Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Another 100,000 word anthology of short fiction in the Life+70 yrs public domain, collected from magazines, newspapers and other sources. 2: The Unexpected / K. and J. Arnold 3: Giles Haggerston's Ward / Annie S. Swan 4: Blasphemers' Plateau / Alexander Snyder 5: The Feline Light and Power Company is Organised / Jacque Morgan 6: The Thing From the Grave / Harold Ward 7: Dibbs, R.N. / Gilbert Parker 8: Lynch Law / Anonymous 9: Two Reflections / Chris Sewell 10: The Laughing Death / Stephen G. Hale 11: Frame-Up / Gary Robson 12: Bootlegger’s Luck / B. M. Bower 13: Dixon's Romance / Ottwell Binns

PAST MASTERS 137

Produced and Edited by Terry Walker from short stories in magazines, newspapers and other sources, and all in the Life + 70 years public domain.

8 September 2023

Contents

1: The Hunchback of the Casentino / Ida Warner MacLean

2: The Unexpected / K. and J. Arnold

3: Giles Haggerston's Ward / Annie S. Swan

4: Blasphemers' Plateau / Alexander Snyder

5: The Feline Light and Power Company is Organised / Jacque Morgan

6: The Thing From the Grave / Harold Ward

7: Dibbs, R.N. / Gilbert Parker

8: Lynch Law / Anonymous

9: Two Reflections / Chris Sewell

10: The Laughing Death / Stephen G. Hale

11: Frame-Up / Gary Robson

12: Bootlegger’s Luck / B. M. Bower

13: Dixon's Romance / Ottwell Binns

14: Badger / Winifred Graham

15: La Haute Finance / Richard Marsh

16: A Spirit Elopement / Richard Dehan

17: The Hope of Hurley / A and E Ballestier

18: The Sporting Chance / Harold Ward

19: White Lie / Lester Weil

_______________

1: The Hunchback of the Casentino

Ida Warner MacLean
fl. 1910s

Young's Magazine Dec 1912

AT thirty-five, having made an enviable name by painting French peasant life, Carleton surprised his world by suddenly turning his face toward Italy. In Florence he looked about, and decided on setting up his easel in one of the quaint villages clustered on the many hills of the Casentino— that "loveliest vale of Tuscany."

Armed with maps and a fair knowledge of the language, he set out directly, but without haste, to find just the place he wanted; ranging leisurely, but— and this was Carleton's special characteristic— always keeping his objective well in view.

One day, pausing at the Convent of S. Eremo, he stood in one of the tiny gardens, conversing with a kindly faced monk, while the clear morning light shone full upon his strong-featured, thinlipped face and tall, muscular figure. Unseen by him from out a tiny window in a nearby building, a pair of strange, yellow-gray eyes were staring at him, and followed his retreating form until a turn of the road shut it from their sight.

Throughout the length and breadth of the Casentino every hill is crowned by a small town or village— clusters of humble cottages grouped about its own more or less crumbling "castello," where in old days one's good neighbors might be kept under discreet surveillance. Passing many in review, Carleton suddenly decided on Borgo alla Collina as his resting place. Two days later his baggage had arrived, and he was "At home."

This abrupt ending of his wanderings meant the end of his quest. While tramping from one place to another, those cold, bright eyes had taken account of each face they rested upon. His objective was, as ever, well kept in view. Scenery for him meant only the necessary environment, the harmonious setting for the depicting of human life; but his taste was critical and difficult in selection of models. At Borgo alla Collina, while passing by the cottage of a certain contadino, he found the type, perfect in each detail, for which he sought.

A slight figure, half-child, yet with a hint of hovering womanhood in rounding angles, had paused in the open doorway, turning to glance over her shoulder in naive curiosity at the stranger. The large, soft, dark eyes, the wavy, silken hair with blue high lights, creamy brown skin, with the blush of a rose beneath— the girl's coloring was perfect, but not more so than others the painter had seen daily. It was the subtle something in expression, the sensitive dilation of thin nostrils, the arch sweetness and the hint of pathos about the lovely, coral-pink lips— all these and an underlying possibility for feeling which made Peppina what she was, raising her to what Carleton meant by "The Type."

"There she is!" he said to himself contentedly, and at once turned his attention to finding suitable lodgings.

When the painter had gone his way, a figure crouching on the step at the girl's feet stirred— a pair of strange, yellow-gray eyes stared after him.

"An American.  I saw him at Camaldoli a week since."

"So? I do not like him, this American."

"Why?"

An expressive downward wave of the hand.

"Because— I do not know— a shiver crept over me when I met his eye."

Her companion rose, uncurling like some couchant animal, and stood upright, showing a strange, stunted figure. Broad-shouldered he was, with long arms, a distorted spine and cruelly twisted and deformed legs. In years he might have been possibly eighteen, but eons of pain looked out of the cavernous eyes, which were surprisingly light and clear and bright in contrast to the overhanging black brows. His face was haggard, with big features, framed in shaggy black hair. Standing, he was scarcely on a level with the girl's shoulder.

"Matteo."

"Si, nina?"

"To-morrow we'll go up to the great chestnuts on the edge of the wheat field, and you'll tell me tales of the old days, yes?"

"Maybe."

"But, yes! Matteo!"

"Yes, then."

THE INSTANT he had made his decision, Carleton set himself to a deliberate study of his environment— to absorb the atmosphere—to saturate himself with local color—to drive out of his consciousness all trace of previous existence. It was one of his theories that only so could one successfully portray the essense of the life encompassing him. When he placed a canvas before the public, those whose opinion was worth while did not say, "Ah, one of Carleton's. French things!" but, "Carleton in Brittany, I see," or "in Provence," as it might be. So, to those who knew Dante's beloved vale, next winter would bring alluring recollections of the Casentino.

So he went down the single, winding street of the little village with clear eyes, passing on to the clearly registering brain the mellow grays and yellows, or dingy white of walls and buildings; the solemn dark of cypress spears against the luminous sky; the richer, warmer green of clustered chestnuts; far heights each crowned with time-gnawed fragments of the might and power of past ages. A gay little vagrant of a path beckoned him to leave the dusty state of the high road, and wander errantly through waving, silver-green wheat fields which later would turn to gold, all splashed with blood-red poppies and harboring timid, blue cornflowers.

Presently the little gypsy path he was following was joined by another running gayly down a steep slope and out over grassy meadows toward where the Arno flashed along on her way to escape from the circling hills. Carleton chose to wind upward to where a grove of chestnuts promised grateful shelter from the sun.

His leisurely advance made no sound which was not covered by the whispers of the grain, while the song of some hidden bird suddenly flung upon the air was almost startling. A clump of scrubby growth thrust itself across the way, and as he neared it Carleton became conscious of a voice—a clear, wonderfully sweet and resonant voice, evidently reading or reciting, so even and continuous was its flow. With no premonition that he was blindly following Fate's pointing finger, the painter skirted the screening trees and came upon a picture at which his arrogant spirit leaped, claiming:

"It is mine!"

Detached from the grove to which they belonged, two giant chestnuts had started life as twins, not six feet apart, and succeeding years had so intertwined the luxuriant growth of their towering forms that eye could scarcely distinguish their separate entities save where the two rough-barked trunks marked their birth,

Facing one another, and each with back to one of the arboreal twins sat two figures. Peppina, one knee drawn up to support an elbow, held her eager face .

in the cup of a slender, brown hand, while with parted lips and quivering nostrils, with big, absorbed eyes flaring wide and staring, she listened to the dramatic flow of Matteo's words. And Matteo, his long arms wrapped about his dwarfed legs, sat hunched against the tree; his head, with its rough mane atoss, thrown back. But his pain-old face was transfigured by some inner radiance, the light of which streamed from his strange, bright eyes, glowing yellow in the shadow. He was in the midst of some old, barbaric tale of romance belonging to the days when each hill of the Casentino was crowned by the castle of its Prince, "and men were brave and maidens fair." Even as Carleton, halting to absorb each detail of the scene, listened subconsciously to the words of the story-teller, Matteo was saying:

"And the serf, my ancestor, who adored the Princess, set himself to watch the stranger; for he doubted him, and he saw with a hot heart that the Princess' eyes followed him."

It was on the inspired story-teller that Carleton's attention was riveted. The strong, bold features held a curious likeness, for the moment, to the eager rapture of Savanarola. The wild eyes, fixed on something unseen save by his spirit, took no note of actual surroundings. Matteo was no longer living on the hillside of To-day; he was back in the rude medievalism, watching through the eyes of a faithful servant the threatening circle of a hawk above a snow-white dove.

Carleton never "rushed his fences," and he went away, leaving the two on the edge of the grove ignorant of his espionage. But he had the great picture of his year clearly set in his inner vision.

THE PAINTER had taken up his lodging in the old castle, and the kindly, voluble landlady entered enthusiastically into the subject of possible models. There was Silvano Torri, if the Signor wanted a fine, handsome, young man, and one with the patience— he would sit or lean for hours without offering to move a finger. The Signor thanked her gratefully and, testing Silvano's powers of repose, found they had in no way been exaggerated. Several preliminary canvases glowed with local color before Carleton made any advances towards the two who he had decreed were to add a deeper note to his world's applause. He watched Peppina saunter away one morning, driving her father's little flock of goats to pasture, and later he followed, with his traps slung across his back.

When he came up with her she was lying against a hillock, with the sun falling in all its fervor on her upturned face and dreamy, half-closed eyes. Her gentle charges nibbled peacefully close by.

Carleton's sudden advent startled the girl. A flame flashed up over her cheek and brow, a look of panic appeared in her soft eyes; then, with a single lithe movement, she was on her feet and away; the flurried goats stormed after over a ridge, and the surprised artist was gazing at an empty hillside.

"My sketch was laid in with fugitive colors," he commented, grimly humorous, and quietly set out in pursuit.

He found the runaways just over the swelling shoulder of the hills, and reinforced. The goats were once more decorously cropping the short grass, and beside Peppina stood the ungainly form of the hunchback, listening to the tale of her late encounter. His light, bright eyes challenged the newcomer, while Peppina, too, stared at him with unfriendly glance. But the girl's expression wavered as Carleton, raising his cap, smiled the frank, meaningless smile which seemed to mean so much. In fairly good Italian he deprecated having frightened the Signorina as well as— a humorous side-glance touched the indifferent quadrupeds— her pretty goats, but he had obtained permission from the mother of the Signorina to ask that she would pose for him to make a little picture.

But, no! Peppina declined to sit still and be painted— hinting that her mother's consent did not necessarily mean her own. The artist argued good-naturedly, and at length turned to Matteo, whose gaze had never left the stranger's face.

"Can't you persuade your sister?" he asked pleasantly.

The Hunchback answered curtly:

"She is not my sister, an' I will not try." And that was the mistake Matteo made. The obvious disappointment on Carleton's handsome face at this rude rebuff caused one of the queer, illogical shiftings of sentiment feminine mind is subject to. Her first recoil rebounded toward sudden sympathy. She took a hasty step forward, casting a half-angry glance at Matteo's stern, repellent face as she said:

"But, yes, Signor, I have the mind changed; why not? Twenty centesimi to sit still in the sunshine for an hour? Think, Matteo, it will buy me a new ribbon for the Festa!"

And Matteo, silent save when the one inspiration moved him to winged words, held his peace. But he remained close by, crouched in his favorite position, where his watchful eyes saw each glance, his jealous ears caught each word that passed,

Carleton wasted no time, but set about his work with swift, sure strokes. Profiting by past experience when dealing with a model of moods, he expended little effort on accessories, but devoted his attention to the lovely, glowing face, so full of the latent possibilities of Southern passion,

Events justified his perspicacity.

Before the first hour was up Peppina, grown cold in her capricious fancy, felt restless, and finally, without warning, sprang to her feet.

"It is enough," she said curtly. "Come, Matteo." And picking up her switch, she stirred the goats to activity, heading them toward home.

"Wait," said Carleton quietly; "don't you want to see this?"

He held out his canvas. Her half-reluctant glance was swiftly changed to a stare of delight mingled with awe. Even Matteo drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. Looking through narrowed lids from one face to the other, the painter smiled inly. There would be no further trouble in coaxing Peppina to pose. Not but what she had her wilful days, when not all Carleton's persuasions, backed by her mother's scandalized scolding, could prevent her from following her beloved pastime of slipping away to some quiet nook with Matteo, where, chained by the Hunchback's fervid eloquence, she let hours pass by drinking in the marvelous old tales he had to tell. No one throughout all the Casentino could tell such tales as Matteo, to whom they had descended from father to son for all the generations which lay between the birth of a proud race in the now-crumbling castle on the hill of Borgo to the present. In those old days the Prince's most devoted follower had been one Matteo— Matteo of the Long Arm. These old romances, poured forth by a poet born, a minstrel belated, and broidered by an imagination enriched by all the passion of a deep, introspective nature, wherein suffering had fined down the barrier between the real world and the unreal, held entranced Peppina's whole being, halfwakened, as she was, to womanhood's first faint stirrings. Poor silver-tongued Matteo, rapt singer, never guessed the echoes he was waking to life in his little playmate's innocent heart, never dreamed that gradually the gallant knights of his romances grew to wear one certain face to Peppina's inner vision. His natural instinct against Carleton was never sufficiently subdued for him to trust the girl from under his own espionage, and the painter was accustomed to the silent figure of the Hunchback crouching close at hand wheresoever he might be at work when Peppina was acting as model. The American was not in the least disturbed by this guardianship; rather, he utilized the opportunities thus afforded to dispel the Hunchback's distrust, and thus pave the way to the sittings for the Great Picture.

THE SECOND month of his stay in the Casentino was almost worn away, and the painter, reviewing the sketches already glowing on the dingy walls of his studio, felt exultantly that at last the spirit of the old Tuscan vale had indeed entered in and taken possession of his being, was ready to guide his hand. It was time to start on the work which should put his name on the tongues of men; should write it indelibly upon the scroll of Fame.

And that day Matteo disappeared.

Carleton was sufficiently annoyed at having to postpone what he wanted to begin at once, but when, in addition, Peppina freakishly avoided him at every turn, thus preventing the study he had planned of her as he had first seen her standing at her father's door, he set his jaw, while his thin lips curved in a smile which was without mirth. It was a bore to be obliged to go to the trouble of stratagem, but his work was not to be given pause because of the whims of a little fool of a peasant.

The next day he met Peppina on a sunny path running along the yellow wheat field. He stopped, putting his hand in his pocket.

"Will you give this money I owe him to Matteo when he returns, Peppina?" he asked gently. "And say to him I was sorry not to see him again."

Peppina's eyes opened wide, a sudden dismay drove the pretty color from her cheek.

"But— but Matteo will be back soon, Signor. He has but gone to the good monks at S. Eremo until he recovers once more from the sickness."

Carleton looked sympathetic.

"I'm sorry he is ill. Here, add this to the sum I owe him. And say good-by to him for me, will you, Peppina?"

He made as if to pass on, but a troubled Peppina barred the way.

"And the Signor will not wait until Matteo comes back? I— I thought— the Signor said he had the mind to paint yet more. The Signor spoke of the two big chestnuts with possibly Matteo and— and me " Her stammering tongue failed, but the big, soft eyes implored.

Carleton smiled his most charming smile.

"But how can I be sure that when Matteo returns he will be ready to pose as I wish? And you— I have no time to waste, and a model who runs away hen I need her is of little use, Peppina."

Peppina's dark eyes were bright with a mist of tears. Il Signor smiled so kindly, and yet he looked sorry, too. And it was she, Peppina, little pig that she was, who was disappointing him, and driving him to go away where he would find perhaps another model who would not treat him thus.

"Signor," she faltered humbly, "I will run away no more if—"

An interruption came suddenly in the form of a third person, a swaggering figure which strolled up from below. Carleton briefly glanced at him, classing him at once as a type of tourist which makes the name Anathema wherever they chance to light. A bold-eyed youth, who grinned in a would-be knowing way as he looked from the painter to the pretty, pleading face of the girl. He passed on, and Carleton, not wasting time after Peppina's surrender, speedily allowed himself to agree to a new trial of the penitent's services.

Making an appointment for afternoon, the artist continued on his way toward Strada, and Peppina sped lightly along toward home, following the path taken shortly before by the red-faced pedestrian.

And then occurred an incident crude and banal, which, nevertheless, was the rivet in the chain of devotion which should bind the little peasant girl's heart of fire to Carleton forever.

A sudden shrill cry rang out on the air— a girls cry— and, falling on the painter's ear, he turned and went striding swiftly back along the way he had come. He had a premonition as to the scene being enacted just out of sight, as he recalled the beefy-faced youth who passed when he was speaking with Peppina, so he was not surprised to find her struggling like an angry cat in the embrace of the stranger.

"What a little spitfire!" the latter was saying between gusts of laughter. "I'm going to have a kiss for each scratch, my dainty Dago, so hold up your pretty head."

He succeeded in putting one hand beneath the girl's chin and holding her struggling form with the other arm. Reaching forward, his thick, grinning lips pressed— a muscular man's hand, which had been deftly inserted between them, and the victim of his gallantry. A second hand, closing on his collar, jerked him backward, and he next found his face being smartly slapped by the same palm he had a moment before so passionately saluted. Not long after he was going quickly down the hill, having curtailed his sight-seeing, and with his ears tingling from a few stinging words uttered by his chastiser.

Thereafter there was no stint in the willing obedience rendered by Peppina to Carleton's slightest wish. Without reserve the child-woman poured out all the warm treasure of her devotion on il Signor, as she called him; her inflection turning it into a title.

Thoroughly at ease now, and her tongue unloosed by the tide of uncomprehended happiness swelling within, Peppina chattered gaily whenever the work permitted, and, half-listening, Carleton soon knew all the story of her simple little life; knew that of all her friends the Hunchback was the dearest. He it was who had taken care of her when, all too young, she had been turned from out her mother's arms by the swiftly following baby brother. She told him of Matteo's famous descent from the most trusted servant of the first Prince who had ever dwelt in the stronghold where Carleton had found shelter. How from generation to generation, through the servant's descendants, the traditions of that noble race had been handed down; wonderful old tales of romance and chivalry which Matteo could recite by the hour when he was so inclined.

"It is only for me he will always tell them," she added with innocent boasting. "But, then, Matteo loves me much, and I love him."

"And you think he will be persuaded to tell some of these wonder stories up in the chestnut grove so I may paint you and him the while?"

"But, yes, Signor, for me; I know it."

THE WHEAT was yellow in the rolling fields, and all through it glowed daring scarlet poppies, challenging the eye with their flaunting loveliness, while more modest blue cornflowers nodded shyly from between the golden spears of grain, when Matteo returned from his exile. Grayer of face, with the tragedy of his late grim struggle written in new lines on his forehead, and looking from his wild, light eyes, he followed Peppina like a grotesque shadow one morning to where Carleton awaited her in an olive grove, where he was painting her against a delicious background of the cool, graygreen trees. To Carleton's surprise, the Hunchback, who always came and went like a voiceless shadow, spoke a few shy words of greeting in his curiously musical tone, and when the morning's work was ended silently insisted on carrying home the heavier portion of the artist's property. Late that evening, as Carleton sat idly smoking and dreaming beside a window in his temporary studio, there came an abrupt knock upon the door.

"Avanti!" The door opened, and over the threshold stepped the Hunchback, bearing a wide, flat basket heaped with fine oranges, still clustering on the branch amid their cool, green leaves.

With a lithe sweep of his long arms, he placed the offering at the painter's feet. "They are the finest to be gotten in the country, Signor. I brought them with me from the good Padre's garden at S. Eremo. Will the Signor deign to accept them?"

Carleton smiled his charming smile.

"Why, with many thanks, Matteo. But you surely are robbing yourself."

The Hunchback made a dignified gesture of dissent, then, lightly touching his breast with his finger tips, looked the other eye to eye and spoke with passionate force:

"Were the Signor to ask of me my heart's blood— it were nothing. Peppina has told me."

Carleton nodded kindly.

"I understand. That disgusting brute!"

Matteo's pale face was convulsed; his eyes gleamed mere points of white flame under his drawn, black brows; his mobile lips drew back from his clenched teeth, his voice came in a curious, singing whisper:

"I went to Strada where the cur lodged— but he was gone. If he comes again, there are those who will let me know, and then— then— I, Matteo, will meet him."

The next moment he had slipped away.

"That won't be a merry meeting for the amateur Lothario," decided Carleton with a shrug. Then, while the memory was vivid, he lighted his big reflector lamp and set to work to reproduce the mask of hate which had confronted his eyes when Matteo spoke of that postponed meeting, This accomplished to his satisfaction, he ate a couple of Matteo's oranges, and went to bed in a contented frame of mind,

MATTEO'S passionate gratitude to the painter for his defence of Peppina embraced the opportunity to be of service, so there was no difficulty in gaining his consent to pose for the picture Carleton had set his mind upon. He showed a curious lack of self-consciousness, and it was Peppina who noted with warming heart how the pose chosen placed the Hunchback's worst physical deformity as little in evidence as possible, and caused attention to concentrate upon his inspired face. Day after day the three climbed the winding path to the twin chestnuts, and, once in position, Matteo threw himself into recital as never before, while the hours flew past. Peppina drank in draughts of her beloved romances, while Carleton's keen eyes and swift, sure fingers worked. That Matteo descended the hill daily feeling drained of half his life was something he kept locked in his own breast, and never did he falter in his task. The fire in his eyes glowed as brilliantly, the clear, singing resonance of his voice continued to pour forth its flow of vivid words, as evenly as when he began.

And at length— at length it was finished. Peppina and Matteo gazed at the great canvas with awe. Peppina's heart thrilled with pleasure at sight of the beauty Il Signor's magic brush had lent her face; but even her simple nature comprehended that what made the real greatness of this thing the painter had accomplished was, not the bloom and beauty of the listener, but the illumined face of the "Teller of Tales." It was her Matteo— the Matteo she loved, but it was more. Uplifted, fervent, mystical— world-old, God-young— through his delineation of the Hunchback's soul Carleton had touched greatness,

Matteo saw his own face only as a shadow— an adjunct. His gaze riveted itself upon Peppina's.

Not long after came a day when Matteo and Peppina watched I Signor pass down the highway out of their lives.

"I'll be back in the early spring," he promised, "and you will both be here to help me with my work? I can't do without either one, you know. I have a greater picture planned for next year, and I shall need you both."

He smiled with the misleading warmth which promised so much and meant so little, shook hands, and left them standing at the crest of the hill where they might watch him grow smailer and smaller until he turned a distant corner—and the world was empty. Their wistful eyes turned to each other for comfort, and Matteo it was who found it first. The world could never be very sad for him so long as it held Peppina. His devotion to Carleton might be said to be but a reflection of Peppina's, called into being only by the artist's defence of her. But such was the man's strong personality— his will to overcome their first recoil—to compel their liking, that he had succeeded well. Many hours that in other days had been filled with medieval romances were during the months that followed devoted to silent listening on Matteo's part while Peppina lingered in words over the bygone summer. Their olden haunts held ever a shadowy third.

THE WINTER was more than half over. But an unusual cold had descended upon the Casentino that year; a gripping cold for which the contadini were ill prepared. In spite of hermetically sealed windows, the cold crept in, and where it caught and wrestled with the old and weak there was a new grave opened in the little cemetery on the hilltop.

But with the advent of March, no matter what the weather, Peppina made a daily pilgrimage down the winding highway to the point where she had waved farewell to Jl Signor, and where she looked and longed to see hir: returning any day. For had he not said, "In the early spring I come"?

Ever beside her, a patient, misshapen shadow, muffled in his ragged brown cloak, was Matteo. His grave voice admonishing against her impatience, but yielding to her insistence that one could not tell—il Signor might choose to come earlier this year; and they two whom he had called his friends, of course they must be ready to greet him, lest he think they had forgotten.

Mateeo shrewdly opined il Signor would be unlikely to seek the Casentino while the sun either remained hidden for days, or else gleamed coldly from a "white sky"— but what mattered his opinion against Peppina's desire?

But one day when she slipped away to her lookout, searching the empty road where a cutting wind laughed away hope, the cold seem to search to her very heart; and that night, in the close, airless room shared by many sisters and brothers, Peppina shivered under the nondescript huddle of bedclothing.

Poor little Peppina!

When all suddenly the cold mountain winds ceased to blow, and earth laughed in radiant beauty under the ardent caresses of the sun, not all its warmth could drive out the deadly chill closing about little Peppina's heart. Daily Matteo came early and, wrapping his fading treasure in his tattered brown cloak, carried her to a rude seat he had made in the shelter of an oak, commanding the long, long road which her wistful eyes searched in vain.

Nightly the pathetic, hopeful voice would say:

"But to-morrow— he will come to-morrow, Matteo?"

And the Hunchback, crowding back the heartbreak from his own voice, would answer bravely:

"To-morrow, nina, he will of a surety perhaps come." Then she would cling to his strong hand and whisper:

"My good Matteo! I love thee, Matteo!"

May had not yet slipped away when one day Peppina did not go to her tryst— and Matteo, with burning eyes, knelt beside her still form, the far-receding echo of her last cry in his ears:

"Hark! Matteo, Il Signor— is coming"

AND just at sunset of the following day he came. Striding easily up the steep road, he reached the village with the creeping twilight which had long submerged the valley below. Just as he swung around the turn below a certain cottage, a solemn chanting rose on the quiet air, and he paused to watch a strange possession pass out through the humble, well-known doorway.

First, two by two, and pacing slow, white-robed choir boys, preceded by the crucifer bearing aloft the sacred cross; after these walked the village girls, their rosy faces showing subdued and tearstained under thin white veils draping their dark heads; they were followed by the young women with veils of black lace. All held lighted candles, and their flickering flames cast curious, darting shadows along the way. Chanting in his sweet, worn voice, next passed the kindly priest, and behind him, with steady measured tread, a group of young men carrying a bier, over which was thrown a gayly embroidered pall. All the remainder of the village folk followed. A short distance away the sad little cortege entered the church, and the arrested spectator half unconsciously settled himself to wait for what would follow.

The simple service was short, and Carleton had not had time to weary when once more the procession appeared, stepping out into the deepening twilight, where in the west still smouldered the dull embers of a red sunset, and began their slow ascent up the winding road to the graveyard on the hilltop. Up and up they wound, a strange, impressive sight; the double lines of flickering candles fitfully lighting up the white robes of the choristers, the veiled figures, the gray, uplifted head of the old priest, the solemn bier slow-swaying between its bearers.

The painter stood immovable until far up the height the last gleam had passed from sight, then his gaze swept slowly down over the deserted street. He wondered which of Peppina's family had lain beneath the gorgeous pall. Her face, instinct with the very joy of life, rose before him, and the truth never touched the outer edge of his mind.

Suddenly his quick eye caught the outline of a deeper shade in the shadow now close about the still-open cottage door. A dark form was huddled on the threshold, and all at once a white face glimmered palely through the dusk, lifted toward the darkling sky— two long arms were thrust passionately upward in woful appeal— the stillness was rent by awful sobbing— the hoarse, strangled sound of a grief past comfort or hope of healing.

Carleton started, peering through the gloom.

It was Matteo! Then, Carleton knew. Turning, he stole away.

LATE that night, Matteo, wandering through the lonely, sleeping village, raised his haggard eyes, and was dully surprised to see a light burning in the rooms Carleton had occupied the previous year. Could it be that il Signor had come then, and just— too late? Too late, for Peppina was no longer there to be made glad.

He turned and sped away, crashing through wood and field, heedless of place or time, until near dawn his spent frame could no more, and he sank down upon an open hillside and fell into deep sleep.

It was toward evening of the following day when Matteo, worn in body and numbed in mind, once more stole up the familiar village street. Once during a day of aimless wandering he had indeed caught sight of Carleton's figure at a distance, but he was not yet equal to meeting Il Signor face to face. He was seeking him now, however, sadly bent on bearing to him Peppina's broken message. Perhaps he felt in some way it might lessen his dragging load of grief to see the quick sympathy spring to Il Signor's eyes; to mark in his face some faint reflex of the sorrow which was like a burning band about his own brow.

Slowly, heavily, he mounted the echoing stair, meeting no one. Opening the door admitting into a small foyer, he pushed his way farther on into the studio, but found it empty. Carleton was not at home. Half-fearfully Matteo glanced about, lest from some forgotten sketch upon the wall the merry face he loved so well should stab his heart anew.. But the wall was bare.

An easel was drawn up to an open window, a large window which commanded the upper part of the village and overlooked a certain cottage. Upon the rest stood a fair-sized canvas, and dropping his exhausted form upon a chair nearby he raised weary, indifferent eyes to its surface.

The next instant he sprang erect, had crossed the floor, and stood close behind the chair Carleton had evidently occupied.

With gray face and strange, strange eyes he studied the picture upon which the painter had spent most of the hours since he had arrived in Borgo alla Collina. Unfinished as to detail, it yet was pitilessly strong and faithful in the story it told.

A faded western sky, the dark bulk of trees and buildings lining a palely glimmering road, up which wound a solemn procession, lighted weirdly by flickering, flaring candle flames, In the foreground yawned the open door of an empty house, and on the threshold crouched a desolate figure with anguished face upturned, and wrung hands thrust appealingly to a darkened sky. Carleton had worked the whole night through, and until the brush refused longer to obey his stiffened muscles,

How long had he been gazing on the canvas before the full truth burst on Matteo's tortured brain? A moment— an hour— a year— What matter? When the yellow flame of his eyes turned and looked over his shoulder in the way the painter should come, Matteo had sounded the full depths of the man's nature; knew him for what he was.

Slowly, with an awful deliberateness, made more awful by the madness in the yellow-gray eyes, the gleam of white teeth behind back-curled lips, the Hunchback slipped from his blouse a slender, short-bladed knife, keen and cruel. In a moment only tangled shreds of canvas hung from the wooden stretcher. Then, soundlessly, still with that deadly lack of haste, he closed the windows, crouched silently behind the door, and waited.

ON his way home Carleton paused a moment at the cottage to speak a few commonplaces of sympathy to Peppina's mother, who received him emotionally. Then he quickened his step, eager to get back and inspect his latest piece of work with fresh eyes; to satisfy himself that it really held all the promise he had earlier imagined. Whistling softly, he entered and closed the door behind him, vaguely wondering that it should be open, since it was not his intention to exhibit this last thing to eyes which would possibly fail to appreciate its merits.

Moving swiftly toward the window, his gaze sought his work; but before he could grasp the destruction before him something hurled itself forward from out the space behind, two sinewy, long arms were wrapped about him, and he was borne suddenly, resistlessly, to the stone floor. A low voice was whispering swift words into his ear— words that made his pulse beat slow and the cold sweat of sudden, sickening fear stand on his forehead.

"Il Signor will never more paint naked hearts that the world may applaud his skill!' That was what Matteo whispered, and the long fingers felt for his throat. He struggled madly, he strove to cry out; but the Hunchback was endowed in that hour with the strength of ten men, and presently strange lights began to flash across the painter's dulling brain; strange lights like to those he had watched once winding up and up a darkening hill— and even as those others had at last died out, so did these.

Carleton stirred— a quiver ran through his waking body— a moan struggled feebly through his swollen and discolored lips. Then pain that was keenest anguish brought back his senses with a rush.

He cried out, loudly, shrilly, like one in mortal terror and agony. Again and yet again, until at length some one heard, and people came hurrying and clustered about, exclaiming in horror, questioning, gesticulating. There was running of messengers and frantic summoning of skilled help. In the following days, all that the best of medical science could accomplish was devoted to bringing the painter back to health and strength of body— and he lived.

But no knowledge under the sun sufficed to restore his missing right hand, nor to give light to his darkened eyes.

"Il Signor will never more paint naked hearts that the world may applaud his skill!" had the Hunchback whispered.

______________

2: The Unexpected

K. and J. Arnold
fl. 1913

Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW), 23 April 1913

THE LETTER which Richard Cunningham was reading seemed to be unpleasant, for he crumpled it savagely in his hand, and then stood gazing into the fire. Over thirty years of age, his fair coloring made him look younger, and in spite of his weak, sentimental mouth, he was rather handsome. With a sigh that was almost a groan, he sank into a chair, and straightening out the letter on his knee, read it through again.

Dear Sir,

I was surprised at not hearing from you this morning concerning your debt, which fell due yesterday. I shall be obliged if you will call at your earliest convenience.

Yours truly,

Roland Markwick.

With an uncomplimentary remark about the writer, Richard threw the offemding epistle into the fire.

"The brute," he muttered, "he knows I'm in a hole or he wouldn't dare."

Lighting a cigarette, he leaned back and began to study the position. It was not cheering, for he owed the money-lender £3000, and at this moment possessed hardly that number of pence. The second son of a wealthy family, he had by his repeated failures at length exhausted his father's patience, and when the latter died, everything had been left to an elder son, Richard inheriting merely a hundred a year, the capital of which he was unable to touch. This had been ten years before, and since then he had lived a pleasant, idle life in town.

At first it had all seemed great fun; the lucky bet, the occasional flutter on the Stock Exchange, and when all else failed, a dip into the pockets of some kindly and moneyed friend. Now and again he would try with great enthusiasm to get some work, but the fit only lasted a week or two, and lately the position had become difficult.

The truth was that his world had found him out, and was wearied of him. All his life he had posed, and only his vast powers of self-deception enabled him to regard himself as the victim of circumstances. Even now he imagined that, given a fresh chance, he might make something of life.

Could Markwick be induced to renew the loan? Richard shook his head. Borrowing had once been easy enough, but this had been changed by the arrival of a direct inheritor. Appeal to his brother was hopeless; that had been tried too often. Remains the last chance, he thought; could he by hook or by crook raise some fresh credit?

There was only one way, and one only, as far as he could see— by marriage, and here he had some hopes. The lady in his mind was Millicent Cheyne. They had been friends years ago — Millicent Harboard she was then— and at one time it had looked as if they would be more than friends.

However, nothing had come of it; Richard had pursued his career of failure, and Millicent had married Julius Cheyne, a City gentleman reputed to be of considerable wealth. She had been a widow some years now, and was established in a comfortable house in Kensington, where she entertained considerably. Since their meeting some little time back, Richard had been rather a frequent visitor at her house.

Certainly marriage with Millicent would be the solution of every difficulty, if only he could bring it off.

His head filled with empty sentimentalities like this, he went to bed, determined to see Markwick on the morrow, and then put his scheme to the  test.

Roland Markwick conducted his business in comfortable chambers, and his office presented none of the usual features of such a place. A luxuriously-furnished room it was, the prints on the wall being specially noticeable, and the next morning Richard was ushered in by a man-servant who had the appearance of belonging to a ducal household at least.

Now money-lenders, though they may have changed in externals, are still much the same at heart, and Markwick was no exception to the rule. His methods with dilatory debtors were not lenient, and when Richard left the office he had suffered considerably in dignity, and only gained a respite of two days.

So that same afternoon saw him making his way towards Millicent's house. He sincerely hoped his visit might not after all prove fruitless, and was exceedingly glad to find his hostess at home and alone.

"A pleasant surprise, Richard," she said as they shook hands, the name was a relic of their old intimacy.

During tea, conversation ranged over different subjects until Richard thought it time to come to his point.

"Can you guess why I called this afternoon, Milly? May I?" he opened his cigarette case as he spoke.

"For the pleasure of my company, I suppose," answered Milly, smiling.

"Yes, of course, but there was something else." He paused, and then went on. "You remember the old days, Milly, don't you? We were good friends, then."

"Well, aren't we now?" asked Milly with another smile.

"We are good friends, at least I hope so; but it's not quite the same, Milly; I was very fond of you, you know."

"My dear Richard, you are talking of prehistoric times, before my marriage."

"Are they too long ago for you to remember?" asked Richard, and receiving no reply, he went on. "You know I was fond of you, Milly. I loved you then, I always have; and now I have come to ask you to be my wife. I haven't much to offer, I've made a mess of life, I know. I never had a chance though. But if you loved me I would make a new start. With you to help me, there's nothing I couldn't do. If only you loved me, Milly."

His voice quivered with emotion.

Millicent sat silent, gazing into the fire. She hardly knew what she wished to say. The memory of their youth together rose before her; then she would have said yes; but now—

"Ah, Richard," she said at length. "You're right when you say things are different now. We were children then, now we're grown up, and what have you done since then? Not much, have you, and I wonder if it's altogether through bad luck?"

"Milly," he broke in, "it's quite true I've never done much good, but perhaps it has not been quite all my fault. You see, no one ever cared whether I did well or not."

"I don't see why one shouldn't work for one's own sake."

Richard, got up from his chair and came towards her. "I would for yours,"- he said, softly.

At this moment the door opened. Richard hastily moved back to his own side of the hearth as a maid entered with a card. Millicent looked at it.

"Oh, bother," she said, "I suppose I had better see him. Please excuse me a moment, Richard."

Left alone, Richard walked restlessly, about the room. Was she going to say yes?

"If only that confounded maid had been ten minutes later I should have known my fate by now." He spoke half aloud. "I really believe she was going to say yes, and now— women are so queer."

Standing by the table he picked up the card lying there, and idly turned it over in his fingers. Suddenly he dropped it with a cry, then he looked at the name again. There was no mistake, both name and address were plain, "Roland Markwick."

What in the name of fortune could he be doing in this house? Good heavens— could it be! Was Millicent keeping up appearances on borrowed money, and was she poor, like himself? There were such things in the world as unlucky investments and bank failures. All his excitement died away, and one thought remained. If his surmise proved true, what was his position now?

A door slammed in the distance, and, going to the window, Richard caught sight of a familiar figure leaving the house. It was Markwick! What could he do?

The question beat and hammered at his brain. He gazed at the card as if expecting to read the answer there, and at this moment Millicent entered the room.

"Please forgive me, Richard," she said. "I am sorry to have been so long, and it was only tiresome business. Come let me give you some more tea."

She sat down at the table. "I think I'd better make some fresh."

Then, catching sight of his face, "What is it, Richard?" she cried in a startled tone.

"What is wrong?"

"Milly," he said, holding out the card; "what business brings Roland Markwick to your house?"

She flushed slightly and hesitated a little before replying.

"It was a private matter," she said at length. "I am sorry, Richard," she added noting his look. "But I am afraid I can't tell you more."

"No," he replied; then his anxiety to know the truth got the better of him. "I think I can guess," he went on, his voice harsh and unsteady. "So you are in the same boat as myself, Milly, and been borrowing from the same man as myself, too. It's true that one-half the world never knows how the other lives," he finished with an unpleasant laugh.

"Yes, " she said steadily. "That's true, Richard, quite true. We all have our secrets, our skeletons in the cupboard, if you like to put it so."

Her manner, her grave face, her very words themselves seemed to Richard the knell of all his hopes, the confirmation of his worst surmises. Well, there was no help for it now; he pulled himself together.

"Milly," he began, but she stopped him with a gesture.

"Richard," she said, gently. "if I have been borrowing from Markwick, if it's true that you and I are in the same boat, as you call it, does that idea make a great difference to you?"

Her eyes were upon him and presently he let his own fall.

"It's like this, Milly," he said at last; "all my life I've been trying to make a fight against poverty and you see the result." He threw out his hands. "I've been a failure alone, what could I do for the two of is? It's no use, I can't ask you to share my failure, I can't, I can't."

His voice broke, and he felt that he had carried it off rather well. As she made no answer, he looked up, and, meeting her steady gaze, the cold contempt in her eyes stung him sharply his face flushed, and he rose from his chair holding out his hand.

"Milly," he began again, but she interrupted him.

"I think you had better go," she said, quietly. I understand perfectly."

He tried to stammer out some excuse, but before those steady, searching eyes the words died on his lips, and he went out in silence.

The next evening after one of the most unhappy days Richard had ever experienced in his life, he received a letter.

Dear Richard,

It may surprise you to learn that Mr. Roland Markwick acted as manager for my husband. The business is now mine, a fact I do not reveal to everybody. I am returning the enclosed which was apparently all you wanted of me. I trust your confidence in your new start will be justified.—

Yours

Millicent Cheyne.

Richard looked at the enclosure in a dazed way. It was his note of hand for three thousand pounds.

________________

3: Giles Haggerston's Ward

Annie S. Swan

1859-1943

Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW), 13 Dec 1916

Mrs. Annie Shepherd Swan Burnett-Smith

Scottish romance novelist, journalist, suffragist, and a founding member of the Scottish Nationalist Party. A prolific author of novels, serials and short stories. Also wrote as David Lyall and Mrs Burnett-Smith.

GILES Haggerston had long ceased to anticipate with joy or excitement the arrival of the English mail. He had been eleven years in Australia, and the few ties he had left at home had since been snapped, and now he imagined himself cut off entirely from the land of his birth.

The outbreak of war awakened in him all a son's love for England, but the work on which he was engaged prevented his enlistment in the first overseas contingent. The Government absolutely forbade him to leave his post, and it was his duty— he saw it quite clearly, though reluctantly— to obey.

He had done well in Victoria, coming out without money or influence, his only assets being his own brains and the determination to make good, and now in his 35th year he had a position— likewise means— of which he had reason to be proud. He was a blunt, honest, straightforward Britisher, who took some knowing, as the saying goes, but who, once known, won both love and respect.

The war was eleven months old when he received what he considered to he a summons home. It came in the form of a posthumous letter from a man with whom he had been at St. John's College, Cambridge, one Percy Eade, with whom, though 10 years his senior, Haggerston had been very intimate. Eade had been a strange, reticent sort of man, afflicted with a distressing shyness which repelled people. He was not a favorite, and he was grateful for Haggerston's friendship, though during the four years it lasted, the veil had never really been rent between them.

Eade was studying for Holy Orders; and it was not until the letter which lay before him came out from England, eleven years after he had left it, that Haggerston learned that his friend had been a married man in the old Cambridge days. He read the letter through twice and then putting it in his breast pocket walked away slowly towards Government House. It was his way to go straight to the heart of things— and having made up his mind to go home he did not propose to waste any time in preliminaries.

He was admitted to the Governor's presence without delay, and the moment happened to be opportune.

"I have to apologise for disturbing you, sir, but I have had a letter from England to-day, and have come to ask for six mouths' leave."

The Governor looked at him keenly, but quite sympathetically.

"'Not bad news, I hope?"

"In a sense I suppose it is. I have lost an old college friend by death. He was a rector in a small living on the Norfolk coast. He has left me his only child to. take care of. His wife predeceased him by five years."

"Ah. a hoy, I suppose, and you will place him in a public school, and when the time is ripe bring him out here."

"She is a girl, sir," answered Haggerston with a slight smile. "And I haven't the faintest inkling of her age."

"Ah, that will be rather difficult, seeing you are a bachelor, and wholly unattached. What do your propose to do Avith this ward, then?"

"I must see her first. Everything depends on what kind of a girl she is. Your Excellency knows that there are many kinds."

"As the sands of the sea for multitude," murmured his Excellency, wvith his kind, illuminating smile. "Well, I think you deserve leave, and you shall have it, Haggerston, if you promise not to be beguiled with any folly on the other side where the war is concerned, not the ward—" he added hastily. "For understand, you are indispensable here."

"I shall come back, sir, without fail. I know which side my bread is buttered on. And probably the war will be over when I get to England. As for the ward, she is not likely to complicate matters much. she can't possibly be more than ten years old — if that."

Later on Haggerston had reason, when he stood before the supposed ten-year-old ward, to reflect on his over-confident words.

His voyage to England was uneventful, and he arrived there about the end of October— a glorious October crowning one of the most perfect summers the old land had ever seen. Though accustomed to the pellucid skies and the glowing sunshine of the Southern Hemisphere, he had no fault to find with the English climate. He remained only two nights in London, and then journeyed to the Norfolk village whence his mandate home had come. It was a lovely old-world village, very typically English, and as he made his way on foot across two miles of fields from the station to Raffham Rectory he felt as if he were in a perpetual garden of delight.

There was a new rector in Raffham, an elderiy man, most of the young candidates for livings being now at the front or engaged in some other form of war work.

Mr. Feltham received his Colonial visitor Avith courteous grace.

"Ah, a friend of poor Eade's, a very sad case that was. Come in, Mr. Haggerston, and I will answer any questions to the best of my ability, though there is really very little to tell, I believe."

Haggerston was ushered into a comfortable oak-raftered study lined Avith books, and when he inquired straightly for Miss Eade's address the rector, shook his head.

"I don't know it— nobody here does. She got the war-work craze in its most aggravated form, and I believe is now in France."

"In France!" repeated Haggerston. "But how am I to find her there? Mr. Eade has asked me to be her guardian— but before one can be a guardian the object to be guarded has to be found."

"Naturally, of course. But haven't the lawyers any idea, her father's lawyers, I mean?"

"There don't appear to be any. Poor Eade was a very casual sort of man, Mr. Feltham."

"He appears to have been that, but where his daughter avhs concerned he ought to have been more definite. I have never seen her, but she Avas greatly beloved in this parish, Mr. Haggerston— they both were, in fact, so much so, that my wife and I have found it exceedingly difficult to follow them."

"One thing you surely can tell me, Mr.Feltham, something about her age. Hoav can a child of ten be engaged on war Avork in France?"

"Ten! Ten! But she must be twenty, Mr. Haggerston, if she is a day. How can such a mistake have arisen?"

"Faith, and I don't know. T'oir Eade must have had a past, I fear— or at least a wife when he was at Cambridge."

"You might try Worples at Raffham Bridge. He's an attorney, and knew Mr. Eade rather well. I fancy he might even have some knowledge of his affairs."

Haggerston tried Worples at Raffham Bridge, but without much success. The attorney had a great deal to say about the late rector of Raffham, who had evidently been a very unusual personality, but he knew nothing about his affairs, and very little about Miss Eade.

