Raymond S. Spears

“ The people who had known Jim Malden looked at one another. The stranger had thrown his hat back. He had shown his face squarely and honestly; his eyes were clear and gem-brilliant; his face was the kind that any man can trust. For two years the memory of the shaded face and the silence had made a suspicion of this man, but when he told his story the suspicions vanished. They closed the store, and they all walked out to the stone quarry. ”

“ When he stopped in the beautiful tourists' camp ground at Omaha, he sat on a big timber, listening to a man who was telling about coming out of San Diego by the Imperial Valley, Yuma, and angling up across Arizona and New Mexico, into the Arkansas River valley.
When Tom Malden had rolled more than two thousand miles and saw the Rockies rising before him, he saw the sage and alkali stretching into the limitlessness of piedmontaine prairies. He had listened to a score of tourists who had made the transcontinental; the desert was often on their lips. ”

“ Tom, her son, noted the sudden emotion and divined the cause.
"I can't see what became of him!" Mrs. Malden suddenly cried out in the agony of her spirit. "Two years—and no word!"
"It's beyond everybody—" Bill shook his head. "Jim Malden was the finest man that ever lived. Who'd hurt him—who'd want to hurt him? Well! I'd like to lay hands on that man who was here that night. That's what I'd like to do."
"What's the idea?" the stranger asked. "I don't catch the drift——"
"Jim Malden, who used to keep this store, disappeared two years ago to-night. ”

“ More than these things, he met the interesting people who come to a gun store—always to some certain gun store in every community.
Talking about entertaining angels unawares! Who could be more interesting than those who come walking or rolling up to a hardware store, some with one eye looking over the shoulder, some with camping-outfits, some to buy 22s for target practice, and some to buy 30-30S, or 45s, for business? There were men everybody knew, and men nobody knew.
Jim Malden leaned against his counter till 10.10 o'clock one night. ”

“ With aching hearts the friends of Jim Malden went up into that cut-over and ransacked the brush, searched every nook and cranny, and viewed with suspicion every footprint in the soft ground and every scrape on the rocks. They found nothing to explain the disappearance of the man.
Jim's wife was a fine, competent woman. She immediately took charge of the store. Her oldest son, Tom, eighteen years of age, returned from college and took his place behind the counter, where he had long served an apprenticeship in salescraft. ”

“ They found the store closed; they went up to the house and there stopped at the curb, whisperless, even. The windows were bright with light within. A phonograph was playing. A tall young woman was sitting reading; a handsome son was holding up a map, looking at it. A woman, the mother, was rocking back and forth in her chair, her hands clasped in her lap, as she stared at nothing in particular.
"Go on, dad," Tom urged.
"You go first." Jim Malden hung back.
"We'll go in together," Tom said, and they held each other by the arm, walked up the step, and hesitated. ”

“ They kept driving farther and farther each day. They climbed up over Raton pass, coasted off into the prairies of the headwaters of the Arkansas, and as the season waned they hit into the bottoms of the Missouri. ”

“ When It's in the Heart
BY RAYMOND S. SPEARS
Author of "Hoarded Assets," "The Ripe Peach," etc.
THE leading hardware store in Mosstown carried a line of guns, rifles, and side-arms. The proprietor was Jim Malden, whose business constancy was such that from the day he inherited the store from his father to the twentieth year of his trade, he had not missed a full week's time at a stretch. He would go into the woods three or four days, deer-hunting, in the autumn; he would fish for a day or two during the trout season; and occasionally he would steal away on snowshoes to dog rabbits. ”

“ This night she happened to be in the store.
A stranger strolled in. He was tall and slender, dressed unnoticeably, and with his hat drawn down over his eyes. He was soon leaning against the counter with his back to the light and listening to the talk, that was running to fishing, for this was the fishing season again, when trout would be jumping on the rifts.
Suddenly Bill Gays started slightly and glanced at Rob Michael. Then Bill glanced at the calendar. This was Wednesday night. It was the second week in May. Two years previous Jim Malden had disappeared. Mrs. ”