The Long Chance

es between it and San Francisco on the north, and Los Angeles on the south, the litt

n of the doctrine of personal responsibility in the matter of a child with a club-foot. San Pasqual isn't respo

ts failings, is distinctive enough to warrant this, we will describe the town as it appeared early in the present decade; and, for that matter, will continue to appear, pending the day when they strike oil in the desert and San Pasqual picks itself together, so to speak, and begins to

where near by, mellowed by distance into gorgeous shades of turquoise and deep maroon. They are very far away, these mountains, even though their outlines are so distinct that they appear close at hand. The desert atmosphere has cast a kindly spell upon

he dust-devils play tag among the low sage and greasewood; the Joshua trees, rising in the midst of this desolation, stretch forth their fantastically twisted and withered arms, seeming to invoke a curse on nature herself while warning the traveler that the heritage of this land is death. There is a bearing down of one's spiri

main-line tracks a branch railroad now extends north across the desert, through the eastern part of Kern county and up the Owens river valley into Inyo, although at the time Donna Corblay enters into this story the railro

arlors," cheap restaurants, saloons and gambling houses, the post-office, a drug store, a tiny school-house with a belfry and no bell and the little row of cottages west of the ma

a full appreciation of the necessity for grammatical construction, for times have changed in San Pasqual, since it is no longe

ugh trains, the San Pasqualians met on neutral ground, experiencing mild mental relaxation watching the waitresses ministering to the gastronomic necessities of the day-coach tourists from the Middle West. At the

waitresses engaged in the innocent pastime of across-the-counter flirtations with conductors and brakemen. She was the joy of the men and the envy of the women. In fact, Donna was an exemplified copy of that distinctive personality with which we unconsciously invest any young woman upon whose capable shoulders must fall such multifarious duties as those already described; particularly when, as in Donna's case, they are accepted and disposed of with the gentle, kindly, interested yet impersonal manner

blay was an institution. That is quite tr

ere is only one Hat Ranch on earth and it may be found a half mile south of San Pasqual, a hundred

sposition to spurt and get by San Pasqual as quickly as possible. Hence, when the tourist approaching the station sticks his head out of the window or unwisely remains on the platform of the observation car, this forty-mile "zephyr," as

uliar style of masculine beauty. And, furthermore: damned was he who so far forgot tradition and local custom as to purchase his "every-day" hat elsewhere. He might buy his Sunday hat in Bakersfield or Los Angeles and still retain caste, but his every-day hat-never! Such a proceeding would have been construed by Donna's admirers as a direct attack on home industry. In fact, one made money by purchasing his ha

s-keepers" rule. There was a dead-line for hats beyond which no gentleman would venture, for, after a hat had once blown beyond the town limit

s than a dwelling-place and was surrounded by an adobe wall which enclosed about an acre of the Mojave desert. Originally it had been the habitation of a visionary who wandered into San Pasqual, established the ranch and sunk an artesian well. With irrigation the rich alluvial soil of the desert will grow anything, and the original owner

se who gloried in the convenience of fresh vegetables; while the fact that the vegetable culturist was now about to leave branded the experiment a failure and was productive of a chorus of "I told you so's." The announcement of the proprietor of the ranch that he would entertain offers on a property to which he had no title other than

It was the only vacant dwelling in San Pasqual, and the woman with the baby decided to move in. She hired a Mexican woman to clean the house, sent to Bakersfield for some installment furniture and to Los Angeles f

na Corblay as she appeared at twenty years of age behind the counter at the eating-house on the night that Bob McGraw rode into her life on hi

e ghosts of a sorrow ineffable. Up to the day she died nobody in San Pasqual knew very much about her-where she came from or why she came. She gave no confidences and invited none. In a general way it was known that she was a widow. Her husband had gone away and never returned, and it was a moot q

ughters of the railroad men and local business men who lived in the cottages west of the tracks. A great many of these estimable females disliked her accordingly and charged her with "'puttin' on airs." Indeed, more than one of them had ventured the suggestion tha

ich gnawed at the heart of the little community. She died as she had lived, considerable of a mystery, and San Pasqual, retaining its resentment of this mystery, visited its resentment upon Donna Corbla

s in a blackberry pie. Originally the San Pasqualians had christened him "Psalm Singer," because of the fact that once, during a revival held by an itinerant evangelist in a tent next door to the Silver Dollar saloon, the buck had attended regularly, attracted by the melody of a little portable organ, the plaintive str

ion, which, lacking definite direction perhaps by reason of the fact that there was no church in San Pasqual, served, nevertheless, as a bulwark against the assaults of vice and vulgarity which, in a frontier town, are very thinly veiled. As a child she was neither precocious nor shy. From a rather homely, long-legged gangling girl of fourteen she emerged apparently by a series of swift transitions into a young lady