"I did hear that she was working in a soldiers' canteen in France. Tell you what, Mr. Haggerston, you might try the F.M.G.A. in London. They have the most of the canteens in the war zone and an immense staff. Probably they keep a list. As to means, I'm afraid I haven't an idea, except as regards the furniture at the Rectory. Miss Eade kept a few things; one of the farmers stored them for her in a barn. It realised £137, for the business came through here. But what she did with it I don't know. Probably she's paying her way out there. They have to give their work and keep themselves, I'm told."

Haggerston longed to ask what kind of a girl Cicely Eade was, but some fine instinct forbade it. He was rather aghast already at what he had. heard, the mere fact of her age being singularly disquieting, but he was not less eager to see her, nay, he became obsessed by that one desire. But how to accomplish it? Surely to look for one unit, and that a singularly detached one, in a great army of voluntary workers in a foreign country, was worse than a searcn for a needle in a haystack.

But Haggerston was not one to be discouraged by obstacles; quite the reverse. His temperament and experience had taught him the joy of demolishing them. At the Y.M.C.A. headquarters they had no record of Miss Cicely Eade on their list of workers.

Then Haggerston learned for the first time of the well-nigh insuperable difficulties placed in the way of civilian travellers desirous of going to France. Even with his official position, he would have to provide himself with a definite and an urgent reason for his journey. He could not find one, and even his commonsense assured him that he must find some basis for his operations, or he lift A7A
might easily lose much good time without achieving the smallest success.

He dawdled about London through the greater part of November, knocking at many doors and accidentally hoping to hear from a chance or unexpected quarter some news of his elusive ward. In this he was disappointed.

Finally, however, by bringing all the powerful influence he could command into play, he secured his passport and a permit to travel in the war zone. He arrived at Boulogne about the middle of December, and the weather was not kind. He spent a few days there making every possible inquiry for a person of the name of Eade, but all to no purpose. Young women of all sorts and names he found, some of them very distinguished names indeed, serving at canteen counters, cooking and washing up, but none of the name of Eade.

It was very tedious and irritating, and many men would have given u.p the search at a very early stage, but something inside of Giles Haggerston urged him to remain. He had the odd feeling that something would turn up eventually, and it did, quite naturally and easily, as such things generally do.

Haggerston had had rather an unhappy day wrestling with his own private desire to be in the war. The sight of his countrymen swarming everywhere in uniform, made him hate and loathe his civilian clothes. He turned into his hotel for dinner after watching the afternoon boat come in an hour and a half late, and he had almost decided to return to England the next day.

Christmas was approaching, even in the war zone the stir and lure of it could be felt, and he could not face the idea of spending it alone in a French hotel. He was wondering where he could spend it even on the other side, when suddenly a sentence smote on his ear, spoken by a large, handsome woman, sitting with a younger one at a small table just opposite to him.

"Whatever you may think, Julia, it was a plucky thing they did. Everybody knows what stuff the Norfolk Brainerds are, as for the girl— I wonder what Eades she can belong to? They say her command of languages is marvellous— and she is absolutely without fear."

Haggerston pushed back his chair noisily, because he was excited, and rising, crossed the intervening floor space towards the astonished ladies.

"Pardon me, madam," he said, addressing the one who had spoken. "You have just mentioned a name that happens to be of supreme interest to me at the moment. Can you tell me where the young lady of the name of Eade is to be found?"

The ladyj with all the Englishwoman's hauteur, was momentarily inclined to resent this unusual intrusion, but Haggerston had a somewhat distinguished air, and a very good-looking face, also his smile was at once winning and wistful.

"The Miss Eade I was speaking of is in Belgium at the moment, at some buffet, I don't exactly know where; it is quite close to the firing line, I believe."

"It is up near Pralines, I believe," said the younger woman. "It is the Belgian lines, you know. She and Lady Brainerd run a sort of canteen there, and I believe even render first-aid. They have been there a long time, and I am told it is very good work, frightfully dangerous, of course."

"Pralines," repeated Haggerston. "Where is Pralines?"

"Somewhere in Belgium," was the vague reply. "They could tell you here. Oh yes, I believed you could get to it by car, in course of time. You know Miss Eade, then?''

"I do not, Madame, but her father was my best college friend. He is dead, and has left her in my care without telling me where I should find her. I have come twelve thousand miles, madame, and have not found her yet."

"Dear me, how interesting! I hope she will be the right Miss Eade, after all, and if we should be here when you come back from Pralines, I hope you will tell us what luck you had."

Haggerston thanked them profusely, gave his card, and went off to interview the management as to the best and quickest way to get to Pralines. He found it a way hedged by difficulties, some of them might easily have proved insurmountable, but he got there, and it was his first introduction to the actual horror and devastation of war.

At a remote angle of the shell-shattered little town he found the two Englishwomen, and when he stood face to face with the slim lithe young woman with the tanned face and the steady grey eyes, and the sweet, firm mouth, he remembered the friend of his youth, saw him, indeed, in a new guise.

"Someone asking for me, not a soldier," her voice rang out clear and true from some mysterious region beyond the canteen counter, and presently she came out, wiping her hands on a rough towel and looked at him steadily.

"I know— you are Daddy's friend—Mr. Haggerston. I always felt I should know you when you came. It was very decent of you to come here to find me. Why did you?"

"Because you belong to me now," said Haggerston, with a thrill in his voice and a strange stir at his heart; "You're my ward, and I'm your guardian."

"I know," she nodded soberly, though there was just the suspicion of a twinkle in her bonny, eyes. "How does one salute guardians?"

Haggerston would have liked to answer "With a kiss," but refrained.

"I've come twelve thousand miles to find you, my dear, and I have been through divers tribulations in the process. But, now I am here, I shall take you back to London to spend Christmas, yours and mine; we shall spend it together."

"Oh, no; guardians don't do that sort of things in war-time. When they are very good guardians, they stay here, and make themselves useful. Our only orderly has rejoined his unit, so you can take his place and spend your Christmas in the war-zone. Come now, and be introduced to Lady Brainerd."

She was an elderly woman, thin as a reed, hardened by her hard work, into which she had put body and soul, and all the money she possessed. And these two women, unaided, inspired by love and heroic courage, had done angels' work in Pralines.

The impossible happened. Haggerston sent back the car to Boulogne, found himself a bomb-proof shelter, and stayed on to spend Christmas in Pralines. What he saw there would fill more space than I have at my disposal; what he learned there is the only matter with which we are immediately concerned.

There was no feeling of strangeness between him and his ward. She accepted him as a comrade and brother, and Haggerston, whose life had been singularly barren of feminine influence, tasted a sweetness which he had never imagined life could contain. His own personality, so charming and so true, won Lady Brainerd's confidence and liking at once, and no one could have imagined that they had only been a few days together.

Cicely Eade was an entirely new type of womanhood to Haggerston, a perpetual source of wonder and delight. She was so capable and so self-reliant, but at the same time so sweet and girlish, so child-like in her delight over small things, that Haggerston positively ached to spend money on her. He sent to England for all the things they wanted, but could not afford, for their queer little canteen, and though only a very few of them came through in time for Christmas, they managed to have a very jolly one. Things were quieter at the front, so that there were fewer heart-rending scenes in Pralines, but Haggerston learned from independent sources to which his fluent knowledge of French gave him access, something of the marvellous work these two had done.

"If your father only knew, Cicely," he began one day.

It was the Eve of Christmas, and they had paused for a moment to rest after decorating the little canteen with such Christmas stuff as they could find.

'"But, of course, he knows," she said quite simply. "I have so often felt him quite near. When the shells used to be bursting all round us I knew then, most particularly."

Haggerston did not know what to say in reply. He had a more practical mind, but since he had come into the war zone, he had heard many strange things.

"I am sure he is glad we are to pass such a lovely Christmas, and you here; only it will be rather awful when you go away—"

Haggerstone looked steadily into her sweet, rather wistful, face, and his own eyes were shadowed.

"I have only got six months' leave, my dear, and four are already gone."

"Do they count in the voyage, too?"

He nodded.

"Then you have really only about three more weeks?"

"That is all."

"How perfectly horrid! I think, on the whole, I rather wish you hadn't come."

"Don't say that my— my dear. Do you know that I came home with the fixed determination of taking you back to Australia with me?"

"Did you?"

"Yes, but that was when thought you were ten instead of twenty."

"And now supposing there had been no war, you would not have taken me just because I happen to be twenty instead of ten. My misfortune, Guardian, not my fault."

She smiled somewhat archly, then her cheek faintly reddened as she turned away. "Have we quite finished? Just think how the soldiers are going to love their Christmas to-morrow, thanks to you, a present for every single one! Our wildest dreams never soared to such a height."

Haggerston took no notice of that— it did not seem to interest him.

"Cicely, child, I can't go away back to Australia and leave you here in this danger— I simply can't."

"Oh, yes, we shall be cared for, same as we have been. God does wonderful things in the war, and grants all sorts of impossible prayers."

"Do you think He would grant one of mine, my dear?"

"Yes, if you ask properly. What is it?"

"How does a man ask properly for a big obstacle to be removed?"

"Perhaps it isn't a real obstacle "

"Oh, yes, it is reared by old Father Time, Cicely, and he makes no mistakes. It's a solid block of years, my dear."

"How many?"

"Fifteen."

"Where are they?"

"Here, between you and me, I am 35 and you are 20, and I love you with all my heart and soul."

It was out before he knew, and he waited in a kind of cold terror for what must ensue.

"Oh, but years don't count when other things are right. They said I was too young for the war zone. Nobody would take me at first. But dear Lady Brainerd took me at last, so you see they were wrong."

"Cicely— what are you saying? Is there any hope?" he asked hoarsely. "Can I take you back with me to Australia?"

"After the war, yes. Twenty will come more gladly than ten would have done, because she understands."

______________

4: Blasphemers' Plateau

Alexander Snyder
fl. 1922-1932

Amazing Stories, Oct 1926

A fine example of the old Hugo Gernsback scientifiction, and the Frankenstein theme. The author of this story produced about a half-dozen tales for the pulps in his short career.

"IS he expecting you?" asked the hack driver hopefully, extending a gnarled hand for the bag of the elderly newcomer who had just alighted from the late afternoon I train,

"Not exactly," Mason informed him, relinquishing the bag. "I just wrote I'd 'drop in on him' one of these days, and receiving no answer to that, I supposed it would be all right for me to come on. Why? What is it?" noting the driver's air of disappointment.

"We can't do business then, I guess, Mister. Leastwise, 'twouldn't be right for roe to drive you up there and then have to bring you right back; now would it?"

Mason eyed the shabby old fellow of the delicate scruples with surprise.

"Do you mean to tell me I can't get in unless I'm expected?"

The driver nodded. "Not after dark you can't. Mister. It'd be that by the time we covered the four mile to his place." He jerked a thumb in the direction of the crow-bait standing dejectedly between the shafts of an ancient vehicle. "The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be," he apologized.

"You're right," agreed Mason, glancing at the horse. "She's no descendant of Pegasus, to judge by externals. Well— what am I to do then, if you're so positive there's no use going up there tonight? Where shall I stay? There's no sense taking the next train out, that is, supposing there is one before morning."

The driver appraised him swiftly. "Well, now, Mister, you could stop up to The Travelers' Hotel for the night, and travel on up in the morning. How'd that suit you? Hotel's a mile in the other direction."

Mason shrugged his shoulders resignedly, " 'Needs must, when the devil drives'— Oh! I beg your pardon! I meant nothing personal," he amended, at the driver's laugh. "All right, then. The Hotel it shall be."

He climbed into the hack agilely enough for one of his apparent years, and settled into the seat next the driver's, while the latter untied the looped reins from around the stock of the whin, resting in its socket, slapped them up and down, and clucked to the mare.

"Are you a native here?" asked Mason, as they backed away from the station and lurched into the road.

"I be'n born and brought up here, Mister," responded the driver, glad of an opportunity to while away the trip ahead.

"Then you probably know Doctor Santurn?"

"I can't say I do— nor does anyone else 'round about. He's been a mystery here sence he built, up on the Plateau, nigh onto ten year ago. Beats all how he keeps to himself. Folks do say though—" he stopped apprehensively.

"Go on!" said Mason encouragingly. "You won't offend me. If its the truth, then that's that; and if it's a lie, I'll get him to nail it when I see him tomorrow."

"Well— where'd his menagerie come from?" blurted out the driver, turning half around toward his seat mate.

"Menagerie! Do you mean to say he has one?"

"Yes! An' a 'quarium too!" declared the driver emphatically. "He had the cages and tanks built apart from the house 'fore ever he moved in. An' the funny part of it is— where'd the animals come from? An' the fish? We never did see even one crate come in by way of the railroad station, nor anything that looked like a cage loaded on motor trucks neither. 'Course, there's be'n two or three of us be'n inside the gates on business— repairs an' sich, quite a while ago, an' they saw plenty. An' now'n then there's city visitors like yourself; but they never bring nothin' but small boxes or a handbag. Once in a while, come to think of it, there's heavy machinery comes by freight; but folks t'other side of The Plateau say there never was a load of critters brought in that way neither."

Mason frowned. "What's the difference how they arrived? They probably came by night In covered motor trucks. Don't you know the Doctor is a world-famous biologist? He knows more about animals and what makes them tick than the next best half dozen put together. Get on with you, man! Are you trying to build a mystery around him?"

"No, no, Mister!" protested the driver. "There's funny doin's goes on in those buildings of his'n up there on The Plateau. An' he never shows himself a'tall. He just sends his Jap man down with a little car for mail and supplies, an' keeps to himself year in an' year out, 'cept for three or four men 'round the place. There! We're nearing the Hotel. 'Nother half mile or so an' we'll be there. Whoa!" drawing on the reins. "Hear that?"

"Music? Faint music?" asked Mason.

"Giddap! Yes, Mister. Something like music. Ruther it's radio noises from a tremendous big horn on the roof of the Doctor's tower. We kin hear it just at this point when the breeze's like 'tis now. Funny! Sometimes it sounds like a giant cricket, 'n' then again it sounds like a 'Katydid' or a tree toad. The sound carries most as fur's a locomotive whistle."

Driver and passenger completed the ride in silence, each immersed in thought.

"Well, here we are, Mister!" said the driver as Mason climbed down and paid his fare.

"Do you want I should call for you in the morning?"

"Do you want a 'peek' at the place?" smiled Mason. "Very well; make it nine o'clock. Good night!" He turned and entered the small frame building that boasted the title of Hotel, and was heartily received by the rustic proprietor.

"Sure, now, Mr. Mason" (glancing at the ancient register in which the newcomer had inscribed his name) "I'll be glad to put you up for the night. I'll show yon to your room so's you can freshen up a bit, and when you come down there'll be a snack of supper on the table for you."

IT was rather cool and gusty outdoors, for early summer, and the dark and rutty roadways lacked appeal for an after-supper stroll for Mason who contented himself with sitting in the "parlor" with his host. He recounted what the driver had told him.

" 'S truth!" said the innkeeper earnestly to his solitary guest. "Ben warn't lying. You try an' get in on The Plateau after dark, an' you'll look down the mean end of a sawed-off shotgun. There's a night-watchman at the gate, an' the wall'3 high an' studded with broken glass. The watchman won't listen to no talk whatsoever. An' while you're turn in' around preparin' to come back, you'll maybe hear some funny noises from beyond the wall."

"Pardon my asking," interrupted Mason, "but does the Doctor owe anything in the village?"

"No."

"Anybody miss anything?"

"Not so's I've heard," said the innkeeper.

"Anybody disappear without a trace?" ironically.

"I see what you're gettin' at, Mr. Mason. Sort of a polite way of askin' why don't we mind our business if he does no harm? There's not much to do in these parts, though, 'cept to speculate on other folks' business. An' I do admit the Doctor's fair game for the curious."

"Fair enough," admitted Mason. "I haven't seen him in years myself; but from what I know, he likes seclusion and doesn't care for a strange audience, particularly when he's performing some experiment."

" 'Tain't vivisection." ventured the host.

"How do you know?"

"The cages get fuller, 'stead of emptier, an' the critters ain't breedin' 'cause there's only one of each. Carpenter knows. He was up there a month ago to reinforce a cage, an' he says a big monkey a'most grabbed him 'tween the bars."

The evening waned rapidly as the innkeeper detailed the petty gossip of the village centering on the "doings" that occurred up on The Plateau; and when Mason climbed gratefully into the huge four-poster with its generous patch quilt, shortly before eleven, he lay wondering what the morrow held in store. Despite his deprecations and attempts to dispel the air of mystery with which the Hotel proprietor had invested the Doctor, some of the village's superstition attached itself to him and disturbed his sleep.

AFTER a leisurely breakfast, Mason settled his account, bade the innkeeper adieu, and climbed, for the second time, to his seat in Old Ben's hack, which the garrulous driver had brought around on time.

Jog-jog, talk-talk, jog-jog. Then the labored breathing of the old horse as she hauled her burden along the stiff upgrade. The scrunch of wheels overriding the edges of the ruts; the clop-clop of hoofs on the level stretches ; the cool, fresh breezes of early summer — all these various little sounds combined in a pleasant, unobtrusive symphony that lulled the tired senses of the elderly passenger, and soothed him into a state of peaceful, care-free, reverent happiness.

Beyond lay The Plateau, a flattened knoll of some five acres in expanse, toward which the road wound in tortured undulations between other and lesser knolls. As they neared their destination, driver and passenger became aware of a high stone wall completely surrounding the estate on The Plateau ; and when they had approached closely to the entrance gate, they saw that the top of the wall itself was prickly with broken glass set in cement.

The main port of entry appeared to be a tall, iron door set flush in the wall, and Ben sought the bell affixed to the wall next to it. He pressed the button, and then drew back a trifle nervously, and stood abreast with Mason, who waited to be admitted.

Almost at once a small wicket, head high, was drawn back from within, and a stolid face with heavy lidded eyes appeared in the opening and regarded them passively.

"Well?" challenged the watchman belligerently, "What's your business?"

"I'd like to see the Doctor," said Mason, passing his card through the wicket. "Take him my card, please."

"Wait!" said the guard, and closed the wicket in the door.

"See!" whispered Ben triumphantly. "What did I tell you? At night you'd get no answer a'tall, 'less you tried to get over the wall, 'n' then the answer'd be buckshot most likely."

There was the sound as of an iron bolt withdrawn, and the heavy door swung inward.

"Come in!" said the guard, taking Mason's bag. "The Doctor'll see you at once!" And to Ben, who would have followed, "No! You can't come in! See the sign 'Private'?" He closed the door in the face of the disappointed hackman.

The residence was set back at some little distance within the gate, and as Mason traversed the gravel path to it with his guide, he glanced with interest about the enclosure. By now, a thousand questions had Sprung to mind, elicited by his unusual reception, by that forbidding wall and medieval gate, by the strange-looking buildings just beyond the residence, and by the house itself, drab and repellent in the bright sunshine of the summer morning.

He followed the guard up a short flight of four steps, and then, at a gesture from the man, preceded him through the vestibule, and stopped on perceiving the subject of his visit.

ON the threshold of a low-raftered sitting room, which was sumptuously furnished around a principal color motif of mahogany, stood Doctor Santurn, with hand extended.

"Gary!" he exclaimed delightedly, hurrying for ward to shake Mason's hand and pat him on the shoulder. "You're more welcome than I can say. When did you arrive?"

"Last night," said Mason dryly. "But they told me—"

"Enough!" cried the Doctor contritely. "Hoist by my own petard ! This red tape with which I am forced to surround myself seems to have snared me badly if it deprived me of your company last night. Of all the people I've longed to see! How much time have you?" he broke off.

"All there is," declared Mason leisurely. "My last book is now on the presses, and I'm at 'loose ends' for a while." He regarded his old friend closely.

"I'm just 'sizing you up,' " he said, "to see what ravages the years have wrought."

"And you find—?" asked the Doctor.

"Few. You're still slight. You always were more ethereal than physical, I recall. Those spectacle lenses are just a trifle thicker— a natural thing for a bookworm. Same amount of hair, nearer white than gray," patting his own thinned out crop ruefully, "and the same old world-defying twirl to those distinctive moustaches of yours. On the whole, I should say the years have treated you kindly."

"And you, too," rejoined the Doctor. "I'm more overjoyed every second, that you can make a long visit with me. I'll have you settled all ship-shape and proper in short order."

He picked up a felt hammer and smote a huge gong with the mallet, the mellow, booming note instantly summoning a bland and imperturbable

"Suki," said the Doctor, "you will prepare the south bedchamber for Mr. Mason and make him so comfortable that he won't want to leave in a hurry. Take his bag up now."

A mirthless smile appeared and disappeared so quickly on Suki's face that Mason almost doubted he had seen it.

"If you can withstand the pressure of your curiosity," said the Doctor, "save your questions until later, until you orientate yourself. I suppose you'd like to make the rounds with me?"

"Surely!" said Mason. "Is that the library beyond?"

"You scent books as unerringly as a setter its quarry," smiled the Doctor. "Very well. First the library." He drew Mason to the door at the far end of the sitting room.

"Here are some thousands of volumes," said the Doctor, "and every one earns its keep. Your own archaeology series has its own niche of honor, and is exempt from the rules for a book's admission here."

"Rules?" asked Mason, puzzled.

"Certainly. We have no room for any but books of science here, and new books, at that. As soon as a new volume comes out that supersedes or disproves an old one, out goes the old! With one other exception— Ah! You've come to it!" as Mason, who had been browsing at random among the formidable array of tomes stopped before a section in the far corner of the room.

"Why, what's this, Oliver?" cried Mason in astonishment. "Books on religion! The 'Koran,' 'Holy Bible,' 'Oriental and Occidental Beliefs,' 'Superstitions,' 'Agnosticism,' 'Bhuddistic Philosophy.' I'm quite astounded! I had no idea that you were so interested in theology and religion generally."

Doctor Santurn's eyes gleamed oddly behind the shielding lenses of his heavy spectacles.

"So much so, Gary, that all my work revolves about my personal beliefs. I am attempting to throw new light on Immortality and the Resurrection via the laboratory route."

MASON was conscious of a twinge of fear for his old friend's sanity, and scrutinized his face closely, hopefully seeking the clue to some jest; but finding the Doctor in serious mood, he forced himself to speak casually. "What luck, Oliver?" he asked.

"Some," confessed the Doctor. "Considerable. In fact, almost more than you will be able to assimilate or credit for some time. But enough of this mysticism! We can return here later. Come with me, if you will, and acclimate yourself to the atmosphere up here on The Plateau."

He led the way through a short hallway, passing the foot of a staircase which ran to the upper floor. "Living quarters are upstairs," he explained. "The kitchen is back here, to one. side, where Suki reigns unmolested. The main laboratory is in the rear extension on the other side. We'll leave that until this evening. Just now let us visit the individual workshops."

They left the house by the front way, following the gravel path around the side and to the rear, to the first of three squat, gray buildings. This one was surmounted by a cylindrical brick tower, fully thirty feet in height, and this, in turn, was topped by a sixty-foot mast, carefully braced, and guyed to cement blocks set in the ground itself on either side of the edifice. A similar mast rose from the ground a hundred feet away, and between the two depended the strands of a cage type of radio antenna.

"This is the electro-physical laboratory," explained the Doctor, as he opened the door and led the way

"Hello Stevens!" he said, "what are you up to now?"

A pleasant-faced, clean shaven man of middle age, with a scholarly stoop to his shoulders, rose from the laboratory stool on which he had been perched, intent on his work. He kept his hand on a knoblike contrivance connected with a peculiar type of galvanometer and some other, unfamiliar apparatus, and shut off a small, almost noiseless alternator, the armature of which continued to turn for almost a half minute after the circuit had been opened, so great had been its speed.

Doctor Santurn performed the introduction.

"You can speak freely in front of Mr. Mason," he advised.

"I am progressing rapidly," reported Stevens, "but I feel somehow that the plasma is contaminated. The vibratory rate is lower than I expected. There's resistance somewhere."

"I'll see that Bridges makes up a fresh supply for you," the Doctor assured him. He turned to Mason. "We're just arriving at the responsive vibratory rate of blood plasma," and, seeing the archaeologist's look of incredulity, he continued, "No. We're not delirious. Come along."

The second building was a replica of the first laboratory, externally; but it lacked the tower and radio mast. Doctor Santurn rapped at the door.

"All right, Bridges?" he called. "Sometimes he resents intrusion at a critical moment," he explained in an aside before the door opened.

A bald, weazened and swarthy individual in a grayish smock appeared in the doorway and glanced at their feet immediately.

"You're all right, Doctor; but I'll have to get a pair of rubbers for this gentleman." He acknowledged the introduction to Mason, excused himself for a moment, and returned at once with a heavy pair of rubbers. Mason put them on, wondering at the thick, cushiony, spring-rubber treads.

"Unlike the other mosques," explained the Doctor with a curious little laugh, "we require you to put on footgear before entering at this shrine of Bridges!"

"Move lightly!" cautioned the little man, "Come in!"

ROWS on rows of kegs and vats lined the walls, huge containers of chemical reagents from which the smaller stock bottles in their racks were evidently replenished. The glitter of glassware, grotesquely shaped flasks and tubes, the sheen of lacquered brass, scores of test tubes in serried array in racks, an indefinable odor of commingled gases, gave to the room the atmosphere of a Merlin's retreat.

"We do things in a wholesale way," explained Bridges. "We can perform almost any sort of biochemical experiment here, from the infinitesimally small to those requiring a hundredweight or more of materials. There's a bacterial incubator in that corner, and a refrigerator in this— duplicates of those in the 'zoo.' "

"Electrically controlled," supplemented the Doctor. "Most of our heating and all our lighting comes on those wires strung on the poles you passed on the road coming up here. The town beyond supplies us with current, and keeps the meter at their end of our private line, so that the total current consumption is recorded there, no matter what new devices we hook on here. It keeps inspectors from coming up here constantly, and incidentally excludes them from a glimpse of affairs that do not concern them. Naturally, I pay well for the privacy."

He approached the workbench whereon reposed the bulkiest microscope Mason had ever seen. It rested under a glass bell on a rubber pad.

"How far have you gotten, Bridges?" asked his chief.

Bridges waved a hand at a row of stoppered test tubes containing various colored fluids.

"The solutions are still settling, Doctor. That is why I wanted to have you avoid all unnecessary jarring. The qualitative analysis is completed. 'Quantitative' will be finished by this evening. When Stevens checks up with me tonight, I'll make a leukocyte for you!"

Mason gasped audibly, and Doctor Santurn turned to regard him with a self-satisfied smile.

"Are you astounded?" I assure you we're not trying to 'pull your leg.' To paraphrase old Shakespeare, 'There are more things on The Plateau,' Gary, 'than you ever dreamt of in your philosophy'."

"I don't believe what I've heard!" vociferated Mason stoutly. "How can I? Such things are preposterous ! Do you mean to tell me—?"

"Not a thing!" said Doctor Santurn. "Tonight you shall see. At present I want you to steep a bit longer. Let us go over to see Johnssen."

EXCEEDINGLY bewildered, a trifle loath to leave the fascination of the bio-chemical laboratory, Mason followed after the Doctor, and with him kept to the path, to the last of the three one-room buildings that lay to the rear of the residence.

"Here we are!" said the Doctor, passing with Mason through the door. "This place houses our menagerie and aquarium."

"Then it's true!" exclaimed Mason, recalling the innkeeper's story.

"What is?" asked the Doctor.

"One of the rumors the village is circulating about you."

"Is it a crime to possess a private collection?" asked the Doctor, ironically.

"No-o."

"Here's Johnssen," interrupted the Doctor.

A huge man approached them— a man perhaps fifty years of age, yet whose full head of ash blond hair, unlined, ruddy face and keen, sea-green eyes gave the impression of a remarkable state of preservation.

"What is new here?" asked the Doctor.

"We need a new thermostat for the primate's cage," said Johnssen, the words rumbling slowly and deeply in his throat. "Our youngster coughed once or twice last evening. It was chilly, if you remember, and I'm afraid he caught a cold. The old thermostat sticks, somewhere around seventy, and I'd like to get up to about ninety-five for emergencies."

"Are you referring to that orang?" asked Mason.

"Yes," said Johnssen, "the devil! For a two-year-old specimen born and brought up in captivity, one would think he'd be up to the usual monkey tricks. Not he! He sits there quietly and watches, watches—"

"Born and brought up here?" asked Mason of the Doctor.

"That is correct. He's always been an orphan."

"Cryptic, as most of the things I hear," retorted Mason, a trifle impatiently. "I simply can't contain myself much longer. What is this all about?" He leaned over the guard rail built around a huge tank set into the floor, and partitioned off into numerous smaller sections, each of which contained a fish or email amphibian. He waved a hand at the cages set about the walls, the orang being the largest of the various occupants.

"Where are the lions and tigers? The ones the villagers claim to have heard?" asked Mason.

"So long as they didn't claim actually to have seen them," said the Doctor, "my faith in the yokels is unshaken. They merely hear the sounds of certain local insects and birds amplified and sent out through the horn in the tower in order to test the attraction of the sounds for similar species. We occasionally use a radio decoy, so to speak, in testing our transmitter. Also, we convert various forms of radiant energy into 'radio' equivalents, and try them out too, and much noise results. We have actually transmitted the equivalent of radium 'gamma' rays, the various waves found in polarized light and in X-rays, as well as the usual radio waves at the other end of the scale, which reach into the thousands of meters.

"To get back to this collection, however," he continued, "I tell you truthfully that every one of the specimens you see here was born on the premises !"

"That python?"

"Almost three years ago, and he's as big as the usual forty or fifty year old specimen," the Doctor assured him.

"The badger, the lemur, and that brown toad?" persisted Mason.

"Everyone of them!"

"I give up!" confessed Mason.

"You had better, until after luncheon, Gary," advised the Doctor. "Come along, Johnssen! It's time to eat."

The three men left the miniature zoo and aquarium, and strolled back to the house together, where Stevens and Bridges joined them shortly.

SUKI served them deftly and silently while they conversed about the topics nearest to their hearts. The talk was most amazing to Mason, who was reluctant to appear gullible.

"Mason, here, is an old college chum of mine," explained the Doctor. "After dabbling in science, he commenced on theology, and then, by easy stages drifted into archaeology in order to substantiate for himself some of the beliefs he had picked up. As for me, you see how I have departed from the paths of 'goodness.' You needn't hesitate to speak frankly before our friend here. He'll get the general import of your remarks. He's kept up with events in the scientific world— the known scientific world," he amended.

Stevens began.

"Have you ever heard of a radio wave measuring one meter?"

"Surely!" said Mason affably.

"One of a millimeter?" persisted Stevens.

"Not in radio work, though probably some of the radium wave emanations are shorter than that."

"Have you ever heard of a quadrillimeter or a pentillimeter?"

"Get on with you!" said Mason with some asperity. "There are no such words or measurements. You're making game of me!"

Doctor Santurn smiled, the swarthy, weazened Bridges chuckled, and Johnssen rumbled mirthfully.

Bridges took up the cudgels,

"Will synthetic gin produce the 'D.T.'s', to you? knowledge," he asked slyly.

"Very likely," snapped Mason, on guard.

"Then a man who has taken sufficient synthetic liquor over a long enough period of time should see synthetic snakes and animals, shouldn't he?"

"Clever!" jeered Mason. "Synthetic snakes! Fancy them!"

"No. Don't fancy them. They exist. You've seen one yourself."

"What! This is too thick for me!" cried Mason; but they gave him no mercy.

"It's your turn, Johnssen," said the Chief.

"Do you remember the ancient myth about Minerva springing forth full-fledged from the head of Jupiter?"

"Yes— well?"

"Of course it's a myth," conceded Johnssen, "But it's not so far from what might be possible."

Mason extended his cigar-case around the table.

"The cigars are 'on me', gentlemen. I assure you they contain no hasheesh or other substance calculated to encourage your fabrications. Münchhausen himself would feel abashed in your presence."

His table-mates laughed in good spirits at his incredulity as they rose to go back to their separate tasks, and to Mason there was something forbiddingly convincing in the fact that not one of them had attempted to bolster his argument for argument's sake.

THE sun had descended through its arc during the afternoon, sending, through the red, stained-glass panels of the westerly windows of the library, queer, bloody mottlings on the backs of the books that lined the walls, as Mason and the Doctor discussed the work on The Plateau.

"Gary, do I appear rational to you?" the Doctor had asked.

"Your question implies some self-doubt as to your own sanity, I presume. Judging from externals, and as a layman, I can truthfully say you appear nothing out of the ordinary. Your manner of speech, however, has disturbed me somewhat; but on the whole I'd say you'd pass as nothing worse than slightly eccentric."

"Ah!" the Doctor had said. "But after I have proceeded a little, you'll think differently, no doubt. Shall I start with fundamentals?"

"Do!"

And then the biologist had entered on the weirdest and most unforseen harangue that it had even been Mason's lot to attend.

"Have you ever heard of the 'nitrogen cycle,' where the element nitrogen, 'fixed' by bacteria on grass roots, is ingested by cattle, turned into proteins, eaten by humans, and returned again to soil and air, and so on ad infinitum?"

"Surely," said Mason, "That's elementary."

"That's immortality!" corrected Doctor Santurn. "Nitrogen immortality, and just as demonstratable in every element.

"Nitrogen will always be nitrogen so long as the orbits of the electrons in its atom remain undisturbed. A change or a disturbance of the electrons will transform it into something else; perhaps into heavier or lighter nitrogen, perhaps into an entirely different substance, I know that to be true of every element.

"Now we take a big jump, and consider a human being just before 'death' occurs.

"The blood courses through the vascular system, nourishing the tissues. Then the vital impulse ceases. The circulation stops. The tissue cells, starved for oxygen and nourishment, begin to disintegrate into their inert, protoplasmic elements.

"Electronic activity in the individual atoms, however, goes on forever, despite the gross dissolution and decay of the body. The elementary matter of which the body is composed is indestructible no matter what form the body ultimately attains in the process of disintegration.

"That's Nature's method of analysis, of reducing a body into the individual and original elements which compose it. Does she waste these elements?

"She does not! Of course not! She borrows a few carbon molecules here, a little calcium there, perhaps some sulphur and hydrogen elsewhere. Then she combines them in proper proportion, kindles them with the magic wand of radiant energy, and presto! A new living organism is in our midst— perhaps an amoeba, or one of the yeasts, mayhap bird or beast, or even a new human being!"

"You mean," said Mason intensely interested, "That Death merely disarranges the atomic composition of a body by interfering with the vibratory rate of its electrons, and then, by a rearrangement of the chemical elements of the deceased, and a new vibratory impulse, Nature creates a new form of life from the old?"

"Essentially, yes!" agreed the Doctor. "Only your definitions of Death, Nature, and Life mean separate things to you; whereas to me they mean God. Now, right here, I am about to utter what may sound like blasphemy to those ears of yours which drank in too much in those theology lectures of long ago, when you were just a plastic and impressionable boy.

"IF I can do these things— if I can reduce organism to its components and then rearrange the same elements so they'll again be instinct with life, will I not be God myself?"

"I see," said Mason, his voice bitter with disappointment. " 'Me und Gott' as the Kaiser once remarked. You're a megalomaniac."

"Your reactions do you credit, Gary," said Doctor Santurn, shrugging his shoulders apologetically. "But don't misunderstand me. I am not, I have no desire to be— Divine. I am just an inchworm measuring its length against the unknown end of Science's yardstick, in an attempt to reach a certain goal."

"A non-existent goal!" snorted Mason disgustedly.

"I desire to prove," continued the Doctor, "that spiritual immortality does not exist, because physical, atomic Immortality precludes the possibility. And that goes for Resurrection, too. A man's body dies, disintegrates, and his atoms are used again to build other forms. His 'spirit' is merely the vibration which stimulates the electrons in their orbits."

"Yes?" sneered Mason skeptically.

The Doctor flushed, but continued in the same, pedantic manner.

"In radio work there are two sorts of waves we recognize; the 'damped,' or extinguished type, and the continuous or undamped variety.

"Mortal life is subject to damped impulses. The damping of vibrations may take place in a single cell in an hour; in man, a vast collection of cells, it may require 'threescore and ten', or, in the case of our old friend Methuselah, nine hundred and sixty three years. Barring accident, and applying a proper, continuous vibratory impulse to man, we should be enabled to keep him going indefinitely.

"I am not interested in that aspect of immortality, my friend. It would interfere with the economic scheme of things. But I am desirous of showing that there is no 'spirit' that persists beyond man's dissolution. Death merely damps his vital vibrations, extinguishes the impulse, so to speak. Only his molecules, atoms and electrons live on forever."

He fell silent, lost in reverie; and Mason wrapped in horrified speculation, did not disturb him. At length he broke the silence.

"And when you demonstrate your thesis to Mankind, Oliver, what do you expect to accomplish?"

Doctor Santurn brought up his wandering thoughts with a jerk, recollected time, place and adversary, and formulated his answer.

"Ah! Gary! I want to wipe out religion, the curse of humanity! I want men to live their years with the knowledge that what they waste here cannot, by any form of expiation, be made up in the 'Hereafter.' That 'Heaven' holds no greater reward than they are capable of achieving right here in the one existence; and that 'Hell' is a consciousness of error. When there are no barriers of religion between man and man, such as differences in faith now present, then the Brotherhood of Man will have arrived."

"You forget one thing," interrupted Mason, "Man's tendency to turn for assistance in time of stress to a Higher Power."

"MAN is a worm!" retorted Doctor Santurn. "Do you actually believe God guides the destinies of every individual bit of living protoplasm? He does, yes, in a wholesale way. He leaves the inconsequential details to the community. He endows us with knowledge sufficient for our well-being, and with a sense of ethics for the sake of society. He gives us the rudiments, the formulae for successful living, and then washes His hands of us, knowing that our neighbors will reward or punish us as we deserve."

"You are not exactly an atheist," said Mason, puzzled, "And yet—"

"I? An atheist? Hardly, Gary. I do believe this much: that a Great Power created the earth and all that is therein. But He or It merely supplied the crude elements that might still be found to-day if all living matter were reduced to its lowest common components.

"Then He planted a cell here, another there, and gave them the initial impulse that made them instinct with what you call 'life'. The rest He left to Evolution, which adapted them to changing conditions and environments through the aeons."

"If I understand you correctly," rejoined Mason, "Evolution, Nature, call it whatever you will, is the only true minister of the Deity?"

Doctor Santurn nodded, pleased.

"Call it that, or call it a physical, chemical, or a mechanical force, so long as you leave out all reference to the spiritual."

SOMETHING clutched at Mason's heart then, perhaps the memory of his father, long ago on a Thanksgiving Day saying grace over the festive board of the little New England farmhouse. He thought too, of his mother, laid away to the accompaniment of a clerical assurance of her spiritual persistence; of his own wedding and the old phrase, "Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder"; and of the same dear wife's promise, just prior to her decease, to wait for him on the "Other Side".

But Oliver Santurn would deny these blessed things to mankind, he thought bitterly. He would rob humanity of the fruits, and leave them the husks.

It was all too preposterous, of course! Neither the Doctor nor any other man could compass these wild visions and bring them to fruition; every wailing soul, outraged, from the time of Cro-Magnon on downward through the ages, would frustrate them.

It did serve to show him, however, a cold and sinister picture of one whom he had thought of warmly as a friend for almost forty years.

DOCTOR Santum's main laboratory in the extension to the rear of the residence was brilliantly illuminated by searchlights set well away in the corners, so as to be non-interfering magnetically with the delicate apparatus assembled on the insulated table in the center. The clear, white beams were directed against a cluster of parabolic reflectors, suspended from the domed ceiling, which focused the light upon the table below.

The room itself was somewhat of a composite of the three Mason had visited in the morning, and was reserved for the purpose of correlating the separate facts ascertained in the individual departments, and applying them in actual experiment.

The Doctor and his assistants were garbed in sterile white surgeons' garb, gauze-masked and rubber-gloved, and they had provided the visitor with a similar outfit. He now stood listening attentively to the Chief's remarks.

"The slide is sterile, as you see, having been carefully subjected to heavy, moist heat pressure in the sterilizer for thirty minutes. The microscope shows it to be free from organisms. The instruments Bridges is using have also been carefully sterilized. Watch him carefully as I call off rates and quantities!"

Under what appeared to Mason as the central lens of a quadruplex microscope, Bridges placed another sterile glass slide, and to it transferred an infinitesimal speck of some element. The little man now bent to a stereoscopic eyepiece, and with a delicate stylus tapered down to the invisibility of a Wollaston wire, teased and crushed the speck until Mason could no longer discern it.

"He is breaking down that particle into its basic crystals," murmured the Doctor in explanation. "It is an easier method— arrived at by us after considerable research— to use separate and individual crystals whose atomic weights we know, than to add or subtract via the scales method. We used to, at first; but now we have listed the exact weights of basic crystals."

He turned towards Bridges. "Three!" he ordered.

At Bridges' invitation, Mason peered through the eyepiece, and taking the fine probe in his unpracticed fingers, saw what appeared to be a telegraph pole prodding at a great pile of small, white, granular boulders. There was a deep valley beyond the mass, and across the gap lay three of the small builders by themselves.

Again and again the Doctor called off substances and quantities, until at last the requisite number of various crystals had been assembled in an inert mass on a fresh slide, a drop of clear blood serum added, and the whole surrounded by an incredibly thin iridium washer, and sealed by a cover glass.

Mason looked again through the quadruplex microscope and felt reassured that the mass was actually inert, a mound of chemicals in a puddle of clear fluid.

"Your turn, Stevens!" called the Doctor. "Have you found the rate?"

"Yes, Doctor. The wave is one hundred and five pentillimeters for human leukocytes. Various harmonics will produce mammalian, piscatory, or serpentine varieties. Shall I proceed?"

"By all means," urged the Chief.

A BANK of twenty-four vacuum tubes, somewhat resembling those used for radio purposes, had been arranged at the end of the table opposite the microscopical and chemical apparatus; and to a metallic slab in their midst, Bridges now carefully transferred the slide with sterile tweezers.

Stevens then turned a milli-vernier lateral clamp so that its edges made contact with the flat iridium washer under the coverglass on the slide.

"With twenty four cascaded steps of radio frequency amplification ahead of it," explained Stevens," and the contents of this slide acting as the grid of the detector, a tremendous electronic impulse can be imparted."

He stepped to a corner of the room and wheeled into position a squat carriage from which a heavily insulated cable ran back to a special socket in the wall. Upon the carriage rested a box-shaped piece of apparatus the size of a large trunk, which Stevens referred to as a "neo-split-wave radio transmitter."

"It's just the reverse of the heterodyne principle, you know," he explained. "It steps the wave down as far as we want it, and we do need a very short wave to compete with and surpass the gamma rays of radium. Now we're ready," he said, focusing the wave director toward an almost invisible loop aerial on the receptor, and adjusting his controls.

"Six and eighty two hundredths of a second should be sufficient exposure," he remarked, setting the electric, split-second automatic stop.

"Stand back, please!"

As the little group moved slightly to one side of the path of the ray, Stevens closed the primary circuit of the transmitter.

A weird, horrific screech filled the room, as though an invisible Twentieth Century Limited express train had applied its brakes suddenly to screaming steel rails. All the Jinnis of Hell together could hardly equal the terror of it, thought Mason.

AND then silence descended, broken only by the faint, rattling, tinkle of broker, glass falling somewhere inside the box on the carriage.

Stevens smiled.

"That was the swan-song of the transmitting tube. Tubes always collapse under the strain when used for a full exposure. We exhaust their three years of possible usefulness in a few, hectic seconds, and their elements shriek in protest as they disintegrate."

"Hurray!" interrupted Johnssen. "Bring the slide back before our subject freezes to death. I'll have to warm it with a light bath and give it oxygen."

The slide was immediately and deftly transferred back to its seat under the microscope lens, and treated to a bath of light directed at it laterally, and the cover glass lifted for an instant.

"You shall be the first to look, Gary," directed Doctor Santurn. "I think you know from observation how to focus the microscope. It is simply the old type worked out to almost absolute perfection."

Mason's eyes were affixed to the stereoscopic attachment, the milli-vernier adjustment screw turning slowly between his fingers.

Back and forth, back and forth, he turned the adjustment screw, raising and lowering the tube columns until the field cleared. Then Mason's hand drew slowly away from the super-microscope.

He gave a startled cry.

"Good God, Oliver! Something's moving! Skimming about here and there in the drop of fluid! It can't be— it's impossible!"

"Is it?" asked the Doctor testily. "I thought you inspected every step of the process yourself."

"I did— I did!" cried Mason excitedly, still watching the unicellular bit of life moving about in its element. "Only this—" he turned and looked at the silent group, with his arms stretched to them appealingly.

"This is no hoax, gentlemen? It isn't an elaborate farce at my expense? It's true? Is it?"

One by one they gravely nodded affirmation of the genuineness of what he had seen, and at last he faltered a little, and breathing with difficulty turned to the Doctor.

"I— I'm not well, Oliver. I'd like to rest a. bit. This thing has struck me all of a heap !"

IT seemed incredible to Mason that only twenty-four hours' earlier he had been seated with the proprietor of The Travelers' Hotel in the village, laughing and conversing light-heartedly over the whimsical absurdities, suspicions and superstitions of the natives, as related by the host.

That was another world, another existence as far as the Poles away from this atmosphere of deadly, calm, fixity of purpose with the destruction of mankind's beloved and familiar beliefs as its goal.

Again in the library, resting from the shock of what he had witnessed in the laboratory, Mason sat tete-à-tete with the biologist and listened with strained absorption to his friend's remarks. ("Friend? I'm not certain!" thought Mason,)

"What you saw performed, this evening," the Doctor was saying, "was the achievement of a goal we have already reached by a slightly different and easier method. You saw a single cell created. We have gone further — much further.

