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erently ascribed their authorship to the inspiration of Aleck. It was true, at all events, that he never seemed so near to her as when she was penning them; and if for no other reason than this, the conduct of the "Telepheme" would have given her great happiness. Her glib denunciations of Topaz, her ready magnifications of Rustler, her solid reasoning about the advantages which the Three C's would enjoy if it should finally come where the "Telepheme" was edited, had a man's cogency and fire; the thin substance of her cleverness seemed penetrated as she wrote on the theme of the railroad by a kind of trance horse-sense. On the streets of Rustler these editorials were sometimes called "corkers" and sometimes "howlers"; but this did not represent a divided mind. They were, in a way, more effective than any similar work by a man would have been, for no man could have been so impudent or so ferocious. The seal of their success was at length set upon them when the other papers of the State began copying them. Berna of course copied back their praise into the "Telepheme," and the town simply licked its chops. To have given the quarrel between Rustler and Topaz the dignity of a State fight, at which the whole population of Colorado might be fancied to be looking on, was a service for which it was felt Berna deserved well (if everybody could know the real merits of the case, no one could doubt which way the railroad would go); and she began at once to retrieve some of her lost popularity.

When, therefore, beginning at the end of a few months to sit up a little every day, though still not strong enough to go out, she broached the plan of reorganizing her old "Culture Club," she met with such a response from the ladies as she had not dared expect.

The club had gained but a mild success before the illness of its founder, for the subjects were felt by the ladies to be rather stiff; but even the new members now took kindly to the young editor's proposal of papers on "The Heroines of George Eliot," and "England's Early Mythic History," and to a suggested conversation, to be led by Berna, on "The Relation of Men and Women in Homer." Perhaps, however, Berna's announcement of a kind of learned game to be played at their meetings in off-weeks, in the evenings, when the men came late for oysters, proved more distinctly popular. Rignold, observing these things, and looking on the success of the club as a sign, began to hope that, in spite of a mad system of expenditure, the paper might pull through without borrowing capital beyond the two thousand dollars obtained from the sale of the "Lady Berna."

These were happy days of prosperity and

power and influence for Berna; the circulation of the "Telepheme" increased, and the town itself began to grow again after a long season of depression. Berna allowed herself to ascribe both growths in part to her own exertions, and looked on the newcomers (for Aleck) with a double air of proprietorship, as "Telepheme" population and as "Telepheme❞ subscribers. She instituted a quiet monthly census of her own, publishing the results when favorable, and this became one of the most popular features of the paper in Rustler, being the better liked when it began to excite the uneasy derision of Topaz. The truth was that the mines of Ticknor's Mountain and Big Chief, always fairly well-to-do, were now making large shipments of high-grade ore, and as the "Telepheme" never concealed anything of this sort, a certain tendency of the floating population of surrounding towns toward Rustler began to be observable.

Rignold, though he could not share his editor's confidence in the continuance of these good times for the town and the paper, made them as good for himself as he knew how by seeing a great deal of Berna. He helped and served her about the paper with untiring energy and simple patience, and she recognized his goodness with gratitude; but he knew that she conceived of it all as done for Aleck, in the same way that she did it all for Aleck, and he knew that she was grateful on Aleck's behalf. The situation offered so little satisfaction to him that he found it hard to be sorry in the first moments when the change came. But, in fact, he was sorry, and if not for the change, then for her.

The current which had turned in her favor gave signs for a month of turning the other way before it finally did turn; but when the change came it fell upon her with the suddenness of a thing unexpected and unimagined. Her first word of it reached her one evening as she sat by her lamp thinking out the editorial for the next week's issue, while she rocked to and fro in her spacious rocker, walled in by her mother with pillows, and ran through her State exchanges.

It is rumored that Rustler is to have a new paper. They are getting tired, it seems, of having the town represented by a woman.

Her eye fell upon this item in one of the papers which two months before had copied extracts from her railroad editorials with approval.

Rignold, looking in a quarter of an hour. later for his customary weekly chat with her about the contents of the next issue, found her still staring dumbly at the newspaper. She

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"That 's so."

"Then why not me?"

