Broken to the Plow

was a feat too impossible to even attempt. He had few relations, and these few were remote and penniless, and his friends were equally lacking in financial resource. He was confident that he could

the effect that a poor man with a vision and integrity was a better chance any day than a millionaire lacking a goal or scruples. But in the end he was swung from any initiative by a passive desire to even his score with Brauer.

he had used the easiest weapons a woman possessed. She had meant well, Fred concluded, using that time-worn excuse which has served nearly every questionable act since the world began. And in the final analysis, he really blamed himself. Such humiliation was usually the price a man paid when he let the women of his household share in the financial responsibility. He should have hoed his own row and wiped the

nearly ten o'clock. He was picking up the mail that had been dropped through the

I think he must have a paper or something to serve on you… Matter of fact, h

anitor went down the hall, brushing the mar

den chill. But he managed, after a fashion, to fix his mind upon immediate problems. Twice during the morning h

red decided to walk down the stairs … the man followed at a nonchalant and discreet distance. St

over his lapse when he swung into Hjul's and took a seat near the window. He ordered a hot roast-beef sandwich and coffee as he shared his joke with the waitress. She brushed some crumbs from the table with a napkin, laughed, and went scampering for the order. Fred's eyes followed her retreat and fell sharply upon the line of men drifting in the narrow entrance. At the tag end loomed the figure of the ma

igh fog of a July morning in San Francisco. A delicious thrill from open spaces communicated itself to him. No, he would not go back to the office-it was Saturday, anyway, and, besides, he felt a vague desire for freedom and the tang of wind-clean air. He would ride out to Golden Gate Park and stroll leisurely through its length to the ocean… He walked briskly down Montgomery Street to Market, waited a few seconds at a saf

as being followed, and he had a confused sense of something impending, and yet he was unable or unwilling to face the issue honestly. There were moments when he glimpsed the truth, but he seemed unmoved by these truant realizations. Was he too tired to care? He used to wonder, when he read in the newspapers of some man overtaken by an overwhelming disgrace, how it was possible to go on living under such circumstances. Was his indifference of this afternoon the prelimina

he dipped suddenly down into the wilder reaches of the Park, taking aimless trails that wandered off into sandy wastes or fetched up quite suddenly upon the trimly bordered main driveway. He always had preferred the untamed stretches that lay beyond Stow Lake. Here, as a young boy, he had organized scouting parties when it was still a remote, almost an unforested sand pile. Later, when the trees had conquered its bleakness, Helen and he had

lready the breeze was tearing across the unscreened spaces and carrying damp wisps of fog with it. As he found his steps swi

Helen at Hilmer's and persuade her to dine with him somewhere downtown?… He remembered that he had not even telephoned her for two days. The conviction that had settled upon him during his walk through the Park woods de

izing smell of baked ham from the free-lunch counter, the thick, pungent clouds of tobacco smoke-all had been routed by chill, hypocritical virtue. One or two of the tables were surrounded by solemn circles of males getting speedily drunk in an effort to finish up the melancholy remains filched from some private stock, but their attempts at light-heartedness were very sad and maudlin. Fred was moving away when he heard his name

d and laughed and waved his arms about, calling upon everybody to witness his light-heartedness. Through the confused blur of faces surrounding him h

verywhere the drinks flowed in covert streams, growing viler and more nauseous as the pilgrimage advanced. Near Jackson Street they came upon a bedraggled pavilion of dubious gayety which lured them downstairs with its ear-splitting jazz orchestra. A horde of rapacious females descended upon them like starving locusts. Suddenly everybod

name?" he dem

," she

face, topped by a glory of fading red hair, thrust

isconsolately. "Go 'wa

e of her kind. "Neither do I," she as

alk!" he threw

eed; "anything you s

ered coffee … Ginger took Whiterock. They were silent. The music crashed and banged and

d in a whisper, "Tell me-has a snak

th her glance. "In a gra

es

orner-talking to a

ette himself. His voic

ou think h

vate detective," she appraised, shrewdly. "H

e's been following me

tab, eh?… Is frien

atch aside. The sharp little face op

check get out… Y

ed her. "That

ht it isn't!" he e

ree are coming this way… I guess they've got

three men were coming toward his tabl

for me?"

, we are," one of the men

s the

flashed his star. "You're w

hat. "All right… Le

the dancing space to the stairway. The music crashed furiously. Fred's associates were giving all

by a touch upon his arm. He had forgotten Ginger, but there s

I do anything? I've got a

rned about and waited.

ed at her

" he returned. "But don't

?… I'll go now and s

e of his ingratitude swept him. Whether it was the thing or not, it was impossible to wound the one person who st

number of the house

in the telephone bo

k for Mrs.

mer … the

builder. Do

. "Yes … I know

ing he found himself half flung, half dragged tow

matter?" h

group reached forward

und here while you turn on sob stuff with a d

ickly as I can,"

n to gather. Presently he recovered his breath. The blow had completely sobered and calmed him. He felt that he c

ng into the cage Fred Starratt tripped and lurched forward. He was rewarded by a stinging slap upon the face. He drew himself up,