"Every one of the fish and mammals in Johnssen's care was born in a similar manner. Only we didn't create them cell by cell. We merely obtained the unfertilized fish roe, or reptilian eggs, or mammalian ova from various private aquaria and zoological collections all over the country, wherever a female specimen had freshly expired or been killed.

"It is easier to start with the unfertilized primary cell, actuate it in the laboratory, and permit its gestation and growth thereafter in a natural manner.

"Again— we have gone beyond even this. We know the composition of the eggs and ova of more than fifty varieties of organisms. We have duplicated them successfully and actuated them with vibratory impulses equivalent to the fertilization and germination processes of 'Nature'. We control the sex at will by limitation of the chromosomes: of the primary cell. In most respects, this method is the simpler of the two we have worked out.

"The other method, of which you saw an example tonight, is a step toward creating the individual tissues of the grown body. We have already duplicated the main, or parenchyme elements of several varieties of connective tissue— namely, areolar, fibrous, elastic, reticular, and the like.

"Blood, however, presents a difficult problem, and is taking longer to duplicate, because of the various cellular elements in it which exist in changing proportions. We're getting there, though!"

"And if you do?" asked Mason, hanging on each word of the highly technical description of the Doctor's work.

" 'And when we do', you should have said," rejoined Doctor Santurn.

"When we do," he continued, "we'll use the human ovum now in Johnssen's incubator, and artificially create a human being!"

"Damn your matter-of-fact confidence!" thought Mason.

"Just now," resumed the Doctor, "we want to be able to duplicate every variety of human blood we encounter in order to prepare for any emergency we may encounter that may arise after the birth of our subject. Transfusion, for instance."

Mason shivered slightly.

IN his reverent delving into the archives of the past, 'midst African sand dunes and buried Greek and Roman cities, he had come across the records of unspeakable practices, horrific and revolting; but never had he sensed so sinister an aura as that which surrounded the quiet-voiced, mild-mannered scientist who droned of his hopes and accomplishments.

If only he had the desire to dedicate his brilliant discoveries to the cure of disease, to the alleviation of suffering, to the elevation of Mankind and the Glory of God!

But no! His purpose was to render null and void all that had inspired faith in spiritual reality since the dawn of human life on the earth.

"Your work is monstrous, Oliver!" he said. "No matter how good your intentions may be, you are preparing to foist on humanity something that they will abominate!"

Doctor Santurn spoke with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice, which was pitched slightly higher and sounded somewhat strained.

"Since when are you a moralist, Gary?"

"Since this very moment, Oliver! You'll knock the props from under civilization and offer cold consolation in return. The sort of Immortality you believe in is no solace to the average man, even if your theories are entirely correct— which I am not prepared to admit."

"Stuff and nonsense! Do you really suppose, if you should die this minute, you'd go to a 'Hereafter' clad in celestial habiliments, but still appearing your present age— wrinkles, bald spot and all? Have you ever thought seriously of it Gary? What age would you be if you died and went to 'Heaven'? Would you dwell through Infinity agelessly, awaiting Gabriel's saxophone to clothe yourself again in the mortal clay you had left behind?

"You wouldn't find it, Gary! Not on Resurrection Day. You'd find that while you had strayed off, Nature had borrowed some of your very material molecules and employed them elsewhere in a most useful manner.

"Then the only recourse left you, if there should be a 'You', would be to appropriate unto yourself the Oriental belief in reincarnation, find yourself a new organism about to be born, and crawl into swaddling clothes for a new start— perhaps as a sacred cow, or a cat!"

"Stuff and nonsense, Gary! How could you bring yourself expediently to believe in a heathen' doctrine?"

"Stop— stop it!" cried Mason, feeling as if some roiling hand had stirred up the mud of doubt on these very questions which had always secretly troubled him.

"On the other hand," went on the Doctor, as though Mason had not spoken, "Consider these benefits: Men and women born free of any taint— physically free from blemish, and psychologically exempt from the age-old inhibitions and fears that hamper them to-day. Religion' is responsible, basically, for most of these psychic handicaps."

"Will they all be soulless automatons?" interrupted Mason, rallying again to the attack. "All of one level of mediocrity or genius? All with the same tastes, desires and capabilities?

"Granting your so-called 'benefits', what becomes of man's age-old desire for perpetuation in the traits of his children? What of his innate urge for perpetuation after he ceases to walk among the living?

"Instead of a soul, you claim he becomes a completely damped impulse in the ether. Try and tell men that, and see whether reason or instinct prevails!

"At your peril attempt to ram your 'Brotherhood of Man' scheme down their throats in the manner you propose.

"Oh, yes! Just try!"

But the Doctor merely laughed, refused to be drawn into further argument, and prepared to retire.

TIME stood still, up there on The Plateau; and the absence of newspapers, even of calendars, had its effect on Mason who lapsed quickly into the routine of the place.

Repelled by what he saw and heard, yet, nevertheless, fascinated by each step forward in the monstrous work, he spoke in a half-hearted manner of taking his departure, only to comply with the Doctor's cynically veneered proposal that he "stick it out."

What he bad witnessed during the first few hours following his arrival had created within him a deeper repugnance than he had believed himself capable of feeling. Gregarious by instinct, tolerant of the foibles and failings of the genus homo, and even indulgent of some of them personally, Mason brought to bear his best arguments to turn Doctor Santurn aside from the accomplishment of what he finally termed "Hellish desires."

The biologist bad indulged in another of his mild laughs at that; but if he had proclaimed his intention at the top of his voice, it could not have served better to convince Mason that wordy interference would be futile.

For the first time the archaeologist became aware of his own duality of nature. Ordinarily frank to the utmost, more comfortable as donor than as supplicant, there rose from his inner consciousness the knowledge that he would travel devious and subtle routes, if need be, to circumvent the Doctor. He was no longer in doubt as to the man's ability to create at will, many varieties of organisms.

Johnssen's charges became more numerous day by day, and whatever had once been animated in the laboratories on The Plateau was jealously guarded and nurtured,

Each day had its definite assignment to be completed, the schedule being laid down on the preceding evening; and as Mason contributed an apparently eager curiosity, the Doctor and his staff soon grew used to his appearance in this laboratory or that. They even found amusement in directing him to push this button or throw that switch, and watching his amazement at the results.

They were playing with the Higher Science, and it is doubtful if they could have recalled the rudimentary principles upon which their discoveries were based, so accustomed had they become to manipulation of their super-devices, and the performance of their intricate experiments.

On the surface, Mason was apparently reconciled to the projects which he watched grow to fruition, from day to day. Within, however, his submerged nature was slowly gaining the ascendency.

Calm, rational, well-balanced mentally, ordinarily, he nevertheless felt at times a desire to seize some convenient bludgeon and smash— smash to atoms these unbelievable devices which were to bring grief to mankind. At such moments there seemed to ring in his ears the cry,

"Sodom and Gomorrah! There are no righteous here!"

HAD he been possessed of an explosive, under the stimulus of his hidden impulse he might have been prompted to sacrifice himself as a martyr for Humanity's sake by reducing the laboratories and occupants into the particles to which the Doctor was so fond of referring. There was no opportunity for this, however, or rather, at best he might be successful in destroying Bridges' laboratory alone, for inflammable material in bulk was stored there.

Johnssen's charges— especially the python and the giant orang— came to mind as Mason pondered on the possibility of using them as active instruments of mischief; but no satisfactory method of employing them as Frankensteins occurred to him. He discarded the idea, for while he might account for the artificial specimens in the zoo, and possibly eliminate Johnssen, there would be left the other laboratories, and the Doctor, Bridges and Stevens with whom to reckon; to say nothing of Suki and either of the watchmen.

Stevens, the youngest of the scientists, was possessed of so many likeable qualities, despite his sacreligious work, that he was a thorn in Mason's conscience when the thought of murder came to him.

But again a voice seemed to cry in Mason's ear,

"Slay! Smite them hip and thigh! Spare not one of the blasphemers!"

Mason began spending much of his time in the electro-physical laboratory, where he came to be accepted by Stevens as a sincere searcher after knowledge, and, as an intimate of his Chief's, entitled to every courtesy and consideration.

Soon Stevens was permitting the older man to assist in some of the work, and as time fled by, and almost a month had elapsed since his arrival. Mason came to acquire a fair working knowledge of the operation of the equipment, without in the least attempting to ascertain the underlying principles.

As each step was checked up here, Stevens would demonstrate to Mason before presenting his findings to the Doctor.

"You know," he once remarked, placing on the laboratory table a live rabbit that had been snared by one of the watchmen, "that what is true of a theorem can often be demonstrated conversely. For instance, if we can create by one method, we should be able to destroy by a diametrically opposite and related method. We have made blood of many varieties with this neo -wave -generator.

"It is equally possible to destroy the blood and tissue elements by reversing the wave polarity by means of this change-over switch.

"This experiment is entre nous, if you please. I don't think the Doctor would altogether approve; but I should like to demonstrate to you what I mean.

"Observe this white rabbit— the fine, shell-like pink of its ears, due to the coursing blood. I am going to use a negative and reversed harmonic for rabbits' blood haemoglobin. Watch!"

With Mason behind him, intent on his slightest action, he closed the circuit with the director focused on the rabbit.

THE loud, metallic screech, now familiar to Mason, commenced and ceased almost instantly, and now the rabbit gained his attention.

To his amazement he saw its pinkish ears grow paler, blanch to an opaque white, to the white of a fish's belly— to leprous white. The animal seemed to shrink slightly, to breath with difficulty, all within the compass of a minute.

"The subject," announced Stevens in a satisfied manner, "is dying of pernicious anaemia. At least, I have employed a ray destructive to haemoglobin— the red blood cells. If you were to take a specimen of this rabbit's blood over to Bridges, he could show you under his microscope that practically all the red blood corpuscles had been destroyed. I'd rather you'd take my word for it and refrain from asking him, as this side line is a little secret of my

Not again was Mason permitted to view a demonstration of the powers of the destructive wave ; but his eyes wandered often to the wave-changing device on the switchboard of the transmitter, a3 Stevens busied himself with innumerable tasks.

Another week elapsed, during which time the concerted efforts of the scientists were devoted to a duplication of the various principal cells of the nervous system and brain. They worked with amazing speed and accuracy, did these men.

"It wouldn't do, Gary," Doctor Santurn remarked, "to bring that human ovum to life next month, only to have it turn out an imbecile. I am going to make sure there'll be the nucleus of a sound brain within its cranium after we bring it into being."

Mason smiled, despite the impulse to rend and tear.

He could not, however, look into the Doctor's eyes for fear of disclosing his true feelings, as he murmured false phrases of approbation.

Mason had learned to dissimulate.

WORN and haggard from the conflict of forces which raged within him, the elderly archaeologist gave up all thought of the outer world, his every desire centering on accomplishing the destruction of the work and workers of the Plateau Laboratories.

He almost screamed aloud in horror at the artificial birth of the baby, which took place in Doctor Santurn's main laboratory a month later.

The ovum, which had been subjected to activating treatment under the ray months before, and had been in Johnssen's incubator all this while, was now a full-term foetus and needed but the final exposure to the action of the ray to bring to life a lustily bawling youngster.

Before Johnssen, with almost maternal solicitude, rushed it off to its incubator— the same, as a matter of fact, that the orang had ones occupied— Doctor Santurn examined it carefully.

With an air of disappointment he finally turned to his assistants and remarked, "There has been some slight error of calculation. The infant is a cretin. We shall be delayed with its brain development until we have subjected it to radio-glandular therapy for a while."

Then, against his inner loathing to be present on several succeeding occasions, Mason had witnessed the delicate treatments which transformed the hideous creature into a seraphic-faced, physically perfect specimen of babyhood— like the forced growth of some ugly bulb under hothouse methods into a blooming orchid of rare beauty.

Doctor Santurn, however, would not declare himself satisfied until he should have implanted a section of brain tissue into the child's cranium, for subjection to rapid growth by means of neo-wave stimulation.

Mason had by now passed the bounds of rational reasoning which might have led him to perceive the valuable by-products of the biologist's experiments, the means for eradicating many of the woes and much of the suffering of the peoples of the world. He nursed his fear assiduously, on the Doctor's oft-repeated statement that he meant to use his discoveries, not as a relief measure for "miserable humanity," but to destroy their "erroneous belief" in the Divinity of Creation, and in Spiritual Immortality.

Helplessly, desperately, Mason strove to stem the tide of this blasphemy, but no opening presented itself for favorable action by him.

A bit of the Doctor's irony recurred to him again and again.

In commenting on the birth of the child, Johnssen had said, "We ought to name it."

And Doctor Santurn, head bowed in deep thought for a few moments, had looked up and replied,

"We shall call it MacDuff. Like his namesake, he was not born of woman!"

A MILD, Indian summer's evening in late September wa3 declared favorable by Doctor Santurn, for the final brain treatment that should transform MacDuff's mentality from mediocrity to precocity.

Mason stood by, in sterile garb, and watched the preparations that centered about the anterior fontanels of the infant's cranium.

Trembling, hardly daring to speak for fear of betraying his emotion, he managed to subdue his excitement, and asked to be allowed to participate in the experiment.

"Ah, Gary! I'm delighted to see you running up the 'white flag' at last, after all your opposition! I knew you'd come around in time to the proper way of thinking if I kept you here long enough. Stevens! Kindly set the controls for Friend Mason, and we'll have him close the circuit that will make of this infant a genius."

Grouped on either side of the swaddled infant, intent on its proper placement by Johnssen, stood the Doctor and his assistants. They instinctively moved back a step, through force of habit, as Stevens called, "Ready?"

"Quite ready!" croaked Mason, standing by the controls. He would have to work rapidly with the thirty six seconds of exposure which the apparatus was set to deliver.

"Go!" called the Doctor, intent on the prone infant.

A metallic shriek pierced the quiet of the domed room as Mason threw on the current, and drowned the slight click of another device on the switchboard, which he suddenly shifted without having been bidden to touch it.

With desperate haste he pivoted the wave generator, raised its focus, and swept it slowly across: the heads of the unsuspecting group that stood apparently intent on MacDuff.

His actions had been accomplished within fifteen seconds, and then, with a sob, Mason broke the circuit with a hand switch, and let quiet fall again in the laboratory.

Had he failed?

He did not know as he peered intently, fearfully at the immobile faces of the scientists. They stood so quietly— almost like petrified men!

He shrank back in terror as the Doctor raised his head suddenly and pointed an accusing finger at him.

"Gary", said the Doctor bitingly, "you have abused the most sacred canon of hospitality in planning the destruction of your hosts. Don't attempt to deny it!" he barked, as Mason raised a trembling hand.

"If we had been in proper relation to the receptor, we'd have been idiots by this time. The ray you directed at us would have destroyed our brain tissues. You've been carefully watched, you bigoted would-be murderer, despite the fact that you appeared to be free from observation!"

Mason, still white and shaken, was stung to retort by the sharpness of the Doctor's tone.

"Hospitality be hanged when Humanity's happiness is at stake! I'd do it again, if I had the chance!"

"You would?" asked Doctor Santurn, his voice silken with an ominous threat,

"Assuredly!"

"Then listen to this:"

A few whistled notes issued forth incongruously from the lips of the elderly scientist.

"Do yon recognize the quaint little air, Gary? It's from Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Mikado'. To refresh your memory, I'll quote the words. 'To make the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime'!"

He paused for a moment to let his meaning impress itself on Mason's mind, and then continued,

"In simple, unadulterated English, my good man, you've asked for a taste of your own medicine!" He nodded to his assistants.

THERE was a wild threshing and straining and heaving of bodies as Mason fought to evade his captors. He reviled and cursed them and spat in their faces as they secured him to the table from which the infant MacDuff had been tenderly removed. Finally, when he perceived the futility of struggling further, lie lay quietly, and just before they focused the transmitter on his head he prayed aloud, not for deliverance, but for the destruction of his captors.

Stevens had replaced the disrupted tube with a Dew one, and the horrendous screech that now arose as he closed the circuit seemed almost to have something human in its terrible protest.

Within a quarter of an hour from the time he had attempted the lives of the scientists, Gary Mason, the one-time brilliant archaeologist had become metamorphosed into an adult with the mentality of a three year old child— a sleepy child, at that. Doctor Santurn called for Suki to put him to bed.

"Now, gentlemen," he said to his dishevelled assistants, "Science can proceed unhampered by fanatics. It is perhaps fortunate that our guest knew nothing of the mines placed under our buildings, nor of the bombs charged with Bridges' gas which is as deadly as Lewisite. Our knowledge is to be devoted to one great purpose, and rather than let our achievements fall into the hands of lily-livered gentry who might convert it to their own maudlin aims, I repeat our pledge to destroy, should it become necessary, the Plateau and all it houses. Remember, I— I—"

He paused, his face distorted by a spasm of pain.

Swiftly he ripped his surgeon's gown from his body and bared his torso to the gaze of his startled assistants.

"What do you see, Bridges?" he asked in a low tone of alarm. "Quick!"

Bridges, pressing his own face as if in pain, peered intently at the Doctor's neck.

"There's a peculiar enlargement under the angle of the jaw," he said. "Why! It's swelling as I watch!"

"Quick! Trace down the lymph nodes in the neck," the Doctor commanded, his face contorted.

Bridges did so. "Swelling too," he announced, "They're like marbles. It's almost like— I should say like—"

"Go on, man!"

"Like Metastasis in cancer, when the infection spreads."

"Good Lord!" blurted forth Stevens, inconsistently calling on One he had long scorned. "We never thought these currents would act like X-Rays! Simple high frequency! Who'd have thought—"

"DAMN your ignorance!" said the Doctor bitterly. "Ordinarily cancer takes up to a couple of years to kill, and here you've saddled me with an unknown hothouse variety that's killing me in minutes! You gaping fools! Haven't you ever heard of the cumulative effect of Roentgen Rays and Radium Rays? Well, now you know the Neo Wave is similar. Oh, yes, now you'll know! Mark you my lads, I'm going fast, and I know it; but you'll follow soon yourselves!

"You, Johnssen! What're you looking at on your arm? What's the trouble with your face, Bridges? Nose seems badly off center. Hi, Stevens, you blighted nincompoop! Do your feet hurt? Poor Trilbys!" He laughed ironically.

With faltering steps he dragged his pain-wracked body to the far corner of the room, and pressed against the wall next a hexagonal panel set invisibly in the tiles.

Bridges was running about like one blinded, futilely wringing his hands.

Johnssen gazed with terrible fixety at his forearm, feeling the chain of nodes that were swelling, up to the armpit.

And Stevens was crying, frankly and unashamedly as he clutched at his ankle.

"Boys," said the Doctor in a sibilant whisper, "We're beaten! We have no remedy for this sort of venom. It we'd have studied diseased tissues for the sake of Humanity, as our friend Mason might say, there'd be a fighting chance for us. Oh, well! It was fun while it lasted; but something's beaten us."

"Something? Is there a Something?"

The hexagonal panel was open, and deep into the recess in the wall the Doctor inserted his arm. Summoning his waning strength, he managed by a tremendous effort to force a raucous croak through his contracted larynx,

"Allons! Mes enfants!" he called to the heedless trio absorbed in their own separate purgatories. "A short life, and a merry one!"

His arm, sunk, to the shoulder in the wall recess, turned slowly.

THE proprietor of the Travelers' Hotel in the village, growing talkative, occasionally, to some favored guest these days, may point toward the Plateau, just as nightfall enshrouds it, and describe it as a place beloved of the Devil.

"Nothing but ruins are standing there since the night of the big explosion," he explains.

"Two men who went up to investigate, dropped in their tracks the moment they entered the gate, and the rest of us at a distance held back a good ways. No one 'ud dare go near the place. Finally the War Department sent an expert. He said the Plateau was chock full of some sort o' poison that'd settled down and blighted everything. 'Nothing can live there for years,' says he.

"So we went and put up a high wall with plenty of warning signs, clear around the old wall; but 'tain't necessary, really. Ha! Try an' get some one who knows to go there for love'r money!

"Would you like to explore," he asks pointedly, "Where no green grass grows, nor no vines cover the ruins? Where birds never rise no more once they light there? Sure you wouldn't! The place is damned and haunted, I tell you!"

And then the genial proprietor grows thoughtful.

"There was a kind of elderly fellow stopped here on his way up there, 'most a year ago. Said his friend up there on the Plateau was perfectly all right and aboveboard. I wonder what happened to that there feller?"

He shivers slightly.

"Let's go in an' turn on the light," he suggests. "The durn subjec' gives me the creeps!"

________________

5: The Feline Light and Power Company is Organised

Jacque Morgan

?-1925

Modern Electrics, Oct 1912

Amazing Stories, July 1926

Into the sub-genre of crackpot inventors and their calamitous inventions comes John Q. Fosdick, in the Amazing Stories magazine series "The Scientific Adventures of Mr Fosdick". Just 5 stories are known, first published in Modern Electrics.

1: The Feline Light and Power Company is Organised (M.E. Oct 1912)

2: Mr. Fosdick Invents the “Seidlitzmobile” (M.E. Nov 1912)

3: The International Electro-Galvanic Undertaking Corporation (M.E. Dec  1912)

4: The Afro-American Cataphoretic Process (M.E. Jan 1913)

5: Mr. Fosdick Goes in For Synthetic Chemistry M.E. Feb 1913)

The Author used the pseudonym "Ford Douglas" for much of his fiction, mostly in The Smart Set, and his own name for the Fosdick stories.

JASON Q. FOSDICK closed the book that he had received by mail that morning, "Electricity at a Glance," and for a long time stared at the blank wall of the tin-shop. Mr. Fosdick was thinking. Fosdick spent a great deal of his time in thought— probably most of his time. It was a common saying in Whiffleville that "When Mr. Fosdick gets through his thinking something is going to happen!" And in this the citizens were never disappointed, for invariably when Mr. Fosdick did get through his thinking something always did happen.

Everybody liked the homely little man with the kindly face and the mild blue eyes, and in all the countryside none enjoyed a greater confidence and respect than Mr. Fosdick, for he was an inventor and genius. In all matters pertaining to science he was the village authority— even a greater authority than old Professor Snooks, the fiercely bewhiskered savant of Doolittle College up on the hill. Snooks had once called him "a doddering tinker," but this Mr. Fosdick attributed to jealousy as did all the inhabitants of Whiffleville, for the Professor was a pompous man and an unpopular one. No fair-minded person could doubt Mr. Fosdick's versatility in the arts and crafts, for upon the signboard that hung over the sidewalk, in front of the door of the tinshop, was lettered his many accomplishments:

JASON QUINCY FOSDICK

Tinsmith, Key-Fitter
and Scissors-Grinder

As an inventor Mr. Fosdick had achieved great success. True, his patent corkscrew had never drawn a cork, but it had made a fair hairpin, and he had disposed of it as such for a dignified sum. His patent pump refused flatly to perform the duty for which it had been designed, but it turned out to be an excellent churn and the favorite creature of his inventive brain, his patent curling iron, was in service in countless homes throughout the broad land as a nut-cracker.

AS Mr. Fosdick gazed abstractedly at the bare wall in front of him he beetled his brows after the manner of all geniuses when concentrating their minds upon some great and suddenly discovered phenomenon in the wonderful world of science. As stated before, Mr. Fosdick was thinking. And the thing that immersed him so deep in thought was a sentence that he had just read in the book. Many would have passed it by, but Mr. Fosdick's eyes had no sooner fallen on the lines of type— less than a score of words in all — than it immediately revealed to him a wide field of experimental research and one replete with thrilling possibilities. The momentous truth as told in the single, short and unobtrusive sentence was: "Static electricity may be generated by rubbing together such substances as resin and fur." Little did Mr. Fosdick at the time suspect that his stumbling upon this bit of elementary science was to result in focusing upon him the fierce limelight of international publicity and to make Whiffleville, for a brief forty-eight hours, the breathless topic of conversation throughout the civilized world.

Fully an hour passed. The noon whistle blew at Eben Stetzle's chop mill announcing to all Whiffleville the arrival of the dinner hour, and then Mr. Fosdick with' the sigh of a tired man arose from his chair and started to close the shop. Had he followed out his intention this story would never have been written; but just as he was about to lock the front door there happened one of those strange and inexplicable things that so often change the destiny of men and nations— a large black cat walked across the threshold and sniffed rather contemptuously at Mr. Fosdick's shins!

Mr. Fosdick stared at the cat for a full minute and then he slowly put the key back in his pocket. "It's John L.!" he exclaimed. "By thunder, I'll try it!"

Pulling out a drawer of the workbench he, after fumbling about in a bushel or so of wheels, springs, screw-eyes and other odds and ends so dear to the hearts of all geniuses, eventually drew forth a large chunk of resin. And then picking up the unsuspecting John L.— so named after a highly successful pugilist on account of his extremely belligerent disposition— he placed the cat upon the bench and began to gently stroke him, fore and aft with the resin. Slowly the hair upon the cat's back began to rise and in a few minutes John L. had apparently grown to twice his normal size. No astronomer discovering some hitherto unknown planet— no mother gazing with loving eyes, at her first born, ever experienced the rapturous tumult of feelings that suffused Mr. Fosdick as he watched the rapidly expanding John L.

Quickly wrapping a piece of copper wire around a water pipe, Mr. Fosdick with eyes burning with the excitement of the experiment, slowly pushed the other end of the wire in the direction of John L.'s nose. Suddenly and without warning there was a loud cracking sound, a hot blue flame shot out from the cat's nose to the end of the wire, and John L., with a wild cry of rage, leaped some dozen feet in the air, and coming down, executed a neat right and left scratch upon the inventor's face; then with a single bound sprang through the door.

"By Jinks!" cried Fosdick. "She works— she works— she works!"

LESS than a week after Mr. Fosdick had made his experiment, all Whiffleville was thrown into a turmoil of excitement by the erection of a mysterious crib-like structure back of his tinshop. Only a chosen few knew the purpose of the strange building, and they, Eben Stetzle and five other friends and admirers of Mr. Fosdick, maintained a sphynx-like silence. In fact these men, having paid in ten dollars apiece to Mr. Fosdick, constituted the stockholders and the first board of directors of The Feline Light and Power Co.

The plan of organization was broad and comprehensive. The Feline Light and Power Co. was to be the parent company. Mr. Fosdick assured the directors that it should, by virtue of the ownership of basic patents which he was sure to obtain, control all the other companies that would spring up throughout the country, just as soon as the parent company had demonstrated the success of the new method of power generation.

Briefly, the new power plant consisted of a room hardly larger than a piano box elevated some three feet from the ground by insulating pillars of glazed brick. The floor and the walls of the room were coated with a four-inch lining of pure resin. Into this room a "plurality of cats," so the patent application read, "were to be liberated therein by dropping them through the trap door (A) to the resin-covered floor (B) upon which surface they will conduct themselves in the manner hereinafter described."

The prospectus which Mr. Fosdick had already started to work upon told in simpler language that the friction of the cats against the surface of the resin would generate electricity, which would be conveyed to consumers within a radius of ten miles— and possibly to the street railway and light stations in the city, fifty miles distant. Eben Stetzle was the first to foresee that there would be an immediate market for cats and secretly he and his brother-in-law set about organizing a cat-breeding corporation under the laws of New Jersey to be known as "The General Feline Co., Limited."

IT took some pretty hard hustling upon the part of the directorate, but by the time the power house was completed twenty "units," as Mr. Fosdick called them, had been lured from as many back yards and for a day languished in the back room of the tinshop. In the evening, when night had thrown its sable shade over Whiffleville and left the world in darkness to Mr. Fosdick and his eats, as Mr. Thomas Gray would doubtlessly have written, had he thought about it when composing his famous elegy— at any rate it was after dark when Mr. Fosdick stole out of the tinshop and one by one dropped his units through the trapdoor of the power house roof. Twenty trips he made and twenty units were installed. Then he listened intently— there was not a sound. With a heart sickened with the apprehension of failure, Mr. Fosdick made one more journey back to the tinshop and reappeared this time with John L.,— the "exciter," as he afterwards called him. Hardly had he dropped the hero of a thousand back-fence encounters into the dark and silent hole than things began to happen. Such a beldam of yowling and caterwauling Whiffleville had never heard— the plant was in operation.

The next morning when President Fosdick and the other officers and directors of "The Feline Light and Power Company" elbowed their way through the crowd of curious citizens that had gathered about the power house it was evident from the noise that came from the units inside that the charging process was still in progress. With some trepidation they mounted the ladder and looked down into the generating room. A strange and wonderful sight met their gaze. Twenty-one cats, each of them the size of a beer keg, were fighting each other in a grand battle royal. Their hair stood straight out and sparks played over their dully luminous bodies incessantly. The crackling noise of electrical discharges was continuous and the peculiar odor of ozone filled the air. The directors were awed.

"Men, we're worth millions and millions!" ejaculated Mr. Fosdick, gazing down rapturously at the expanded units.

QUICKLY handing Vice-President Stetzle the voltmeter he had brought with him, Mr. Fosdick slipped down into the room. Picking up a unit he handed it up through the door for more thorough examination. But the unit did not propose being examined. With a yowl of rage it sank its teeth into the vice-president's arm and then with a loud and furious hiss leaped to the ground. Upon just what happened then none could ever agree. Stetzle afterwards described the explosion as being like that of the sudden eruption of a volcano, other spectators when brought to their senses were sure there had been an earthquake. But Mr. Fosdick with his calm, unemotional mind of a born investigator believed neither of these theories. He saw the cat as it touched the ground— saw the sudden flare of blue fire— heard the tremendous report— saw the unit disappear in a dense cloud of white smoke, and afterwards identified all that was left of it— small patch of for about the size of a dime— as probably an ear.

Hardly had the breeze wafted the dust and smoke aside when Mr. Fosdick became aware of a strange and startling phenomenon— his hair and whiskers stood out from his head and face like the quills of a porcupine. Mr. Stetzle was similarly affected.

"Don't touch the ground, Eben!" shouted Mr. Fosdick warningly. "If you do you will blow up like the cat did. We're charged with millions of volts!" It was a terrible situation and the two men looked anxiously about for assistance, but the frightened spectators had fled to that haven of safety and gossip— the post office.

EXCITEMENT was at fever heat in the town. All sorts of rumors filled the air, and the telegraph was sending them to the remotest corners of the earth. Before noon extras were upon the streets of a score of cities telling in columns and columns of the terrible catastrophe and giving illustrations of it "Drawn by our special artist upon the ground."

All day long the two terrorized men cowered in the generating room. Outside at a safe distance a great crowd gathered. No one dared go near and it was generally believed that the unfortunate Fosdick and Stetzle must eventually starve to death. During the afternoon correspondents from the great city dailies poured in on every train and camera men clicked their instruments about "the death shed" in shoals. Towards evening it became known that the casualties were "one cat dead and two men electrified."

About supper time Prof. Snooks arrived, and it was owing to his suggestions to have food passed to them at the end of long glass poles that the men were saved from starvation.

In the generating room life was well nigh insufferable. The constant electrical discharges were irritating in the extreme and both men and units were in a vicious humor. It must be said, however, that President Fosdick made some attempt to bear the strain with the fortitude of a martyr to science ; but the unhappy Stetzle displayed no such courage— he had a wife and family, he said, and he wanted to get out. Mr. Fosdick counseled the vice-president to have his family brought in, but to this suggestion Stetzle only replied with curses. In calmer moments Stetzle said that with two men and twenty cats in the bin there could be no room for Mrs. Stetzle and nine children.

THE next afternoon Prof. Snooks from a safe distance shouted to them that they might, perhaps, regain their liberty by wearing rubber boots; but that they should try the idea on a cat first. In this suggestion Mr. Fosdick saw a ray of hope, and Mr. Stetzle was so cheered that he offered to dispose of his stock in the company of Mr. Fosdick for a mere song. The offer was refused. Mr. Fosdick said that he was not interested particularly in financial matters at that time. He wrote a note to Josh Little, the harnessmaker, ordering a pair of rubber boots made, cat-size. Then the inventor by eloquent gestures attracted the attention of the crowd and threw the note towards it at which there was a great scattering. A moment later he sank back in despair, for just as the epistle touched the ground there was a slight explosion, a vivid red flash, and it burned up before his very eyes. Well might he shudder, for now he realized the the tremendous electrical pressure with which he was charged.

A bolt of sheet rubber was passed in the next morning, however, and Fosdick set to work fashioning some insulating shoes for John L. These were  completed by noon and the fifty thousand morbid spectators that had come in by special trains breathlessly watched the experiment.

Rubbershod, the cat was dropped to the ground— and it survived. A great cheer went up from the crowd. This had no sooner subsided than Prof. Snooks realized that a terrible mistake had been made. Hastily grabbing a megaphone from a barker of one of the numerous side shows that had set up their tents everywhere, he addressed the crowd. He told them that John L. was at liberty charged with perhaps a hundred million volts of electricity, and that contact with him could mean but one thing— death. Instantly there was a wild commotion in the terrorised crowd and then a wild flight from the awful peril. By nightfall the railroads had deported thirty-nine train loads of people and, save for the few that could find rubber boots, the streets of Whiffleville were as lifeless as the shady paths of the neighboring cemetery.

Rubber and rubber alone could protect them against the deadly menace of John L. This, all realized. A thoughtless humanitarian, Bill Hitchcock by the name, made rubber boots for his three dogs. One of the dogs that very afternoon, spying John L., set sail for him and although he managed only to touch the tail of the eat he became charged with the deadly electrical pressure. And worse, the dog coming home rubbed noses with the Hitchcock's other two dogs, charging them. With three electrical dogs and one electrical cat at large only the foolhardy ventured abroad.

WITHIN the next twenty-four hours there were a number of casualties. About nine in the evening Old Tige, the largest of the dogs, came in contact with a lamp post. The post was instantly fused off even with the ground and the gas became ignited, making a geyser of flame that shot a hundred feet heavenward. The dog died. Later in the night another one of the dogs ran against a barb-wire fence, killing ten head of stock four miles away. That dog also died. At daybreak there was a loud explosion in the outskirts of the town. It is thought that this came from a cat fight in which John L. participated. At any rate he has never been seen since and to-day only a pathetic hole in the ground marks his probable last battlefield.

The remaining dog was captured at great peril to life, and turned over to Prof. Snooks for experimental purposes. By gradually drawing off the electrical charge by means of a condenser, the Professor in a week's time reduced the dog's pressure to approximately five thousand volts and then the animal was further discharged by hooking him up to the town arc light system of fifty lamps which he maintained in the splendid effulgence of over two thousand candle power for a period of nine hours and eleven minutes before his power ran down.

Mr. Fosdick and Mr. Stetzle are now living on two insulated stools in the laboratory of Doolittle College. Their potential is dropping at the rate of ten volts a day, and Prof. Snooks has calculated that they must remain there for the next 957 years, three months and two days before being fully discharged. It seems a great pity.

___________________

6: The Thing From the Grave

Harold Ward

1879-1950

Weird Tales July 1933

WE HAD finished dinner and were enjoying a bottle of Judge Thompson’s excellent old port in front of the big, stone fireplace in the huge library. As is often the case when one has dined well, conversation had suddenly ceased and for several minutes we sat smoking in silence, each of us occupied with his own thoughts. A deep sigh from the judge stirred me from my reverie and I looked up with a start. His kindly face had taken on a drawn and haggard look.

“Tired?” I demanded.

“Not particularly,’ he responded. Then: “Dudley, I’ll bet every penny I’ve got against a plugged nickel that you can’t guess what I was thinking about.”

“Not taken,” I smiled. "It must have been serious, though, from the look on your face.”

“Serious— damned serious,’ he said slowly. “I was wondering how long it would take me to choke you to death and whether your dying struggles would arouse the servants.”

I looked at him curiously.

“Your humor has taken a new angle tonight,” I said somewhat stiffly. “You surprize me—”

“I'm going to surprize you still more,” he interrupted. “I invited you here tonight, doctor, not altogether as a guest, but more particularly because of your experience as a psychiatrist. You have testified in my court a great many times; I recognize you as one of the world’s greatest authorities on mental diseases. I want you to listen to me. I must talk to some one..."

He stopped suddenly. Leaning forward, he peered into my face as if wondering whether or not to continue. Then, as I nodded, he went on.

“It has taken me a long time to make up my mind to take this up with you. And now that you are here I— I hardly know where to commence.”

“At the beginning,” I said sharply, putting on my best professional manner. “Only by knowing everything can I diagnose your case.”

Again there was a long, painful silence. Thompson slowly relighted his cigar and took a sip from the glass of port at his elbow.

“You psychologists tell us that every man has a phobia— a morbid dread of something,” he said finally. ‘‘Mine is the thought that eventually I shall kill somebody.”

“Nonsense!” I snapped.

“It may sound like nonsense to you, but to me it’s plain reality,” he growled. “I was telling you the truth when I said a moment ago that I was thinking of murdering you. Murder! Murder! God in heaven, doctor, the thing is never out of my thoughts! Day by day the— call it obsession if you will—is growing on me. Within my brain two ideas are constantly at war, one urging me to throw aside these wild imaginings and be my normal self, the other telling me that I am the victim of metempsychosis— that I am no longer Joseph J. Thompson, the jurist, but Jake Lauts, the arch-killer— the man I sent to the chair a few months ago and who now is, or should be, festering in his grave. And may God have mercy on my soul, the latter thought is slowly, but surely, gaining the ascendency.”

“I want you to come to my office the first thing in the morning for a thorough physical examination,” I said severely. “You are overworked—"

“Bosh!” he interrupted. "No judge is overworked. And to hell with your examination tomorrow. You're going to hear me out now—while I feel in the mood. Tomorrow. ” He shrugged his shoulders. "Damn it!’ he continued, “I've got to talk to somebody. Imagine, if you can, my mental condition. I’m not insane; I can diagnose my own condition well enough to make that statement positively. My nights are a succession of nightmares. I see myself taking life with my bare hands. I am throttling, stabbing, clubbing, shrieking with glee at the sight of the blood flowing from my victims. By day I sit in the security of my chambers and scan the newspaper accounts of every hellish crime, fearful that I will recognize some detail which will prove to me that my fearful imaginings are something more than dreams.

“Yes— and here is the worst of it all— I, who have always been one of the most kindly of men, am gradually longing to taste crime. Fight as hard as I will, I am constantly haunted by the desire to kill, to rend, to feel a human form grow limp, beneath my throttling fingers. I gaze upon every man who is brought before me for trial and think of him as a potential victim. I envy the executioner who, for a paltry hundred dollars, pulls the switch which sends some poor wretch to eternity. I would gladly pay for the privilege of doing the job. What a satisfaction it would be to watch the dying struggles of a man strapped in the big, black chair and know— know —that it was my hand that caused him to twitch and squirm and writhe as the hot current shot through his body....”

He arose and took a short turn about the room, his face twisted into a look of malignant ferocity.

“Doctor, you've got to drive these hellish thoughts out of my mind!” he exclaimed. “It’s awful— horrible! Will you do it? Can you do it?”

“Certainly,” I responded gruffly. “Your nerves are unstrung. I will write a prescription shortly and send one of the servants to get it filled. Meanwhile, let me question you a bit. Sit down. You mentioned Jake Lauts. I remember him very well; I was one of the medical experts called in during the trial. Tell me where he fits into the case.”

JUDGE THOMPSON dropped wearily into his chair again and passed a trembling hand across his brow.

“I'm beginning to wonder whether I am really myself or whether I am Jake Lauts,” he said with a groan. “I have a feeling that I am possessed— possessed of a devil— the one that was in Jake Lauts before I ordered him electrocuted. There are spirits, you know,” he went on earnestly, “that belong neither to heaven nor to hell; perhaps they have escaped from the latter place. Be that as it may, these spirits must, in order to prolong their existence, seize upon the body of some one else when their abiding-place is taken by death....”

“Nonsense!” I snapped. “Rubbish and superstition! You have been listening to some old woman’s tale.”

“Call it what you like,” Thompson sighed. “I sentenced Jake Lauts to death and, standing in the courtroom, he shook his fist at me and swore to high heaven that he would come back from the grave in order to be revenged. I laughed at his threats and ordered the bailiffs to drag him from my presence. Dozens of other men have made similar statements. But Jake Lauts kept his word. Oh, hear me out”—a s I raised a protesting hand— “then give me your opinion when I have finished.

“A few weeks after the execution of Jake Lauts, my wife and I attended a social function at the home of a friend. A part of the evening’s entertainment was a spiritualistic demonstration. I will not bore you with the details. Suffice to say that, as usual, the room was in total darkness. We listened to ghostly voices and the like when, in the midst of a longwinded speech by one of the medium’s so-called ‘controls’, the woman suddenly uttered a wild shriek.

“ 'The lights! The lights!’ she screamed.

“Our host turned the switch and the room was once more bathed in light.

“ 'There is an alien presence here,’ she asserted. ‘I am a trumpet medium; my controls never materialize. Yet something touched against me in the darkness— something that was horrible, cold and clammy— something direct from the grave. It must be that one of you is psychic and that through you the materialization has been produced. I am afraid to continue. My experience tells me that there are many, many things in the— shall I call it Between World?— which are better left alone.’

“There was a general demand that she continue, for her statement had naturally aroused our curiosity. I confess, however, that I considered the whole thing only a bit of flapdoodle, put on to give us a thrill. A single glance at the woman’s face told me different, however. She was genuinely frightened. She argued with us for a long time, and it was only when our host demanded that she either continue or receive no fee that she finally agreed. Again we took our places in the circle and our host again turned off the lights.

“Almost immediately a prickling sensation swept over me— a feeling of coldness and terror. It seemed as if I was alone in some vast cavern or charnel house. I tried to shake the feeling off, but it persisted. It was followed by a sort of lethargy. Yet I realized where I was and what was going on about me and, at the same time, I was unable to move; I was numb, paralyzed. I can’t describe how I felt. Only I know that I was scared; great beads of perspiration gathered on my forehead and trickled slowly down over my cheeks. I tried to call out, but my lips were sealed.

“Then out of the darkness appeared a vague cloud. It floated toward me, growing plainer and plainer until it took on the shape of Jake Lauts. He was different from what he had been in life, yet there was no mistaking him. He stopped just in front of me and crouched to spring— a vermin-gray, slouching figure, bestial, macabre. He was dead; that was plain to be seen. His face was bloodless and bloated, dotted with dark spots where decomposition had set in and covered with the mold of the grave. His baleful eyes gleamed with a greenish-yellow phosphorescence; piggish little eyes, they were, filled with demoniac fury and blood-lust.

“He crept forward, almost on all fours, his blunt fingers working convulsively, his thick lips drawn back over his gangrenous fangs, a white, frothy slaver drooling from the corners. I tried to draw back— to shriek. But as I have already said, I was paralyzed. Suddenly he launched his great body at me. His fingers closed about my throat. They were cold and clammy— the fingers of a corpse.

“Something must have given the medium the power to see— or feel. She screamed. God, how she screamed! Her shriek brought the others to their feet. Our host jerked the light-switch just as I crashed backward beneath the weight of the ungodly thing.

“And when the lights came on there was nothing— positively nothing— there.

“The other guests crowded around us, plying us with questions. They could get nothing out of the medium. She was in hysterics and would not talk. As for myself— well, I didn’t care to be taken for a fool, so I laughed the thing off. I told them that the affair had become boresome and that I had dropped asleep in the darkness and, losing my balance, had fallen backward.

“I could not, however, laugh off the horrible stench with which the room was filled. It was the smell of decomposition and death.”

JUDGE THOMPSON stopped suddenly. For a moment we sat there. I noticed that the sweat was pouring from his face and that his hand shook as he reached for the wine-glass at his elbow and drank deeply. I was frightened in spite of myself. Yet I knew that he was merely suffering from hallucinations— that his nerves were shot to pieces. He got up and paced the floor with quick, agitated strides. I waited for him to gain control over himself,

“Again and again during the next few days I had the feeling of some alien presence close beside me,” he resumed, sitting down again. ‘You, perhaps, understand what I mean. You know how it is when you think some one is looking at you from behind. I tried my best to throw it off, but in vain.

“Then I was taken ill. You probably remember the time, although you were not called in. For days I tossed, mumbling and shrieking, my brain filled with weird, adumbral horrors. A consultation of physicians was held. They declared themselves baffled. But eventually I grew better until I was fully recovered...

He leaned forward, his eyes blazing with excitement.

“I said that I was fully recovered,” he resumed. “Physically— yes, Mentally?... what shall I say? Since that illness I have never had that feeling of some one being near me. Instead, there commenced to creep over me this other sensation— this desire to kill— this phobia, if you want to call it that.

“Now do you understand? It was while I was sick— my brain filled with the maggots of fever— that the metempsychosis began to take place. Then it was that the devil that had been in Jake Lauts started to take possession of me....”

Again he stopped. Then:

“Dudley,” he said in a slow, impressive voice, “Jake Lauts, dead though he is, is gradually gaining the control over my mentality. My subconscious mind tells me so. But why? Is it my body that he desires? I answer yes. His spirit has failed to find an abiding-place either in heaven or in hell, and to perpetuate itself it must—must, I say—seize upon some living person. Eventually—and the time is not far distant— I shall be Judge Thompson in name only. In reality I shall be Jake Lauts. And when that awful day finally arrives I— I shall commit some foul crime.... God, what a revenge that will be for him..."

I leaped to my feet. “Judge Thompson,” I said severely, "this has gone far enough. I can enjoy a good yarn as much as anybody, but—"

“Damn your pig-headedness!” he roared, and glared at me balefully for an instant as if tempted to leap at me. Then he dropped back against the cushions again with a little sigh.

“I didn’t expect you to believe me,” he resumed. “But as God is my witness, what I am telling you is the truth— or, at least, I believe it to be the truth. Now will you permit me to finish?”