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"Why, it's altogether different, Berna." Different? Sit down. How different?" Every way. I did n't want to hurt your feelings."

"You mean I was a woman. That 's true. But I have n't any less at stake on that account. I've more-twice as much. You forget Aleck,"

"I'm not likely to do that," retorted Rignold, stung,

"What do you mean?" "Good heaven, Berna! Don't take it like this!"

You mean I should remind you of him if you forget. I suppose you 're right. I should. I do talk of Aleck. I'm editing his paper; I'm trying humbly to live out his life for him. How can I help it? I can't forget him if the town does."

"Pshaw, Berna! The town ain't forgetting him. But it has to think of itself, or it thinks it has."

"And so they try to kill his paper?" Rignold dropped his eyes. "I suppose they don't think it's his paper."

Herna started in her seat. "Have I put my self forward too much? Have I made too much of myself and too little of him? Yes; I was afraid of that."

"No, no! Lord knows you've made enough of Aleck. You 've put him first everywhere. The town just don't want a woman for an editor There's the whole of it, Berna, with wur trimmings. I know it's hard on you

wful hard, after all you 've done and spent and suffered to give 'em a good paper, and to keep up Meck's name, and boom the town and bring the railroad. But towns ain't grateful, you know that as well as I do; and I don't suppose Rustler 's any exception. Look here, this is the way it is. They want the Three C's, don't they? Well, they think they stand a better show to get it if they have another sort of paper, and have a man to edit it. They think it'll look better outside. I suppose it will. But they won't get a paper the equal of the "Telepheme" in a hurry-not if they put two men on to edit it."

"Oh, what do I care how much better or worse it is? They won't let me do Aleck's work."

"They can't stop it." "They don't want it. It's the same thing. I've offered the town my life, I 've offered them all my love and all my service, and they”— her lip trembled-" they don't want it. It's not for myself I'm hurt; it's the rejection of Aleck through me. They don't want him either. He's done all he could for them, and they 're done with him. He brought them to a place where they could get along without him; and now I've brought them a little farther, and they can do without me. O Ben!"

She gave a little gasp and gulp, and suddenly buried her face.

Rignold leaned forward from his chair and laid a hand on hers. "Drop it, Berna! Give it up, and let them go their own ungrateful way. You 're wasting your life on them, and what could they ever give you in return, if they did their best?"

"Give me? Do you suppose I want anything?" She looked up fiercely through her tears. "I've got to get my living and ma's out of the paper, and that I'll take, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. But that's all. Aleck worked for the love of it; he fought for the town the same way a soldier fights for the flag. He was n't thinking of rewards. 'It ain't boodle I 'm after,' he always used to say, and it was true. And after that, do you think I could-could"—she caught her breath and stifled a sob, as her rhetoric returned to her with her self-command-" could palter with the question of recompense? I don't want to be paid, Ben. I want to be let do it."

"Well, no one can prevent you. It's a free country. You can go on publishing the 'Telepheme' just the same, if they do issue another paper alongside of it. Plenty of towns have two papers that can't rightly support one."

"I know it, Ben, I know it—foolish towns, wicked towns-towns that have no respect for themselves or their cause! They divide their forces in the face of the enemy, and fight each other when they ought to be fighting the common foe. That shall never be said of Rustler. It was the town that Aleck loved; it was n't his paper, and it was n't himself. And I should be unworthy of him if I could n't be glad to bury my pride in the paper, and all the ties that bind me to it through Aleck, and kill the 'Telepheme' to-morrow, if it can help the town. If I can serve Rustler better by lying down and letting it trample on me, than by standing up and fighting for her, that 's my place. I only want to be sure."

"Don't you be sure of it, Berna! Don't you think it! It ain't true. But, all the same, I 'd

give it up. The town can't support two papers, that 's a fact; and if it don't, and if it's the 'Telepheme' that goes to the wall, you will have spent all the money that Aleck left, and perhaps your mother's insurance money too, before you're done, and have nothing left to live on. I don't want to see you come to that, Berna; and if you 're willing for yourself, you won't be for your mother, if you think a minute."