. born to b

sweetness on t

des which, there was that in her eyes which seemed to predicate a heartache of many years' standing. At any rate, she fainted at the eating-house one day and they carried her home. She passed away very quietly the same night, leaving an estate

he sand in front of the compound and smoked innumerable cigarettes. Presently he got up, went to his own little cabin within the enclosure and was invisible for ten minutes. When he emerged he was clad in a new pair of "bull breeches," a white stiff-bosomed shirt without a collar but with a brass collar button d

onted attention to dress could portend but one of two things-a journey or a funeral. Inasmuch, however, as Sam wa

er Dollar saloon, where he held converse with a man who seemed much interested in the news which Sam had to impart, for he nodded grave

niel Pennycook, wife of the yardmaster, was informed o

ok volubly. "Poor thing! There was alw

ed her modifying adjective with the word "like"; an annoying practice which had always rendered her an object of terror to Mrs. Corblay. To t

t Mrs. Pennycook was now started on her favorite topic, in such

peaking,

was kinder quiet like a

f you knew Mrs. Corblay was dead, why in blue blazes didn't you or some other woman in this heartless village go down there

le shocked like

Mrs. Pennycook, go down to the Hat Ranch and kee

emanded Mrs. Penny

a

are

bod

ble right of her sex to the last word. Shortly thereafter her worthy spouse, Dan Pennycook, came in for his lunch. To him Mrs. Pennycook imparted the tal

mornin', an' if any woman in this charitable community passed me goin' to the Hat Ranch I didn't see h

do this! I intended goin' anyhow, but

Pennycook, "he pai

intervals during the meal; she was still sniffing when later she joined her hu

er. Here was a situation which required the supervision of a calm, executive person-Mrs. Daniel Pennycook, for instance. At any rate Mrs. Pennycook

rovincial communities which dictates that the first line of action to be pursued when there is a death in the family is to scrub the house thoroughly from cellar to garret, and Mrs. Pennycook had been inocul

days previous. She begged Mrs. Pennycook to desist. Mrs. Pennycook desisted, for if Donna couched her request in the language of entreaty, her young eyes flashed a stern command, and Mrs. Pennycook was not deficient in t

eld for the funeral, and suggested the services (at the metropolitan rates usually accorded such functiona

like, don't you thin

odded d

dear mamma's church?"

ny" Donna answered

Well, then, I suppose Mr. Tilli

ut warning, and she often told me not to give her an expensive funeral

d the dismayed Samaritan. "There ought to be some

e was always skimping and saving for me, Mrs. Pennycook. She said I wasn't to wear mourning; that the-living needed more prayers

oor dead mother the poor comfort of a Christian burial, because she wanted the money for herself! Privately Mrs. Penny

l have to buy a coffin an' a

mamma among the flowers at the end of our garden.

Pennycook

dead and traded in human grief, and for me not to engage one for her

ycook. He was an impulsive creature and even under the

el! C

him that he might as well, to quote a homely proverb, "be hanged for a sheep as a lamb." He had visited the Hat Ranch to tender aid an

ghter to follow out her last wishes under these-er-deplorable circumstances-er-er-I mean it's a ter

therefrom, yet did Dan Pennycook, out of his many years

cook, you'

rinciple" and the performance of what she conceived to be her duty. She was a well-meaning but misguided person ordinarily, who loved a fight with her own family on the broad general ground that it denot

back yard; but Mr. Pennycook had recovered his poise and decided that here was one of those rare occasions when it behooved him to

'am. Donnie, my dear, I'm goin' to wire Los Angeles an' order up a heap o' big

ca of Dan Pennycook in concrete might have been produced, upon which the posterity of San Pasqual m

s, the most genuine sample of that rare commodity which she had received up to that moment. His action had been so-brave-so spontaneous-he kne

dkerchief was used up-whereat he pleaded dumbly with his wife for her handkerchief-and was refused. So, like some great blubbering boy, he used his fists, while Mrs. Pennycook looked coldly on, working

d that she should have wept on Mrs. Pennycook's breast. Mrs. Pennycook realized the incongruity of the situation and was shrewd enough to attribute it to a strong av