I grunted assent and sank back into my seat. The man was either stark mad or else he was trying to play a gigantic hoax upon me. I knew Judge Thompson well enough to believe the latter, and as a coldblooded, hard-headed man of science, I resented it.

“It’s hell— hell, I say,” he went on. “It is getting so that I measure with my mind’s eye the rounded throats of little children when they climb upon my knee. I want to take them between my hands and squeeze and squeeze until they are dead. Every nerve in my body twitches when I touch the warm flesh of the women with whom I dance....

“I have sent my wife away on an extended visit lest I kill her while she sleeps. The thought has been with me a great deal of late. Night after night I have lain awake fighting back the desire to creep into her room and throttle her.

“I am afraid to trust myself alone with any one. Right now my butler is standing outside the door. Why? Because I— well, I was fearful of being alone in here with you. I have issued instructions that there must always be two of my servants on duty at one time. They think that I am frightened because of the many threats that have been made against me. God, if they only knew!...”

He picked up his dead cigar and relighted it. For a moment he puffed at it nervously, then laid it down again.

“Last night,” he said slowly, “something happened.... At the beginning I told you that I was haunted by the thought that eventually I would commit some atrocious crime. I know— now— that the horrible things I have dreamed about are not dreams at all. I am a night prowler, Dudley— a slinking creature of the darkness, preying on what I may devour. I am a murderer— a fiend!”

Stepping to his desk, he picked up a copy of The Gazette and pointed to an article on the front page. The screaming headlines told of the murder of a young woman in an obscure part of town. Her throat had been torn, her head battered to a pulp.

“I killed that girl!” he said slowly. “I am certain of it. Yet I can not prove it. Can I go before any group of sane men and tell them that I know I killed a woman because I dreamed it? No. This morning when I woke up my hands were covered with blood. There were scratches on them. Perhaps, you will say, the blood came from the scratches. How, then, did I get the scratches? And my shoes were muddy and soiled. Some time during the night I must have gotten up and

“Yet I have no recollection of murdering her,” he ended piteously. “I can not swear that I am guilty. But I am guilty— as guilty as hell.”

THEN the lights went out.

It was then that I knew the meaning of fear. Something swept over me that set every nerve to tingling. I was engulfed in terror. For an instant it seemed as if my heart stopped beating as I sat there in the dark. I heard a rasping chuckle— cold, demoniacal, cruel. Two yellow eyes gleamed at me....

“Judge!” I shrieked. “Judge Thompson!”

My only answer was that throaty chuckle again. The eyes were drawing closer to me. It seemed as if I could see a form crouching to spring. I tried to move; every faculty was paralyzed. Then it was upon me— a greenish-grayish horror with slavering jaws and red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. Its foul talons seized me by the throat.

Then the lights came on. Wilkins, the butler, stood in the doorway.

“Beg your pardon, sir, but a fuse blew out,” he began.

He stopped suddenly, his eyes fairly bulging from their sockets, his body stiffened, a look of horror creeping over his face.

“The judge! The judge, sir!” he exclaimed.

I turned. Judge Thompson still sat where he had been seated when the lights went out. He was dead; that much was apparent. Even as I gazed, the process of dissolution was going on with terrible speed. His eyes, wide open, were sinking far into their sockets. His face was mottled. The room was filled with a horrible stench...

Together, Wilkins and I ran shrieking from the room.

___________________

7: Dibbs, R.N.

Gilbert Parker

1862-1932

In: Cumner's Son and Other South Sea Folk, 1910

Sir Horatio Gilbert Parker, Baronet.

Canadian born, a prolific author, traveller, and also a Conservative politician in Britain. The Book "Cumner's Son" arose from a two year stay in Australia during his travels.

"NOW listen to me, Neddie Dibbs," she said, as she bounced the ball lightly on her tennis-racket, "you are very precipitate. It's only four weeks since you were court-martialed, and you escaped being reduced by the very closest shave; and yet you come and make love to me, and want me to marry you. You don't lack confidence, certainly."

Commander Dibbs, R.N. was hurt; but he did not become dramatic. He felt the point of his torpedo-cut beard, and smiled up pluckily at her—she was much taller than he.

"I know the thing went against me rather," he said, but it was all wrong, I assure you. It's cheeky, of course, to come to you like this so soon after, but for two years I've been looking forward up there in the China Sea to meeting you again. You don't know what a beast of a station it is—besides, I didn't think you'd believe the charge."

"The charge was that you had endangered the safety of one of her Majesty's cruisers by trying to run through an unexplored opening in the Barrier Reef. Was that it?"

"That was it."

"And you didn't endanger her?"

"Yes, I did, but not wilfully, of course, nor yet stupidly."

"I read the evidence, and, frankly, it looked like stupidity."

"I haven't been called stupid usually, have I"

"No. I've heard you called many things, but never that."

Every inch of his five-feet-five was pluck. He could take her shots broadside, and laugh while he winced. "You've heard me called a good many things not complimentary, I suppose, for I know I'm not much to look at, and I've an edge to my tongue sometimes. What is the worst thing you ever said of me?" he added a little bitterly.

"What I say to you now— though, by the way, I've never said it before— that your self-confidence is appalling. Don't you know that I'm very popular, that they say I'm clever, and that I'm a tall, good-looking girl?"

She looked down at him, and said it with such a delightful naivete, through which a tone of raillery ran, that it did not sound as it may read. She knew her full value, but no one had ever accused her of vanity— she was simply the most charming, outspoken girl in the biggest city of Australia.

"Yes, I know all that," he replied with an honest laugh. "When you were a little child,— according to your mother, and were told you were not good, you said: 'No, I'm not good— I'm only beautiful.' "

Dibbs had a ready tongue, and nothing else he said at the moment could have had so good an effect. She laughed softly and merrily. "You have awkward little corners in your talk at times. I wonder they didn't reduce you at the court-martial. You were rather keen with your words once or twice there."

A faint flush ran over Dibbs's face, but he smiled through it, and didn't give away an inch of self-possession. "If the board had been women, I'd have been reduced right enough— women don't go by evidence, but by their feelings; they don't know what justice really is, though by nature they've some undisciplined generosity."

"There again you are foolish. I'm a woman. Now why do you say such things to me, especially when— when you are aspiring! Properly, I ought to punish you. But why did you say those sharp things at your trial? They probably told against you."

"I said them because I felt them, and I hate flummery and thick- headedness. I was as respectful as I could be; but there were things about the trial I didn't like— irregular things, which the Admiral himself, who knows his business, set right."

"I remember the Admiral said there were points about the case that he couldn't quite understand, but that they could only go by such testimony as they had."

"Exactly," he said sententiously.

She wheeled softly on him, and looked him full in the eyes. "What other testimony was there to offer?"

"We are getting a long way from our starting-point," he answered evasively. "We were talking of a more serious matter."

"But a matter with which this very thing has to do, Neddie Dibbs. There's a mystery somewhere. I've asked Archie; but he won't say a word about it, except that he doesn't think you were to blame."

"Your brother is a cautious fellow." Then, hurriedly: "He is quite right to express no opinion as to any mystery. Least said soonest mended."

"You mean that it is proper not to discuss professional matters in society?"

"That's it." A change had passed over Dibbs's face— it was slightly paler, but his voice was genial and inconsequential.

"Come and sit down at the Point," she said.

They went to a cliff which ran out from one corner of the garden, and sat down on a bench. Before them stretched the harbour, dotted with sails; men-of-war lay at anchor, among them the little Ruby, Commander Dibbs's cruiser. Pleasure-steamers went hurrying along to many shady harbours; a tall-masted schooner rode grandly in between the Heads, balanced with foam; and a beach beneath them shone like opal: it was a handsome sight.

For a time they were silent. At last he said: "I know I haven't much to recommend me. I'm a little beggar— nothing to look at; I'm pretty poor; I've had no influence to push me on; and just at the critical point in my career— when I was expecting promotion— I get this set-back, and lose your good opinion, which is more to me, though I say it bluntly like a sailor, than the praise of all the Lords of the Admiralty, if it could be got. You see, I always was ambitious; I was certain I'd be a captain; I swore I'd be an admiral one day; and I fell in love with the best girl in the world, and said I'd not give up thinking I would marry her until and unless I saw her wearing another man's name— and I don't know that I should even then."

"Now that sounds complicated— or wicked," she said, her face turned away from him.

"Believe me, it is not complicated; and men marry widows sometimes."

"You are shocking," she said, turning on him with a flush to her cheek and an angry glitter in her eye. "How dare you speak so cold-bloodedly and thoughtlessly?"

"I am not cold-blooded or thoughtless, nor yet shocking. I only speak what is in my mind with my usual crudeness. I know it sounds insolent of me, but, after all, it is only being bold with the woman for whom— half- disgraced, insignificant, but unquenchable fellow as I am— I'd do as much as, and, maybe, dare more for than any one of the men who would marry her if they could."

"I like ambitious men," she said relenting, and meditatively pushing the grass with her tennis-racket; "but ambition isn't everything, is it? There must be some kind of fulfilment to turn it into capital, as it were. Don't let me hurt your feelings, but you haven't done a great deal yet, have you?"

"No, I haven't. There must be occasion. The chance to do something big may start up any time, however. You never can tell when things will come your way. You've got to be ready, that's all."

"You are very confident."

"You'll call me a prig directly, perhaps, but I can't help that. I've said things to you that I've never said to any one in the world, and I don't regret saying them."

She looked at him earnestly. She had never been made love to in this fashion. There was no sentimentalism in it, only straightforward feeling, forceful, yet gentle. She knew he was aware that the Admiral of his squadron had paid, and was paying, court to her; that a titled aide- de-camp at Government House was conspicuously attentive; that one of the richest squatters in the country was ready to make astonishing settlements at any moment; and that there was not a young man of note acquainted with her who did not offer her gallant service-in the ball- room. She smiled as she thought of it. He was certainly not large, but no finer head was ever set on a man's shoulders, powerful, strongly outlined, nobly balanced. The eyes were everywhere; searching, indomitable, kind. It was a head for a sculptor. Ambition became it well. She had studied that head from every stand-point, and had had the keenest delight in talking to the man. But, as he said, that was two years before, and he had had bad luck since then.

She suddenly put this question to him: "Tell me all the truth about that accident to the Ruby. You have been hiding something. The Admiral was right, I know. Some evidence was not forthcoming that would have thrown a different light on the affair."

"I can tell you nothing," he promptly replied.

"I shall find out one day," she said.

"I hope not; though I'm grateful that you wish to do so."

He rose hurriedly to his feet; he was looking at the harbour below.
He raised the field-glass he had carried from the veranda to his eyes.
He was watching a yacht making across the bay towards them.

She spoke again. "You are going again to-morrow?"

"Yes; all the ships of the squadron but one get away."

"How long shall you be gone?"

"Six months at least—  Great God!"

He had not taken the glasses from his eyes as they talked, but had watched the yacht as she came on to get under the lee of the high shore at their right. He had noticed that one of those sudden fierce winds, called Southerly Busters, was sweeping down towards the craft, and would catch it when it came round sharp, as it must do. He recognised the boat also. It belonged to Laura Harman's father, and her brother Archie was in it. The gale caught the yacht as Dibbs foresaw, and swamped her. He dropped the glass, cried to the girl to follow, and in a minute had scrambled down the cliff, and thrown off most of his things. He had launched a skiff by the time the girl reached the shore. She got in without a word. She was deadly pale, but full of nerve. They rowed hard to where they could see two men clinging to the yacht; there had been three in it. The two men were not hauled in, for the gale was blowing too hard, but they clung to the rescuing skiff. The girl's brother was not to be seen. Instantly Dibbs dived under the yacht. It seemed an incredible time before he reappeared; but when he did, he had a body with him. Blood was coming from his nose, the strain of holding his breath had been so great. It was impossible to get the insensible body into the skiff. He grasped the side, and held the boy's head up. The girl rowed hard, but made little headway. Other rescue boats arrived presently, however, and they were all got to shore safely.

Lieutenant Archie Harman did not die. Animation was restored after great difficulty, but he did not sail away with the Ruby next morning to the Polynesian Islands. Another man took his place.

Little was said between Commander Dibbs and Laura Harman at parting late that night. She came from her brother's bedside and laid her hand upon his arm.

It is good," she said, "for a man to be brave as well as ambitious. You are sure to succeed; and I shall be proud of you, for— for you saved my brother's life, you see," she timidly added; and she was not often timid.

FIVE MONTHS AFTER, when the Ruby was lying with the flag-ship off one of the Marshall Islands, a packet of letters was brought from Fiji by a trading-schooner. One was for Commander Dibbs. It said in brief: "You saved my brother's life— that was brave. You saved his honour— that was noble. He has told me all. He will resign and clear you when the Admiral returns. You are a good man."

"He ought to be kicked," Dibbs said to himself. "Did the cowardly beggar think I did it for him— blast him!"

He raged inwardly; but he soon had something else to think of, for a hurricane came down on them as they lay in a trap of coral with only one outlet, which the Ruby had surveyed that day. He took his ship out gallantly, but the flag-ship dare not attempt it— Dibbs was the only man who knew the passage thoroughly. He managed to land on the shore below the harbour, and then, with a rope round him, essayed to reach the flag- ship from the beach. It was a wild chance, but he got there badly battered. Still, he took her with her Admiral out to the open safely.

That was how Dibbs became captain of a great iron-clad.

Archie Harman did not resign; Dibbs would not let him. Only Archie's sister knew that he was responsible for the accident to the Ruby, which nearly cost Dibbs his reputation; for he and Dibbs had surveyed the passage in the Barrier Reef when serving on another ship, and he had neglected instructions and wrongly and carelessly interpreted the chart. And Dibbs had held his tongue.

One evening Laura Harman said to Captain Dibbs: "Which would you rather be— Admiral of the Fleet or my husband?" Her hand was on his arm at the time.

He looked up at her proudly, and laughed slyly. "I mean to be both, dear girl."

"You have an incurable ambition," she said.

______________

8: Lynch Law

Anonymous

Sunday Times (NSW), 30 June 1912

The only possibility I can find from a search of the story title is that it may have been written by George S. Surrey (a British writer who published numerous stories in the 1910s and 1920s but is otherwise unknown). If so it was first published in The Weekly Tale Teller, a London-published one-penny weekly, on 11 March 1911.

THE FACTS which I have set down here were told me by a man whose name, for obvious reasons, I have suppressed. At the time of their telling he was fighting for his life in the grip of malarial fever, which threatened more than once to leave the narration unfinished. I have often wished it had. Through one of the dreariest stretches of Florida's flatwoods they had laid a section of railroad which purported to connect a town that nobody wanted to leave with another that nobody wanted to go to. It ruined every man who had a hand in the enterprise, as was inevitable, and the grave of one of its projectors marks nearly every mile of its sandy track.

The section gang which worked on the grading and levelling of its 50 useless miles was composed of the very scum of all the earth, from the overseer, whom a legal technicality had acquitted of a cold-blooded murder, to the one-eyed negro who carried in his gigantic frame the greater portion of a charge of buckshot. Drafted from the dregs of half the countries in the world, the units which composed that concentrated mass of villainy toiled on week by week in the glaring heat of an almost tropical sun for a wage of half a crown a day, to be ultimately spent in the purchase of a poisonous liquor, which, aided by the mephitic atmosphere of the swamp country, duly told, its tale and daily thinned their ranks. Then the survivors buried the latest victim like a dog in the ditch, shovelling the loose sand into his shallow grave with coarse jests and hideous blasphemies.

But one of these men, cursed with a constitution which battles hard for life, though undermined by drink and excess, wrestled with the fever for days and weeks, fighting hard for a valueless existence from sheer dogged obstinacy. And because he had earned a certain prestige and popularity amongst his fellow villains, who probably recognised in him a blackguard of a superior order to themselves, the gang had made up for him a rude trestle bed in the rough log shanty which had served them as a sort of canteen. They provided him with a week's provisions, and enough whisky to kill a strong man, and— left him to die. Then they moved on, partly because their work led them further South, partly for other reasons.

A negro in my employ, who knew the man to be an Englishman, told me of his whereabouts, and I went to him. It is not pleasant to sit by the bedside of dying navvy whom you have known in another life as a fellow-member of a London club, and to hear him rave in his delirium of things which sane men lock up in the innermost recesses of their souls. And it requires a man of stronger nerve than mine to fight against the sense of gloomy depression which the horror of such situation induces. Perhaps that is the reason I never recall the scene without a shudder.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and the storm which had been threatening all day had broken at last with tropical fierceness. The rain came hissing down in one continuous stream, forcing its way through the rough scantling above our heads and deluging the little hut in every part save where the bed in the corner was partly protected by thick layers of sacking stuffed into the crazy room.

The distant sullen muttering of thunder had given place to a fierce crackling overhead like the rattle of approaching musketry, and the place would have  been pitch dark but for the lightning, the blinding flashes of which played incessantly around the sick man's head. He had sunk, exhausted by his delirium, into a sort of stupor, breathing heavily and moaning in his troubled sleep, while for two long hours I sat by his bedside trying in vain to forget some of those horrors which I had unwittingly overheard.

Suddenly his eyes opened, and he leaned upon his elbow wide awake.

'Have you ever seen a man hanged?' he asked.

At first I hoped that he was raving still, and made no answer, till in the sudden glare of the lightning I noticed that the wild light of insanity had left his eye. His voice, too, though very weak, was pitched in quite a different key.

'Oh, it's all right, I know what I'm talking about. I asked you if you'd ever seen a man hanged ?'

I confessed that I had.

'How did you feel when you saw the drop fall?'

I said that. I had felt extremely sick, and that I had been obliged to fix my mind on the revolting details of the crime for which he had paid the penalty.

He burst into a horrid, jangling, laugh that makes me shiver still.

'I wonder how you would have liked it,' he said, 'if you happened to be his executioner. Give me a drink. and I'll tell you a story. No, not that cursed insipid stuff! Whisky.'

It was evident enough that the man had but a few hours to live, and I judged that in his then condition the poison itself would do him less harm than the hideous craving for it which was on him. Therefore I pave him what he required, and he drained half a tumbler of the raw spirit at a gulp. Probably I was wrong, though it can have made but little difference in the end. In any case, the stimulant momentarily revived him, though his voice was forced and husky, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his livid face.

'Do you remember Joe Marston's murder?'

I did indeed. It had been, the talk of the countryside for many days, and that in a land where human life is but a thing of small account. A lonely, seemingly harmless mana, who had never been known to make an enemy in the course of his uneventful life, had teen murdered on the very threshold of his home, shot down with his own gun, unwarned and unarmed, and that at such close range that portions of his watch chain had been found deeply embedded in the shattered body. No motive had ever teen advanced for the crime; there was ample evidence to prove that the pretence of robbery was nothing but a clumsy blind, and no trace of the assassin had ever been discovered.

'I remember it well,' I said; 'and what's more, I have a theory.'

'Hang your theory. You've got to listen to mine.'

The rest of the sentence was drowned in terrific peal of thunder which broke directly overhead and rattled away in the distance in a series of sharp, crackling reports. In the swish of the pelting rain the man's hoarse voice was. barely audible.

'Three weeks ago we were camped on the edge of Lone Pine Swamp, the most Godforsaken place in all this accursed wilderness. It was a Saturday night. and we had drawn a month's pay, which means that every man in the crowd was full of drink, and fighting. That same afternoon we had met the Sheriff and his posse going back to headquarters with a couple of bloodhounds on a leash. We knew they'd been hanging round that swamp for two days, hunting up the trail of Marston's murderer. Of course they were on the wrong man, they always are; and the hounds were useless, inbred brutes that wouldn't own to a scent three hours old. But the Sheriff was a new man. and he had to do something to justify his appointment. How do I know it was the wrong man? You listen to my story; you'll know soon enough.

'Well, it was about nine o'clock at night. The men had been drinking hard, and it seemed likely there was going to be trouble. There usually was on pay nights, and somebody had been accused of cheating at euchre. Three of our gang had their hands in their pistol pockets, and the overseer was cursing like an Irish drill sergeant, when suddenly an apology for a man staggered into the middle of the camp. He was a nigger, and standing there in the moonlight, about the most miserable looking scoundrel I ever set eyes on, and I've seen a few.

'His clothes were in rags, what he had of them, and that wasn't much. An old flannel shirt, a pair of trousers, one broken boot and no hat, that was his outfit. Starvation was written on every line of his ugly face; that's what brought him among us.

' "Gimme something to eat," he said, "I haven't touched food for three days, and I've drunk nothing but swamp water all the time!"

'He grabbed a piece of dry bread from the nearest plate before a man had time to interfere and he gnawed at it like a wild beast. though his mouth was so parched and swollen that he could scarcely swallow.

' "What the devil were you hiding in the swamp for?" the overseer asked, him, but the nigger never answered. Probably he couldn't, for he was about half choked with dry bread. We gave him food and we gave him whisky, and just sat by and watched till bye-and-bye he spoke.

'According to his story he'd been out of work for ten days, and he was on his way South to hunt up a job when he came on our track, and followed it up thinking he might strike one on the railroad. He must have been within a mile of us when be heard the hounds take up his trail and chase him. The swamp was close at hand, and he ran there for his life, got into the water up to his waist, forced his way into the thickest of it, and climbed a tree. There he hung on for two days and nights while the hounds went baying round outside, till the buzzards began to fly low, and he wondered when he was going to die. When he couldn't stand it any longer he pulled out his pistol and tried to put an end to his misery. The thing wouldn't go off, and no wonder, for it was red with rust, and the only two cartridges in it were useless.

'When he came to that part of his story I threw the pistol down on the ground, and the overseer picked it up and looked it over carelessly enough. Suddenly he rapped out an oath, the like of which you've never heard.

' "See here, boys," he said, "the nigger's lying. That's why the Sheriff and the hounds were on his track; he's wanted for murder, and here's the evidence that's going to hang him.'

'We looked at the pistol, and deep cut into the dirty stock were the letters J.M.

' "That's Joe Marston's pistol,' said the overseer, 'and here's the man that killed him. Now, what shall we do with him ?"

'I've often wondered what made him say that— whether he suspected something and wanted to make sure, or whether be thought it would keep the men from fighting among themselves. Perhaps it was only pure devilment. Anyhow, it doesn't matter; he got what he wanted. There was a pause while you might have counted twenty, for the men were sober enough to know what they meant to do, and one or two looked round while they caught heir breath hard and counted up the chances.

'Then the evil that was in the gang broke loose, and the nigger knew that he was a doomed man.

' "Shoot him!" they said. "Get the hounds back and let 'em run him down and worry him."

'And all the time the wretched man stood there too dared to move, even if he'd had the strength to run, while the overseer brought the whole diabolical business to a climax.

' "Boys," he said, 'we'll do this thing fair and square. We'll try him for his life, and if we find him guilty, by heaven, we'll lynch him!"

That settled it; nothing in the world would have saved, him then— at least nothing that was going to happen.

'The trial didn't take ten minutes, and of course they found him guilty. If you've ever seen a trial by Lynch law when the devils who started it were mad drunk with whisky, you'll understand what chance that poor had for his life. If you haven't— well, pray heaven you never may. The nigger never moved, for a man with a loaded pistol stood on each side of him, but his face turned blue-grey in the moonlight with the fear of death while he stood and listened.

'When they'd finished he pleaded for mercy; he tried to pray. I think he cried. I know he called heaven to witness that he'd never seen Joe Marston in his life; that he could prove he wasn't within fifty miles of the place where the murder was committed; that he'd owned the pistol for years. It was waste of breath. He might as well— great heavens! what's that?'

A terrific report like the explosion of a powder magazine shook the frail building till it rocked again, and I sprang to my feet and made for the open door.

Within fifty yards of us a pine tree had been struck by lightning, and a zig-zag corkscrew streak from branch to root marked where the shattered trunk had burst. The blinding deluge of rain still came pouring down in one incessant stream. I went back to the dying man and found him shivering with ague, though the hand which lust touched mine burned with the heat of fever.

'Only a pine tree,' he said. 'I thought it was the blessed shanty itself. Give me whisky.'

Again he drained the class and took up his story, his teeth chattering in his head as he drew the dirty blankets round his unshaven chin.

'Somebody got a rope and they led him out to the lone pine with his hands tied behind his back. The overseer threw one end over a branch, and they fastened the other round his neck. The man's eyes were nearly starting out of his head, and his lips turned blue with the agony of his fear; but it was the ghastly coIor of his face I can't forget. Heavens! I see it still.'

He paused, and wiped the sweat from his. forehead while I asked a question.

'Why didn't I interfere? Because I couldn't. You'd understand that if you'd seen fifty armed devils with murder in their hearts. Don't interrupt!

'The overseer gave the word, and he grinned at me while he did it, and then half a dozen men hauled on the rope. The poor wretch at tho other end swung clear of the ground and shrieked with agony. They didn't care, not they. They were drunk, mad drunk with this poison that is killing me. They made the rope fast, and there they let him hang while the men got out their pistols, and some fiend set him swinging for a target. They fired low, the brutes, and riddled his legs with bullets, while he choked and tried to scream. I don't stick at much, but I couldn't stand that, and when my turn came I aimed dead for his heart, and my bullet went home. That finished him, and the gang were nearly mad enough to kill me for spoiling their sport.

'There, that's all. You can speak now if you want to. What do you think of that for a story, eh?'

I did not say what I thought, for I reflected that this fever-stricken wretch was the wreck of what had once been an English gentleman, and I remembered some of the things he had raved of in his delirium. Therefore I tiled to conceal my disgust, and to say things which I neither felt nor believed. But the man understood.

'Look here,' he said, 'you know what I once was, and you can see what I am to-day. But neither you nor any living soul can gauge the hell that lies between. And the curse of it all is that I can't forget. I can't forget! Now for your answer. I know well enough that I'm dying and out of reach of what you would call justice. If I didn't know that, I'd never have spoken a word.

'I killed Joe Marston— shot him like the mean hound he was! He knew why, and, what's more, he knew that he deserved it. Don't think I'm going to whine or to repent, for I'm not. I killed him, I tell you, and I'm glad I did it.

'In a corner of the English cemetery outside Melonville there's a grave with a woman's name carved on a wooden cross. If ever you should hear her story told perhaps you'll understand. But I don't care whether you do or not!'

_________________

9: Two Reflections

Chris Sewell
fl. 1900-1930

Australian Star (NSW), 10 Nov 1906

British author who wrote mostly for British magazines such as The Royal, Yes or No, The Weekly Tale-Teller, and the like.

LOUISE BAURIER stood before a small cracked mirror, her thin, nervous hands clasped very closely together, her anxious eyes fixed on their own reflection.  She was realising to the full the cruel fact that she was the most pathetic of all created things— a plain woman. Ugliness confers distinction, and for that reason would have been easier to bear; but plainness— bah! it is the curse of the evil one!

She took a severe mental inventory of her features one by one— the anaemic complexion; the short nose with Its wide nostrils, the nondescript hair, and unattractive teeth. It was a heart-breaking task.

A sudden grenzy possessed her— a passionate resentment against the fate that had marked and set her apart for ever from the sweet joys of girlhood. She raised her clenched hand, and, smiting the mirror with all her force, left a fracture like a star-fish on its surface. Then she walked across her poor sitting-room and sat down dully before the- small fire In the arm-chair that had once been her mother's.

Despair held her in its grim clutch, envy of others more highly favoured than herself made her sick and ashamed; for by nature she was not envious. Once her looks had scarcely troubled her at all — true, she had always known she was not beautiful, but the good little mother (a blessed saint now) had loved her just as well for that— better perhaps.  And then a different kind of love had come into the life of Louise— a humble yet triumphant adoration— in the light of which she realised with a sharp, unnatural vividness all her Imperfections.

Now she constantly contrasted herself with the other girls in the place of business where both she and the object of her worship were engaged. Marie Roix (who served in the same department as herself) could always attract men to her side; she had bright eyes, a mass of hair, and a vivacious manner. Then Clothilde Damaure possessed— how does one express it?— the sentimental air; pale cheeks she had, it is true, but such delicate hands and such expression! Then Camille, Berthe, and Honoire all had their special points, all could take their place in the feminine struggle for existence— and love; only she, Louise, was a hopeless failure. Yet more than once Gustave had spoken kindly to her— looked at her almost tenderly, too.

Bah! It was his good heart! He was ever compasslonaie and courteous. Why should sallow cheeks and nondescript hair hold a man who could have cream and roses and burnished locks for the asking. Yes, without doubt, Gustave pitied her. Oh! the pain of it!

Unhappily, plain though she was, her capacity for love was immense. For many nights now she had not slept for thinking of it. Sobs rose and would not  be denied; they racked her thin frame, and yet they brought relief, too, for in a few moments she had cried herself to an uneasy slumber— a slumber which she sadly needed...

SHE AWOKE suddenly, feeling (she knew not why) strangely comforted. An exhilaration as of undefined hope warmed her. Instinctively she got up, stretching herself almost , luxuriously, and looked about her. She was quite conscious of expecting to find something unusual In the room, yet nothing unusual presented itself.

Stay!— yes.

What was that pushed away under a roll of serge? She had not observed it before, but It was an envelope, directed, as she soon perceived, in an unfamiliar hand. She picked It up, and, tearing It open, found it contained a short letter, and a note for a hundred francs!

Louise uttered a little cry, and her face shone. Had Heaven, indeed, opened before her? Here was Providence answering her unspoken prayer. A hundred francs! It seemed unlimited wealth. What would not a hundred francs do? With eyes that soarcely saw, and a brain that scarcely realised, she read the letter. It bore an unknown name, but came from a grateful customer— a lady of fashion who had lost a nurse a few days before in the department of the emporium in which Louise served. Louise had found the purse and had given it in at the bureau, and, as such finds were not uncommon, had forgotten all about it. This was, then, the reward of her honesty!

How often lately had she yearned for wealth!— for wealth is all powerful. It can buy (in Paris, at least) even good looks. There are salons— salons which Louise had often passed with reluctant steps and longing-glances— salons in which the homely face can be changed and the unlovely features transformed.

To be beautiful! Mon Dieu! could life hold a thought more delicious? To walk Into the emporium with the assurance which only a good appearance can bring! To attract Gustave's love— not his plty! Ineffable rapture! Truly there was not a moment to to be lost.

The day chanced to be a holiday owing to the interment of old Monsieur Souterre, the founder of the Emporium. Such holidays were rare. With a beating heart Louise caught up the crisp paper, and, running downstairs, threaded her way quickly through a labyrinth of small streets till she came to the fashionable quarters of Paris. There was one beauty specialist, whom she passed every morning on her way to work. His smart maisonette and luring advertisements had many a time filled her with futile longings. He professed to straighten the nose, add a rose blush to the cheeks, and impart lustre to the hair.

To this great man she bent her steps. As she flew along she seemed neither to see nor hear, she was conscious of nothing— the poor, ignorant Louise— save that the road to good looks and the road also to Gustave lay open before her.

The smart maid who, had acted as doorkeeper to Monsieur Planchard, masseur, manicurist, and beauty specialist, was not at first inclined to admit the bourgeoise figure, but the girl was so obviously in earnest that she finally consented to do so. Louise received the impression, of velvet lounges, soft draperies, and waving palms, and then Monsieur himself entered. He frightened her to death, of course, so grand, so pompous was he.

At first hevwas rude and patronising, but the sight of the money made him at once urbane. Curiously enough, to transform Louise would, he found, Just cost a hundred francs.

"It is true that mademoiselle's complexion was far from clear, but a complexion— pouf! that for a complexion! Mademoiselle's eyes were quite good, and her nose— would mademoiselle allow him his own way with her nose? Ah! then they would see."

And so In trembling rapture mademoiselle submitted to many things— in her intense excitement she scarce knew what; such moulding, pattings, and sprinklings, and rubbing as made the poor girl quite giddy.

After what might hava been several hours, or several weeks, monsieur bade her survey; herself in a mirror.

Monsieur was full of triumph and flourishes. Then for Louise Baurier came the culminating moment of life, when all existence seemed gathered up into one sublime, glorious thrill of perfect bliss. For the second time that day she saw her own reflection— but, ah! what, a difference! Now she could scarcely believe her eyes. No necessity to smite the mirror this time; rather should she caress and fondle it. Instead of a miserable story it told her a brilliant tale.

Louise held her breath for very ecstasy. What If the hundred francs had melted into nothing— the hundred francs that would have done so much in other ways? "What If Monsieur had told her (after his labours) that the results would only last a month, unless— another hundred francs could be found. She was beautiful at last— beautiful! beautiful! beautiful! A delicately tinted, brilliant creature— more radiant than Marie Roix, more spirituelle than  Clothilde Damaure! Oh! the bliss of it!

Louise stretched forth her hands to the dear, kind looking-glass, laughing from sheer happiness. Ah! but why did the looking-glass melt into a sliver mist? Why did monsieur and his shrugging shoulders recede and grow small and still smaller? Where were the velvet chairs, the curtains, the palms which decked the maisonette of the beauty specialist? Gone— all gone!

LOUISE started up with a sharp cry, and looked wildly round about her. Her gaze fell upon a little table covered with a coarse cloth, a roll of serge, and a cracked mirror— and then she understood. She sat very, very still; the terrible weight of crashing disappointment made her feel numb and sick. To have raised the bud of perfection to one's lips, only to feel it dashed away! Ye saints. It was torture— a very refinement of cruelty! Then, as she sat, clutching the arms of her chair, gazing straight before her with glazed, unseeing eyes, someone came and laid a hand on her shoulder— someone who had come in silently, and stood smiling behind the chair at the awakening.

THE GIRL started up. "Gustave!" she whispered, and a little dull colour came Into her transparent cheeks. This, then, was to be the crowning pain of all. The young man came nearer.

"Little one," he said, "I had looked in to suggest a day at Versailles; but I had not calculated on playing prince to a sleeping beauty."

The girl's quivering face grew wistful; her eyes sought his.

"Ah! Gustave," she said, "do not mock me."

"But you are beautiful," he persisted tenderly, "to me!"

A glowing, transfigured look swept over Louise's commonplace features, leaving them calm and holy, and, in truth, almost handsome.

"If I could but believe it!" she breathed.

"And why not, mignonne?" He was holding her closely now. "I love you, do you see, for the gentleness of your soul and the sweetness of your nature, though I had not meant to tell you so till the stars came out to-night— and love makes everything beautiful."

And, with her hand in her lover's, for the second time that day Louise wept.

__________________

10: The Laughing Death

Stephen G. Hale
fl. 1931-2

Amazing Stories, April 1931

This author seems to have written just two stories; nothing else is known.

IN 1940 I was single and restless, free to roam, to work or to play. I craved change above everything else; if a new experience was offered by a change, I made the change. And thus it was when Joel Murch came to me. The time is now 1947, six years, two months and three days later, as nearly as I can figure it. I have a family now. Its members fret and scold and sigh for the past. To hold their minds and thoughts to a steady course, I point out the familiar objects still recognizable, the ruins of Temple University on the roof of which some South American condors are nesting, the leaning tower of the old City Hall, the skeleton remains of Wanamaker's, the tumbled walls of a once popular motion picture palace and so on. My words have a negative result. I'm a poor hand at disguising my own longings. When tormented too much, I rise up and say: "Think of me and smile. Six years ago I was a bachelor, shunning all women, and today—" but words fail me. I never finish.

My whole life seems in the nature of a dream from which I'll wake up in some future generation among my friends once more and the old sights and sounds. Death lurks everywhere. Monstrous beasts move about blindly and sluggishly, feeling as strange here as we do. The streets are covered with refuse ; they teem with strange life, while overhead sea-fowl blacken the skies.

My burdens are bearing me down. Reason totters at times, perhaps I'm already cracked!

One of our children has just left us— forever! She fell over the edge of the Precipice on Race Street into a Hell thousands of miles deep! Even that doesn't seem real!

I threw myself fiat on the brink of that appalling drop, heedless of the hot, scorching sun on my back. Shading my eyes, I peered over. The baby's crumpled body lay faintly outlined in a patch of starlight !

Yes, I may be mad ; but it is night on that precipice, night, though the sun beats clown on my neck! Bear with me a little longer. Hilda, my first wife, came to me even when a bristling, snarling creature of that Hell below took our child away in its slavering jaws!

"Brace up, Bob," she said. "We can't go on like that!"

Events tread upon one another's heels in our lives; sorrow, joy, labor mingle indiscriminately. Hilda led me back to the Great Benjamin Franklin Memorial in which my family huddle like frightened sheep. The evening meal is being prepared. The odor of the stew floats from the wide portals, as I recline on the steps and rest my head against one of the columns. Hilda is speaking to me as the rest of the family gather in sympathy.

"Mary's nineteen now, Bob," she is saying. "She comes of a hardy family..."

I want to rebel at the fate that left me the only man. But I cannot rebel, for these women see the human race imperilled. Ah, if only I had not joined in those fiendish experiments six years ago!

Mary will be my seventh wife.

THE Ben Franklin Memorial is our citadel, for in it we find safety and also copies of man's machines and devices with which to remake our lives. The Metal Worm only is missing and I curse the memory of it. We have a radio that receives its power from one of these Worms still operating after the recent catastrophe. This Worm will generate energy for centuries, perhaps 'forever ! Daily Hilda sends out into the thinning atmosphere a message of our location but without success. No one comes, no one answers, we are alone.

Hilda wants to gather together what is left of the race. She is feverish about it and afraid. She wants children, scores of them. If we don't multiply, we'll drift back to savage indolence, we'll care for nothing but the easing of natural wants. The warped and wounded Earth will go to its doom without a human being to ride it there !

"If your friend, Dr. Murch, could be found!" That is her hope. "He knew so much about our machine age. He could teach the children "

I shake my head patiently. "But we'll not find Joel," I interrupt. "If he is alive, he is out there on the Second Earth. He is battling to live, as we are. I told you that before."

We sit and talk, our eyes seeking the Second Earth swinging lopsidedly across the arc of the heavens. We've been doing that every day with a faint prayer that our vigil might be rewarded by a signal or sign. The Second Earth is a pale orange today. Soon she and the moon will ride rivals, full and bright. Surely the Second Earth must be well lit with her two moons of which our planet is one now!

Mary touches me gently on the arm.

"I'll never forget that day," she says.

"You were a child then."

"Yes, and my impressions are muddled," answers Mary. "Even to a child it was terrible. Mother was dragging me by the hand. There was smoke and fire and steam, airplanes like bees swarming, the ground shaking, buildings falling and streets caving in. My eyes burned from the smoke. People were dying all about me and laughing and laughing while they died. Others laughed with them. How I cried! I hid behind a broken-down wall with my eyes closed and my ears stopped up with my fingers. People couldn't stop, others pushed them on from the rear over the raw bridges and the seething fires. At last I was left alone and I went away from there back to where everything seemed still and safe."

"And that, Mary," adds Hilda, "saved you for our little world!"

The smell of the stew assails my nostrils. My family see my questing glance.

"Dinner's far off yet," one of them offers; and at a hint from another, I am reminded of a task I'd promised to do but which I hadn't started yet. Alice brings me paper, Mary brings me a pen. Fortunately, though we're castaways on a deserted world, we're not without supplies.

I count noses. My brood is complete and peace seems to be upon us for the time being. The story has to be told— somehow! Others would come after us and they'd want to know. And so with a slab of Indiana limestone for a desk, I begin my tale.

JOEL and I were boyhood friends. He devoted his life to labor-saving devices for mankind and was happy in doing so; but I was bored because the position I held then was a routine one and tiresome. He came to me one day with no hint of what was in his mind.

"Same thing day after day, eh?" he asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"Do you like it? Couldn't a college graduate do that work?"

"Of course ; but I need the money more than he."

"And you have various degrees and other appendages ?"

"Say, Joel," and I bridled up, "you needn't rub it in!"

"I'm not," he returned. "I'm merely plotting your future!" ....

MY pen is resting. I do not feel impelled to tell the story. I'm thinking of the baby in the maw of the Precipice. A dirty form lumbers by, slowly bobbing up and down. How forlorn a hippopotamus can be! I am cheered. It's waddling toward the Schuylkill looking for water and will find a mud flat instead, for the river is drying out rapidly. My pen scratches away again.

WE didn't know where we were heading when we started. If I had known, I'd have made away with him and myself on the spot rather than do what we did.

However, we weren't to know: the power of divination wasn't ours. We went blindly about wrecking the earth. The end— we saw it too soon! All the natural laws which had governed this planet for countless geologic ages went by the board! We went about this blithely, happily. What a fool I was! I did it with a sense of high accomplishment. It was something suiting my learning and inclinations, I thought.

Joel's inventions were not many but they were outstanding. He was always trying out new ideas, costing huge sums, sometimes with no returns. That didn't matter. The golden stream poured in without pause. When he offered me five times my salary, I knew he could afford it. When he added a new experimental laboratory which I was to design, I accepted, and very quickly.

"And, Bob," Joel finished, softly, "nothing to do for all this but to play around in the lab, try out theories and hob-nob with me as two chums and bachelors should ! No taskmaster, no routine, your hours free as the circumambient air ! What do you say?"

What could I say? Three days later surveyors marked off a plot of ground on Joel's country estate near Willow Grove. Busy weeks followed. Cost? He told me to forget it! To wish was to realize. He'd have put in a 200-inch telescope if I'd thought we'd need it! The laboratory went up fast; no mushroom ever grew faster!...

MY pen idles again. I pause to remember and to look for my tobacco. Alice and Sid promptly supply the needed articles. The children's shining faces are on me with rare filial devotion and respect. As I look into that small sea of faces, I feel more unreal than ever. I feel like a patriarch or a sachem with all the wisdom of the ages behind me. For the sake of the children I must go on. I take a long pull at my pipe and push my pen along.

WHEN the laboratory was ready to be equipped, loaded vans arrived with thousands of books, hand-picked books ! Joel wanted researches along certain lines. He didn't say so, but the text of the books pointed the way. I didn't suspect then and when I did, I was already deep in the studies Joel had set out for me. The stage was too invitingly set! I fell naturally into a heaven, a scientist's heaven!

It was the same with the equipment. I ordered generously, too much so. I was lavish. A veto wouldn't have surprised me. There were barrels, packing boxes and bundles everywhere, some opened, some untouched. There was glass underfoot. Joel came in, glanced around and then whacked me on the back until the empty spaces shook with his laughter. After a few words he wandered off, wading through excelsior with a pad and pencil. The results of his visit soon became apparent. Draymen unloaded new shipments, none that I remembered ordering! There was one article in particular.

"A furnace!" I exclaimed. I touched the temperature and pressure gauges. "For making artificial diamonds? If that heat gauge is to be used to its highest reading, we'll have the hottest inferno ever made by man!"

"I hope so," was Joel's answer. "I built it myself and tested it out last week in the old lab. Thought we'd find it useful here."

The next day he moved in with his personal equipment ; and when the last workman had left, we plunged into an orgy of haphazard research: if we happened to discuss some idea as we sat smoking our pipes late at night, very likely I'd produce the reaction the following morning or even drag Joel with me through the long entry that connected our quarters with the laboratory proper, and late though the hour might be, go about proving the points of my contention with test tube and Bunsen burner.

Several months passed and I noticed that our nightly discussions in which we took so much delight, most of the time oblivious to the flight of the hours, had drifted into the field of physics and it struck me as odd that Joel, whether victorious or not in these tilts, invariably withdraw for such little sleep as he seemed to require, with a secret sense of glee. I saw this in the merest smile that lingered about his lips.

One warm evening, seized by a common impulse, we walked many miles with arms swinging freely, except when we wished to lend emphasis to some argument. Our stroll brought us into the center of the city ; we approached this very building in which we live now, as if drawn to it by the spirit that abode within its walls.

How different the scene here was then! To the east, in front of where I write this, was a rising sky line, one building mounting higher than the other. Boulevards ran in all directions ; there were lights, a second Broadway, traffic, life, gayety. I shudder to think what has taken the place of all this! There is no horizon before me, the sky bends down and disappears in that bottomless abyss!

Joel led me to a seat here in Logan Square where we could watch the ceaseless stream of cars circling about us.

"BOB, I love this business of transportation," Joel spoke. "The means man uses for getting himself about are ever changing. We couldn't have advanced far without this development."

For a while we were silent, watching the traffic.

"When primitive man," he continued, "first cut out round slices from a tree-trunk and used these for wheels to replace his drags, he took his initial step toward freedom from physical toil. Then it was that civilization was born!"

"What about the discovery of fire?" I asked.

"To tell the truth, Bob," he conceded, "I don't know which came first. It doesn't matter, though, because 1 still think the same. Today, the United States, with fifteen times more automobiles and ten times more ships in the air than the rest of the world put together, is the strongest power on earth. No one disputes that. Effective means of getting about spell good times and national prestige. To keep Uncle Sam at the head of the parade, Bob, we have to keep improving and speeding up transportation."

"Can we?" I asked. "The average speed is already 400 miles per hour."

"That will be like standing still soon. But speed isn't the only question involved."

"What else can it be? Perhaps you mean space traveling out there among the planets?"

"There is certainly room for development there," he replied. "However that line of progress is likely to be blocked for many generations unless " and his voice died out in inward reflection. He was looking at the glowing neon lights everywhere, the people, the moving splashes of color that made up city night life without seeing anything.

"What do you mean, Joel?" I saw sadness in his face.

"War, Bob, war!" he answered. "Every generation has had its own conflict. Even now we expect it. Soon the witches' caldron will boil over and hell will be loosed again!"

I couldn't agree with him.

"Suppose there is a war," I said. "It's not all loss: in the Civil War the iron clad was created, the forerunner of today's steel vessels ; in the same war, Count Zeppelin, while serving here, conceived his dirigible; in the World War, the airplane received its greatest impetus and there, too, medicine and plastic surgery made great strides."