"Stop! stop! I'm not going to spend ma's money. When I've spent Aleck's I'll give it up. But what you say puts my duty before me. I must spend Aleck's! I must n't, I dare n't, take the town's word for it that they 're tired of Aleck and of me, until I 've spent all that's left in giving them a chance to take that back -for Aleck's sake!" she added devoutly. "They 've changed once; they may change again. Who knows? What was it that made them change this time, Ben?" she inquired, as if coming to the question of Rustler's altered temper for the first time.

"Oh, silliness! You don't want to know." "Ben," she cried, incriminatingly, "stop sparing me! Tell me."

"Topaz kept joking them on their lady editor. You must have seen the 'Telegram.'" "Of course. But what then ?”

"Why, the other papers took it up. A weekly paper 's got to have copy. You know that, Berna."

"Certainly; I've seen all that, as it came along in the State exchanges from week to week. But I never thought the town would be cowardly enough to mind it. Oh, shame on them!"

"No; that ain't fair, Berna. It seems foolish; but it was n't for themselves, really. You can see that, if you stop and think. They were afraid of its effect on the railroad. A town that wants a railroad can't afford to be made fun of by the press of the whole State. A railroad's a serious business; you 've got to be worthy of it all round."

"Of course. But my railroad editorials aren't a bit poorer than when the whole press of the State quoted and praised them, and Rustler went wild with delight over them. Nothing has changed." She paused thoughtfully. "But I don't want Rustler to be made fun of, not on my account, nor anybody's. It will hurt the town! I must stop that. But they might have trusted me to! Why did n't they come to me squarely and tell me that I was injuring the place? They might have believed that there are some things I care more for than myself; they might have known I'd have remedied the trouble, or stepped down and out. Do you mean to say, Ben, that they have the courage to give this as their reason? Why, they 'll hurt the town more that way than any way. They'll

VOL. XLIV.-10.

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"No," said Ben, dropping his gaze upon the soft hat he twirled round and round in his fingers; "they don't say that 's their reason." "What do they say?"

66

'If you'll excuse me, Berna, I guess I won't go into that."

"But I can't excuse you."

"Oh, well," began Rignold, desperately, and stopped.

"Why, what's the matter, Ben? she asked in bewilderment, watching the uneasy flush mount to his forehead. "Is it something personal? Is it something disgraceful?"

"Good heavens, no! It ain't disgraceful. But it ain't a thing for me to tell you, unless I tell you something else at the same time." "Tell me both things."

Ben shook his head. “You would n't like it." "Try me!" said Berna, persuasively.

The breath was coming fast in Rignold's throat. He made two beginnings, and paused helplessly. "It would n't do any good," he said at last.

66

Why, Ben, I never saw you behave like this. What's the matter?"

66 'Oh, love 's the matter, Berna-love for you, that 's killing me. You don't want it. You've got no more use for it than Rustler has for the Telepheme.' I tell you because you ask me; but I know well enough there ain't room for another paper in your town. I know the field belongs to Aleck. It's right; I ain't got nothing to say against it." He lowered his eyes again.

"Ben!" gasped Berna. Then in a moment she added another name.

"Of course, of course. I know it, I tell you. I was a fool to say anything. But you would have it. The town says it ain't right that we should be so much together, and work the paper alongside each other, and not be married. They don't think I'm in love with you. They never guess that. And they know what you feel about Aleck, anyway. All they say is, it ain't proper. I could n't tell you the one, you see, without telling you the other. I've told you both now, and I guess I might as well go."

He rose to his feet, but Berna stopped him. "Wait, Ben!" She laid on his coat-sleeve the hand which would have detained him at the gate of heaven. "Good Ben! Sit down again

won't you?—and we 'll talk of this. It's awful-coming so suddenly. Give me a moment." He dropped back into his seat with reluctance.

She locked her hands distressfully in her lap.

"But I don't see how we 're going to talk of it! O Aleck!"

