there was a get-at-able woman inside the arctic circle. What was she —some Esquimau?" This last as a sort of debative Challenge. "Not on your life. Neither was she a Siwash, Chilcat—nor any other Alaskan monstrosity. Ah! how we did adore that girl!" "Well, really!" Here Miss Lamar evinced sundry dignified symptoms of rising. "How do you reconcile this withyours.ayingtwoyears in that horrid hole without seeing a woman?" "It is a gravely asserted, "that we did." "Wit is one thing, Mr. Sterling."said •lie, adding hauteur to dignity. "Mendacity is quite another. Even actress,«s are supposed to know that." She rose, darting at him a final glance, neither meditative nor deba*Cve. Had he not seen her look that ▼ery way at the unsuccessful suitor in "Hearts Are Trumps," her latest stage •access? Was she really going? Appalled lest he had offended, yet thrilled indefinably that anything he might say snnld be of more than zephyrlike importance to move her. Sterling timidly put out a detaining hand. "Please don't go." he ventured. "I had no idea of—of—you see, it was paly a picture, after all." Miss Lamar paused tentatively, with her hand on hit chair back. "Youseem overburdened with conunBrums to-day," she commented. "Why not solve them yourself?" "But, do you not understand?" "I am a poor hand at guessing. Bestride*, it is too much trouble." This with a sort of dry weariness which, Bowever, seemed -to impel her to forget her previous intention and sink languidly back in the hammock. '■ Sterling grasped his opportunity by Uaking his hands together around one drawn-tip knee and gazing sleepily into Vacancy, as if still mesmerized by the magic memory of the elusive Belle of Bear City. "There wereseven of us fellows caged In one large cabin that winter. Most of us, being college bred, we herded ".together—birds of a feather, you know. It was a dreary time. No sun at all ,#or three months, the mercury 50 degrees below or worse, with an ever bellowing surf grinding the mush ice •long shore, and not a scrap of news, nor a woman than Nome City, .130 miles away. "Always excepting the mysterious 'Belle of Bear City," she interpolated, a strictly artificial yawn. "Poor thing! Alone among all those men—what did you say was the population?" "T did not say, but there must have Been a hundred snowed in under the ffundri I"i T.. and every mother's son. pfusaman." H"e grinned feebly. "Always except—" she began again, sjrfcen his syes caused her to relent.

"Don't," he pleaded. "You queens of •the S'fage have your trials, of course, but they are apt to be those resulting from satiety rather than starvation. We seven got so that we hated the sight of each other only a degree less than we abhorred the average Bear Cityite cached in the other cabins. Fling a dozen society swells into a pig sty and they will herd together; not because they weary of each other less, but to avoid the pigs." "No wonder she was popular." Satirical emphasis—feminine emphasis on the persmal pronoun. "How and when did she arrive?" "In an old newspaper some fellow unexpectedly fished from his chest. There she was-on the front page, photogravured to the life. Rare and radiant she looked to us poor devils socially starving under the north star. A Tlinook squaw from St. Michaels-with her hair done up in beads and lish oil would have soothed our eyesight. Imagine the effect this ravishingvision produced upon pur esthetic sensibilities, as we tacked her up on the wall and worshiped. The golden calf of the Israelites was nothing by comparison. "Dear me! All this masculine splutter over a mere picture?" And such is the divine perversity of the sex that she seemed vaguely disappointed. "Sure. But such a picture! It grew upon us as a Botticelli Madonna is said to permeate your very being if you only look at it long enough. At least that was the way I came to feel." "Yes?" Miss Lamar's lip curled; for little as she professed to care for man in the abstract it did not seem right that man as an individual should waste his adoration on a picture, while the real article abounded in other parts of the globe. "Yes," he blandly continued. "I was the seventh man. you know. That is. I came into our mess as number seven, which, being considered a lucky numeral—T say!" he suddenly sat bolt upright. "Are you ait all superstitious?" "Of course, T am." She shuddered sympathetically. "If you had been No. 13 now—" "I think I should have given up right there; but being the seven'h man, T said to myself: T will find the original of this picture some fine day." "Aha!" with a chilling accent, as if to show that her interest in the Belle of Bear City would -relapse into indifference if that aggravating creature pushed herself beyond the photogravure stage of existence. "I kept on saying it all winter," continued Sterling, ahstraciedly. "Later on, when we struck it rich and the others forgot, I would go up to lser ladyship, after a wash and brush-up. and repeat my vow. Tliei the boys would satirically intimnti that our belle had made at least, one permanent mash." , As Sterling enthused himself over his words. Miss Lamar became ironically skeptical. "This is good enough for a play. We must consult Fitch." Fitch was her manager. "But. when luck evinced itself in a more solid way by making you suddenly rich, I suppose her ladyship had to take a gallery seat—" "On the contrary, she became my 'bright particular' more than ever. I hid named my claim 'Bear City Belle's, No. 7.' How the boys did laugh. But when I began to slu'ee out t«n dollars to the pan, they said No. 7 was all right, and that the Belle was no flirt-—" Here Sterling, with a side glance at the actress, meditatively added: "I have often wondered if they were right." "I suppose you found that out long ago, if there Was an original to that photo—or was it a newspaper? 'l-hev print anyone's picture literally anyone's. It is rather a distinct: a to be let alone. Mine, yon ask? Look on the news stands. Such caricatures!" "Such divinities!" he interrupted, eagerly. "I loved your picture Img before T saw you over the footlights. Then T made myself known—" "By persecuting poor Filch until he had to do something to rid himself of you." "And now—am I not your slave? Dear Gertrude, if I may call you so; have you not guessed my riddle? Where are your intuitions? You knew I love you deeply, "Alas! Poor Belle of Pr- r City!" She raised her arms in a mock tragic gesture. - "Has the magic- seven failed her. who brought luck to you? Oh, faith i.e.-s swain!" He s.-v.v r'-rf c'-o v.-.ts rr>t displeased, though i: -cpmed likely that she l.ad guessed hut half his riddle. Rising, he made, a sudden dash through the open wind;... ~i room near where they sat on the s:i:nmer hotel piazza, but returning a'-iost instant!y, holding out a batteredlooV.ng newspaper print.-frau-'d in costly ebony, with an inscription, in Sterl : ng's script beneath, on v.!;'.->h Miss Lamar studiously fixed her eyes, white the faint rose tint on her cheeks deepened into a" delicate glow. "The Original Bc'le of Bear Citv." she read aloud. "God bless her! i Where sha'l I find her?" ' Wh.-si fh-Mr ej-es met again, ?*?rling r-< aliz. d that she had guessed the other l.:»l'f of his ridd'". "W.Vre si -ill I find her?" he echo. d. "I want to tell her 1 am n:>( fai'h'.s. but fnithful —always." "Here." raid Yirs Lamar, adding to h> r blush an even more convincing Ft: He. as she resigned b.tli hai d o his eager clasp. '■[•'• is!i I y! You misrht have told i • we< ' -go." "O! •: Ormi 'Ah vyam nnderstw? ?i\ feelii!£s." r. • - Sterling. "Listen to t.i••• rVrs«ui sage: " "!"••.>s= w" ~n; -vi;h Jove w« worship Ir. :■ vp u- 5 ■ ' ■ , ■•• ll« ■■ u ■■> ■ I 'I