"All true, Bob, all true of past wars; but the next will be different."

"You mean," I said slowly, "new weapons will be used, poison gases, disease germs, injurious insects, wholesale slaughter in a split second with new rays and the inhabitants of the earth finally driven underground for safety."

"That's it, Bob, that's it! And think of this: when the whole world begins to burrow madly into the ground to live and build cities there, how much time will be devoted to the navigation of interplanetary space? None ! Man will have enough other troubles in his new abode underground."

"It seems hopeless," I murmured. "By an unlucky chance, taken unaware, the whole earth could be wiped clean of the human race!"

"And it's likely to happen, too, unless "

"You said that before, Joel," I remarked. "Unless what?"

His answer seemed irrelevant at first.

"Last night," he said, "I paid the final bills on the new laboratory and its equipment," and he mentioned the total cost.

I was startled, dumfounded.

"That's nothing, Bob. The profits on my subway digger during the year took care of that. And there's the point, Bob, my digger! In this war I speak of, faster means of digging-in will be needed. Time is short, too, Bob." He lowered his voice, for a stranger occupied the other end of our bench. "War," he said, deliberately, "will be on us at any time!"

"War!" I retorted, too loudly perhaps. "Preposterous! Tariffs and dry laws don't make wars."

His remark troubled me: I looked more closely to see if he showed any signs of illness.

He laughed shortly. "You think I'm mad or joking. I don't blame you, Bob. I wanted to fly down to the Secretary of War several times since I discovered what I know, but the fear of being discredited stayed the impulse."

"You must be wrong, Joel," I said. "I'd have detected the signs. I keep abreast of the times."

Joel answered me tonelessly: "I heard some queer picking sounds on my radio one night. It was a code unknown to me and it came in very faintly. During the war, as you know, my chief duty was to decode the enemy's messages. When the code came through at the same hour every night, I got busy and took the message down on my teletypewriter. Out of mere curiosity I applied myself to the unraveling of the messages. Any secret writing can be solved in time, you know; but this one had me nearly baffled. It was the work of a genius. When I had it solved at last, my fears knew no bounds. It was then that I wanted to rush down to Washington."

"Fortunate you didn't," I answered. "It isn't pleasant to be laughed at by a nation."

"I'm afraid you're right," he agreed with a sudden change of voice.

"It's probably a prank of some college boys playing with a laboratory set," I hastened to offer. It's collegiate to learn Esperanto, write in code, believe in Schopenhauer and his ilk, just as it was thought clever ten years ago to wear a coonskin and carry something liquid on the hip."

"Now, isn't that so, Bob? Funny I never thought of that before. It's a great relief to realize that all my fears have been in vain.... It's getting late and I'm tired after the walk. Let's catch the air bus.

Twenty minutes later we alighted at the laboratory in Willow Grove. We lingered near the entry leading to our workshop, as if we both had something still on our minds; and the next thing we knew we were again seated in the lab den, smoking.

"DID you notice," I was saying, "how popular subways are?"

"Yes," Joel was quite willing to talk on this theme. "They're going in for underground concourses, too, wide streets with store fronts doing business under the surface. People find these cool in the summer and warm in winter and never subject to the vagaries of the weather as above."

"Philadelphia's taking bids for a tube," I said, "from Camden to Upper Darby under both rivers."

"I'd like to get that bid!"

"Why?"

"It would give us a chance to experiment."

"You're still thinking of war!" I concluded and regretted having started the subject.

"Yes," he admitted.

"In that case," I said, "we can build that tube to Chester, too; and after that, why not the tunnel under the English Channel?"

I was joking, of course, but he took me seriously!

We conferred through the night. Let him dig the subway, I thought; he couldn't lose, while at the same time this foolish idea of war might be mislaid in the shuffle of events.

"It didn't matter if I did lose, Bob," he argued. "It's a price I'd be willing to pay."

"Well, why not bid on the job any way, and work on the improvement of your digger in the meantime?"

"Good idea !" he said, forcefully, cheered by my words; and though it was four in the morning, he reached for a telephone and aroused the head of a firm of estimators. His instructions were brief after he had explained the purpose of his call.

"Get the lowest cost figures, Rex," he said, "and enter Murch & Co. as bidders on the job for one-half of the cost figures ! Yes, one-half ! Don't pad the figures, either!"

There was an excited burst of talk from the other end of the line but Joel hung up with a laugh.

"He thinks I'm crazy. Thinks my philanthropy is pointless, wasted. Council is a bunch of crooks, and so on. Pearls before swine! Murch & Co. will get that contract as sure as fate. There will be a protest, of course, but I'll file a heavy bond in the morning."

"You do things in a grand way," I said. "By the way, am I member of this new firm?"

"You are!"

"In that case," I said in a matter of fact voice, "I move that we come to order and proceed with business!"

"Hear, hear!" Joel's humor was now fully restored.

"Since the senior member of the firm has written a huge loss on the company's books, the junior member proposes'' to list his personal assets at once to help meet said losses."

"The move is not well taken," interrupted Joel. "The junior member is— oh, the devil!" with a change of voice. "We're wasting time, Bob, I stand to lose millions if I depend on my digger in its present form."

"Improve your digger, then!"

"I designed it, Bob. I know its limits."

"In other words," I guessed, "we come to the idea of an entirely new excavator and a new kind of power?"

"Yes"; and he told me the problems the new digger would have to meet. "The ideal digger," he concluded, "would be the one that could complete the tunnel, ready for equipment, in one operation, just as a modern printing press turns out a newspaper or the tailoring machine turns out finished men's suits pressed and ready to wear."

"That would require tremendous power and cheap power, too," I remarked.

We began to talk of the sources of energy and the composition of matter and, as dawn peeked in through the windows and we were sipping some coffee, Joel had brewed in a little closet on the side, we were fully launched on atoms and how they could be torn apart.

"Listen, Joel," I said, standing up and walking the length of the room in my eagerness, "we're entering on a field of thought shrouded in the deepest fog. When we speak of atoms and clutch after the power that is contained within them, we are tampering with forces so immense, so "

Joel was eagerness, itself. "Where's your evidence for this, Bob?"

"All around us," I replied. "It's been there for countless ages. Astronomers have measured this release of energy among the stars often. Our universe has wandered through the unmapped voids since the beginning of time. Its billions of stars have been sending out heat and energy during that period. Our own planet has never been without the light and heat of the sun. For 20,000,000 years this throw-off of energy has never been stopped! Common sense would tell us these uncounted stars couldn't go on burning forever without being renewed."

"But," asked Joel, "couldn't these celestial furnaces be kept up by the cosmic dust falling all the time and the meteors and comets that go shooting through space?"

I took another cup of coffee to ward off drowsiness.

"No," I answered, "though they do contribute a little. Take the sun, for instance. The temperature on its surface is about 6,000 deg. C. while in the center it is from 16 to 18,000,000 degrees! You can see that the renewal from the outside sources would affect only the surface conditions and those very slightly. No, Joel, the answer lies in the atom!"

"If that's the case," said Joel, "why didn't this breaking up of the atom long ago destroy the planets and stars?"

"That's actually going on," I replied, "but it's such a long process that to set a date even in millions of years would be short of the truth!"

"It doesn't seem plausible, Bob."

"It is when you know the power in an atom. A grain of sand holds within its atoms a force capable of destroying a large section of countryside ! Think what that means ! An atom's so small it's invisible under the microscope and yet in that tiny bulk is the power to move a mountain!"

"Well, how are you to get this power out?"

"There are two theories. Only one is worth considering and that's the theory of annihilation. We have to break up the atom and release the electric charges. An atom under a super-microscope would be interesting to see: it would show as a universe of tiny planets rushing about, each with its own path. One might even see a glow of electricity, a sort of sun, you know, for the atom world !"

"Bob," Joel broke in, springing up, "lets turn in. There's a firm in Rochester making a new microscope and I'm going up there to examine it." And with an abrupt good night, he was gone.

IN my own room again, I pulled the shades down against the early sun and slept. When I awoke later, Joel was already gone; but he had left a brief note on the breakfast table.

"Double check me," he had written. "Was that stranger on our bench last night Dr. Serge Grubsnig?"

I was startled enough to spill my coffee. Dr. Grubsnig? Vaguely my mind had been grappling with the stranger's identity. That explained why Joel had so suddenly dropped his talk of war and hastened our departure from Logan Square. Dr. Grubsnig was the leader of a secret organization of doubtful reputation; he had not only served a term in prison but had narrowly escaped detention in an insane asylum. His presence in the city set me to thinking. Perhaps Joel's suspicions were not ungrounded. With the name of this learned fanatic drawn into the plot, one might expect any unpleasantness, including even war of a kind.

My fears were soon forgotten. In the absence of Joel, I was besieged by newspaper reporters. They were all agog about Joel's bid. The papers carried big headliners. They were astonished at the lowness of the bid; but not one authority doubted his ability to build the subway, though the political machine, seeing the loss of a plum to an outsider, did raise a brief commotion to discredit him. Needless to say, Joel was awarded the contract.

Still there was no word from Joel. Having received no instructions to meet this situation, I did the only thing a man could do under the circumstances. When questioned by the reporters, I explained Joel's absence carefully and told them that I was not in a position to say either this or that. Of course this made it mysterious. Pictures of Joel, together with his life story, appeared in all the papers.

When Joel finally did materialize, I was greeted with a friendly clap on the back that shook me to the roots of my teeth.

"Great, old man, great!" he exclaimed. "As a publicity man, you have no peer!"

"Rats!" I returned. "I didn't do anything; just kept my mouth shut, looked serious and remained out of reach as much as possible."

"It's an art, Bob, it's an art!"

"Then you want this publicity?"

"It won't hurt; but we'll discuss that later. These men can't wait long."

Four men, burdened with a bulky case, had been waiting quietly. Under Joel's instructions, they placed what I soon perceived was a microscope on the laboratory table. As he told me later, Joel had secured the use of the instrument for a short time from the Rochester firm. Buying it was out of question; it had been built expressly for the designer. If this device were free to be used by the rest of the world, it would extend immeasurably the scope of all microscopic study.

For one week Joel and I hovered about the new instrument. Its magnifying powers amazed us. A drop of water became a storm-swept ocean filled with densely teeming life; a grain of sand was a whole mountain range glittering with diamond-like brilliance.

There came a time when we frankly pursued the elusive atom and those primitive charges of electricity that were to be diverted to man's use. Such preliminary details as cropped up in connection with the subway job, he relegated to my judgment. He failed time after time in trying to divide the atom mechanically. Some other method seemed more likely to promise success.

One day several incidents impinged upon the quiet of the laboratory. I had dropped a tiny set-screw and while kneeling on the floor under the microscope to recover it, I glanced upward. A startled exclamation drew Joel down to me. We traced the stamped letters on the metal with our fingers to make sure.

"Dr. Grubsnig's!" I said, meaningly.

That carried us back to our talk in Logan Square and to the stranger on our bench seemingly absorbed in the passers-by. This time I aired no ridicule at Joel's prophecies, although I still couldn't agree. My mind simply wouldn't consider war. It was, however, a coincidence that the microscope should be Grubsnig's.

We had hashed over the entire evening's events, when I thought to ask a question. "Have you listened in on your radio lately, Joel ?" I asked.

His face clouded over. He pushed a buzzer for his butler.

"John," he asked, "did you tune in every night as I suggested ?"

"Yes, Dr. Murch."

"Did the code come in as usual?"

"Why, no sir. That first night a signal in code was repeated every ten minutes for an hour as if the operator were trying to attract someone's attention. After that the radio was silent. Thinking maybe that the time had been changed, I tuned in several times every night but with no result."

"Did you translate the message?"

"I'm not a good hand at that sort of thing even with your key, Dr. Murch," the man answered; "but I do think it was about the code being known and that it wouldn't be used any more."

"Thank you, John. Leave the message on my desk. That is all."

When the man was gone, a deep silence fell upon us.

"Another coincidence," I said finally, "that the signals should stop on the night of our chat in Logan Square! It appears now like the workings of some greater minds than those of mere college boys! Perhaps this idea of war "

I didn't finish. The butler appeared again, quietly, with a telegram.

Something had happened. The borrowed instrument had to be returned by Friday morning at the latest!

"Well, that's the end of that," he said, regretfully. "This man Grubsnig suspects something.... We're just learning the fine points of this marvel. We have some photographic records and that's all. Only four days left ! It's hopeless! What can we do in that time?"

He leaned against the laboratory table wearily. I was about to speak when Joel gave vent to a cry of pain and sprang away from the table. He had touched a live wire left lying on the table, when I had stopped to pick up the set screw.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just startled me." He hesitated, stared at the wire and gave a shout. "Look out, Bob," he warned, jubilantly. "I'm about to transcend myself! Get the camera. Study the motions of your atom world. Quick! We'll make use of their gyrations yet ! Wait and see. That wire gave me an idea !"

FOUR days with this incomparable microscope! All thought of a scientist's proposed war on the world faded before that fact. The time seemed too short. Joel's joyous mutterings to himself went unnoticed. While he struggled with strange electrical apparatus and, to me, a meaningless confusion of wires, I stared through the triple lenses until my eye muscles ached ! I made many motion picture records of my observations, but so far as progress was concerned, I saw none. All that night we labored, neglecting subway details and surveyors' reports. The laboratory percolator did double duty. When the first gray wisps of dawn tinged the eastern sky, I tumbled full length on one of the couches in the corner with a wavering impression of Joel moving an improvised switch board with a tangle of wires nearer to the microscope. I fell asleep with the drumming note in my mind: "Three days! Three days!"

Hours later, the aroma of coffee and of frying bacon in the butler's skilful hands and the bright sun across my couch brought me back to life again. Joel had cleared a section of the laboratory table and, spreading filter paper for a table cloth, was setting up breakfast. We ate perched on high stools, our legs twined about the rungs.

"I'm turning in," he said wearily. "There's an atom, one atom, of sand on the slide of the microscope which I want you to examine. It's hooked up with the high power cable. I worked out the arrangement while you slept. Experiment with it and jot down the results."

He wiped his lips with a piece of gauze and sought oblivion in sleep.

Several hours later I was prancing about the microscope, legs and arms, my whole anatomy in motion, all except my eye, which remained glued to the eye-piece. Joel told me afterward that he had emerged from his death-like slumbers and watched me for a long time in amusement. Inarticulate sounds issued from my lips. Pagan prayers to the various gods mingled with the nameless words. Joel assured me my impatience, when evoked by some cause invisible to him, was most entertaining. Throwing aside his langour at last, he came to my side and scrutinized the switch board and its spaghetti mass of wires.

"Those wires are not in their proper places," he observed in surprise. His face wore a perturbed frown. "They're all mixed!"

"Certainly," I returned. "Who cares? Your hookup didn't function. It merely disturbed our work. Then some of the wires fell from their sockets and, not knowing your scheme, I did the best I could. In fact," I grinned, "this strand from here to here," pointing, "was not actually on your panel! It was a stray wire on the table and, thinking it had dropped with the others, I found means to attach it in place. But, as I remarked before, who cares? Look!"

I stepped aside. Shaking his head in obvious disgust at my mishandling, he placed his eye in position. Meanwhile, above the hiss and the chatter of the current, I listened impatiently to the astronomers' clock ticking off the half seconds; I tried to curb my irritation, to give Joel a full, undisturbed opportunity for observation.

Fifteen, twenty minutes dragged by, then he called for measuring instruments. The butler appeared with our lunch an hour later. What little Joel partook of it, I fed to him a bite at a time while he continued without a word peering at the atom. Paper and pencil were requisitioned upon which figures rained in profusion. At last he either tired or finished. With a sigh he tore himself away from the lure of our atom world.

"Well?" I asked, simply.

"A foozler's luck, a blundering success!" he returned, frankly. "Between your methods and mine there may be an abysmal gulf, but the two combined will yet bring us out of the night! Why, man alive!" he almost stuttered, waxing excited, "we've practically already done the deed. Let's sit down somewhere and review the miracle."

I felt a trifle chagrined. "Look here, Joel," I objected, "the gulf between our methods isn't so very great. A live wire burning your hand gave you the idea "

"True, true," he admitted. '"I take it all back."

In an alcove lit by soothing green lights we went carefully over the history of what we'd done. We checked off each step, figured values needlessly to eight decimal places and made sketches and diagrams. Several times we made sundry tests of our sanity. We feared, too, that we couldn't long refrain from our impetuous desire to shout the news from the house tops, to write of it to the learned societies, to send transcripts of it to the scientific journals. Nothing could have been so disastrous to the safety of the world.

"Let's see," Joel was saying for the second time, "you reported failure of my arrangement, then you deliberately mixed wires— or it amounts to the same thing— selected them probably by closing your eyes and reciting eenie, meenie and so on. You threw in an extra one just because it happened to be lying under your hands and lo and behold! the trick's done! Or nearly so. You've sent a tremor through our atom world! The atom was on the verge of being wrecked! As it is, you've probably started its transmutation into some other element! Ye gods, man, we've got it! We've got it!"

He threw his papers toward the ceiling and stood blandly smiling under the white shower.

"No," he said at my startled backward step, "I haven't gone insane— yet! It's just celebration! I'm just being exultant, gay and so on. When young, dry old fogies like ourselves do break out, we do it with a vengeance. Why, Bob, we've opened up the atom, sliced it wide open. You were right. It's a little universe, with a central sun, planets, stars, asteroids, all, even nebulae! Did you notice that pink haze on the outer fringes? How it swirled and changed color?"

I reached out and seized him by the arm.

"Put your brakes on a minute, Joel," I beseeched. "It's exciting, I know, and fascinating: a strange lure seems to hold one to the eye-piece, a sort of psychic gravitational force. I seemed to be drawn irresistibly downward as if from a great height toward that atomic sun! But, Joel, let's be calm. There's no use acting prematurely like a pair of crazy loons. We nearly sent these primitive forces off on a tangent but not quite. We have to remember that!"

"Bob," he replied, gathering up his papers, "I feel confident of the solution. We can't expect to duplicate the conditions in the sun; but by the use of the furnace with which you thought I planned to make diamonds, we can— well, we'll see!"

By the end of the evening meal he had produced a definite outline of activity. A heavy, heat-resisting metal cylinder was encased in a larger container of very thick steel. Into this Joel introduced a number of atoms to be fed into the chamber proper by means of a spring and valve of minute design. Once a drop of perspiration from my forehead drowned out two hours' work!

There were moments before sunrise when I showed myself to be completely, out of my mind. I recall moving all our equipment to the great furnace and of cutting atoms, but all else is hazy. Joel was a sweating ogre to: my weary eyes, the astronomers' clock sounded like an infernal anvil as it measured time monotonously. My reeling mind had found a new refrain: "Two days! Two days!"

When I awoke, Joel, I found to my surprise, had chartered a plane, and gone away with the microscope, to the factory, as it developed later. A note contained brief instructions for me: I was to turn on the current for some minutes, turn it off and observe the results.

I asked myself several questions as I moved the switches. Would one atom set off another, as a string charged with gunpowder will burn rapidly from end to end? And what about the energy generated? I sprang across the room and out into the entry, stationing myself behind the heavy oaken door and keeping it open just enough to see into the laboratory.

What would be the outcome? I waited, excited, of course, but with no special fear. Minutes passed. The pressure in the furnace mounted higher. The hiss and chatter of the current became faintly audible. There was a muffled roar, a tremor ran through the building: the noise continued to swell in volume while the temperature in the whole laboratory mounted rapidly. Then I remembered Joel's last instruction. I was nearly half a minute late. I raced into the room and threw the main switch but the uproar didn't stop. I noticed now that the dying atoms were generating electric current and that there was already enough to supply light for the entire building.

The report which I composed for Joel was brief. There wasn't much to write. I spent a long time afterward lingering and listening, but even a miracle will pall in time and since the set did not need my attention, I turned to other duties, among which was the making of arrangements for the ceremony to mark the breaking of ground for the subway.

Saturday afternoon Joel returned with much clatter and noise. The success of the atomic machine did not surprise him. He listened to my report and agreed with the entire program. I had detailed a gang of workmen with several of his old type diggers to start the excavation after the ceremony.

"THAT'S right, Bob," he approved. "We'll have to use them to sink a shaft to the floor level of the subway before we can put our new outfit to work." He enjoyed my surprise, then walked to the nearest window. "What do you think of the new equipment?"

There were six cumbersome looking affairs on wide caterpillar treads adorning our driveway.

"They scarcely suggest diggers," I replied.

"No," he answered, "because they're really not diggers."

He led me out to the lawn for a closer inspection.

"These were pushed through the factory rather hurriedly," he said; "but then atomic machines will never be complicated or hard to construct. About three weeks from now, if you like, you may arrange for a party of reporters to ride with you on the first passenger coach to go through the completed tube!"

My eyebrows went up and I said something in slang.

"Ten miles of subway in twenty days!" I added. "Really that's too much to swallow!"

"Wait and see," he retorted; smiling. "They weigh eighteen tons each." He came back to the atomic diggers, "and they have just a few moving parts. One of these, filled with ten buckets of sand, our new fuel, would dig a tube three times around the Earth! I don't intend to build any more of these. The plans are already burnt. Too dangerous, Bob."

I agreed. "But the machines will be copied unless—"

"Impossible. Tampering with them will destroy them. As I said, these are really not diggers. The earth will be pushed back by the pressure of the exploding atoms and burned and fused by the terrific heat. The tube will be lined with a shimmering, smooth, rocklike fusion of great thickness and strength, waterproof, too. No brick, tile or concrete lining to pay for!"

"What a pipe dream, Joel!" I said; but my heart pounded with anticipation.

"One atom," continued Joel, unmoved, "will break up the next and so on. By tapping the surplus power I confine this spreading destruction within the desired space. Each machine will trail a heavy cable and the extra power produced will be sold until we can use it ourselves. If the cable were to break, the free escape of power would grow and, like dynamite, would go on forever, finally imperilling the entire planet!"

"That's not for publication, of course!"

"No, but tell the papers the subway will be a half circle in shape, 200 feet in diameter and the floor 150 feet below the street level. Only one Metal Worm, the new name for my digger, will be used in digging this tube."

"What about the other five?"

Joel gripped my arm suddenly.

"War!" he whispered. "It's coming, Bob. The tube we're building will hold over two million people. I'll dig more tubes. The network will make a complete city underground."

HE led me about the lawn. I was astonished to see men stationed on guard in hidden places. "I was the object of a machine gun attack yesterday," he said quietly. "I had a threatening letter from Grubsnig, too. He knows we've had his microscope in our possession!"

"Did you notify the police?"

"Yes, but what can they do?"

On Monday ground was broken for the subway. When the ceremony was concluded, our men swarmed over the scene, the old diggers scooped up the earth and work was under way.

Wednesday morning saw the lowering of the first atomic machine into the shaft. It was started on its long task, how long a task none knew just then. We were hoisted out of the shaft ; the entrance was covered except for a small opening through which ran the cable to carry off the surplus power. This cable was to be unreeled from a giant spool as the Metal Worm advanced. A group of special police were stationed to watch the spot, though this seemed needless: there was nothing in sight to attract the curious.

Despite this, trouble did come. Attacks were made on the tube. The laboring bodies protested the undertaking of this huge public work without human help. When informed that later thousands of men would be required, the disturbance quieted down. No harm was done, but the guards were increased.

The Metal Worm did well. Its rumble, like that of an earthquake, could be heard faintly above the traffic. Its progress was rapid. Continuous running finished a mile of subway in the first twenty-four hours and we were satisfied. We weren't going to lose on the contract after all.

Meanwhile shafts were sunk on five widely separated spots. One Metal Worm was placed in each, pointed toward Logan Square here, fueled and started. Joel showed me a map of the entire program. Like spokes of a gigantic wheel, the red lines radiated from the Square to Hog Island Airport, Chester, Media, via Paoli, Norristown and Langhorne in Pennsylvania and to other towns in New Jersey.

"This network," "added Joel, "will drain the most populous centers around Philadelphia."

When the first mile of the main tube had cooled, its equipment was rushed along. Newspaper scribes from all over the world were there to write about the wonder. New composition rubber rails for the monorail passenger coaches, girders of rustless steel, great slabs of rubber for paving purposes— for Joel was bent on eliminating all needless noises— and other material was dumped on the scene as if by magic. Men worked like sweating gnomes in the cyclopean cavern under the city streets.

Joel and his engineers had decided upon a great deal in secret. "Our plans are so apart, so removed from present day practices," he said, "that the public must learn only gradually what we are doing; otherwise we shall be dubbed insane or as visionaries!"

His shop sketch showed a real city underground. Freight and passenger lines, warehouses, stores, factories and sewers were confined to the basement floor; three story homes and apartments, schools, churches, libraries, gardens and playgrounds for young and old were concentrated in the floor above ; and on the topmost floor parks, open spaces and a clear, cold stream for aquatic sports were to be found, all lit by diffused, artificial sunlight, making plants grow just as green as on the surface above.

Everything was to be most modern, fireproof, noiseless and ideal. Private vehicles were banned to save space and maintain the pureness of the air. Moving about of people; parcels and freight was all to be done by electric trains, conveyors, pneumatic tubes, moving sidewalks and swift elevators. Everything was to be electric. In time of war, parks and open spaces were to become intensively cultivated farms.

I WAS lying in bed one morning luxuriously twiddling my thumbs in time to the radio setting-up exercises when my door burst open under the violent impact of Joel's body.

"It's started, Bob!" he cried, shaking with excitement.

I sat up. "What's started?"

"War, Bob, war!"

I jumped out of bed and reached for my clothes. "The Associated Press has just sent me a message over my private wire," he said. "It states 40,000 acres of wheat in the Dakotas are being ravaged by hordes of new insects that fell during the night!"

I became calmer.

"But— but where's the war?"

"Oh, get that atrophied mind of yours working! It's the first move. Remember those radio messages? Destruction of the world wheat crop, then the corn crop, was to be the first threat to civilization."

"But, Joel, these insects may be Japanese beetles or something of the sort. A perfectly natural occurrence recorded by history many times before. Of course, I admit it's a coincidence," and I went on dressing more slowly.

"Let me finish." Joel tried to hold himself in. "The report states further that the farmers found a shower of cards had fallen with the insects, neat cards with an engraved message on each."

"Well," I asked, "what was the message?"

Joel read it off:

Warning !

A New Allegiance!

World Citizenship!

Call our sons home from military service!

Serge Grubsnig.

The papers were full of it that day because the event offered new material for the nonsense columns. The afternoon editions, however, brought out the announcement of a similar event in the far Russian wheat lands. Public comment assumed a more serious vein. Obviously the Soviet Union was not back of these outrages.

Joel and I were rather busy these days, what with checking the Metal Worms, making contracts for supplies, rushing hither and yon, receiving reporters and construction engineers and taking care of the other tasks that come to those at the head of such a project as ours. I was waiting for the Philadelphia- New York plane to empty itself, when Joel himself climbed out of it, nodded in passing as I climbed in and handed me a slip of paper.

"Keep it," he said. "See me tonight."

The note read:

My dear Dr. Murch:

You are too late with your atom and your subway!

Serge Grubsnig.

I saw Joel transferring to a Washington plane, evidently bound south to interview the federal authorities. At the next airport, Trenton, I boarded a return plane, with my plans changed. A talk with the police-head followed. Prompt cooperation was given, the police shortwave radio set in motion the machinery of the nation's police forces, pictures of the mad scientist were transmitted by telegraph; but it soon became evident that not a single trace of their party, whose haunts had never been well known, could be found.

"It's all in vain," Joel mourned that evening. "We're too late! He'll elude capture. He has prepared against that possibility. I was in Washington today. The Secretary of War was courteous but didn't consider the matter drastic enough; then this press dispatch came in and now he's worried, too."

Somewhere out on the grassy planes of Brazil, thousands of beef cattle were being lost by a malignant disease that first sent the peaceful steers into mad fits, then dropped them lifeless in their tracks. Later news dispatches indicated that cattle were going "berserk" *; elsewhere over the face of the globe, wherever beef was grown on a large scale, including our own western ranches. In all of these instances, engraved cards were again found containing the message now familiar to every one.

_____________

* A form of almost insanity, attributed to old time Scandinavian warriors, when they fought recklessly for a while, and later relapsed into weariness.

"It's not our burden," Joel said. "We've warned the police. It's up to them. Our work lies elsewhere. I'm changing by plans tonight, Bob. Have to. The people must get used to underground life as soon as possible. The tube from Media is finished. A thousand men are going below to lay the tracks. The main subway from Camden to Logan Square has its trains and crew ready. We'll start service tomorrow at a very low fare. The houses and apartments are going up fast, a score or more are already furnished. We'll offer these for lease for one half surface rents."

He consulted a little pocket notebook.

"The atomic machine in the main tube," he said, "will reach its western terminal point in about an hour. The fuel in the supply chamber was carefully calculated, the machine will stop automatically. Time's precious; we ought to refuel the machine. Come, let's go."

JOEL'S tireless vigor carried him on in this fashion. I could but follow. "What about the heat?" I asked. "We can't go in there while" it's running."

"I'm going in alone," he answered, "and I've provided for a way to shield myself from the heat."

At the mouth of the main shaft here in Logan Square, the special officer in charge was agreeably surprised to see Dr. Murch.

"Back so soon, sir?"

"What do you mean so soon? I haven't been here since yesterday!"

The officer smiled. It was a new pleasantry of the great man's; or perhaps it was absent-mindedness, or just a test to try him out. He continued to smile in a reserved way.

"I tell you, Captain Gardiner, this is my first appearance here today!"

"But, sir, you were here just ten minutes ago!"

"I've been away to the Capitol," retorted Joel, shortly. He disliked nit-wits. "Returned a short time ago, flew straight through to Pitcairn Field at Horsham without stopping off here. And there is the windmill plane in City Hall Plaza still from which I just alighted."

"This is embarrassing, sir," the officer replied. "I don't know what to say, sir."

"Have you been drinking?" Joel stormed.

"No, sir," the officer was palpably frightened. He pointed with a shaking finger. "You posed right at that spot in your new heat-proof suit at the request of the newspaper reporters, sir."

"There's something wrong here," cried Joel.

"Yes, sir; I think so, sir," replied the officer. Then he spied someone in the passing theatre throngs. "Just a minute, sir," and he was off, dodging nimbly through the heavy traffic stream. He was back almost at once with a newspaper man carrying the large, characteristic box camera.

"I presume," Joel barked, "that you're the one for whom I posed a quarter of an hour ago? Yes? Well, I didn't! Get whatever plates you exposed developed and hustle them promptly to the chief of police. I'll meet you there. Don't linger on the way. Better still, take the plates right over and have the police develop them. And now, Captain Gardiner," turning to the unfortunate officer, "who was he?"

"Sir, I do not know." The Captain stood straight and stiff as if awaiting a death sentence.

"Well, tell me about him. Did he look like me? What did he want? What did he do? Don't stand there wasting my time!"

I had never seen Joel so angry before. Overwork tended to make his temper brittle. Who knows, too, that he didn't suspect the terrible thing that had happened? I think he had caught a flashing glimpse into the future to which even then I was blind. I don't know. He never told me and I never asked.

The officer spoke timidly at first. As he went on, however, his voice became firmer. Still I was troubled by a lost, hopeless look in his eyes.

"There isn't much to tell, sir," he said. "You confided to me yesterday that a heat-proof suit your engineers were devising was finished and that it had tested successfully. You intimated, sir, that sometime this evening the suit would be brought down by some of your men. I was to have it in readiness in the unfinished passenger station here under our feet. You planned to come here late tonight, you said, for a trip to the western end of the tube."

"I think," Joel interrupted, "we were standing by that pole where the bus is stopping now?"

"Yes, sir." The answer was a toneless one.

"And there was no one near us?"

"No one, sir— oh, yes, there was!" he remembered. "It was a newsboy."

Joe nodded. "I wanted to be sure," he said. "A hunchback, rather old for a newsboy; sallow face, ugly."

"Yes, sir."

"Go on with your story."

"I remained on duty this afternoon to receive you myself. The sergeant and I ate supper here together. We were just finishing when an officer in a uniform similar to that of your personal guards alighted from the local autogyro plane from Willow Grove and accosted me with credentials and instructions in your handwriting."

"Where are they?"

"Here, sir," producing them.

Joel studied the papers. Finally he passed them to me.

"Good forgeries," he said. "Go on."

"The instructions advised me that you were due for your intended trip underground at any moment ; that you were coming in a private plane and bringing the suit with you. I had the casing over the shaft removed, the elevator brought to the surface and so on. A group of men stood below to render you any help that you might need. I had hardly finished when the one who resembled you appeared. The heat suit concealed him almost entirely. What I did see of his face, sir, seemed like yours. His aide was carrying a heavy bag of sand. Both nodded and the aide said something about your having decided to refuel and carry on. That sounded natural. I went with them in the work-car. The leader couldn't speak on account of the heat suit and the aide on account of a headpiece and which I presumed he meant for use in keeping in touch with his superior. They departed promptly by an autogyro plane which had waited for them on the Parkway lawn before the Cathedral.... No, sir; sorry, I didn't notice the license number on the plane."

Joel grunted.

"Is that all, sir ?" asked the officer.

"Yes."

The officer turned smartly with a click of his heels.

"Sergeant Hottinger," his voice rang clear, "take command!" and with that he stepped into the work elevator with not a look behind him.

"Joel," I spoke in a low tone, "Captain Gardiner's a clean cut man. His profession is his life to him; and he has failed. He is hurt. His pride's down. You know how it is. It wasn't his fault. Anyone might' have been deceived in like manner and you were unrelenting. Couldn't we go back "

Joel's calmer nature came to the top. We both made for the work elevator. "I'll put him in charge of the entire job," cried Joel; and then: "I'm so very tired. Bob!"

When we reached the head of the shaft, a great clamor echoed up to us from the black hole. Captain Gardiner was not in view and the elevator was still in place.

We found we'd been a little late. They brought the officers's body up, and we stood with the crowd that had gathered. His profession had indeed been his life to him. Without the one, the other was worthless.

"Bob," said Joel, "I'm going home. If you're able, find out what it all means," and he mingled with the moving throng and was gone.

I CALLED Sergeant Hottinger. "There are questions I'd like to ask," I said. "Did those two men refuel the Worm?"

"They came out without the bag of sand, sir," he replied. "It's after midnight. The Worm should have been done a half hour ago. I'll call." He stepped into the field office and called the western end of the tube, then beckoned to me and held the earpiece for me. I could hear the muffled roar of operations still going on. The sounds seemed louder than usual. "They are," the guard agreed. "The chap at the other end is worried."

"Well," I said, cheerfully, "Dr. Murch planned to extend the tube anyway. We've been relieved of a hot task."

"But, sir, may I remind you that the heat suit is gone?"

"That's so."

"We'll take the wearer into custody, sir, if he shows up."

"Correct. By the way, do you know what this surplus power cable is for?" I asked, touching it with my foot.

"It draws off the extra power, sir. If it didn't do that, the Worm would sort of run wild, set fire to the ground, sir."

"Any harm in that?"

"Yes, sir. In time it would spread and destroy everything, like dynamite."

"What's the speed of the cable?"

"Five feet a minute, sir."

I didn't wish to startle him too much. Captain Gardiner's case was still painfully fresh in my memory.

"But," I said, quietly, "the cable isn't moving!" I laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Take things coolly," I advised. "If the cable is broken, it can easily be mended."

"Not so easily, sir, if the break is near the Worm. We haven't the heat suit, sir."

Again he called the western end of the tube. When he returned, his face was pale.

"Sergeant Harr reports, sir," he said, "that the cable has been disconnected from the digger."

"How did he find that out?"

"Flood lights from the top of the shaft, sir. The couplings are lying right at the east side of the shaft, sir. That would make it just about the time those two went down, sir."

My worst fears were realized. The Metal Worm had been unleashed. I repeated my misgivings to the police head, but such matters were beyond him. The reporter's pictures had revealed nothing of value. Fliers were sent out for the hunchback of whom Joel had given such an apt description. Eventually the hunchback was dragged into one of the local police stations but before any facts could be extracted from him, he had passed out from a self -administered dose of poison.

With Joel unwell and secluded in his quarters, the storm of detail again centered about me. For hours I sat beside the telephone. Police on their beat called me frequently. Complaints were coming in that sleep was impossible in West Philadelphia. Windows rattled in their frames, lights flickered, the very house foundations trembled. The collapse of a row of old houses added to the din. What was about to happen?

Toward dawn I found an engraved card on my desk. How it got there I don't know. I must have dozed. It was from the mad scientist and at the bottom an extra line had been scrawled in a heavy hand. Its message was short:

Apologies for letting your machine run wild; but I did not know how to destroy it!

"What an ironic sense of humor!" I thought and sent the card to police headquarters. The handwriting might help.

IN the morning such tubes as were ready were opened for service. By noon I was convinced a half million people would patronize our lines that day. I rode in the first coach to Seventy-fifth Street where the last mile of rails were actually just being set. Beyond was the extension of the tube which the runaway Worm was digging. The tube was being gradually enlarged: the floor was dropping down, the side walls were receding and the arched ceiling was rising higher. Where would this end?

The new underground ways were immensely popular, especially with shoppers. A spell of hot, humid weather was driving many more under. In the very first hour after the opening, one of the houses had been leased to a writer desiring quiet! By the end of the clay fifteen had been hired, all under the Delaware River. People were taken with the novelty of it.

Meeting the chief housing engineer at the Paoli division, I was informed that the schedule had jumped to 200 completed houses per day! I ordered the hiring of more men. I wasn't satisfied. The rail manager announced that the Pennsylvania was building shuttle lines to connect with our tubes.

"Well," I quite astonished him, "what's the matter with the Reading? Go after it, too!"

The opening of a subway was no longer an event. As fast as mileage was laid, it was thrown open to service. Money poured in. Surface traction companies started litigation ; but our legal staff interposed obstacles and delays. The State Governor helped in this. Matters shaped up well. I finished my tour and flew back to police headquarters for the latest news.

I found the devastation of the wheat lands was spreading; cattle were still being decimated and food prices were soaring. A new threat had appeared. Suddenly the farmer's greatest enemy broke all bounds, here, there, everywhere. A strange, shaggy weed grew like wildfire, choking out all useful vegetation and "wherever this seemed to have had its start, the usual cards were found. No one could suggest a means to combat this latest invasion.

"This war of yours," the police chief remarked, "is a devilish, queer kind of war. When will the people be attacked directly?"

As if in answer, the police clerk came in with a cable from London. The news had been repressed for some time ; but finally it had leaked out. The English Parliament had been in the midst of a night session, voting on the appropriation of thirty million pounds for the construction of a new naval program. The vote was never completed. There wasn't a soul who could afterward render a coherent account of the incident. An invisible pall had settled over the Houses of Parliament, over the grounds nearby and over the Thames. Lords, commoners, boatmen, vagrants, guards had succumbed.

The victims of this silent attack came to life again, but England was confronted with the strangest problem in the history of any nation. It was suddenly bereft of its law-making bodies; it was without its legislative head. The speakers of the two houses awoke and stared vacantly at the engraved cards that had come mysteriously into their hands. The private asylums of the country were quickly requisitioned to receive the afflicted. From street sweeper to lord, memory had deserted them; the past, with its burdens and its problems, was forever the past for them; they were as children in men's bodies!

The political malcontents surged into London and seized control. Chaos reigned. The British army and navy were slashed in half. Enlistments stopped.

Some thousands of miles away, the United States Cavalry had been trekking painfully in a practice march across the deserts north of the Rio Grande, and making as good time as could be expected in the deep and yielding sand when a like fate overtook them. An air squadron, sent out to pick up the men wandering about dazedly over the sandy wastes, was itself brought down by the same evil vapor!

A Mexican revolution was nipped in the bud in the same manner. Then London received a second visitation. In the midst of wild celebration and while a Red army was being mobilized on the spot, the pall descended and blotted out the past for them all.

And so it went on, this tale of vengeance from the air. In India, punitive forces in a salt riot, were overtaken by the deadly wave; a secret army forming in Japan abandoned its objective; elsewhere, a vast throng honoring a modern Caesar and his dreams of empire were scattered like lost children. In a short number of days, the world's armed forces had been reduced to a shadow of their former strength.

THESE occurrences were far from our city. Joel, about again, accepted each outrage stoically and plunged once more into the worry we shared equally. Every other problem, the tubes, housing, heating, transportation, etc., had been handed over to our growing staff of engineers. People were moving into the new homes slowly ; but when the dreaded gas cloak, feared more than death, at last found out our city and settled upon a patriotic parade on Broad Street, making several thousand its victims, the whole city and the city's business made a mad rush to get underground, where good weather and safety prevailed at all times.

Freed of all other duties, we lived practically in the air, flying back and forth from the laboratory to the western end of the main tube. Here the fiery terror was boring through the bowels of the Earth with fiendish haste. During the first day of its freedom the digger behaved normally, cutting but one mile of tube. We still worried, however.

"If," said Joel, "that machine has been fueled to capacity, it will run on like that for 197 years!"

"It would be the eighth wonder," I answered, "a subway three times around the Earth !"

On the second day, the Metal Worm had cut three miles instead of one; on the third, it had reached six miles ; on the fourth day, ten miles, on the fifth day, it was at Downingtown, fifteen miles away.

The city mayor, Joel and I were together when the surveyors brought in the last report. Our faces were blanched with fear. We spoke in whispers without knowing it. Joel's hand trembled as he made substitutions in an equation. When the answer was ready, he faltered.

"Utterly impossible!" he said at last. "Fantastic! It can't be! Our days would be numbered!"

We studied his calculations and found them to be correct.

"You're meddling with celestial forces now," I warned. "Nothing is impossible ! And think what this means! No matter how much or how fast the Worm plunges onward, its energy will not be exhausted, as you said, for nearly two centuries ! However, we don't have to worry about that distant date!" and I laughed shortly. At last I'd caught an inkling of the end.

The mayor didn't understand.

"Is it really true?" he asked Joel. "Will it really have dug its way to the west coast in a month? And "

"I'm afraid so. Bob's right. My fear wouldn't let me admit it. The Worm is using no extra fuel. It's a spreading action, faster and faster every day," said Joel.

"Gentlemen," the mayor spoke with decision, "there's just one thing left to do. We'll have to stop that machine somehow!"

It was Joel who laughed this time.

"Can't be done," he replied. "It's forever beyond human control. My heat suit's gone and with it the possibility of making another."

What could we do? Wait, wait and hope.

On the sixth day, the tireless monster was at Lancaster, on the seventh, striking to the south a trifle, it passed through York, destroying a mile of city streets and buildings. At this point the subway had emerged as an open cut. The terrific heat thus liberated attacked everything in its way, burning farm crops, virgin forests and such structures as happened to be in its path. Roaring infernos trailed its progress through valley, mountain and plain. It had long since ceased its usefulness; its path was- a barren waste, a searing gash across the land. Airplanes flew ahead, warning the people and thus lives and some property were saved.

We no longer journeyed to the tube's end. Such trips were useless now, even dangerous to us. There were those who held us to blame for having loosed this fearful menace. I began to wish I'd never taken up with Joel's experiments.

By this time, the Worm had ripped its way through several mountain ranges and was heading through western Maryland. Panic seized the people and the press demanded more information from us.

Joel strode up and down the length of our den in a mounting frenzy of fear and foreboding.

"We'll have to tell them," he groaned. "What will happen after that—"

He shrugged his shoulders as the door opened to admit the representatives of the press. They saw by his face that the tidings would be of the worst.

"Boys," he said, "use your judgment. Think of the results!"

"Some fools," one of the reporters spoke, "are going about making wild statements that the days of the Earth are numbered. If—"

Joel held up his hand. "They are numbered, though none can tell the number." He passed his sheet of calculations over for their enlightenment. "In less than two months, as you can see by the figures, the Metal Worm will have gone around the world and further. By that time the gash will be over seven miles wide, over three and a half deep. It will swallow whole cities and towns." He strode away from them, heaping low curses upon the one who had launched this remorseless weapon against our planet.

"But," another said, "what will happen when the Worm reaches the Pacific?"

Joel waved his hands in despair.

"How do I know? If you expect the ocean to extinguish that digger as it would a fire, it'll probably not do it. Remember what happened to the Susquehanna?"

The river had been drained and the water had vanished in vast clouds of steam. The Susquehanna Valley seemed doomed.

"You must have an idea, Dr. Murch, a rough idea "

"Look at your figures again," Joel interrupted. "Three months, four or five and the Earth will have disappeared! It's like cutting an endless peel from an apple— the Worm will finally lunge into space after it is through with the Earth and we're not concerned with what happens after that!

"Think!" Joel begged, "the deepest man has ever penetrated the Earth is less than a pin scratch on this sphere," pointing to the globe in one corner. "He has released heat, steam, gas and death! What will happen in three months when the Worm will be digging many miles into the Earth or even before that, in case it suddenly changes its direction and dives downward toward the very core of our planet? You may expect upheavals, earthquakes such as man never experienced before, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, storms— oh, I haven't the words!" and he plunged out into the laboratory and resumed his tramping.

"Gentlemen," I said, seeing the reporters to the door, "the earth may still exist two or three months from now but we'll not be around to witness the fact !"

IT was at this time that an American physician found a cure for the effects of the vapor that made imbeciles of men; but the task of curing the afflicted promised to be interminable— there were so many new cases. Finally the more powerful nations mobilized such military forces as still remained and with these strove to cut off the sources of certain chemicals, in this way hoping to thwart the enemy in his manufacture of poison gases. A division of American infantry, assembling at Camp Dix, New Jersey, for this purpose, was attacked on the second night by a new menace, a greenish cloud that sank and clung to the ground. That night 40,000 men started to laugh as men had never laughed before. It must have been a ghastly sight. Even in death from exhaustion which followed, this insane mirth contorted the facial muscles into horrible masks. The same green vapor visited the other nations and a great shudder ran through the world. Men shunned military service; military discipline melted.