"Sure! It ain't treating him right even to discuss it. I was his friend, and you were the same as his wife. I know that 's the way you feel; and partly that 's the way I feel myself. And so it ain't decent-what I tell you-but it's the truth. I love you, Berna, and I have loved you ever since long before Aleck and you were engaged. I held my tongue then, and I gave you up to him in my own mind, and if he 'd lived you 'd never have known what your marriage cost one man. But he did n't live. I wish he had. I can say that truly. I never wished his death; and when he was brought home to us here, that awful day, I took a hurt I have n't got over yet. But he is dead, Berna; and I 'm alive, and if I 'm to go on living I can no more do it without loving you than I could go on living with my heart wanting in my side."

"O Ben, I'm very sorry. You've been so good to me so good! I've always thought it was for Aleck. But if it was for me, and you were saying no to this feeling all the time, and keeping it back for his sake, then I honor you for it, and—and I thank you. But what are we going to do, Ben?"

Rignold could not keep back a smile at this question of a child. "O girlie, if you leave it to me "

She gave him a long, absent look. "Yes; I know," she said at last. "Of course I can't leave it to you-in that sense. But you must help me to arrange, to plan to-do the other. I 've no one else to turn to; I have n't had any one since-" She blushed. "You must help me against yourself."

"All right," returned Rignold, with dreary readiness, from some outer place. He had been wishing himself far away somewhere in space, like Aleck. He would exist for her if he could die, perhaps. But he added, "We 'll keep up the fight."

She contemplated him for a moment, reflectively. "No," she said; "I will, but you must not. The town is right, perhaps; but whether it's right or wrong, we could n't go on together if they think-that. No; I will go on alone, and we will see what happens. I won't believe that every one has deserted me all at once. I won't believe that towns, as you say, have no gratitude and no memories. Why, memory is the life of a town: how can it look forward to a good future if it forgets its good past? I'll fight it, and I'll fight it on that line, Ben. I'll make them remember! They shall learn that if they 're going to forget Alexander Chester they 've got to do it publicly and shamefully and to my face." "You have got sand!"

"I've got the sand to be true, and if I've got to be true that way—why, I must, that's all. There's no one else."

"Why, Berna!" he exclaimed in pain.

"O Ben! Forgive me. There is you, and I know how gladly you'd do it. But don't you see how you 're cut off from trying, and how every one is cut off but me? Besides, I'm the one who can do it; it 's for him, and that gives me the wisdom and the strength; and it's for him, and I know how he would want it done. But Ben-" Her face lighted up. "Yes?"

"Listen! This is what you can do for me. I've got an idea. Who has been selected to edit the other paper?" "Why-"

"I see. They have asked you. That makes it so much the simpler." She leaned forward and touched his arm again. "Edit it, Ben! Edit it!"

"Look here, Berna, what do you take me for? You won't let me be all the friend I'd like to be to you; but I'm not going to make myself your enemy."

"You 're going to be twice my friend. Don't you see? If I must have an opponent, I like you best."

"But I should have to fight you, Berna." "Of course. But you'd fight fair. The other man might not."

He regarded her for a moment, stupefied, while many thoughts raced through his head. "All right," he said at last. "All right. You 're giving me a hard row to hoe, and yourself a still harder. Goodness knows how you'll get out the paper from a rocking-chair, with nobody to help you. But I suppose you'll manage somehow. You 've got the pluck for anything."

"Good! Then that 's settled. Now tell me, who is fomenting this trouble?"

Berna would still have liked a good, round, sham-literary word on her way to the stake, and Rignold's directness would still have been puzzled and amused by it. He half smiled now as he told her that McDermott of the Chicago Clothing House, B. G. Franks, the shoe man, Martin of the European Hotel, Beck Kruger, the grocer (who she would remember was always taking a column in the "Telepheme" to announce the arrival of a fresh consignment of Grand Junction peaches), and Dibble, the lately appointed postmaster, were at the head of the movement for a new paper.

"What!" she exclaimed, "Mr. Dibble one of the recreants-the man who took my father's place, the man for whose appointment we worked so hard on the Telepheme,' Ben? You're mistaken." He shook his head. "But they have all pretended they were my friends.