Foreign engineers inspected our underground city, returned to their homelands and began projects of their own, much, much smaller and by the old, tedious and expensive methods.

"Theirs is a vain task," I commented. "They need help. Why couldn't we build a few more atomic machines, Joel?"

He started up from his desk where he had been brooding. He was almost angry— and scared! I knew at once that we would build no more Worms.

My question stirred Joel to unexpected action. Today, as I write this tale, I feel my burden lightened a little for having been the indirect cause of this. That very day orders were issued for the sealing in of the Metal Worms forever, each in a structure with walls many feet thick. Mighty towers were erected and reinforced against earth tremors. A large fuel chamber had been added to each Worm to hold many tons of sand. The rocket tubes were closed and the machines became power producing units instead of diggers.

"That settles that!" sighed Joel. "Human hands will never touch those machines again. Power will come from them, transmitted through the air, for thousands of years, for eternity, as far as we're concerned. Some day during the coming ages man, if one of his type is left, will need it!"

It was a prophetic utterance and today I live to realize it. In time it may prove our salvation, this power coming from the air.

The papers came out suddenly in special editions over the entire face of the earth. The reporters had decided. Page after page was devoted to Joel's predictions and to such news of mankind's suffering that came of the war of one man against the world. Strangely, no authority, no university, no government doubted the outcome.

Panic and resignation reigned side by side. Public and private business dwindled, transportation was disrupted, food supplies were delayed, people starved. Pestilence was eating away resistance, destroying courage, changing men into savages wanting to live a whole life in the despairing weeks that were left.

The Metal Worm had plunged down into the earth near the Mississippi; in New Mexico it had emerged only to disappear again under the western mountain ranges. Railroads, highways, communities were divided forever by an unnatural canyon that grew ever deeper and wider.

The passage of the Worm under the bed of the Pacific was the forerunner of disastrous earth disturbances. California was rocked by a 'quake, cities fell in ruins and millions of their citizens died. In the lower peninsula, tidal waves swept over the narrow strip of land and carried away the flimsy evidence of human habitation. Pilots of trans-Pacific air liners veered from their usual lanes to avoid the sheer banks of steam that the ocean spumed up. Later a wild call for help by wireless from Honolulu, a vain, heart-rending call, was silenced as the sea opened up and sucked in that city and the whole island group.

THE mourning nations had been put on a wartime ration to ward off immediate starvation. Joel and I had not the desire to eat even the sketchy meals allowed us. The sound of hideous laughter, the groans of the dying, the prayers of the hungry were always with us. The point of living was out of our lives. We strove, we gave, we planned but our efforts were slowing down. The world was falling away before us.

Sweeping across the Pacific, through Asia and then Europe, the metal monster we had so proudly created left a trail, the horror of which man could never survive. In consternation I saw a similarity between the trembling and shaking of our Earth with the shuddering of that atom world we had viewed through the eyepiece of the microscope. Like that atom world, our planet, too, was doomed.

Navigation of the Atlantic and tributary waters had stopped. The ocean boiled in, mad, frothing, flinging the scalding waters high in the humid air. Frogs of superheated steam rolled over land and water. The New Atlantis, the floating airport city, midway between Europe and America, fell, drawn in by a maelstrom of furious waters. The sea along the New Jersey coast seethed in rising heat. The Metal Worm was coming back!

"We're going backward," said Joel, "backward to the age of steaming swamps, a slimy world of scorching heat, torrential downpours and everlasting fogs."

The thermometer was registering a torrid, suffocating fierceness that parched our throats. Our windows were wide open upon City Hall Plaza but only a faint enervating stirring of air came in, the fevered breathing of a dying planet!

I was growing impatient. We had been summoned to our central city office with a promise that was the best bait in the world for us. We'd have come in response to it, if it had been the last earthly act permitted us.

"We're to hear word from this madman, Grubsnig," I murmured. "I wonder—"

"It would be some amateur detective, like as not," Joel broke in with a despondency nothing could shake.

There was a map on the wall before us, on which I had traced the course of the Metal Worm over the continents and oceans. I studied the colored beaded heads of the pins I had used to indicate it, in sudden interest.

"Joel," I burst out, "did you notice this?"

His weary eyes followed my fingers; a quick light gleamed in his thin, cadaverous face; his worn frame lost some of its stoop.

"Hours, perhaps minutes," he muttered. "It will soon be over!"

"It has circled the globe," I cried, not hearing him. "Listen? Do you hear?" I rose and rushed to the nearest window. Almost like an echo to my words, a heavy roar shattered the quiet of usual sounds. Buildings were twisted and turned in grotesque ways and toppling over and the streets were falling inward, out of sight. A broad crevasse had opened across the city, revealing the cavern that was our underground city with its crowded millions. There was a vast spread of flame as the Metal Worm flashed by somewhere in the depths. Our building quaked and swayed and the heat was insufferable. I closed the windows hastily.

"It's following its original gash," I shouted above the din. "Like a knife cutting— cutting a ball of cheese! It's the end!"

I sprang to the door, responding to a natural impulse to flee and die some place else, but Joel's claw-like fingers reached out and held me.

"Yes, Bob," he said, "perhaps the earth will be rent and smashed into a thousand pieces, into cosmic dust; but, Bob, we're going to stay. We have a duty here unless, of course, you don't want to "

I calmed down and eased myself gently into the hot leather of the nearest chair. Joel smiled a wan, friendly smile.

"I knew you wouldn't leave me, Bob," he said.

Perspiration oozed from our faces. Our handkerchiefs were already wet, but we went on using them without being aware of the fact. We gulped several glasses of ice water. That gave a temporary relief. I glanced at the clock. We had been waiting for nearly a half hour.

"Perhaps it was just a joke, a hoax, our being called here," I muttered, torn between the desire to stay with Joel and an equally powerful urge to escape this towering pile of concrete and steel that teetered creakingly back and forth on its foundation. We were alone in the building and that did not add to my courage. It was at this time, I think, that my hair began turning gray.

"We'll wait a few minutes more, Bob," Joel answered, his eyes on the far horizon, where billows of jet black rolled across the face of the sun. Lately the sun had been a rare and pale spectacle, appearing fleetingly amid the dank clouds of steam.

There was a movement in the room behind us, then a sharp intake of breath. We squirmed around in our seats. My trousers clung stickingly to the leather cushion. Perspiration was in my eyes and it trickled down the bridge of my nose. A wild oath from Joel's tight lips. His eyes were blazing. My lips mumbled something, and heavy, throbbing cords were across my throbbing forehead. I spat viciously. I wanted to bite, strangle, kill!

A taunting laugh mocked our efforts to free ourselves.

I choked, trying not to inhale the strange odor that filled the room. Finally I fell back supinely into my chair. My limbs were leaden and hard to move, but my mind was awake, jubilant, ferocious. Joel turned his head lazily in my direction and I saw that his face was lit with unholy glee. "At last! At last!" his bulging eyes seemed to cry out to me.

Before us stood the madman, Grubsnig. His face was set, his eyes burned with insanity.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting, Dr. Murch— and you," looking at me; "but time, after all, is nothing to us. No, don't try to speak. Your tongues are swollen." His voice rasped sharper and I thought we faced death in a new form at that moment. "You have upset my plans. My world empire is falling about my ears. Your atomic machine was more effective than I gave it credit for, but it must not be forgotten that you designed it. Now, any time, any minute the end will come. And you have done this to me!"

He stood near the electric fan and held a metal container behind the moving blades. The stream of scented air swept past us and out into the hall to which the door was ajar. Wild ideas ran through my head. If we could dislodge the fan, kick that metal thing from his hands, make him forget himself ! Joel had the same thoughts. His eyes were challenging the fiend.

"Rave, rave, as I did," gnashed the latter. "It's just as well that matters have come to the pass they have. The human race was not worth saving. It's a petty, disgusting manifestation: it must have its little schemes, its boundaries, its soldiers and its wars!"

For a moment he rocked on the balls of his feet and I thought his fumes had got to him.

"My world empire is not to be," he went on. "The good that I wanted to do will never be done. And your machine has wrecked everything! Let me assure you that my revenge will be sweet. I shall still have an empire and with you as my subjects! Think of it— just you and I, here alone and hating one another on whatever part of the Earth that is left, hating one another until life ebbs away from your tortured bodies. And, if we are to die now in this cataclysm, we'll die together, still hating and hating, our blood turning into wormwood in our veins, our hearts shriveling with the venomous, malignant disease.

"I'm leaving little to chance. Thousands of my ships are rocking the earth with delirious mirth. Millions are laughing. My men started from the north polar regions and are reaching southward dropping their bombs. Any who escape will die later of the pestilence, the seeds of which have been sowed so well in what rivers are left. When their work is done, my men will pass out, too, for, unknown to them, I have inoculated them with a special virus.

"Ah, you are warm and you want to talk! That will be music to my ears!" He adjusted something on his gas tank. "Drink; your limbs will be lighter and talk for your tongues will become normal."

Fervently we drank the ice water at hand. We could move, sluggishly, with great labor— but we could move !

"False hopes," our captor taunted us. "You are still helpless. Look through the windows. This show is specially for you. The world knows its doom. While you have waited here, the news has gone forth. Look, like scurrying rats they go!"

His voice boomed on. Our hot, aching eyes took in the confusion below. Pride swelled up in me. Even in this, the last day, men were not thinking of self. Great timbers were being slung over the crevice that had been the main subway, precarious bridges were being hurriedly constructed that the milling mass of humanity might surge over flame, smoke and steam, and escape to the south, forever to the south, away from that horrible dementing, convulsive gayety that swept down from the north, away from the long green streamers of gas that reached here, there, everywhere.

Above the rumble of the Earth was the drone of many ships in the air, drawn, as if by some gigantic magnet, all in one direction. As hour after hour we sat through that heat-steeped afternoon, this drone swelled in volume until the very floor under our feet took on a new vibration. Our building still held as it swayed as if by a breeze, and the maddened hordes, which now fought their way over the great bridges still springing up throughout the city, as they were elsewhere, wherever the crack in the Earth was not too wide, surged in a wide circle about the base of our concrete pile — as if one kind of death mattered much now from any other!

As dusk settled down, there was no let-up in the heat. The sky flared with reds and oranges and in the light of the fires humanity still struggled onward, in all kinds of conveyances, in the air, on the ground and on foot. Other races than the white began to appear, Blacks, Spaniards, Indians, Orientals, a free mingling of the races of the earth all urged by the same desire, all equal for the time being. Elsewhere, on the face of the globe, the gap was too wide, only here had Fate left a means of escape, and before our eyes the peoples of the northern half of the planet were pouring like tumultuous waters into the southern half. Whole tribes and bands and caravans marched parallel to the unnatural canyon, seeking a crossing and finding it here at last.

The night wore on tediously; the hours were eternities. We sat and sat, now silent, now ranting and raving, but the long vigil was beginning to tell on Joel. His storm of searing words was ebbing lower. Like mummies we sat and only when the hot breath of the night brought up new sounds, new earth tremors, did we stir. Once a dark blot of humanity had stormed the nearest bridge in numbers too great for the frail structure and with loud, wild laughter the squirming mass had dropped from view.

Toward dawn I noticed Joel slyly closing and opening his hands, one finger at a time, then moving his feet, turning his head rather aimlessly but all very carefully. At the same time I sniffed the air from the fan. A thrill ran through me. The air was but faintly scented. Had Grubsnig left something to chance after all? In a few minutes I was convinced of this. I could scarcely restrain my elation. I let my head drop sleepily to hide the fact of my discovery.

Joel's head, too, was sunken on his chest and now guttural oaths issued from his lips. In the midst of them I caught his wink. My lips moved soundlessly, mouthing the words, "One, two—"

On the third count, like wild cats, we sprang at our enemy. The ice cooler toppled over and we were sprawling over a piece of furniture that had been kicked in our way. Fear had subdued the insane light in Grubsnig's eyes. He flung away the useless gas tank, flung it at my head. It struck me, drew blood but did not stop me. I wrapped my arms about his legs. Joel was back of me. He beat my back with clenched fists, with a mad desire to get at Grubsnig himself.

We lurched, fell, were up, then down again, now in a meaningless confusion of arms and legs. Other furniture crashed to the floor. To us the world has ceased to be. We were alone. Our panting and heaving punctuated the struggle. Joel cried and pleaded, "Leave— leave him to me," over and over again but I would have killed Grubsnig, would have trampled upon him, but with a grasp of pain I let go and fell away. Joel seized the whirling fan and cast it away from us. It had fallen on us during the mad scramble.

Our quarry, however, was gone. Down the length of the silent halls we pursued him, leaving a trail of red. At the stairway the chase moved upward. On the roof, lit by the surrounding fires, a windmill plane was standing, its engine purring silently, its windmill blades moving slowly in the air stream from the propeller.

"Head him off!" I cried to Joel. My voice was hoarse. I don't think he heard me.

The plane was rising vertically from the roof. I sprang upward, caught one of the landing wheels and saw that Joel was hanging on by one leg and one arm from the other.

"Good-bye, Bob, in case—" he called to me and a lump formed in my throat as I returned the salutation.

The plane was in swift flight. We hurtled through the black smoke but something was wrong, for the ship seemed to be circling endlessly amid the droning shapes that churned by us in the jet fog.

A heavily laden passenger plane bore down upon us suddenly from the north. I closed my eyes in horror and it passed amid a crashing of wings and a burst of flame.

We began to sink, hurtling down, ever down toward the crowds below, faster and faster until the giant plane parachute opened at last and stayed the downward plunge of the flaming torch to which we clung. Like stamping cattle, the crying, groaning hordes swept by us as we landed.

Joel fell near me but on the shoulders of a densely packed group and I saw him carried away kicking and struggling toward a raw wooden arch over the crevice. Nothing but death could stop that crowd. As I came down myself, millions of feet were stamping the earth around me and I expected to be crushed at any moment— but I didn't pause. Painfully I crawled toward the burning wreck through the forest of legs. I did not mind the kicks and blows, the sweat and blood in my mouth: I had but one aim in life, I had to find Grubsnig and balance the books before I, too, should pass out.

And then there came a loud rush of tearing, driving wind that tore the clothes from my back, a screeching and a roaring, flames all about me, a terrible rending sound, the thunder of a million express trains as the southern half of the Earth shot out into space, jagged and bleeding and burning, sudden pain, consuming, killing pain and then my eyes closed in God-sent unconsciousness....

MY FINGERS are tired from gripping my pen and I'm warm from having lived over again that dreadful experience. Tired and hungry, I welcomed the summons from one of my wives who stands behind me in the wide stone portal and urges me to hurry as my family are gathered about the board and waiting for me.

But I do not go in at once. Darkness has settled over our part of the planet, though I know that over the edge of the cliff a pale sunlight is flooding over a world of fire and smoke and ugly, unseeing monstrosities. Some street lamps, still drawing on the power that has come all these years from one of the imprisoned Metal Worms waver into life again, glowing dimly in all that vast blackness and ruin like toy candles. The air is rent with the growls, snarls and the night awakening of the animal population roaming at will over the sad remains of the city. The Earth's four-footed creatures alone have escaped the effects of the green vapor. I reach, for the rifle that is ever at hand as a low ululation reaches me with bloodcurdling dismalness and I raise my rifle to my shoulder as a wild, unearthly shriek of laughter comes down from the heights and sends a chill up and down my spine. I aim at the hyena which has somehow reached a dizzy perch on one of the tottering skyscrapers and finding itself imprisoned by some chance fall of masonry, is leading a solitary existence devouring the bodies of such hapless victims as had been unable to escape from the building. However, I do not fire for I have wasted my shells before and in vain.

With one last look into the blackness I wonder where the mad fiend, Grubsnig, is and then I look up at the Second Earth with a sad longing look and think of my friend, Joel Murch, as my eyes grow dim with frank tears. Will I ever see him again? Will I ever write a satisfactory conclusion to this very unsatisfactory history?

Time alone can tell!

__________________

11: Frame-Up

Gary Robson
fl. 1930s

Bedtime Stories Aug 1935

There's something charmingly corny about these "spicy" tales of nearly 100 years ago...  The author's name is probably a pseudonym.

EXPECTING the door to be opened by a butler or at least a smartly uniformed maid, it decidedly surprised Avis to be greeted by a sleazy blatant blonde of the peroxide variety.

"Mrs. Kane?" Avis inquired uncertainly.

"Right. You answering the ad? Better come on inside; it's cold out here." It was easy to understand that, inasmuch as the blonde's attire consisted of a gaudy negligee and obviously very little else.

"We'll go in here," she continued, leading the way down the hall of the swanky Park Avenue apartment to the boudoir.

It didn't take long for Avis to find out what the position, listed in the paper as that of a "confidential secretary", really was. The confidential part was correct enough; as for the rest—

"If you've ever seen my husband," the blonde smiled, "you might wonder why I'm after a divorce. He's a good lookin' guy and he's fixed me up pretty nice; but he's Park Avenue and I'm still Broadway. We don't match. I want to be free, but I'm not dumb enough to walk out on a bankroll like his. That's where you come in. Get the drift?"

Avis shook her head. "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Kane."

The blonde was seated at a modernistic dressing table, toying with a platinum mounted comb, but the picture was all wrong. It suddenly popped into Avis' head that the proper place for a dame like this was a burlesque theatre dressing room, not a penthouse boudoir. Exhibited for Avis' appraisal was the mirrored reflection of Cordelia Kane's voluptuous and scantily concealed bosom, a powdery white vision of firm breasts bulging against the fragile confines of a brassiere. Aside from this ineffectual garment, a brief pair of step-ins and the negligee, Mrs. Kane was quite nude; a most informal way of receiving a visitor, even if the latter was a woman.

The blonde seemed to be enjoying her guest's uneasiness and to be brazenly conscious of her own lack of attire. Smiling wryly, she went on with the explanations.

"To get the kind of a divorce I want— one with plenty of do-re-mi— I've got to get the goods on my husband. You know what I mean."

Avis crimsoned, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Kane," she answered angrily, "I applied for a position as a secretary, not a—"

"Cool off, kid," the blonde broke in. "I'm not asking you to supply the evidence, if that's what you're afraid of; though there's a lot of girls who wouldn't turn down the chance. All I want from you is a little detective work. I'm pretty sure that Kenton steps out on me, but I haven't any proof so far. I've got other things to do than to trail him around. As a matter of fact, I've got a heavy date coming up right now so you just sit and listen. I'll explain while I'm getting ready."

"Fire away," Avis replied coolly. If she hadn't been so desperately broke, she'd have walked out then and there; but as it was, she couldn't afford to be snooty.

Arising, the blonde casually discarded the negligee to disclose a statuesque and not unattractive figure clad in no more than the briefly inadequate brassiere and step-ins. Her face was all that stopped her from being beautiful; the rest of her was a perfect example of a modern Venus de Milo. Even Avis, disdainful as she was, was forced to admit that.

"Kenton and I are planning a week-end in Atlantic City," the blonde continued, "but at the last moment I'm going to get a wire from a sick aunt in Boston. I'll make Kenton go to Atlantic City without me. You see, he'll be dead certain of my being far away; he'll feel free as air. I'll have the room next to his in the hotel reserved for you. The rest ought to be easy."

SMILING CONFIDENTLY, she unfastened her brassiere to reveal the firm ripe contours of her voluptuous breasts, her body nude save for the lacy step-ins at her waist. A moment more and this garment, too, had slipped to the floor. To Avis, as she gazed upon the lithe, supple whiteness of the blonde's figure, it seemed that the latter was insouciantly answering a question that had lingered in her thoughts. The question, "I suppose you're wondering why he ever married me?" And the answer was obvious enough as the blonde, completely unclad, boldly paraded before Avis on her way to the bath at the far end of the room.

"If there's any details you want, let's have 'em," her voice carried to Avis above the sound of the shower spray.

"Give me a minute or two to think it over," Avis pleaded.

"Take five if you like," Mrs. Kane offered. "After all, what can you lose? You're getting a week-end in Atlantic City, plus a hundred dollars for doing nothing at all."

"What about the expenses?" Avis asked, as the blonde emerged, still quite nude, her white flesh tingling from the icy spray.

She hesitated a moment before replying to Avis, choosing a black lace chemise which slipped seductively over her shoulders to fall in an intimate caress over the jutting petulance of her breasts and the flowing curve of her hips. "This is from Ferdie," she winked. "Kenton doesn't approve of... uh, such scanty things... But I do, don't you?"

"About the expenses?" Avis persisted, matter of factly.

"Sure. Here's the dope. If you get the evidence, there's five hundred in it for you. If not, then you'll have to be satisfied with the century."

"I'll do it," Avis agreed finally. Even a  hundred would buy a whole lot of good square meals, while the week-end at Atlantic City wouldn't exactly be a hardship.

"Good," the blonde answered. "Here's the hundred. Take the noon train tomorrow and go to the Altamont Hotel when you get there. I'll wire ahead for your room."

Avis got up to go: "And where shall I wire you, in case I do have something to report?"

Mrs. Kane gave her a curious glance, "Here of course. Where did you think?"

Noting that she hadn't bothered to put on any more clothes than the diaphanous black lace chemise which left her practically au naturel and remembering the "heavy date" of which she had spoken, Avis thought plenty! However, she merely nodded, stuffed the bills in her purse and took a discreetly polite departure.

WHEN AVIS ARRIVED in Atlantic City the following afternoon she still had a few qualms of conscience about this mission. It wasn't the most honorable sort of job; but on the other hand, if Kenton Kane didn't step out on a wife like that, he was more of a fool than Avis supposed. And if someone had to tell on him, Avis figured she might just as well be the one to do it.

Upon inquiry, she found that the room had been reserved for her, though the clerk seemed a bit dubious about letting her have it.

"You understand," he murmured diplomatically, "that there is only a connecting bath with the next room, not a private one. You know you asked for it by number."

"I had it once before," Avis put in glibly. "I'm sure it will be satisfactory." Evidently, Mrs. Kane had overlooked nothing!

Escorted to this room by the bellhop, who went through the usual ceremony of adjusting the window shades, the transom and the closet door before receiving his tip, Avis was at last left in solitude to contemplate her next move. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any move for her to make. With a prospect of forty-eight hours of watchful waiting before her, Avis began to hope that Kenton Kane wouldn't take too long in succumbing to any lure that might present itself.

She stripped off her clothes, enjoyed a bath and leisurely began the business of dressing again. Glancing into the mirror, she was moved to an idle speculation as to just what it was that made women, outwardly the same, so different from each other. Save for the fact that she was a brunette, her figure compared admirably with Mrs. Kane's. Her delectably brief chemise was equally enhancing to her willowy slenderness as Mrs. Kane's exotic black lace had been to hers. Avis' hands touched casually upon the firm buoyancy of her exquisitely matched breasts, glided slowly downward over the silken smoothness of her one garment to rest at last upon the sheer flesh of her supple thighs. But, unlike Mrs, Kane, she wasn't the type to indulge overlong in such acute self appraisal.

She had hardly finished dressing when the sound of someone moving about in the other room suddenly stirred her pulse. She listened but heard nothing. Evidently Kane had come on alone. Anxious to see what sort of person he was, Avis recklessly slipped into the bath and eased toward the door which led to the other room. It was slightly ajar, enough so for Avis to abruptly become aware that the visitor in the next room was alone and also that it was not Kane. It was a blonde, as brazenly peroxide a blonde as Mrs. Kane herself.

Avis watched with rapidly mounting curiosity as this girl hastily began to shed her clothes. In twenty seconds she'd kicked, wriggled and slipped her way out of shoes, dress and stockings, which left her not unattractive figure attired in no more than a dance set, articles of lingerie which were shining examples of how little one might wear without being completely nude. Seemingly at ease in this state of deshabille the girl plumped into a chair, lighted a cigarette and nonchalantly began thumbing the pages of a magazine.

It was quite clear to Avis, however, that her mind was on anything but fiction. Just what, was answered a moment later when there came the sound of a key respectfully turning the lock. One glance and the memory of a score of rotogravure photos told Avis that this was Kenton Kane.

"Oooooh!" A shrill stage scream from the blonde.

SILENCE FROM Kane as he stepped inside and closed the door. A cynical twist of a smile before he spoke: "You know, of course, that you're in the wrong room."

In a pretty show of embarrassment, the girl held the magazine before her half covered breasts, heedless of the fact that it would take a good deal more than two sheets of pulp paper to fully conceal the piquant ivory smoothness of her lithe little figure.

"They... they sent me up here," she explained hesitantly. "I paid for this room. When I came in, I didn't see anyone else's things."

"Do you often go around with your eyes shut?" Kane asked cryptically. "It's entirely possible that you did pay for a room, but not for this one."

The blonde's eyes dropped meekly to the floor; while the magazine in front of her bosom likewise slipped a bit. Enough to disclose the petulant mounds of loveliness pressing impishly against the wispy net of her brassiere. The vision was slightly disconcerting to Avis and she could easily imagine that it might be a good deal more so to Kane.

However, he did show a very fair amount of poise for a man gazing upon the practically nude figure of a rather delectable blonde. For a moment, he seemed to soften, to be about to succumb; then with quick strides he was suddenly across the room, abruptly pulling the girl to her feet.

"Out with it!" he barked grimly. "Tell me how much she paid you for this stunt."

The girl wilted under the bold accusing stare in his eyes. "I don't know what you mean," she stammered.

"My wife of course. I know she paid you to do this. What was it? A hundred?"

The blonde finally confessed. "I needed the money."

Kane nodded, "Sure you did; but I need a little peace." He drew out his wallet, extracted two crisp century notes. "Take this," he ordered curtly, "and the next train to Florida! But don't forget your clothes."

The blonde, knowing that she had met her master and all too conscious now that the briefly transparent lace of her step-ins and brassiere was less than nothing, obeyed without delay.

Avis was more than disappointed as she slipped silently back into her own room. It was obvious that the girl had been sent by the wily Mrs. Kane; but even so, greater men had been trapped by far less. Later, when she went downstairs to dine, she glanced around to see if Kane might be there. He wasn't, and though she lingered as long as possible over her coffee, she was forced to return to the lobby without a sight of him.

Her wire to Mrs. Kane was the soul of brevity. It read: "No report," and Avis might reasonably have added, "No hope," if she hadn't stopped at the book stand for a casual perusal of the volumes offered. Glancing up from one of them she was suddenly startled to see none other than Kenton Kane himself stepping blithely through the lobby in full evening array. Nor was he alone! On his arm was a gorgeously gowned, seductively slender beauty with the sparkle of bold adventure in her eye.

In desperation Avis rushed back to the telegraph desk. "Did you send my wire?" she gasped.

The man nodded, "Shall I take another?"

Avis hesitated an instant, abruptly wheeled and dashed for the door. She arrived too late; Kane's taxi had already gone. Pursuit and more detective work were out of the question. Regretful at having let him slip through her fingers, but a good deal more hopeful about the immediate future of Mr. Kane's downfall, Avis took the elevator up to her room. That five hundred might yet be hers!

AWAKENING LATE THE next morning with the salty ocean air nipping in through the window, Avis was tempted to take a pre-breakfast dip. Going down to the beach, she found that a stiff wind and a rolling surf had kept away most of the other guests. To Avis, this was an invitation. Discarding her robe, she posed an instant for a deep reviving breath, a modern Diana against the horizon. And, like Diana, she was almost entirely unclothed in a bathing suit that was of the newest and briefest design. Facing her, the most phlegmatic of men would have sensed a rising pulse in gazing upon the scarcely hidden, ripe luscious globes of her firm breasts bulging against their fragile covering, and the sheer, supple whiteness of her legs and thighs

Without hesitating longer, she sped blithely on, plunging her lissome body into the foaming surf and striking out as though she expected to reach Africa by nightfall. Her strokes carried her farther and farther out, until Avis suddenly began to realize that lack of exercise was telling on her strength. Panicky, she started back for the shore, only to be rudely engulfed by a huge roller that sent a torrent of salty water down her throat and up into her nose. Gasping for breath, she was hit by another and then still another. Floundering helplessly, the sound of a jovial voice nearby was more reassuring than a dozen life preservers.

"Steady there," it ordered with masculine suavity. "I'm coming."

And Avis was ready to be helped. There was no protest as strong arms slipped around her, intimately coming in contact with the pulsing mound of her breast, revealed in a vision of red budded whiteness by a shoulder strap that had slipped askew. But if the rescue had been a surprise, the rescuer was even a greater one. Reaching shallow water, Avis staggered weakly to her feet to abruptly learn that the bronzed, muscular gentleman leading her by the hand was none other than Kenton Kane in the flesh. And quite handsome flesh, too, Avis reflected as her gaze traveled appraisingly over the rippling symmetry of his tanned body, which, garbed in scant swimming trunks, was even more revealed than hers.

His brown eyes sparkled humorously, "What's the idea? Trying to make a hero out of me?"

"I really thought I could make it," Avis protested, "but I'm glad you didn't think so. It was a close call."

"Flop down here," he offered gallantly, indicating the spot on the beach where his robe lay. "Catch your breath."

When they parted an hour later in the corridor of the hotel outside their respective rooms, there was a shivery shaky sensation raising havoc with the ordinarily steady beat of Avis' pulse. Why one hour should make such a difference, Avis didn't know, but she was definitely aware that it had.

"Lonely?" Kane had asked as they returned to the hotel. "Perhaps I could help. I'm lonely, too. What about a cocktail at five at the bar?"

ALONE NOW, Avis wondered why she couldn't have thought of something a bit more glamorous than that word "lonely". Yet it seemed to have worked! Oddly enough, she had completely forgotten Kenton's wife and the real reason she was here. The look in Kenton's eyes had made them seem suddenly unimportant.

She stepped absently into the bath and began to strip off her suit. There was a quick click of the latch and, quite abruptly those eyes were again upon her. A hasty "excuse me" and the closing of the door did nothing to still the wild throbbing of her pulse that had come with the realization that she had revealed herself half nude to him. His entrance had come just when the scanty suit had clung precariously to her svelte hips, disclosing in full the tempting, voluptuous beauty of her bared breasts, petulant quivering mounds of ivory.

Nor did that pulse quickening thrill leave Avis with the passing of the hours; rather it increased, and by the time she met Kane for their cocktail rendezvous a hundred and one new emotions were tugging at her heart. Discretion, if that can be called an emotion, was not one of them.

When Kane suggested, "Why not dinner in my room?" Avis agreed; and when after a leisurely repast he led her to the cozy intimacy of the divan, she offered no resistance. They had talked but little; now, words were needed even less. There was nothing but the moment, the present and the realization that they were utterly alone.

Avis' vibrant, supple body was a potent temptation; the creamy whiteness of her shoulders and the jutting rise of her bosom, but half concealed by the decollete of her gown, charms beyond resisting. Kane didn't. The beat of Avis' heart doubled and tripled in new found ecstasy as his lips pressed firmly and possessively upon the luscious scarlet of her own. His fervent murmur, "I'm mad about you, Avis... suddenly, fiercely..." was sweet music.

But she knew even as she surrendered to his embrace that it could not go on. It wasn't fair play to come down here to trap him and then— to fall in love with him. If he found out; but he wouldn't!

His lips strayed hungrily over the satin softness of her skin, his hands roved boldly over the accentuated curves of her firm breasts, passionately and desirously.

Avis forced herself to rise, "I'm sorry," she faltered. "I—" she broke off, at a loss for words.

"I'm a clumsy fool," Kane muttered contritely.

"No!" she flared at him, almost angry that he guessed the wrong reason. "It's not that. It's just... late." A wan smile on her lips, she stepped quickly out of the room and back into her own.

With a dull ache in her heart, she began to disrobe. Shoes were kicked listlessly away; while the gown, unfastened, dropped to the floor to leave her trembling figure attired in the scantiest of undergarments. No brassiere had hampered the allure of her breasts that night; her smooth white nudity was clad in no more than a brief, closely fitting pair of lacy step-ins. Her nubile tipped breasts quivered with pent-up excitement as she stood first on one foot then the other to peel the silken hose from the shapely columns of her legs. Finishing this, she straightened up to catch a fleeting glimpse of her mirrored reflection. She saw her own hands go slowly to her waist, loosening her one garment to leave her slender supple body completely au naturel.

A voice broke the stillness; an unmistakable voice, saying, "It's never too late... for love."

Avis' hand went instinctively to her breasts, "Kenton," she gasped, conscious of his eyes burning hot and cold upon her white nude flesh.

He needn't have answered. He was there, sweeping her into an embrace that brooked no arguments, conquering her with caresses that made her forget everything else as he picked her up and carried her into the other room.

IT WAS HEAVEN itself to wake up and remember. So Avis thought as she opened her eyes to find the late morning sun streaming through the window. It was agony to know that the end would be all too soon.

What Avis didn't know was the precise sort of ending which was to come. It began with a loudly insistent pounding on the door, a dulcet feminine voice from without, calling too sweetly, "Kenton! Kenton, dear."

Avis called him, but needless to say, he was already awake.

"Good Lord!" he gasped. "That's Cordelia!"

"I'd better go," Avis decided quickly— but not quickly enough.

There had been too many other things on Kane's mind last night and the lock on the door had been forgotten. After a few more knocks, Mrs. Kane discovered this, opened the door and stepped boldly inside, just in time to see Avis' figure half disappearing into the other room.

Arms akimbo, Kenton's wife surveyed the scene with a pretty show of satisfaction, "So it was you who did the trick?" she smiled acidly. "Poor Kenton, I knew you'd slip up some day, but I didn't think—"

Avis, wishing heartily that she could slip into a convenient hole, was decidedly surprised to hear Kenton suddenly demand of his wife, "Never mind what you thought. Tell me why you are here."

Still the same acid smile: "Just to let you know that I'm filing suit for divorce, using this little affair as evidence. My witnesses are in the hall. You'll see me in court. 'Bye!" She made a dramatic exit.

Kane burst into a laugh and Avis succumbed to tears. "You wouldn't think it was funny if you were me," she sobbed. "I wanted love... not a lot of newspaper publicity."

Kane drew her close, "You don't know how good a chance you stand of getting just what you want," he whispered. "And as far as the publicity goes, there's a certain little Ferdie in New York who'll get plenty of it... unless he can prove that he wasn't with my wife last night. Ex-wife, I should say. You see, darling, it happens that I'm one up on her. My lawyer's waiting to serve her with my divorce suit the minute she returns. In a little while I'll be a free man again, without a cent of alimony to pay!"

"Will you?" Avis murmured, her white arms stealing softly around his neck.

And Kenton, delightfully aware of the fact that her lithe slender body was still quite au naturel, only took time to say, "Well, maybe," before proving a statement he had made a brief moment ago. Something about love!

"And you knew why I was here all the time?" Avis asked curiously.

"I knew why you were in Atlantic City," Kane smiled, "but do you know why you're here... with me, I mean?"

"If I said no—"

"Come closer," Kane urged, "I'll like telling you over and over again!"

__________________

12: Bootlegger’s Luck

B. M. Bower

1871-1940

Popular Magazine 20 Sep 1922

Bertha Muzzy Bower

THE highway north from the Santa Fe railroad climbs an imperceptible grade across barren land to where the mesa changes and becomes potentially fertile. Up this road, going north, a cloud of yellow dust rolled swiftly. Had you stood at the first signpost and waited, you would have seen the nose of a dingy Ford emerge presently from the enveloping cloud, and a moment later you would have seen Casey Ryan, hard-eyed and with his jaw set to the fighting mood, sitting behind the wheel and driving as if he had a grudge against the road or the Ford— or both, more likely.

At the first signpost, Casey canted a malevolent eye toward it and went lurching by at top speed. The car bulked black for a moment, dimmed and merged into the fleeing cloud that presently seemed no more than a dust devil whirling across the mesa. At the second signpost Casey slowed, his eyes dwelling speculatively upon the legend: “Juniper Wells 3 m.” A narrow, little used trail angled crookedly away through the greasewood to the northeast. Casey gave a deciding twist to the steering wheel and turned into the trail.

Juniper Wells is not nearly so nice a place as it sounds. But it is the first water north of the Santa Fe, and more than one wayfarer of the desert has turned from the main highway and approached it, driven by necessity. Such a wayfarer was Casey Ryan.

When a man has driven a Ford fifteen hours without once leaving the wheel for a drink of water or a bite to eat, however great his trouble or his haste his first thought will be of water, food and rest. Even Casey hunted the first water hole and thought longingly of bacon and coffee and a bit of sleep afterward.

Juniper Wells offered water— such as it was. The immediate surroundings offered seclusion, as precious now to Casey as the well itself. Seclusion and Casey Ryan had never before been close companions; now, however, while the soul of him had turned to bitterness and brotherly love had turned to gall, the one thing Casey was not prepared to meet was a man.

Wind and water and more wind, buffeting that trail since the last car had passed, made heavy going. The Ford labored up small hills and into shallow gullies, dipping downward at last to Juniper Wells where Casey stopped close beside the blackened embers left by some forgotten traveler of the wild. He slid stiffly from behind the wheel to the vacant seat beside him and climbed out like the old man he had determined he would never become. He walked away a few paces, turned and stood glaring back at the Ford as if familiarizing himself with an object little known and hated much.

Fate, he felt, had played a shabby trick upon an honest man, Through all the pugnacious years of his life, Casey Ryan had never broken the law deliberately and with full foreknowledge of the consequences. When Casey fought, he fought because his Trish rights had been threatened. When Casey gambled, he played where gambling found full favor among his fellows. ‘When Casey drank, it was his custom to drink openly with a friend or two at his elbow and his money on the bar to pay. The traffic rules of the cities Casey did not consider legitimate laws, but rather a bullying attempt to force Casey Ryan into changing his manner of driving a car. For these he felt contempt. But when the stern finger at Washington pointed and said, “Thou shalt not,” Casey tipped his hat and obeyed.

Yet here he stood, a criminal in the eyes of the law, and a liar in the eyes of the Little Woman. An honest man and truthful, he had been forced into a position where he, Casey Ryan, was actually afraid to face his fellow man.

“He wasn’t no friend of Bill Masters— the divil himself wouldn’t of owned him fer a friend!” snarled Casey, thinking of the man who had robbed him and tricked him in the guise of friendship, and had brought him to this pass.

“Me— Casey Ryan— with a load of booze wished onto me and a car that may have been stole fer all I know, and not a darned cent to my name! They can make a goat of Casey once, but watch close when they try it the second time! Casey may be gittin’ old— he might possibly have softenin’ of the brain— but he’ll git the skunks that done this or you'll find his carcass layin’ alongside their trail bleachin’ like a blowedout tire! I'll trail ’em till my tongue hangs down t' my knees! I'll git ’em an’ I'll drown ’em face down in a bucket uh their own booze! They can’t do dirt t’? Casey Ryan an’ git away with it— an’ you can ask anybody if that ain’t straight goods!” Whipped by emotion, his voice rose stridently until it cracked just under a shout.

“I surely will, if I can only find somebody to ask,” a strange voice spoke whimsically behind Casey. “Who is it you’re going to trail till your tongue hangs down to your knees? That sounds pretty warlike, old man. Going to need any help?”

Casey whirled belligerently and faced the man who had quietly walked up behind him. For the first time in his life, Casey’s eyes held a furtive gleam in their unwinking stare. He was too tired, too hungry, too full of his futile rage to dissemble.

“Where’d you come from?” he demanded truculently.

“Why does it matter, so long as I’m here?” the other parried blandly. “If you’ve got the makings of a meal in your car— and you look too old a hand in the desert to be without— I don’t mind having a snack with you. I hate ‘to invite myself to breakfast, but it’s that or go hungry.”

The hard-bitten features of Casey Ryan, tanned by wind and sun to a fair imitation of leather, were never meant to portray mixed emotions. Wherefore, he eyed the stranger impassively except for a queer, cornered look in his eyes. He would like to know just how much of his impassioned soliloquy the man had overheard, and just what effect it would have in his mind. He would like to know who and what this man was, and how he had managed to approach within six feet without being overheard. Above and beyond all this, he would like to know whether there was any grub in the car; and, if so, how he could get at it without revealing his contraband load to the stranger. But Casey Ryan was nothing if not game. He lifted his black felt hat from his perspiring forehead and pulled it down over his right eyebrow at a devil-may-care angle which in itself gave him assurance.

“All right; if you rustle the wood and start a fire I'll see if I can dig up something,” he volunteered carelessly, and cocked an eye up at the sun. “It’s early t’ make a noon camp, but if you ain’t et to-day it’s all right with me. I can take on grub any time yuh say.” And to prepare the way for possible surprises, he added carpingly, “Feller I had along with me I ditched back there at the railroad. He done the packin’  up when we broke camp—and I’d hate t’ swear t’ what he put in an’ what he forgot. But mebbe we can make out a meal.”

The stranger seemed perfectly satisfied with this arrangement and preamble. He started off to gather dead branches of sage, and Casey turned with a deep sigh of temporary relief to the car.

Last night he had been merely a passenger in this particular Ford, driving into the desert for pastime and meaning to take the first train back home. For pastime also he had been driving the car himself and had never questioned the stranger, with whom he had made easy acquaintance, about the load he carried. When the time for questions had arrived it was too late to inquire into the business of his new friend. They had been held up by an officer of the law and, so far as Casey’s ears informed him, half of the load of whisky had been deposited beside the road at the officer’s command. Casey had not seen the whisky—a very large deputy sheriff with a very large automatic had compelled him to gaze straight out through the wind shield. By the conversation, brief but pungent, held between the officer and the owner of the car, Casey had learned that he had been unwittingly driving sixty gallons of bootleg whisky into the desert— though Casey himself was guiltless of conscious bootlegging. Afterward, when he had hotly refused to become a partner in the unlawful business, the heavy hand of misfortune had fallen heavier upon Casey Ryan.

Not only had he been forced at the point of a gun to drive all night-across the Mojave Desert; he had been forced that very morning to take the car and the load of whisky and to give up more than sixteen hundred dollars— which was every cent he had— to the bootlegger. It was what one might call literally a forced sale. The bootlegger had caught a train east; and Casey Ryan, turning instinctively to burrow deeper into the wilds with his load of guilt and his righteous rage at being trapped, had driven north.

Here at Juniper Wells he had hoped to bury the unlawful portion of his load. Not until that was safely accomplished could Casey Ryan eat or sleep in peace, or meditate upon his next move. When bootleg whisky is to be buried, custom and the law of self-preservation demand that the interment should be private even to the point of secrecy.

Fear and Casey Ryan had ever been strangers; yet he was conscious of a distinct prickly chill down his spine when he approached the car. The glance he cast over his shoulder at the stranger betrayed uneasiness, best he could do. He grinned in sickly fashion as he turned over the roll of bedding and cautiously began a superficial search which he hoped would reveal grub in plenty— without revealing anything else. He was wholly inexperienced in the fine art of bootlegging; but common sense told him that the whisky should be stowed away at the very bottom of the load. He remembered that the bootlegger had piled a good deal of stuff upon the ground before Casey first heard the clink of bottles.

A grunt of relief signaled his location of a box containing grub. A moment later he lifted out a gunny sack bulging unevenly with cooking utensils. He fished a little deeper, turned over a folded tarp and laid naked to his eyes the top of a whisky keg which he hastily recovered, his heart flopping guiltily in his chest like a fresh-landed fish.

The stranger was kneeling beside a faintly crackling little pile of twigs, his face turned inquiringly toward Casey. The guilty knowledge of that bootleg whisky laid chill hands upon the soul of Casey Ryan. It was as if a dead man was hidden away under that tarp. It seemed to him that the eyes of the stranger were suspicious and dwelt upon him altogether too frequently for a casual interest, even though Casey was carrying a box of grub to the camp fire.

Black coffee, drunk hot and strong, gave the world a brighter aspect. Casey decided that the situation was not so desperate after all. Easy enough to bluff it out— easiest thing in the world. He would just go along as if there wasn’t a thing on his mind heavier than his black felt hat. No man had any right snooping around in his car, unless he carried a badge of an officer of the law. Even then, Casey reminded himself sternly, he had a perfect right to resist a search until he was shown a badge and a warrant.

This man did not look like an officer. He was not big and burly, with arrogant eyes and the hint of leashed authority in his tone. He was of medium height, owned an easy drawl and was dressed in that half-military style so popular with mining men, surveyors and others who can afford to choose what garb they will adopt for the big outdoors.

He had shown a perfect familiarity with cooking over a camp fire, and he told Casey that his name, to his friends, was Mack Nolan. Immediately afterward he grinned and added that he was Irish and didn’t care who knew it. Two cups of coffee and that statement eased perceptibly the tension of Casey Ryan’s nerves.

“Weill, I'm Irish meself,” Casey returned approvingly. "An’ you can ask anybody if Casey Ryan has ever showed shame fer the blood that’s in 'im.” He poured another cup of coffee into a chipped enameled cup and  took his courage in his two hands. Mack Nolan, he told himself hearteningly, couldn’t possibly know what lay hidden under the camp outfit in the Ford. And until he did know, he was harmless as anybody— so long as Casey kept an eye on him.

During breakfast and the companionable smoke that followed, Casey learned that Mack Nolan had spent some time in Nevada, ambling through the hills with a couple of mules, examining the geologic formation of the country with a view to future prospecting in districts yet undeveloped,

“The mineral possibilities of Nevada haven’t been much more than scratched,” Mack Nolan observed, lying back with one arm thrown up under his head as a makeshift pillow and the other negligently attending to the cigarette he was smoking. His brown army hat was tilted over his eyes, shielding them from the sun while they dwelt rather studiously upon the face of Casey Ryan.

“Every spring I like to get out and poke around through these hills where folks as a rule don’t go. Never did much prospecting— as such. Don’t take kindly enough to a pick and shovel for that. What I like best is what you might call field work. If I run across a rich enough prospect, time enough then to locate a claim or two and hire a couple of strong backs to do the digging.

“I've been out now for about three weeks, and night before last, just as I had stopped to make camp and before I'd started to unpack, those two doggoned jacks got scared at a rattler and quit the country. Left me flat, without a thing but my clothes and my six-shooter and what tobacco and matches I carried in my pocket— oh, and my field notes, of course.” He lifted the cigarette from between his lips— thin, they were, and , curved and rather pitiless, one could guess, if the man were sufficiently roused.

“I wasted yesterday trying to trail ’em. But you can’t do much in these rocks back here toward the river. I was hitting for the highway to catch a ride if I could, when I saw you topping this last ridge over here. Don’t blame me much for bumming a breakfast, do you?” And he added with a sigh of deep physical content, “It sure-lee was some feed.” His lids drooped lower as if sleep were overtaking him. “I'd ask yuh if you’d seen anything of them mules— only I don’t give a darn now. I wish this was night instead of noon. I could sleep the clock around after that bacon and bannock of yours. Haven’t a care in the world,” he murmured drowsily. “Happy as a toad in the sun first warm day of spring. How soon you going to crank up?”

Casey stared at him unwinkingly through narrowed lids. He lifted his hat and resettled it with a sharp tilt over his right eyebrow— which meant always that Casey Ryan had just O.K.’d an idea.

“Go on an’ take a nap if you want to,” he urged good-naturedly. “I got some tinkerin’ t do on the Ford an’ I was aimin’ t'lay over here an’ do it. I’m kinda lookin’ around, myself, fer a likely prospect, an’ I guess I got all the time there is. I'll back the car down there in the hollow where she’ll set level, an’ clean ’er dingbats while you take a sleep.”

Casey left the breakfast things where they were, as a silent reassurance to the drowsy Mack Nolan that the car would not go off without him. Casey was rather good at observing these little psychological details. A smoked coffeepot and an unwashed frying pan, together with soiled cups and plates stacked beside a dead camp fire, establishes evidence, admissible before any jury, that the owner means to return.

Casey went over and cranked the Ford, grimly determined to make his coffeepot and frying pan lie for him if necessary. He backed the Ford down the draw a good seventy-five yards, to where a wrinkle in the bank hid him from the breakfast camp. He stopped there, and left the engine running while he straddled out over the side and went forward to the dip of the front fender to see if the Ford was still visible to Mack Nolan. He was glad to find that by crouching and sighting across the fender he could see the camp fire and the top of Nolan’s hat just beyond. ‘The man need only lift his head off his arm to see that the Ford was standing just around the turn of the draw.

For fifteen minutes the mind of Casey Ryan was at ease. He had found a shovel in the car, placed conveniently at the side where it could be used for just such an emergency as this. For fifteen minutes he had been using that shovel in what had appeared to be loose gravel just under an outcropping of rhyolite a rod or so behind the car and well out of sight of Nolan.

The shadow of a head and shoulders fell across the hole which Casey was beginning to consider almost deep enough to bury two ten-gallon kegs and forty bottles of whisky. Casey did not lift the dirt and rocks he had on his shovel. He froze to a tense quiet, goggling at the shadow.

“What are you doing, Casey? Trying to outdig a badger?” Mack Nolan’s chuckle was friendliness itself.

Casey’s head snapped around so that he could cock an eye up at Nolan. He grinned mechanically. "Naw. Picked up a likely lookin’ piece uh float. Thought I’d just see if it didn’t maybe come from this ledge.”

Mack Nolan stepped forward interestedly and looked at the ledge. “Where’s the piece you found?” he very naturally inquired. “The formation just here wouldn’t lead me to expect gold-bearing rock— but of course, anything is possible with gold. Let’s have a look at the specimen.”

Casey had once tried to bluff a stranger with two deuces and a pair of fives, and two full stacks of blue chips pushed to the center to back the bluff. The stranger had called him, with three queens and a pair of jacks. Casey felt like that now.

He had laughed over his loss then, and he grinned now and reached carelessly to the bank beside him as if he fully expected to lay his hand on a specimen of gold-bearing rock. He went so far as to utter a surprised oath when he failed to find it. He felt in his pockets. He went forward and scanned the top of the ledge. He turned and stood astraddle, his hands on his hips, and gazed at the pile of dirt he had thrown out of the hole.

“Now if that there lump uh high grade has went and slid down the bank an’ got covered up with the muck,” he remarked disgustedly, “I’m a son of a gun if Fate ain’t playin’ agin’ Casey Ryan with a flock uh aces under its vest!”

Mack Nolan laughed, and Casey slanted a look his way. “Thought I left you takin’ a nap,” he said brazenly. “What’s the matter? Didn’t yer breakfast set good?”

Mack Nolan laughed again. It was evident that he found Casey Ryan amusing.

“The breakfast was fine,’ he replied easily. “A couple of lizards got to playing tag over me. That woke me up, and the sun was so hot I just thought I’d come down and crawl into the car and go to sleep there. Go ahead with your digging, Casey—  l won’t bother you.”

Casey went on with his digging, but his heart was not in it. With every laggard shovelful of dirt, he glanced over his shoulder, watching Mack Nolan crawl into the back of the car and settle himself with an audible sigh of satisfaction on top of the load. He had a wild, wicked impulse to lengthen the hole and make it serve as a grave for more than bootleg whisky; but it was an impulse born of desperation and it died almost before it had lived.

ii

CASEY left his digging and returned to the Ford, still determined to carry on the bluff that much tinkering was necessary before he could go on. With a great show of industry he rummaged for pliers and wrenches, removed the hood from the motor and squinted down at the little engine,

By that time Mack Nolan was snoring softly but with much convincingness in the car. Casey listened suspiciously, knowing too well how misleading a snore may be. But his own eyelids were growing exceeding heavy and the soporific sound acted hypnotically upon his sleep-hungry brain. He caught himself yawning and suddenly threw down the wrench and crawled under the back of the car, where it was shady.

The sun was nearly down when Casey awoke and crawled out. Mack Nolan was still curled comfortably in the car, his back against the bed roll. He opened his eyes and yawned when Casey leaned and looked in upon him.

“By Jove, that was a fine sleep I had,” he announced cheerfully, lifting himself up and dangling his legs outside the car. “Strike anything yet?”

“Naw.” Casey’s grunt was eloquent of the mood he was in.

“Get the car fixed all right?” Mack Nolan’s cheerfulness seemed diabolical to Casey.

Nam ” Then Casey added grimly, “I’m stuck. J dunno what ails the damn thing. It’s only three miles out here t’ the road. Mebby you better hike over t’ the highway an’ ketch a ride with somebody. No use waiting fer me— can’t tell how long I'll be held up here.”

Mack Nolan climbed out of the car, and Casey’s spirits rose instantly.

“She was hitting all right when you backed down here,” Nolan remarked easily. “I'll just take a look at her myself. Fords are cranky sometimes. But I’ve assembled too many of ’em in the factory to let one get the best of me in the desert.”

Casey could almost hear his heart when it slumped down into his boots. But he wasn’t licked yet.

“Aw, let the darned thing alone till we eat,” he said and pushed his hat forward to hurry his wits.

“Well, I can throw a Ford together in the dark if necessary,” smiled Mack Nolan. “That it is, if you want it that way. That breakfast I had seems to have sharpened my appetite for supper. Tell you what I'll do, Ryan. I'll look the Ford over while you cook supper. How’ll that be?”

That wouldn’t be, if Casey could prevent it. His pale, narrow-lidded eyes dwelt upon Nolan unwinkingly.

“Well, mebbe I’m kind of a crank about my car,” he hedged with a praiseworthy calmness. “Fords is like horses to me. I drove stage all m’ life till I took t’ prospectin’— an’ I never could stand around and let anybody else monkey with my horses. Ii ain’t a doubt in the- world, Mr. Nolan, but what you know as much about Fords as what I do. More, mebbe. But Casey Ryan’s got ’is little ways an’ he can’t seem t? ditch ’em. Well eat— an’ then mebbe we'll look ’er over together.

“At the same time,” he went on with rising courage, “I’m liable t’ stick around here fer a while an’ prospect a little. If you want t’ find them mules and outfit, don’t bank too strong on Casey Ryan. He’s liable t change ’is mind any old time. Day er night, yuh can’t tell what Casey might take a notion t’ do. That there’s a fact. You can ask anybody if it ain’t.”

Mack Nolan laughed and slapped Casey unexpectedly on the shoulder. “You're a man after my own heart, Casey Ryan,” he declared enigmatically. "I'll stick to you and take a chance. Darn the mules. Somebody will find them and look after them until I show up.”

Casey’s spirits, as he admitted to himself, were rising and falling like the hammer of a pile driver; and like the hapless pile, the hammer was driving him deeper and deeper into hopelessness. He would have given an ear to know for certain whether Mack Nolan was as innocent and friendly as he seemed. Until he did know, Casey could see nothing before him but to. wait and watch his chance to give Nolan the slip.

Sitting cross-legged in the glow of the camp fire after supper, with the huge pattern of stars drawn over the purple night sky, Casey pulled out the old pipe with which he solaced his evenings and stuffed it thoughtfully with tobacco. Across the camp fire Mack Nolan sat with his hat tilted down over his eyes, smoking a cigarette and seeming at peace with all the world. Casey hoped that Nolan would forget about fixing the Ford. He hoped that Nolan would sleep well to-night. Casey was perfectly willing to sacrifice a good roll of bedding and the cooking outfit, for the privilege of traveling alone. No man, he told himself savagely, could ask a better deal than he was prepared to give Nolan. He bent to reach a burning twig for his pipe, and-found Nolan watching him curiously from under his hat brim.

“What sort of looking fellows were those, Ryan, that left a load of booze on your hands?” Nolan asked matter-of-factly.

Casey burned his fingers with the blazing twig. “Who said anything about any fellers leavin' me booze?” he countered sharply. “If it’s a drink you’re hintin’ fer, you won’t get it. Casey Ryan ain’t no booze peddler, an’ now’s as good a time as any t’ let that soak into your system.”

Mack Nolan’s gray eyes were still watching Casey from under his hat brim.

“It might help us both considerably,” the said quietly, “if you told me all about it, Casey. You can’t cache that booze you’ve got in the car— I won’t let you, for one thing; for another, that would be merely dodging the issue. And if you'll forgive my frankness, dodging doesn’t seem to be quite in your line.”

Casey puffed hard on his pipe. “The world’s gittin’ so darned full uh crooks a man can’t turn around now’days, without bumpin’ into a few!” Casey declared bitterly. “What kinda holdup game are you playin’, Mr. Nolan?— if that’s your name,” he added fiercely.

Mack Nolan laughed to himself and rubbed the ash from his cigarette against the sole of his shoe. “Why,” he answered genially, “my game is to hold up the crooks. You’ve got a fine chance, I should say offhand, to sit in with me. Of course I’m just guessing,” he added dryly, “but I’m tolerably good at that. A man’s got to be, these days.”

“A man’s got to do better’n guess with Casey Ryan,” Casey stated flatly. “The last man that guessed Casey Ryan, guessed 'im plumb wrong.”

“Meaning that you don’t want to come in with me and help round up a few bootleggers and crooked officers?” A steel edge had crept into Mack Nolan’s voice. He leaned forward a little, his elbows on his knees, and his eyes trying to read Casey’s thoughts. “Man, don’t stall with me. You’ve got brains enough to know that if I were a crook I'd have held you up long before now. I’ve had three splendid opportunities to stick a gun in your back. And,” he added with a little smile, “if I had thought that you were a bootlegger or a crook I’d have had you in Las Vegas jail before now. You're no more a crook than I am. You’ve got neither the looks nor the actions of a slicker.

“I've been all day sizing you up. Pm going to be perfectly honest with you, and tell you all I knew about you. I happened to be right close when you drove down in here and stopped. As a matter of fact, I was behind that little clump of junipers within fifteen feet of you. You came down here mad. You were so mad you started talking to yourself— and you made matters pretty plain, right then. For instance, you’re not at all certain that this car isn’t stolen. You’re broke— robbed, I take it, by the men who somehow managed to leave you with a carload of ‘booze on your hands. You told all of that, right out loud, while you stood looking at the car. The deal must have been pulled on you this morning— down at the railroad, I imagine; because you hadn’t taken time to size up the predicament you were in until you got here.

“Your main idea had been to get off somewhere out of sight. You were scared, for fear some one would come along and find out what you had in the car. You didn’t hear me behind you until I spoke. You're a green hand at dodging, which is a very good recommendation to a man in my line of work. But you’re shrewd, Ryan and you’re game— dead game. You're a peach at thinking up schemes to get yourself out of a hole. You don’t think quite far enough— for instance, because you found me afoot it never occurred to you that I might know something about a car— but the rest of your plan was a dandy.

“Your idea of backing down there around the turn and burying the booze was all right. Once you got that off your mind, I rather think you’d be glad to have me along with you, instead of giving me broad hints to leave. But you haven’t got your booze buried, and you’ve been wondering all evening how the devil you’re going to manage it with me around. Ill do some guessing, now: I guess you’ve doped it out that you'll bring the bed roll up here, tuck me in and pray that I'll sleep sound— at least until you’ve cached the booze and made your getaway. Or possibly, if you got the booze put away safe from my prying eyes, you might come back to bed and I’d find you here in the morning. Isn’t that about right?”

“Aw, go t' hell!” said Casey, swallowing a sickly grin. “If them darn’ lizards had let yuh alone, I wouldn’t have nothin’ on my mind now but my hat.” He looked across the fire at Mack Nolan, a queer. expression in his eyes. “Keep on, you'll tell me what the missus and I was arguin’ about last night over long distance. I’ve heard tell uh mind readin’— but I never met up with it before. If you’re aimin’ t’ take up a collection after the show, you won’t make much. I been what a feller called dusted off.” He added after a pause that was eloquent, “They done it thoroughly.”

Mack Nolan laughed. “They usually are thorough, when they’re ‘dusting off a clown,’ as I believe they call it.”

“You’ve got the lingo, all right. I'm kinda hopin’ you ain’t got the disposition. But anyways, you’re too late. I’m cleaned.”

Mack Nolan rolled another cigarette, lighted it and flipped the match into the camp fire. He smoked it down to the last inch, staring into the fire and saying nothing the while. When the cigarette stub followed the match he leaned back upon one elbow and began tracing a geometrical figure in the sand with a stick.

“Ryan,” he said abruptly, “you’re square and | know it. The very nature of my business makes it impossible for me to trust many men, but I’m going to trust you.” He stopped again, taking great pains with the point of a triangle he was drawing.

Casey knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel. “Puttin’ it that way, Mr. Nolan, the man’s yet t’ live that Casey Ryan ever double crossed. Cops I got no use for; nor yet bootleggers. Whether I got any use for you, Mr. Nolan, I can say better when I’ve heard yuh out. A goat I’ve been for the last time. But I’m willin’ t hear yuh out, mind reader though yuh be. That there’s more’n what Casey Ryan woulda said this morning.”

“And that’s fair enough, Ryan. If you jumped into things with your eyes shut, I don’t think Pd want you with me.”

Casey squirmed, remembering certain times when he had gone too headlong into things. His respect for Mack Nolan was increasing noticeably. The Little Woman would have been surprised to see how subdued he was this evening.

iii

“I'M going to ask you, Ryan, to tell me the whole story of this car and its load of whisky. But before you do that, I’ll tell you this much to show good faith and prove to you how much I trust you: I’m a Federal officer, working direct from Washington. I’m after bootleggers, it is true. But they’re small game. My real work for the government— and you'll see at once that secrecy is absolutely essential to success— is to find out who is making bootlegging possible. I think you can help me in that. I wish you would tell me exactly what you’ve been up against. Don’t leave out anything, however trivial it may seem to you.”

“One thing I’d like to know first, Mr. Nolan.” Casey’s face had lost the look of a man ready to fight and waiting for the first blow. “Are yuh or ain’t yuh huntin’ mules?”

Mack Nolan laughed. “I am, yes. You may understand me better, Casey, when I tell you that the mule I'm hunting is white.”

Casey studied that until he had the pipe going well. Then he cocked an eye at Nolan and grinned understandingly.

“So its ‘White Mule’ you're trailin’, is it?” Casey kicked the stub of a greasewood branch back into the flames and laughed. “Well, I can say this much— they’s tracks deep an’ plenty uh that same White Mule all over the country. An’ if it’s true you’re trailin’ ’im fer the gove’ment in Washin’ton, Tm with yuh. Now I'll tell yuh the whole works from the first run-in I had with a bunch of moonshiners over at Black Butte in the Panamints, down to where I drove in here this morning.”

Mack Nolan enjoyed the telling of the story of Casey Ryan’s wrongs, quite apart from the information he gleaned. When Casey had once more stopped and killed his engine at Juniper Wells, Mack Nolan sat up and leaned forward a little, his eyes steady and his mouth, that had curved to laughter many times during the tale, once more firm and somewhat pitiless.

“This Smiling Lou— you’d know him again, of course?”

“Know him? Say! Id know him after he’d fried a week in Hades!” Casey’s tone left no doubt whatever of his sincerity.

“And I suppose you could tell the bootlegger a mile off and around a corner. Now I'll tell you what I want you to do, Casey. This may jar you a little— until I explain. I want you”— Mack Nolan paused, his lips twitching in a faint smile at the shock to come— “to do a little bootlegging yourself.”

“Yuh— what?” In the firelight Casey’s eyes were seen to bulge.

“Bootleg,” Nolan smiled. “I want you to go back and peddle this booze Kenner worked off on you. I want you to do it so that Smiling Lou or one of his bunch will hold you up. Do you see what I mean? We'll put it in marked bottles. I have the bottles and the seals and labels— I can forge anything that’s to be had in the country. With marked money and marked bottles, and something to use in case you get pinched by an honest officer, we ought to be able to get the goods on that gang.”

Casey thought of something quite suddenly and held out an imperative, pointing finger.

“There’s somethin’ else that feller told me was in the car,” he cried agitatedly. “He said he had forty pints of French champagne cached in a false bottom under the front seat. And he said the front cushion had a blind pocket all the way around it and was full uh dope uh some kind. Hop, he called, it."

Mack Nolan whistled under his breath.

“And he turned the outfit over. to you for sixteen hundred dollars or so?” His eyes turned to stare thoughtfully into the firelight. Abruptly he looked up at Casey. “What the deuce had you done to him, Ryan?” he asked with a quizzical intentness. “He must have been badly scared to let go of all that for sixteen hundred. Why, the ‘junk’ alone— that’s what they call dope— must have been worth a great deal more than that. And the champagne, if he’s got that much, would bring six or eight hundred, the prices they’re getting for a good grade, these days. I hope,” he added seriously, “the fellow wasn’t too scared to come back.”

“Well,” Casey said grimly, “I dunno how scart he is— but he knows darn’ well I'll kill im. I told ’im I would.”

Again Mack Nolan laughed. "Catching’s much better than killing. It hurts a man worse, and it lasts a heap longer. What do you say to turning in? To-morrow we'll have a full day at my private bottling works.”

They moved their cooking outfit down near the Ford for safety’s sake. There was little fear that the car would be robbed in the night, but Mack Nolan was a man who took as few chances as possible. They pulled the roll of bedding from the Ford, spread it out and went to bed, talking in low tones of their plans until they fell asleep.

Dawn was just thinning the curtain of darkness when Nolan woke Casey with a shake of the shoulder.

“I think we’d better be moving from here before the world’s astir. You can back on down this draw, Ryan, and strike an old trail that cuts over the ridge and up the next draw to a deserted old mine where I have my stuff cached. It isn’t far, and we can have our breakfast at my camp.”

Casey swallowed his astonishment, and for once in his life he did as he was told without argument. The stern finger at Washington had pointed, and even a disputatious Casey Ryan away out in Nevada was constrained to unquestioning obedience.

Mack Nolan’s camp was fairly accessible by a roundabout trail with a single set of tire tracks to point the way for Casey. Straight across the ridges, it could not have been more than two miles to Juniper Wells. Nevertheless not one man in a year would be tempted to come this way.

As the camp of a man who was prospecting as a pastime rather than for a grubstake, the place was perfect. Mack Nolan had taken possession of a cabin dug into the hill at the head of a long draw and walled with rocks. A brush-covered shed of makeshift construction sheltered a Ford car. Fifty yards away and in full sight of the cabin the mouth of a tunnel yawned blackly under a rhyolite ledge.

Casey swept the camp with an observant glance as he drove up and stopped before the cabin.

“As a prospector, Mr. Nolan, I'll say ’tis a fine layout yuh got here. ’Tain’t the first time an honest-lookin’ mine has been made t' cover things far off from minin’. But if any one was t’ ride up on yuh onexpected here, I'll say yuh could meet ’em with a grin an’ feel easy about your secrets.”

“That’s praise, indeed, coming from an old hand like you,” Mack Nolan declared. “Now I'll tell you something else. With Casey Ryan in the camp the whole thing’s twice as convincing.  Come in, old man— I want to show you what I call an artistic interior.”

Grinning, Casey followed him inside and exclaimed profanely in admiration of Mack Nolan’s genius. The cabin showed every mark of the owner’s interest in the geologic formation of that immediate district. On the floor along the wall lay specimens of mineralized rock, a couple of prospector’s picks, a single jack whose edges betrayed hard usage on the end of a drill, and a sample sack grimed and with a hole in the corner mended by the simple process of gathering the whole cloth together around it and tying it tightly with a string. On the window sill were specimens of ore; two or three of the pieces showed a richness that lighted Casey’s eyes with true prospector’s enthusiasm. Mining journals covered a box table at the foot of the bunk. For the rest, the cabin looked exactly. what it was— the orderly home of a man quite accustomed to primitive living far off from his fellows.

They had a very satisfactory breakfast cooked by Mack Nolan from his own supplies and eaten in a leisurely manner while Nolan talked of primary formation and secondary, and of mineral intrusions and breaks. Casey listened and learned a few things he had not known, for all his years of prospecting. Mack Nolan, he decided, could pass anywhere as a mining expert.

“And now,” said Nolan briskly, when he had hung up the dish pan and draped the dishcloth over it to dry, “I'll show you the bottling works. We’ll have to do the work underground. There’s not one chance in fifty that any one would come—but you never can tell. We could get the stuff out of sight easily enough while a car was coming up the draw. But the smell is a different matter. We’ll take no chances.”

At the head of the bunk a curtained space beneath a high shelf very obviously did duty as a wardrobe. A leather motor coat hung there, one sleeve protruding beyond the curtain of flowered calico. Other garments bulged the cloth here and there. Nolan, smiling over his shoulder at Casey, nodded and stepped behind the curtain. A door pushed inward, admitting the two into a small recess from which another door opened to an underground room.

Undoubtedly this had once been used as a frost-proof cellar and storeroom. A small ventilator pipe opened— so Nolan told Casey— in the middle of a clump of junipers. Nolan lighted a gasoline lantern that shed a white brilliance upon the long table which extended down one side of the room. Casey saw boxes of bottles and other supplies which he did not at the moment recognize.

“We'll have to rebottle all the whisky,” said Nolan. ‘You'll see a certain mark blown into the bottom of each one of these. The champagne, I’m afraid, I must either confiscate or run the risk of marking the labels. The ‘junk’ we’ll lay aside for further consideration.”

Casey grinned, thinking of the speedy downfall of his enemies, Smiling Lou and young Kenner— and other crooks of their type.

“So now we'll unload the stuff, old man, and get to work here.” Nolan adjusted the white flame in the mantle of the gasoline lantern, and led the way outside. “Take in the seat cushion, Casey. I don’t fancy opening it outside, even in this howling wilderness.”

“I think I'll just pack in the kags first, Mr. Nolan.” For the first time since the shock of Nolan’s “mind readin' ” the night before, Casey ventured a suggestion. ‘Anybody comes along, it’s the kags they’d look at cross-eyed. Cushions is expected— if I ain’t buttin’ in,” he added meekly.

“Which you’re not. You're acting as my agent now, Ryan, and it will take two heads to put this over without a hitch. Sure, put the kegs out of sight first. The bottles next— and then we'll make short work of the dope in the seat cushion.”

Wherefore, Casey carried in the kegs, while Mack Nolan kept watch for inopportune visitors. It was thought inadvisable to unload more than was absolutely necessary from the car. They were taking no chances. One yank at the bed roll would conceal everything below. They both breathed freer when the two kegs were in the cellar. Nolan was pleased, too, when Casey came out with the sample bag and announced that he would carry in the bottles in the bag.

Mack Nolan thought that he heard a car coming up the draw, and walked away up a sharp ridge where he would have a better view. He would whistle, he said, and warn Casey if some one was coming.

He was gone five minutes perhaps when Casey yelled and brought him back at a run. Casey was swearing and rummaging in the car, and throwing things about with a recklessness which ill became an agent of the government.

“There ain’t a darn’ bottle here!” he shouted indignantly. “Them crooks gyped me outa ten gallons uh bottled hooch! That feller said it was high-grade stuff he had packed away at the bottom. He lied. There ain’t a drop in the car— except them two kegs I just packed in. An’ the champagne, mebbe, under the front seat!”

Mack Nolan’s eyes narrowed a bit. voice was very quiet when he spoke.

“I think, Ryan, I'll have a look under that front seat.”

He had a look— several looks, in fact. He took his pocketknife, opened the small blade and skilfully slit the edge of the seat cushion at the bottom. He inserted a finger and thumb in the opening and drew out a bit of matted hair. He stood up and eyed Casey sharply for a space. Casey stared back, but his pale, straight-lidded eyes held an anxious gleam.

“I hope yuh don’t think, Mr. Nolan, that I knowed anything about this,” he said, when Nolan’s silence became unbearable.

“I beg your pardon, Ryan,” said Nolan. “I was thinking of something else. No, I merely think we’d better take a look at those kegs.”

They went in and took a look at the kegs. Both kegs. Afterward they stood and looked at each other.

Casey’s hands went to his hips, and the muscles along his jaw hardened into lumps. He spat into the dirt of the cellar floor.

“Watter!” he snorted disgustedly. “Casey Ryan with the divil an’ all scart outa him thinkin’ he had ownership in a load uh booze an’ hop sufficient t hang him, was he caught with it!” His hand slid into his trouser pocket, reaching for the solacing plug of tobacco. ‘Robbed me broke is what they done—an’ left me with a rotten camp outfit and two kags uh water—and the fear t’ look any man in the eye!”

Nolan stopped whistling under his breath. “There’s the Ford,” he reminded Casey comfortingly.

“Which I wisht it wasn’t!” snarled Casey. “An’ yuh know yourself, Mr. Nolan, it’s likely stole, ’nd the first man I meet in the trail’ll likely take it off me, claimin’ it’s hisn!”

Mack Nolan started whistling again and checked himself abruptly. “Well, our trap’s wanting bait, I see. Looks as if we'll have to get out on the trail of that White Mule, Casey. Buck up, old man—it’s bootlegger’s luck—"

“It’s Casey Ryan’s luck!” snarled Casey, kicking the nearest keg viciously as he passed it on his way to the door. “Ta hell with your White Mule! Ta hell with everything!” He went out into the sunshine swearing to himself.

iv

IN THE shade of a juniper that grew on the highest point of the gulch’s rim, Mack Nolan lay sprawled on the flat of his back, one arm for a pillow, and stared up into the serene blue of the sky with cottony flakes of cloud. swimming steadily to the northeast. Three feet away, Casey Ryan rested on left hip and elbow and stared glumly down upon the cabin directly beneath them. Whenever his pale, straight-lidded eyes focused upon the dusty top of the Ford car standing in front of the cabin, Casey said something under his breath.

Miles away to the south, pale violet, dreamlike in the distance, the jagged outline of a small mountain range stood as if painted upon the horizon. A wavy ribbon of smudgy brown was drawn uncertainly across the base of the mountains. This, Casey knew when his eyes lifted to look that way, marked the line of the Santa Fe and a train moving heavily up grade to the west.

Toward it dipped the smooth stretch of barren mesa cut straight down the middle with a yellow line that was the highway up which Casey had driven the morning before. The inimitable magic of distance and high desert air veiled greasewood, sage and sand with the glamour of unreality. The mountains beyond, unspeakably desolate and forbidding at close range, and the little black buttes standing afar off— small spewings of age-old volcanoes dead before man was born —seemed fascinating, unknown islets anchored in a sea of enchantment. Across the valley to the west, nearer mountains, all amethyst and opal tinted, stood bold and inscrutable, with jagged peaks thrust into the blue to pierce and hold the little clouds that came floating by.

When first Casey saw the smoke smudge against the mountains to the south, he remembered his misadventure of the lower desert and swore. When he looked again, the majestic sweep of distance gave him a satisfied feeling of freedom from the crowded pettinesses of the city. For the first time since trouble met him in the trail between Victorville and Barstow, Casey heaved a sigh of content because he was once more out in the big land he loved. Those distant, painted mountains, looking as impossible as the back drop of a stage, held gulches and deep cañons he knew. The closer hills he had prospected. The mesa, spread all around him, seemed more familiar than the white apartment house in Los Angeles which Casey had lately called home. And though the thought of the Little Woman brought with it the vague discomfort of a schoolboy playing hooky, Casey could not have regretted being here with Mack Nolan if he had tried.

They were lying up here in the shade— following the instinct of other creatures of the wild to guard against surprises—while they worked out a nice problem in moonshine. And since the desert had never meant a monotonously placid life to Casey— who carried his problems philosophically, as a dog bears patiently with fleas— he had every reason now for feeling very much at home.

Mack Nolan raised his head off his arm and glanced at Casey quizzically.

“Well, we can’t catch fish if we won’t cut bait,” he volunteered sententiously. “I've a nice little job staked out for you, Casey.

“I've been thinking over the deal those fellows pulled on you. If the man Kenner had left you the booze and dope he told you was in the car, I’d say it was a straight case of a sticky-fingered officer letting a bootlegger by with part of his load, and a later attack of cold feet on the part of the bootlegger. But they didn’t leave you any booze. So I have doped it this way, Ryan:

“The thing’s deeper than it looked yesterday. Those two were working together; part of a gang, I should say, with a fairly well organized system. By accident— and probably for a greater degree of safety in getting out of the city— Kenner invited you to ride with him. He wanted no argument with that traffic cop— no record made of his name and license number. So he took you in. When he found out who you were, he knew you were at outs with the law. He knew you as an experienced desert man. He had you placed as a valuable member of their gang, if you could be won over and persuaded to join them.

“As soon as possible he got you behind the wheel— further protection to himself if he should meet an officer who was straight. He felt you out on the subject of a partnership. And when you met Smiling Lou— well, this Kenner had decided to take no chance with you. He still had hopes of pulling you in with them, but he was far from feeling sure of you. He undoubtedly gave Smiling Lou the cue to make the thing appear an ordinary case of highjacking while he ditched his whole load so that there would be no evidence against him if he lost out and you turned nasty

“I'm absolutely certain, Casey, that if you had not been along, Smiling Lou would not have touched that load. They’d probably have stopped there for a talk, exchanged news and perhaps perfected future plans, and parted like two old cronies. It’s possible, of course, that Smiling Lou might have taken some whisky back with him— if he had needed it. Otherwise, I think they split more cash than booze, as a rule.”

Casey sat up. “Well, they coulda played me for a sucker easy enough,” he admitted reluctantly, ‘An’ if it’ll be any help to yuh, Mr. Nolan, I'll say that I never seen the money passed from Kenner t’ Smilin’ Lou, an’ I never seen a bottle unloaded from the car. I heard ’em, yes. An’ I'll say there ‘was a bunch of ’em, all right. But what I seen was the road ahead of me and that car of Smilin’ Lou’s standin’ in the middle of it. He had a gun pulled on me, mind you— and you can ask anybody if a feller feels like rubberin’ much when there’s only the click of a trigger between him an’ a six-foot hole in the ground.”

“All the more reason,” said Nolan, also sitting up with his hands clasped around his knees, “why it’s important to catch them with the goods, You'll have to peddle hooch, Casey, until we get Smiling Lou and his outfit.”

“And where, Mr. Nolan, do I git the booze t' peddle?” asked Casey practically.

Nolan laughed to himself. “It can be bought,” he said, “but I’d rather not. Since you’ve never monkeyed with the stuff it might make you conspicuous if you went around buying up a load of hooch. And of course I can’t appear in this thing at all. But I have what I think is a very good plan.”

Casey looked at him inquiringly, and again Nolan laughed.

“Nothing for it, Casey— we’ll have to locate a still and rob it. That, or make some of our own, which takes time. And it’s an unpleasant, messy job anyway.”

Casey stared dubiously down into the gulch. “That'd be fine, Mr. Nolan, if we knew where was the still. Or mebby yuh do know.”

Mack Nolan shook his head. “No, I don’t, worse luck. I haven’t been long enough in the district to know as much about it as I hope to know later on. Prospecting for this headquarters took a little time; and getting my stuff moved in here secretly took more time. A week ago, Casey, I shouldn’t have been quite ready to use you. But you came when you were needed. and so— I'll feel sure that White Mule will presently show up.”

Casey lifted his head and stared meditatively out across the immensity of the empty land around them.

“She’s a darn’ big country, Mr. Nolan. I dunno,” he remarked doubtfully. “But Casey Ryan has yet to go after a thing an’ fail to git it. I guess if it’s hooch we want, it ought to be easy enough to find; it shore has been hard to dodge it lately! If yuh want White Mule, Mr. Nolan, you send Casey out travelin’ peaceful an’ meanin’ harm to nobody. Foller Casey, and you'll find ’im tangled up with a mess uh hooch b’fore he gits ten miles from camp.”

“You could go out and highjack some one,” Nolan agreed, taking him seriously— which Casey had not intended. “I think well go down and load the camp outfit into my car, Ryan, and I'll start you out. Go up into your old stamping ground where people know you. If you’re careful in picking your men, you could locate some hooch, couldn’t you, without attracting attention?”

Casey studied the matter. “Bill Masters could mebby help me out,” he said finally. “Only I don’t like the friends Bill’s been wishin’ on to me lately. This man Kenner, that held me up, knowed Bill Masters intimate. I’m kinda losin’ my taste fer Bill lately.”

Mack Nolan seized upon the clew avidly. Before Casey quite realized what he had done, he found himself hustled away from camp in Mack Nolan’s car, headed for Lund in the service of his government. Since young Kenner had been able to talk so intimately of Bill Masters, Mack Nolan argued that Bill Masters should likewise be able to give some useful information concerning young Kenner. Moreover, a man in Bill Masters’ position would probably know at least a few of the hidden trails of the White Mule near Lund.

“If you can bring back a load of moonshine, Ryan, by all means do so,” Nolan instructed Casey at the last moment. “Here’s money to buy it with. We should have enough to make a good haul for Smiling Lou. Twenty gallons at least— forty if you can get them. Keep your weather eye open, and whatever happens don’t mention my name or say that you are working with the law. In five days if you are not here I shall drive to Las Vegas. Get word to me there if anything goes wrong. Just write or wire to general delivery. But I look for you back, Ryan, not later than Friday midnight. Take no unnecessary risk— this is more important than you know.”

Nolan’s crisp tone of authority remained with Casey mile upon mile. And such was the Casey Ryan driving that midnight found him coasting into Bill Masters’ garage in Lund with the motor shut off and a grin on the Casey Ryan face.

iv

MACK Nolan had just crawled into his bunk on Wednesday night when he thought he heard a car laboring up the gulch. He sat up in bed to listen and then got hurriedly into his clothes. He was standing just around the corner of the dugout where the headlights could not reach him, when Casey killed the engine and stopped before the door. Steam was rising in a small cloud from the radiator cap, and the sound of boiling water was distinctly audible some distance away.

Mack Nolan waited until Casey had climbed out from behind the wheel and headed for the door. Then he stepped out and hailed him. Casey started perceptibly, whirling as if to face an enemy. When he saw that it was Nolan he apparently lost his desire to enter the cabin. Instead he came close to Nolan and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

“We better run ’er under the shed, Mr. Nolan, and drain the darned radiator. I dunno am I follered or not, but I was a while back. But the man that catches Casey Ryan when he’s on the trail an’ travelin’ has yet to be born. An’ you can ask anybody if that ain’t so.”

Mack Nolan’s eyes narrowed. “And who followed you, then?” he asked quietly. “Did you bring any hooch?”

“Did yuh send Casey Ryan after hooch, or was it mebby spuds or somethin’?” Casey retorted with heavy dignity. “Will yuh pack it in, Mr. Nolan, while I back the car in the shed, or shall I bring it when I come? It ain’t so much,” he added dryly, “but it cost the trouble of a trainload.”

“I'll take it in,” said Nolan. “If any one does come we want no evidence in reach,”

Casey turned to the car, clawed at his camp outfit and lifted out a demijohn which he grimly handed to Nolan. “Fer many a mile it rode on the seat with me so I could drink ’er down if they got me cornered,” he grinned. “One good swaller is about the size of it, Mr. Nolan.”

Nolan grinned in sympathy and turned into the cabin, bearing the three-gallon, wicker-covered glass bottle in his arms. Presently he returned to the doorway and stood there listening until Casey came up, walking from the shed.

" 'Tis a good thing yuh left this other car standin’ here cold an’ peaceful, Mr. Nolan,” Casey observed, after he also had stood for a minute listening. “If they’re follerin’ they’ll be here darn’ soon. If they ain’t I’ve ditched ’em. Let’s git to bed an’ I'll tell yuh my tale uh woe.”

Without a word Nolan led the way into the cabin. In the dark they undressed and got into the bed which was luckily wide enough for two.

“Had your supper?” Nolan asked belatedly when they were settled.

“I did not,” Casey grunted. “I will say, Mr. Nolan, there’s few times in my life when you’d see Casey Ryan missin’ ’is supper while layin’ tracks away from a fight. But if it was light enough you could gaze upon im now. And I must hand it to the gallopin’ Gussie yuh give me the loan of fer the trip. She brung me home ahead of the sheriff— and you can ask anybody if Casey Ryan himself can’t be proud uh that.”

“The sheriff?” Nolan’s voice was puzzled. He seemed to be considering something for a minute, before he spoke again. “You could have explained to the sheriff, couldn’t you, your reason for having booze in the car?”

Casey raised to one elbow. “When yuh told Casey Ryan ’twas not many men you’d trust, and that you trusted me an’ the business was to be secret— Mr. Nolan, you was talkin’ to Casey Ryan!” He lay down again as if that precluded further argument.

“Good! I thought I hadn’t made a mistake in my man,” Nolan approved, in a tone that gave Casey an inner glow of pride in himself. ‘Let’s have the story, old man. Did you see Bill Masters?”

“Bill Masters,” said Casey grimly, “was not in Lund. His garage is sold an’ Bill’s in Denver— which is a long drive for a Ford to git there an’ back before Friday midnight. Yuh put a time limit on me, Mr. Nolan, an’ nobody had Bill’s address. I didn’t foller Bill to Denver. I asked some others in Lund if they knowed a man named Kenner, and they did not. So then I went huntin’ booze that I could git without the hull of Nevada knowin’ it in fifteen minutes. An’ Casey’s got this to say: When yuh want hooch, it’s hard to find as free gold in granite. When yuh don’t want it, it’s forced on yuh at the point of a gun. This jug I stole— seein’ your business is private, Mr. Nolan.

“I grabbed it off some fellers I knowed in Lund an’ never had no use for anyway. They’re mean enough when they’re sober, an’ when they’re jagged they’re not to be mentioned on a Sunday. I mighta paid ’em for it, but money’s no good to them fellers an’ there’s no call to waste it. So they made a holler and I sets the jug down an’ licks them both, an’ comes along home mindin’ my own business.

“So I guess they phoned the sheriff in Vegas that ‘here comes a bootlegger and land ’im quick.’ Anyway I was goin’ to stop there an’ take on a beefsteak an’ a few cups uh coffee, but I never done it. I was slowin’ down in front uh Sam’s Place when a friend uh mine gives me the high sign to put ’er in high an’ keep ’er goin’. Which I done.

“Down by Ladd’s, Casey looks back an’ here comes the sheriff’s car hell-bent-fer-’lection— anyway it looked like the sheriff’s car. An’ I wanta say right here, Mr. Nolan, that’s a darn’ good Ford yuh got! I was follered, and I was follered hard. But I’m here an’ they ain’t— an’ you can ask anybody if that didn’t take some goin’!”

In the darkness of the cabin Casey turned over and heaved a great sigh. On the heels of that came a chuckle.

“I got to hand it to the L. A. traffic cops, Mr. Nolan. They shore learned me a lot about dodgin’. So now yuh got the hull story. If it was the sheriff behind me an’ if he trails me here, they got no evidence an’ you can mebby square it with ’im. You’d know what to tell ’im— which is more’n what Casey Ryan can say.”

Casey fell asleep immediately afterward, but Mack Nolan lay for a long while with his eyes wide open and his ears alert for strange sounds in the gulch. He was a new man in this district, working independently of sheriffs’ offices. Casey Ryan was the first man he had confided in; all others were fair game, for Nolan to prove honest or dishonest. When whisky runners drove openly in broad daylight through the country with their unlawful loads, somewhere along the line officers of the ‘law were sharing the profits.

At daylight he was up and abroad. Two hours after sunrise, Casey awoke with the smell of breakfast in his nostrils. He rolled over and blinked at Mack Nolan standing with his hat on the back of his head and a cigarette between his lips, calmly turning three hot cakes with a kitchen knife. Casey grinned condescendingly. He himself turned his cakes by the simple process of tossing them in the air with a certain kind of flip, and catching them dexterously as they came down. Right there he decided that Mack Nolan was not after all a real outdoors man.

“Well, the sheriff didn’t arrive last night,” Nolan observed cheerfully when he saw that  Casey was awake. “I don’t much look for him, either. Your driving on past the turn to Juniper Wells and coming up that other old road very likely threw him off the track. You must have been close to the State line then, and he gave you up as a bad job.”

“It was a good job!” Casey maintained, reaching for his clothes. “I made ’em think I was headed clean outa the country. If they knowed who it was at all, they’d know I belong in L.A., and I figured they’d guess I was headed there. They stopped for something this side of Searchlight an’ so I pulls away from ’em a couple of miles. They never seen where I went to.”

While he washed for breakfast, Casey began to take stock of certain minor injuries.

“That darned Pete Gibson has got tushes in his mouth like a wild hawg; the kind that sticks out,” he grumbled, touching certain skinned places on his knuckles. “Every time I landed on ’im yesterday I run against them tushes uh hisn.” But he added with a grin, “They ain’t so solid as they was when I met up with ’im. I felt one of ’em give, fore I got through.”

“Brings the price of moonshine up a bit, doesn’t it?” Nolan suggested dryly. “I rather think you might better have paid the men their price. A fight is well enough in its way— I’m Irish myself. But as my agent, Ryan, the main idea is to let the law fight for you. I like your not wanting to explain to the sheriff. Prohibition officers do. not explain, as a rule. The law behind them does that.

“And since the price seems to be rather hard on the knuckles”—he glanced down at Casey’s hands and grinned— "I think it may come cheaper to make the stuff ourselves. Licking two men for three gallons, and getting the officers at your tail light into the bargain, is all right as an experiment; but I don’t believe, Ryan, we ought to adopt that as a habit.”

Casey cocked an eye up at him. “Did yuh ever make White Mule, Mr. Nolan?” he asked grimly.

Nolan laughed his easy little chuckle. “Why no, Ryan, I never did. Did you?”

“Naw. I seen some made, once, but I had too much of it inside me at the time to learn the receipt for it. I'd rather lay off, if it’s all the same to you, Mr. Nolan.” His hand went up to the back of his head and moved forward, although there was no hat to push. “I've lived honest all these years— an’ darn it, it’s kinda tough to break out with stealin’ what yuh don’t want! Couldn’t we fill them bottles with somethin’ that looks like hooch? Cold tea should get by, Mr. Nolan. It’d be a fine joke on Smilin’ Lou.”

“A good joke, maybe— but no evidence. It isn’t against the law, Ryan, to have cold tea in your possession. No, it’s got to be whisky, and there’s got to be a load of it. Enough to look like business and tempt him or any other member of the gang you happen to meet. If they caught you with three gallons, Casey, they’d probably run you in and feel very virtuous about it. Nothing for it, I’m afraid. We'll have to become real moonshiners ourselves for a while.”

Casey ate with less appetite after that. Making moonshine did not appeal to him at all. Given his choice, I think he would even prefer drinking it, unhappy as the effect had been on him.

“We'll need a still, and well need the stuff. I’m going to leave you in charge of the camp, Ryan, while I make a trip to Needles. I'll deputize you to assist me in cleaning up this district. And this district, Ryan, touches salt water. So if revenge looks good to you, you'll have a fine chance to get even with the bootleggers. And in the meantime, just kill time around camp here while I’m gone. If any one shows up, you're prospecting.”

That day, doubt devils took hold of Casey Ryan and plucked at his belief. How did he know that Mack Nolan wasn’t another bootlegger, wanting to rope Casey in on a job for some fell purpose of his own? He had Mack Nolan’s word, and nothing more. For that matter, he had also had young Kenner’s word. Kenner had fooled him completely. Mack Nolan could also fool him— perhaps.

vi

IT WAS noon the next day when Nolan returned, and he did not explain why he was eighteen hours overdue. Casey eyed him expectantly, but Nolan’s manner was brisk and preoccupied.

“Help me unload this stuff, Ryan,” he said, “and put it out of sight in the cellar. We won’t have to go through the process of making moonshine, after all.”

Casey looked into the car, pulling aside he tarp. Four kegs he counted, and lifted out one.