Don't you remember how enthusiastic Martin was at first? And McDermott? They took half a column apiece, though neither of them needed it, and promised to stand by the paper through thick and thin. They thought I could be useful to them then, I suppose; and now they think some one else will be. That's all. No matter, Ben." She gave him her hand. "You be the some one else. I'll promise not to hate you. But I'll fight you tooth and nail, until-until I know. The day I can make my self sure, the day I feel I can face Aleck without shame, and say, 'The town does n't want us,' and know I say truth-that day I give the paper up. The day I know that the 'Telepheme' can't help the town I shall know it will hinder it, and I will never publish another issue. Till then, it's war!"

She smiled a pallid smile from among her pillows, as she shook hands again, and he saw that she had overstrained herself.

"Good night."

"Good night, Berna. Good night. We sha'n't meet any more for talks about the paper. I suppose we sha'n't meet at all except in editorials, where we'll give each other down the banks. I'm sorry. The worst, though, is being afraid for you. For God's sake, take care of yourself!"

Berna looked up at him shrewdly. "You think I'll be careless about my health, and overtax my strength, with no monitor by to keep me straight. Well, then, I promise you I'll be careful. That shall be my thanks for all the care you 've taken of me, Ben. I can't afford to be ungrateful," she added wistfully; "I have n't friends enough. Good nightdear, kind Ben!"

III.

He got himself out; and the next morning he went to the committee whose advances he had declined, and told them that, if they were still of the same mind, he would undertake the editorship of the paper and furnish the capital. That afternoon he telegraphed East for the balance of his savings, amounting to $1200, all that he had remaining in the world; and when the money arrived he bought the necessary materials.-type, press, paper, and office furniture, opened his office in the Bloxham Block, opposite the office of the "Telepheme," and published the first issue of the "Apex." The name, which was chosen as a tribute to the fact that Rustler lay under the shadow of the Continental Divide, was suggested by Dibble, the postmaster, who saw a kind of dual symbolism in it.

"Apex' means on top, don't it?" said Dibble. "Well, then! And ain't Rustler on top

-on top of the backbone of the continent, on top of her rivals, on top when it comes to railroads, on the tiptop when it comes to newspapers? That's right-'Apex' it is."

Rignold did n't care what they called it; it was his paper, but it was her experiment. His care was for the paper itself; and he took immense pains with the first issue.

"Oh, well," explained Dibble, "who ever heard of a first issue being much? The machinery don't work, the type 's all fresh, the staff has n't settled to work, the whole thing's loose. That 's been true of every paper from the beginning of the world. It'll shake down. It'll shake down. Trust Rignold for that. He's the stuff. Why, it 's worth two of that measly female sheet across the road, now. We'll get a railroad with this paper, and we 'll get some sense about politics. No woman business!"

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But the first number of the "Apex was really not so much better than the "Telepheme" that Berna published the same day. Being set in larger type, it contained less news; the miscellany was made up from "plate matter," as Rignold had always urged that the "Telepheme's" should be, and there was no such extravagance as Berna's telegraphic letter from Denver. There was more advertising in the "Apex" than in the "Telepheme," because the business men, having decided on a new paper, threw all their advertising into Rignold's hands; and though Berna ordered all the "dead" patent-medicine cuts in the office, and all the old land-office notices that remained standing, to be inserted as fresh advertising, her advertisement column still looked rather hollow. But this gave her so much the more room for news (which she had now learned to make of the Rustler standard) and for miscellany, in the matter of which her judicious habit of selection went far. On the whole, as the town would have said if it had not been trying hard to say the other thing, the "Telepheme" was "the better nickel's worth."

Her editorial was an embodiment of what she had said to Rignold, expressed with dignity and with just sufficient feeling. It was extremely direct and uncompromising, though tactful, and if the organizers of the new paper did not wince that evening upon their hearthstones, it was because they had determined not to in advance. That which really troubled them was the perception, forced upon them with the second issue of the "Apex," that the "Telepheme" was not yet stamped out, nor very obviously in a way to be. They had taken Berna's editorial for her swan-song, believing that, in depriving her of the assistance of Rignold, they had adopted the surest mode of stopping a paper which had become an injury to the good standing of the town. But Berna

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