“An’ how many did you lick, Mr. Nolan?” he grinned over his shoulder as he started for the door.

Nolan laughed noncommittally.

“Perhaps I’m luckier at picking my bootleggers,” he retorted. “If you carry the right brand of bluff you can keep the skin on your knuckles, Ryan. This beats making it, at any rate.”

That afternoon and the next day, Casey Ryan did what he never dreamed was possible. With Mack Nolan to show him how, Casey performed miracles. While he did not literally change water into wine, he did give forty-three gallons of White Mule a most imposing pedigree.

He turned kegs of crude, moonshine whisky into Canadian Club, Garnkirk, Tom Pepper, Three-Star Hennessy and cognac— if you were to believe the bottles, labels and government seals. Under Mack Nolan’s instruction and with his expert assistance the forgery was perfect. While the cellar reeked with the odor of White Mule when they had finished, the bottled array on the table whispered of Sybaritic revelings to glisten the eyes of the most dissipated man about town.

“When it’s as easy done as that, Mr. Nolan, the feller’s a fool that drinks it. You’ve learned Casey Ryan somethin’ that mighta done ’im some good a few years back.” He picked up a flat, pint bottle and caressed its label with reminiscent finger tips.

“Many’s the time me an’ old Tommy Pepper drove stage together,” he mused. “Throwed ‘im at a bear once that I met in the trail over in Colorado when I hadn’t no gun on me. Busted a pint on his nose— an’ then I never waited to see what happened. I was a wild divil them days when me an’ Tommy Pepper was side pardners. But a yaller snake with a green head crawled out of a bottle of ’im once— and that there was where Casey Ryan says good-by to booze. If I hadn’t quit ’im then, I’d sure quit ’im now. After this performance, Mr. Nolan, Casey Ryan’s goin’ to look twice into his coffeepot. I wouldn’t believe in cow’s milk, if I done the milkin’ myself!”

“Most of the stuff that’s peddled nowadays is doctored,” Nolan replied with the air of one who knows. "When it isn’t White Mule it’s likely to be something worse. That’s one of the chief reasons why I’m fighting it. If they only peddled decent whisky, it wouldn’t be so bad, Ryan.  But it’s rank poison. I’ve seen so many go blind— or die— that it makes me pretty savage sometimes. So now I'll coach you in the part you’re to play as hooch runner; and to-morrow you can start for Los Angeles.”

Casey did not answer. He felt absently for his pipe, filled and lighted it and went out to sit on the doorstep in gloomy meditation while he smoked.

Returning to Los Angeles, even without a bootlegger’s load, was not a matter which Casey liked to contemplate. He would have to face the Little Woman if he went back, either as a deliberate liar, who lied to his wife to gain the freedom he might have had without resorting to deceit, or as the victim once more of crooks. Casey thought he would prefer the accusation of lying deliberately to the Little Woman— though it made  him squirm to think of it. He wished she had not openly taunted him with getting into trouble and needing her always to get him out.

He would like to tell her that he was now working for the government. The secrecy of his mission, the danger it involved, would impress even her amused cynicism. But the very secrecy of his mission in itself made it impossible for him to tell her anything about it. Casey would not admit it, but it was a real disappointment to him that he could not wear a star on his coat.

All that day and evening he was glum— a strange mood for Casey Ryan. But if Mack Nolan noticed his silence he gave no sign. Nolan himself was wholly absorbed by the business in hand. The success of this plan meant a good deal to him, and he told Casey so very frankly; which lightened Casey’s gloom perceptibly.

Casey was to drive to Los Angeles, even to San Diego if necessary, and return within a week, unless Nolan’s hopes were fulfilled and Casey was held up and highjacked. If he were apprehended by officers who were honestly discharging their duty, Casey was to do thus and so, and presently. be free to drive on with his load. If he were highjacked— Casey gritted his teeth and said he hoped the highjacker would be Smiling Lou —he was to permit himself to be robbed, worm himself as far as possible into their confidence and return for further orders.

If Mack Nolan should chance to be absent from the cabin, then Casey was to wait until he returned. And Nolan intimated that hereafter the making of moonshine might be a part of Casey’s duties. Then, without warning, Mack Nolan struck at the heart of Casey’s worry.

“I don’t want to dictate to any man in family affairs, Ryan. But I’ve got to speak of one other matter,” he said diffidently. “I suppose naturally you'll want to go home and let your wife know you're still alive, anyway. But if you can manage to keep your present business a secret for the time being, I think you’d better do it. You said you were planning to be away on a trip for some time, I remember. If you can just let it, go that way, or say that you are prospecting over here, I wish you would. Think you can manage that all right?”

“I'd ruther manage a six-horse team of bronk mules,” Casey admitted. “But after the way the missus thinks I lied to ’er about takin’ the next train home from Barstow, anything I say’ll be used agin’ me. My wife’s got brains. She ain’t put it down that the trains have quit runnin’. Accordin’ to her figures, Casey’s lied and he’s in a hole again. Don’t matter what I say, she won’t believe me anyhow— so Casey won’t say nothin’. Can’t lie with your mouth shut, can yuh?”

“Oh, yes, it’s been done,” Mack Nolan chuckled. “Now we'll set down the serial numbers and the bank name of this ‘jack’— and here’s your expense money separate. And if there’s anything that isn’t clear to you, Ryan, speak up. You won’t hear from me again, probably, until you’re back from this fishing trip.”

Casey thought that everything was perfectly clear, and rashly he said so.

vii

FROM Barstow to Victorville, from Victorville to Camp Cajon, Casey drove expectantly, hoping to meet Smiling Lou. He scanned each car that approached, and slowed for every meeting like a searching party or a man who is lost and wishes to inquire the way. Goggled women tourists eyed him curiously, and one car stopped full to see what he wanted. But his “Tom Pepper” rode safe under the tarp behind him, and the “Three-Star Hennessy” beaded daintily with the joggling it got, and Casey was neither halted nor questioned as he passed.

At Camp Cajon Casey stopped and cooked an early supper, because the summer crowd was there and a real bootlegger would have found stopping rather unsafe. Casey boiled coffee over one of the camp fireplaces, and watched furtively the sunburned, holiday group nearest. He placed his supper on one of the round, cement tables near the car, and every man who passed that way Casey watched unblinkingly while he ate.

He succeeded in making three different parties swallow their supper in a hurry and pack up and leave, glancing back uneasily at Casey as they drove away. But Casey himself was unmolested, and no one asked about his load.

From Camp Cajon to San Bernardino Casey drove furiously, remembering young Kenner’s desire for speed. He stopped there for the night, and nearly had a fight with the garage man where he put up, because he showed undue caution concerning the safety of his car.

He left the car there that day and returned furtively after dark, asking the night man if he had seen any saps around his car. The night man looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“I dunno— nothin’s been picked up since I come on at six. We ain’t responsible for lost articles anyway. See that sign?”

Casey grunted, cranked up and drove away, wondering whether the night man was as innocent as he tried to act.

From San Bernardino to Los Angeles Casey drove placidly as a load of oranges in February. He put up at a cheap place on San Pedro Street, with his car in the garage next door and a five-dollar tip in the palm of a rat-faced mechanic, with Casey’s injunction to clean ’er dingbats and keep other people away.

He did not go out to see the Little Woman, after all. He had sent her a wire from Goffs the day before, saying that he was prospecting with a fellow and he hoped she was well. This, after long pondering, had seemed to him the easiest way out of an argument with the Little Woman. The wire had given no address whereby she might reach him, but the omission was not the oversight Casey hoped she would consider it. He wanted to be reassuring without starting anything.

Los Angeles with no Little Woman at his elbow was a dismal hole, and Casey got out of it as soon as possible. As per instructions, he drove down to San Diego, ventured perilously close to the Mexico line, fooled around there for a day looking for trouble, failed to find so much as a frown, and drove back.

He headed straight for San Bernardino, which was Smiling Lou’s headquarters. He killed time there and met the sheriff on the street the day he arrived. The sheriff had a memory trained to hold faces indefinitely. He smiled a little, made a polite gesture in the general direction of his hat and passed on. Casey swore to himself, and resolved to duck guiltily around the nearest corner if he saw the sheriff coming his way again.

On the day when his time limit expired, Casey drove up the gulch to Nolan’s camp. In the car behind him rode undisturbed his Canadian Club, Garnkirk, Three-Star Hennessy, cognac and Tom Pepper; bottles, labels, government seals and all. Nolan was walking over from the tunnel when Casey arrived. He smiled inquiringly as he shook hands— a ceremony to which Casey was plainly unaccustomed.

“What luck, Ryan? I beat you back by about two hours. Getting things ready to begin making it. Did they catch you, all right?”

“Naw!” Casey spat disgustedly. ‘Never seen a booze peddler, never seen a cop look my way. I went around actin’ like I just killed a man an’ stole a lady’s diamonds, and the sheriff at San Berdoo tips ’is hat to me, by golly! Drove through L. A. hellawhoopin’— an’ not a darned traffic cop knowed it was Casey Ryan. You can ask anybody if I didn’t do everything possible to git in bad or give bootleggers a tip I was one of ’em.

“You can’t git Casey Ryan up agin’ the gang you're after, Mr. Nolan. Only way Casey Ryan can git up agin’ the law is to go along peaceable tryin’ to please the missus an’ mindin’ his own business. I coulda peddled that darn’ hooch on a hangin’ tray like circus lemonade. I coulda stood on the corner in any uh them dinged towns with the hull works piled out on a table in front of me, an’ I coulda hollered my darn head off; an’ Smilin’ Lou woulda passed me by like I ‘was sellin’ chewin’ gum and shoe strings.”

Mack Nolan looked at Casey, turned and went into the cabin, sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until the tears dripped over his lashes. Casey Ryan followed him, and sat on the edge of the table with his arms folded. Whenever Mack Nolan lifted his face from his palms and looked at Casey, Casey swore. Whereat Mack Nolan would give another whoop.

Relations were somewhat strained between them for the rest of that day.

viii

MACK Nolan had a way with him. Wherefore, Casey Ryan once more came larruping down the grade to Camp Cajon, and turned in there with a dogged purpose in his eyes and with his jaw set stubbornly.

Behind him, stowed under the bedding; grub and camp dishes, rode his eight cases of bootlegger’s bait, packed convincingly in the sawdust, straw and cardboard of the wet old days when Uncle Sam himself O. K.’d the job. A chain of tiny beads at the top of each bottle lied and said it was good liquor.

It was a good job Mack Nolan had made of the bottling. Uncle Sam himself must needs polish his spectacles and take another look, to detect the fraud. It was a marvelous job of bottling, and the proof lay only in the drinking. A tempting load it was, to men of certain minds and morals. Casey grinned sardonically when he thought of it.

Casey drove deep into the grove of sycamores and made camp there, away from the chattering picnic parties at the cement tables. By Mack Nolan’s advice he was adopting a slightly different policy. He no longer shunned his fellow men nor glared suspiciously when strangers approached. Instead he was very nearly the old Casey Ryan, except that he failed to state his name and business to all and sundry with the old Casey Ryan candor, but instead either avoided the subject altogether or evaded questions with vague generalities.

But as an understudy for Ananias, Casey Ryan would have been a failure. In two hours or less he had made easy trail acquaintance with six different men, and he had unconsciously managed to vary his vague account of himself six different times. Wherefore he was presently asked cautiously concerning his thirst.

“They’s times,” said Casey, hopefully lowering an eyelid, “when a feller dassent take a nip, no matter how thirsty he gits.”

The questioner stared at him for a minute and slowly nodded. He assented. “I scursely ever touch anything, myself.” And he added vaguely, “Quite a lot of it peddled out here in this camp, I guess. Tourists comin’ through are scared to pack it themselves— but they sure don’t overlook any chances to take a snort.”

“Yeah?” Casey cocked a knowing eye at the speaker. “They must pay a pretty fair price fer it, too. Don’t the cops bother folks none?”

“Some— I guess.”

Casey filled his pipe and offered his tobacco sack to the man. The fellow took it, nodding listless thanks, and filled his own pipe. The two sat down together on the knee of a deformed sycamore, and smoked in circumspect silence.

“Arizona, I see.” The man nodded toward the license plates on Casey’s car.

“Uh-huh.” Casey glanced that ‘way.

“You're darn’ right,”

“Know a man name of Kenner?” he asked abruptly.

The fellow looked at Casey sidelong without turning his head.

“Some. Do you?”

“Some.” Casey felt that he was making headway.

“Friend uh yours?” ‘The fellow turned his head and looked straight at Casey.

Casey returned him a pale, straight-lidded stare. The man’s glance flickered and swung away.

“Who wants to know?” Casey asked calmly.

“Oh, you can call me Jim Cassidy. I just asked.” He removed his pipe from his mouth and inspected it apathetically. ‘He’s a friend of Bill Masters, garage man up at Lund. Know Bill?”

“Any man says I don’t, you can call 'im a liar.” Casey also inspected his pipe. “Bought that car off’n Kenner,” Casey added boldly. Getting into trouble, he discovered, carried almost the thrill of trying to keep out of it.

“Yeah?” The self-styled Jim Cassidy looked at the Ford more attentively. “And contents?”

Casey snorted. “What do you know about goats, if anything?” he asked mysteriously.

Jim Cassidy eyed Casey sidelong through a silence. Then he brought his palm down flat on his thigh and laughed.

“You pass,” he stated with a relieved sigh. “He’s a dinger, ain’t he?”

“You know ’im, all right.” Casey also laughed, and put out his hand. “If you’re a friend of Kenner’s, shake hands with Casey Ryan! He’s darned glad to meet yuh— an’ you can ask anybody if that ain’t the truth.”

After that the acquaintance progressed more smoothly. By the time Casey spread his bed— close alongside the car— he knew just how much booze Jim Cassidy carried, just what Cassidy expected to make off the load, and a good many other bits of information of no particular use to Casey.

A strange, inner excitement held Casey awake long after Jim Cassidy was asleep and snoring. He lay looking up into the leafy branches of the sycamore beside him and watched a star slip slowly across an open space between the branches. Farther up the grove a hilarious group of young hikers sang snatches of songs to the uncertain accompaniment of a ukulele. A hundred feet away on his right, occasional cars went coasting past on the down grade, coming in off the desert— or climbed more slowly with motors working, on their way up from the valley below. The shifting brilliance from their headlights flicked the grove capriciously as they went by. Now and then a car stopped. One, a big, high-powered car with one dazzling spotlight, swung into the narrow driveway and entered the grove.

Casey lifted his head like a desert turtle, and blinked curiously at the car as it eased past him a few feet and stopped. A gloved hand went out to the spotlight and turned it slowly, lighting the grove foot by foot and pausing to dwell upon each silent, parked car. Casey sat up in the ‘blankets and waited.

Luck, he told himself, was grinning at him from ear to ear. For this was Smiling Lou himself, and none other. He was alone— a big, hungry, official fish searching the grove greedily. Casey swallowed a grin and tried to look scared. The light was slowly working around in his direction. When the spotlight finally revealed him, Casey blinked against it with a half-hearted grin, as if he had been caught at something foolish. The light remained upon him, and Smiling Lou got out of the car and came back to him slowly.

Not even Casey thought of calling Smiling Lou a fool. He couldn’t be, and play the game he was playing. Smiling Lou said nothing whatever until he had looked the car over carefully, giving the license number a second sharp glance, and had regarded Casey fixedly while he made up his mind.

“Hullo! Where’s your pardner?” he demanded then.

“I'm in pardnerships with myself this trip,” Casey retorted. He waited while Smiling Lou looked him over again, more carefully this time.

“Where did you get that car?”

“From Kenner— for sixteen hundred and seventeen dollars and five cents.” Casey fumbled in the blankets— Smiling Lou following his movements suspiciously— and got out the makings of a cigarette.

“Got any booze in that car?” Smiling Lou might have been a traffic cop, for all the trace of humanity there was in his voice.

Casey cocked an eye up at him, sent a quick glance toward the Ford, and looked back into Smiling Lou’s face. He hunched his shoulders and finished the making of his cigarette.

“I wisht you wouldn’t look,” he said glumly. “I got half my outfit in there an’ I hate to have it tore up.”

Smiling Lou continued to look at him, seeming slightly puzzled. But indecision was not one of his characteristics, evidently. He stepped up to the car, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and looked in.

Casey was up and into his clothes by the time Smiling Lou had uncovered a box or two. Smiling Lou turned toward him, his lips twitching.

“Lift this stuff out of here and put it in my car,” he commanded, elation creeping into his voice in spite of himself. “My Lord! The chances you fellows take! Think a dab of paint is going to cover up a brand burned into the wood?”

Casey looked startled, glancing down into the car to where Smiling Lou pointed.

“The boards is turned over on all the rest,” he muttered confidentially. “I dunno how that darned Canadian Club sign got right side up.”

“What all have you got?” Smiling Lou lowered his voice when he asked the question. Casey tried not to grin when he replied. Smiling Lou gasped.

“Well, get it into my car, and make it snappy.”

Casey made it as snappy as he could, and kept his face straight until Smiling Lou spoke to him sharply.

“I won’t take you in to-night with me. I want that car. You drive it into headquarters first thing in the morning. And don’t think you can beat it, either. I'll have the road posted. You can knock a good deal off your sentence if you crank up and come in right after breakfast. And make it an early breakfast, too.”

His manner was stern, his voice perfectly official. But Casey, eying him grimly, saw distinctly the left eyelid lower and lift again.

“All right— I'm the goat,” he surrendered, and sat down again on his canvas-covered bed. He did not immediately crawl between the blankets, however, because interesting things were happening over at Jim Cassidy’s car.

Casey watched Jim Cassidy go picking his way among the tree roots and camp litter, his back straightened under the load of hooch he was carrying to Smiling Lou’s car, With Jim Cassidy also, Smiling Lou was crisply official. When the last of the hooch had been transferred, Casey heard Smiling Lou tell Jim Cassidy to drive in to headquarters after breakfast next morning—but he did not see Smiling Lou wink when he said it.

After that, Smiling Lou started his motor and drove slowly up through the grove, halting to scan each car as he passed. He swung out through the upper driveway, turned sharply there and came back down the highway speeding up on the downhill grade to San Bernardino.

Ix

JIM CASSIDY came furtively over and settled down for a whispered conference on Casey’s bed.

“How much did he git off’n you?” he asked inquisitively. “Did he clean yuh out?”

“Clean as a last year’s bone in a kioty den,” Casey declared, hiding his satisfaction as best he could. “Never got my roll though.”

“He wouldn’t— not with you workin’ on the inside. Guess it must be kinda touchy around here right now. New officers, mebby. He wouldn’t ’a’ cleaned us out if we’d ’a’ been safe. He never came into camp before—not when I’ve been here. Made that same play to you, didn’t he— about givin’ yourself up in the morning? Uh course yuh know what that means— don’t!”

“He shore is foxy, all right,” Casey commented with absolute sincerity. “You can ask anybody if he didn’t pull it off like the pleasure was all hisn. No L.A. traffic cop ever pinched me an’ looked like he enjoyed it more.”

“Oh, Lou’s cute all right. They don’t any of 'em put anything over on Lou. You must be new at the business, ain’t yuh?”

"Second trip,” Casey informed him with an air of importance— which he really felt, by the way. “What Casey’s studyin’ on now, is the next move. No use hangin’ around here empty. What do you figger on doin’?”

“Weill, Lou didn’t give no tip— not to me, anyway. So I guess it'll be safe to drive on in to the city and load up again. I got a feller with me— he caught a ride in to San Berdoo; left just before you drove in. Know where to go in the city? ’Cause I can ride in with you, an’ let him foller.”

“That'll suit me fine,” Casey declared. And so they left it for the time being, and Cassidy went back to bed.

A great load had dropped from Casey’s shoulders, and he was asleep before Jim Cassidy had ceased to turn restlessly in his blankets. Getting the White Mule out of his car and into the car of Smiling Lou had been the task which Nolan had set for him. What was to happen thereafter Casey could only guess, for Nolan had not told him. And such was the Casey Ryan nature that he made no attempt to solve the problems which Mack Nolan had calmly reserved for himself.

He did not dream, for instance, that Mack Nolan had watched him load the stuff into Smiling Lou’s car. He did know that an unobtrusive Cadillac roadster was parked at the next camp fire. It had come in half an hour behind him, but the driver had not made any move toward camping until after dark. Casey had glanced his way when the car was parked and the driver got out and began fussing around the car, but he had not been struck with any sense ‘of familiarity in the figure.

There was no reason why he should. Thousands and thousands of men are of Mack Nolan’s height and general build. This man looked like a doctor or a dentist perhaps. Beyond the matter of size, similarity to Mack Nolan ceased. The Cadillac man wore a Vandyke beard and colored glasses, and a Panama and light gray business suit. Casey set him down in his mental catalogue as “some town feller” and assumed that they had nothing in common.

Yet Mack Nolan heard nearly every word spoken by Smiling Lou, Casey and Jim Cassidy. The Cadillac car was one of Mack Nolan’s little secrets. There is a very good garage at Goffs, not many miles from Juniper Wells. A matter of an hour’ s driving was sufficient at any time for Mack Nolan to make the exchange. And no man at Goffs would think it very strange that the owner of a Cadillac should prefer to drive a Ford over rough, desert trails to his prospect in the mountains.

x

WITH a load of booze in the car and Jim Cassidy by his side, Casey Ryan drove down the long, eucalyptus-shaded avenue that runs past the balloon school at Arcadia, and turned into the Foothill Boulevard. Half a mile farther on a Cadillac roadster honked and slid past them, speeding away toward Monrovia. But Casey Ryan was busy talking chummily with Jim Cassidy, and he scarcely knew that a car had passed.

The money he had been given for Smiling Lou had been used to pay for this new load of whisky, and Casey found himself wishing that he could get word of it to Mack Nolan. Still, Nolan’s oversight in the matter of arranging for communication between them did not bother Casey much. He was doing his part; if Mack Nolan failed to do his, that was no fault of Casey Ryan’s.

At Fontana, where young Kenner had stopped for gas on that eventful first trip of Casey’s, Casey slowed down also, for the same purpose, half tempted to call up the Little Woman on long distance while the gas tank was being filled. But presently the matter went clean from his mind— and this was the reason:

A speed cop whose motor cycle stood inconspicuously around the corner of the garage, came forward and eyed the Ford sharply. He drew his little book from his pocket, turned a few leaves, found what he was looking for and eyed again the car. The garage man, slowly turning the crank of the gasoline pump, looked at him inquiringly; but the speed cop ignored the look and turned to Casey.

“Where'd you get this car?” he demanded, in much the same tone which Smiling Lou had used the night before.

“Bought it,” Casey told him gruffly.

“Where did you buy it?”

“Over at Goffs, just this side of Needles.”

“Got a bill of sale?”

“You got Casey Ryan’s word fer it,” Casey retorted with a growing heat inside where he kept his temper when he wasn’t using it.

“Are you Casey Ryan?” The speed cop’s eyes hardened just a bit.

“Anybody says I ain’t, you send ’em to me— an’ then come around in about ten minutes an’ look ’em over.”

“What’s your name?” The officer turned to Jim Cassidy.

“Tom Smith. I was just ketchin’ a ride with this feller. Don’t go an’ mix me in— I ain’t no ways concerned; just ketchin’ a ride is all. If I'd ’a’ known—"

“You can explain that to the judge. Get in there, you, and drive in to San Berdoo. I'll be right with you, so you needn’t forget the road!” He stepped back to his motor cycle and pushed it forward.

“Hey! Don’t I git paid fer my gas?” the garage man wailed, pulling a dripping nozzle from Casey’s gas tank.

“Aw, go to hell!” Casey grunted, and threw a wadded bank note in his direction. “Take that an’ shut up. What yuh cryin’ around about a gallon uh gas, fer? You ain’t pinched!”

The money landed near the motor cycle and the officer picked it up, smoothed out the bill, glanced at it and looked through tightened lids at Casey.

“Throwin’ money around like a hooch runner!” he sneered. “I guess you birds need lookin’ after, all right. Git goin’!”

Casey “got going.” Twice on the way in the officer spurted up alongside and waved him down for speeding. Casey had not intended to speed, either. He was merely keeping pace unconsciously with his thoughts.

He had been told just what he must do if he were arrested for bootlegging, but he was not at all certain that his instructions would cover an arrest for stealing an automobile. Nolan had forgotten about that, he guessed. But Casey’s optimism carried him jauntily to jail in San Bernardino; and while he was secretly a bit uneasy, he was not half so worried as Jim Cassidy appeared to be.

Casey was booked— along with “Tom Smith”— on two charges: Theft of one Ford car, and unlawful transportation of spirituous liquor. He tried to give the judge the wink, but without any happy result. So he eventually found himself locked in a cell with Jim Cassidy.

Just at first, Casey Ryan was proud of the part he was playing. He could look with righteous toleration upon the limpness of his fellow prisoner. He could feel secure in the knowledge that he, Casey Ryan, was an agent of the government engaged in helping to uphold the laws of his country.

He waited for an hour or two, listening with a superior kind of patience to Jim Cassidy’s panicky upbraidings of his luck. At first Jim was inclined to blame Casey rather bitterly for the plight he was in. But Casey soon stopped that. Young Kenner was the responsible party in this mishap, as Casey very soon made plain to Jim.

“Well, I dunno but what you’re right. It was kind of a dirty trick—workin’ a stole car off on to you. Why didn’t he pick some sucker on the outside? Don’t line up with Kenner, somehow. Well, I guess mebby Smilin’ Lou can see us out uh this hole all right— only I don’t like that car-stealin’ charge. Mebby Kenner an’ Lou can straighten it up, though.”

Casey wondered if they could. He wondered, too, how Nolan was going to find out about Smiling Lou getting the camouflaged White Mule. Nolan had not explained that to Casey— but Casey was not worrying yet. His faith in Mack Nolan was firm,

xi

AT NOON the next day Casey was still waiting— but not hopefully. “Patience on a monument” couldn’t have resembled Casey Ryan in any particular whatever. He was mad. By midnight he had begun to wonder if he was not going to be made a goat again. By daylight he was positive that he was already a goat. By the time the trusty brought his breakfast, Casey was applying to Mack Nolan the identical words and phrases which he had applied to young Kenner when he was the maddest.

Jim Cassidy still clung desperately to his faith in Smiling Lou; but Casey’s faith hadn’t so much as a finger hold on anything. What kind of a government was it, he asked himself bitterly, that would leave a trusted agent twenty-four hours shut up in a cell with a whining crook like Jim Cassidy? If, he added pessimistically, he were an agent of the government. Casey doubted it. So far as he could see, Casey Ryan wasn’t anything but the goat.

His chief desire now was to get out of there as soon as possible so that he could hunt up Mack Nolan and lick the livin’ tar out of him. He wanted bail, and he wanted it immediately. Not a soul had come near him, save the trusty, in spite of certain mysterious messages which Casey had sent to the office, asking for an interview with the judge or somebody— Casey didn’t care who. Locked in a cell, how was he going to do any of the things Nolan had told him to do if he happened to find himself arrested by an honest officer?

When they hauled him before the police judge, Casey hadn’t been given the chance to explain anything to anybody. Unless, of course, he wanted to bellow out his business before everybody; and that, he told himself fiercely, was not Casey Ryan’s idea of the way to keep a secret. Moreover, that darned speed cop was standing right there just waiting for a chance to wind his fingers in Casey’s collar and choke him off if he tried to say a word.

So Casey wanted bail. There were just two ways of getting it, and it went against the grain of his pride to take either one. That is why Casey waited until noon before his Irish stubbornness yielded a bit and he decided to wire to a good friend of his to come. He had to slip the wire out by the underground method— meaning the good will of the trusty, It cost Casey ten dollars, but he didn’t grudge that.

He spent that afternoon and most of the night mentally calling the trusty a liar and a thief because there was no reply to the message. As a matter of fact, the trusty sent the wire through as quickly as possible. Instead of answering the wire the good friend telephoned to the Little Woman that Casey was in jail again. Not knowing just what he was in for this time, it seemed well to her to be prepared for a good, stiff bail. It took a little time for her to get her hands on the cash but when at last she reached “San Berdoo” she had ten thousand dollars with her.

At that it was a fool’s errand. Casey was out of jail and gone before she arrived. So there she was, holding the bag as you might say— and her ten thousand dollars bail money.

While she was eating her dinner the Little Woman thought over the events of the day. Asking questions had gotten her nowhere— she had questioned every official in town, from the district judge down to the courthouse janitor. All she had been able to learn was that Casey had been booked the previous day for having a stolen car and a load of booze in his possession. It had been hinted in the police court that he had been dismissed for want of evidence; but even on this point she had been able to obtain no definite information.

“I believe Casey has put this town on the run,” she told herself. “They can’t tell me— something’s happened, over around the courthouse. At lot of the men I talked with had a scared look in their eyes and they were nervous when doors opened, and looked around when people came walking along. I don’t know what he’s been doing, but Casey Ryan’s been up to something. I know how our laundry boy looks when Casey’s home.”

But where was Casey now? The Little Woman had but one thing to go on— the telegram he had sent her from Goffs ten days before. She had been getting ready ever since it had arrived. Babe had been sent to a boarding school, and the apartment house leased. She had risked ruining the eyes of three dressmakers with night work, making up some nifty sports clothes. If Casey was bound to stay in the desert— well, she was his wife— and Casey did kind of like to have her around.

She had the twin-six packed with the niftiest camp outfit you ever saw. It included a yellow and red beach umbrella, and two reclining chairs. If the Little Woman had to rough it again, she was going to rough it de luxe. She didn’t expect to keep Casey in hand— but it was just possible that she could keep him in sight!

When she had finished her meal she started out to drive across the Mojave Desert alone. A Cadillac roadster came up behind her and honked for clear passing as she swung into the long, straight stretch that leads up the Cajon. The Little Woman peered into the rear-vision mirror and pressed the toe of her white pump upon the accelerator.

“There’s only one man in the world that can pass me on the road,” she said to herself, “and he doesn’t wear a Panama!”

As she snapped around the turns of Cajon Grade she looked back once or twice. The Cadillac roadster was still following pertinaciously, but it was too far back to honk at her. When she slid down to the Victorville garage and stopped for gas, the Cadillac slid by. The driver in the Panama gave her one glance through his colored glasses— but she felt somehow that the glance was sufficiently comprehensive to fix her firmly in his memory. She inquired at the garage concerning Casey Ryan, taking it for granted he would be driving a Ford. A man of that description had stopped at the garage for gas at nine o’clock that forenoon, the boy told her.

“That gives him five hours’ start,” the Little Woman remarked, to herself as she eased in the clutch and slid around the corner into the highway to Barstow. “But you can’t tell me I can’t run down a Ford with this car. I know to the last inch what a Jawn Henry is good for. Now we'll see.”

xii

AT DAGGET the big, blue car with a lady driver sounded the warning signal and passed Mack Nolan and the Cadillac roadster. Like Casey Ryan, Nolan was rather proud of his driving—and with sufficient reason. He was already hurrying, not to overhaul Casey, but to arrive soon after him.

Women drivers loved to pass other cars with a sudden spurt of speed, he had found by experience. They were not, however, consistently fast drivers. Mack Nolan was conscious of a slight irritation when the twin-six took the lead.

So Mack Nolan drove a bit harder— and succeeded in getting most of the dust kicked up by the big, blue car. He counted on passing it before they reached Ludlow, but he could never quite make it. In that ungodly stretch of sand and rocks and chuck holes that lies between Ludlow and Amboy, Nolan was sure that the woman driver would have to slow down— but she didn’t.

Five miles east of Amboy, when a red sunset was darkening to starlight, the blue car, fifty yards in the lead, overhauled a Ford in trouble. In the loose, sandy trail the big car slowed and stopped abreast of the Ford. There was no passing now, unless Mack Nolan wanted to risk smashing his crank case on a lava rock, millions of which peppered that particular portion of the Mojave Desert, He stopped perforce.

A pair of feet, with legs attached to them, protruded from, beneath the running board of the Ford. The Little Woman in the big car leaned over the side and studied the feet critically.

“Casey Ryan, are those the best pair of shoes you own?” she drawled at last. “If you wouldn’t wear such run-down heels, you know, you wouldn’t look so bow-legged. I’ve told you and told you that your legs aren’t so bad when you wear straight heels.”

Casey Ryan crawled out and looked up at her, grinning sheepishly.

“They was all right when I left home, ma’am,” he defended his shoes mildly. “Desert plays the devil with shoe leather— you can ask anybody.”

“Hello, Ryan!” Mack Nolan greeted, coming up from the Cadillac. “Having trouble with your car?” Casey whirled.

“Naw. This ain’t no trouble,” he grunted. “I only been here four hours or so— this is pastime!”

There was an awkward silence. The Little Woman wanted to know who was the man in the Cadillac roadster, and how he happened to know Casey so well. Nolan, no doubt, wanted to know who she was. And there was so much that Casey wanted to know and needed to know, that he couldn’t seem to think of anything. However, Casey came up to the side of the blue car, reached in with his hands all greasy black, and took the Little Woman’s hand from the wheel and kissed it. The Little Woman made a caressing sound and leaned out to him— and Nolan felt that he mustn’t look. So he walked away and spent a minute or two fussing around his car. Then he walked back to the blue car. ;

“I'm pretty good at guessing,” he said, and smiled at the Little Woman. “I guess you're Mrs. Casey Ryan. Casey has talked of you to me. I’m right glad to meet you, too. My name is Mack Nolan, and I’m Trish. I’m Casey Ryan’s partner. We have a good— prospect.”

Casey looked past the Little Woman, straight into Mack Nolan’s eyes. There was electric quality in the air while their gaze held.

“I'm just getting back from a trip down in the valley,” Nolan observed easily. “You never did see me in town duds, did you, Casey?” His eyes turned to the Little Woman’s face. “I suppose you know what this wild Irishman has just pulled off— back there,” he said, tilting his head toward San Bernardino many a mile away to the southwest. “You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he surely has thrown a monkey wrench into as pretty a bootlegging machine as there is in the country. It’s such confidential stuff, of course, that you may call it absolutely secret. But for once I’m telling the truth about it.

“Your husband, Mrs. Casey Ryan, holds a commission from headquarters as a prohibition officer. A deputy, it is true— but commissioned nevertheless. He’s just getting back from a very pretty piece of work. A crooked officer named Smiling Lou was arrested last night. He had all kinds of liquor cached away in his house, Casey can tell you some time how he trapped him.

“Of course, I’m just an amateur mining expert on a vacation, myself.” His eyes met Casey’s straight. “I wasn’t with him when he pulled the deal, but I heard about it afterward, and I knew he was planning something of the sort when he left camp. How I happened to know about the commission,” he added, reaching into his pocket, “is because he left it with me for safe-keeping. I’m going to let you look at it— just in case he’s too proud to let it out of his hands once I give it back.

“Now, of course, I’m talking like an old woman and telling all Casey’s secrets— and you'll probably see a real Irish fight when he gets in reach of me. But I knew he hadn’t told you exactly what he’s doing, and— I personally feel that his wife is entitled to know as much as his partner knows about him.”

The Little Woman nodded absently her thanks. She was holding Casey’s commission under the dash light to read it.

Casey gulped once or twice while he stared across the car at Mack Nolan. He pushed his dusty, black hat forward over one eyebrow, and reached into his pocket.

“Aw hell!” he grunted, grinning queerly. “You come around here wunst, Mr. Nolan, where I can git my hands on yuh!”

__________________

13: Dixon's Romance

Ottwell Binns

1872-1935

Sunday Times (Perth) 12 June 1932

DIXON was tired of civilisation— very tired. With reason since his most recent acquaintance with it had been at Stony Mountain, which is the penitentiary of the Territory. Three years there had robbed him of all enthusiasm for the places where law and order hold sway, and he was running for the wilds just as fast as was possible in a land where landscapes are immense and the means of travel not those of the extreme civilisation that he hated.

Being short of cash he had stolen a ride from Edmonton to Waterways; and on the train had thriftily replenished his means by robbing a slumbering man of a roll of notes, with such deftness and lightness of touch that the man had smiled in his sleep. So equipped with the needful, he had taken the river-craft to Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie River. There, with what remained of the stolen bank-roll, he had outfitted with the skill of an old-timer: and shaking the last dust of civilisation from his mocassins, had taken his way up the Lizard River, making for the South Nahanni which empties into it.

The season was late and he pushed the pace, toiling amazingly through long hours; and camping only when night compelled. At the back of his haste was something more than the desire to leave all police-posts behind him— the lure of gold; and a haunting fear that one man would reach the gold ahead of him. All prisons are great gossiping places. In them men in surreptitious conversation pass news of other men, exchange confidences an boasts, and sometimes discuss enterprises to be carried out when once more they are on the right side of prison walls. And at Stony Mountain, Dixon had heard a story which had stirred the cupidity hidden in every man; and which had sent him on this headlong journey.

He had heard it in the hospital ward where a man delirious with fever, had raved about a creek with red, gold-like stones in its bed; which— given a man could get it to civilisation— would make him rich as Croesus. He had thought the story was pure delirium, until another prisoner, who had been in hospital with the sick man, had mentioned the matter; and had vowed it must be true.

"Stuff!" Dixon had said. "You can hear that sort of dime-yarn from Athabasca Landing to Herschel, an' from Seattle to Dawson."

"Think so?" the other man, who rejoiced in the name of 'Frisco Jim, had laughed, and then under the nose of the warder had displayed in his palm a nugget of gold, more ruddy than any Dixon had ever seen. "What about that?"

"Where d'ye get it?" demanded Dixon, promptly.

"Molineau passed it to me for a chunk of tobacco a month back."

"Phew!" whistled Dixon, for Molineau was the delirious man; and the gold was as red as that which he had raved about.

"It's from somewhere up the South Nahanni," laughed 'Frisco Jim, "an' it's me for that Tom Tiddler's Creek when I'm loose-heeled again."

And 'Frisco Jim, being at that time almost due for his discharge from the shades of the prison-house, was a whole three weeks ahead of him in the race against winter and for the prize. Dixon deplored the fact, but did not repine. The chances of the wilderness, as he knew, were many; and furthermore in law a man could stake no more gold-bearing earth than the regulations permitted. Not that he set much store on that. A man's right arm was the strength of wilderness law, and having given the matter full consideration, and being desperately eager for the prize, he did not propose to let the other stand in the way.

"The man's a hen," he confided to the silent woods; "wants his neck wringing."

But 'Frisco Jim was not a hen. When roused he was rather something of a wolf, and not at all the man to take lightly the thwarting of his purpose.

Perhaps Dixon was aware of that in the background of his mind; and be-hind the new alertness that he displayed, the further he progressed on his journey, was not merely a desire to learn how far ahead of him 'Frisco might be; but a native cautiousness against being taken in an ambush from which there would be no escape.

When he struck the confluence of the Lizard and the South Nahanni his alertness was trebled. Only once had he come on the remains of a camp-fire that might have been lit by the man ahead of him; but he knew that at any time he might overrun the other; and make the discovery to the sound of a rifle-crack that would be the herald of death. He had another cause for alertness also, since he did not know on which side of the river the creek with its red treasure was situated; and he was forced to explore the creeks both sides for any evidence that Molineau had camped there.

And beyond all other undefined apprehensions was the one which rose out of the consciousness that but for some piece of stupendous luck, the race against the seasons was already lost, and that soon winter would march down on him with hurrying feet. That he was playing with death he knew very well. But Dixon had always lived adventurously and he kept on, every day moving miles further from that civilisation which he hated, but which, with the winter coming fast, meant sanctuary and safety.

He kept on still, when the river was locked with ice and the first great snow of the winter changed all the contours and left the land in winter's grip. Wait-ing until he was sure the storm had ended, he harnessed himself to a roughly made sled and resumed his way— a laborious way that would have broken the heart of Hercules but which left Dixon undaunted. And that day he had his first indication of the where-abouts of 'Frisco Jim, for far ahead, at a place where the course of the river gave a wide view, he lifted the smoke of a camp fire. A little further on he came on the trail of a sled which had left the right bank of the river and which was on the course he himself was following. He considered it carefully.

"Four dogs!" he muttered, "and two men!"

'Frisco Jim then had taken either a partner of a guide-possibly an Indian, since it was not likely that he had purchased the dogs at Fort Simpson.

"Well," he grunted philosophically, "he'll move faster; but he'll break the trail."

The packed trail of the pair in front made his own travelling easier. He went forward more quickly; but at no great pace; his rate being little better than a slow trudge; and in that white immensity to an onlooker he must have presented the the aspect of a fly crawling across a white ceiling. But steadiness accomplishes much, and he found a further advantage in the trail which now he followed, and which he watched closely-for the pair ahead, whom he had not yet seen, saved him much time by their exploration of the creeks. Whenever the trail turned towards the bank, he made a divergence of his own, being fairly certain that he would pick up the train further on: and with the assurance that the creek he left behind was not the one he sought.

But on the third day after striking the trail, when one of these diver-gences had not been made, the expect-ed did not happen. The snow ahead was virgin, unbroken by the feet of dogs or men. His heart leaped at the realisation. That creek into which the other trail had diverged and had not returned was Molineau's treasure creek. He considered it— a mere dark gut between stark hills, with sharp steep mountains beyond, a place that had a suggestion of utter loneliness.

"Cheerful hole," he grunted, and turned back to face it.

At the mouth of the creek he came on a pair of fir trees lopped of all their lower boughs, sure evidence of the work of man.

"Lobsticks!" he thought. "Molineau's sign-post for a certainty."

He went forward cautiously, with a feeling that the next turn of the creek might bring him unexpectedly on the men in front. That did not happen, but something far more startling occurred. Rounding a high bluff which thrust itself like a wedge into the creek he came suddenly on a girl who was bent down examining the trail he himself was following.

The girl heard the crunch his sled made in the crisp snow, straightened herself and looked swiftly round. Before the girl turned on her heel and fled, Dixon had no more than a glimpse of an oval face, olive tinted, and dashed with rose, with wide, soft eyes black as night; but the glimpse changed the world for him.

He watched her with amazement— a straight tall figure lissom as a sapling, graceful as a running deer, and as swift. He gave himself no time to wonder who she was, where she came from, or what she was doing in that solitary creek six hundred miles from anywhere. An imperative need to establish himself in her favor awoke within him swift as lightning. And he called out to her.

"My dear... Miss... Mam'selle..."

Recognising friendly urgency in his voice, the girl stopped and turned half round. Her lips, red ripe, were partly open to aid quick breathing, the dark eyes appraised him keenly; and she stood poised ready to flee at the least sign of covert action on his part. Dixon repressed his eagerness and went forward slowly, smiling, with an air of friendliness that was utterly disarming. Three or four yards away from her he stopped; and guessing that she was of the stock of the voyageurs gave her greeting accordingly.

"Bo' Jour, mam'selle! Pleased to meet you. I'm sure. I'm Dixon— and who you are you maybe'll have the goodness to tell me; for I'm fair perishing to know."

He spoke smilingly, and rogue though he was. Dixon's smile was a reassuring thing. The girl smiled back, the dark eyes flashing, the red lips raking the most maddening curves.

"Bo'jou', m'sieu! I am Joy Molineau."

"The devil!"

Dixon was flabbergasted. It had not entered into his thought that the grizzled man lying in hospital at Stony Mountain had left anyone to guard his treasure of red gold, and for a second he was in doubt as to the relation in which this splendid young creature of the wilds stood to the man whose gold he had come to annex. The truth leaped in his mind.

"Then you're the daughter of Pierre Molineau, I'll wager."

"M'sieu wins his wager!" the girl laughed lightly; and herself asked a question. "You know mon pere, m'sieu?"

"As my own brother," answered Dixon, less anxious about truth than to win the girl's confidence.

"Ah! He is well, m'sieu?... He returns quickly?"

Dixon would have wagered a thousand dollars that Molineau was dead, but he did not say so outright; being conscious of an overpowering desire to stand between the girl and the trouble that she was bound to know presently. He temporised.

"Pierre's none too well; an' I reckon you needn't expect him yet awhile,"

"Mais, he send a message by you, M'sieu Deexon, perhaps."

"He did," answered Dixon with ready invention. "He said you wasn't to worry about him mam'selle; an' that you was to beware of two scoundrels who were coming this way after his claim."

The girl's dark eyes went suddenly to the tell-tale trail in the snow which she had been examining at the moment of his advent.

"Two men haf gone up de creek—"

"Them's the rascals— 'Frisco Jim and another fellow— name unknown."

"Then m'sieu' eet ees time dat I run back to the cabin to get de rifle—"

"If you'll not run too fast, mam'selle, I'll come with you. But there's no running with this sled."

"Ah! I will yo' help to haul," cried the girl, and taking a hold of the rope which Dixon unslung from his shoulders bent to the line with a will.

Dixon was enchanted. And he was in a whirl. He even forgot Pierre Molineau's red gold in surreptitious contemplation of this young goddess of the creek, and wondered what he would find at the end of his journey.

"Your mother, mam'selle, she—"

"Alas!" There was a note of woe in the young voice. "She ees dead."

"Dead!"

"De month after mon pere haf gone away to Fort Simpson."

"Mother of Heaven!" Dixon cried in genuine concern. "An' yo're alone up in this God-forsaken wilderness."

"Alone, m'sieu'!"

"Then by the living jingo, 'twas, Providence brought you an' me together this day!"

Dixon, who held 'Frisco Jim in mean esteem, really believed his own words, and was more than pleased to find the girl shared his conviction.

"Le bon Dieu! Certainment, m'sieu'!"

As an instrument of providence Dixon was conscious of a new burden of responsibility. He considered the trail ahead.

"You're not forgetting that brace of ruffians, Mam'selle Joy. If there's away round—"

"Dere ees no way, M'sieu' Deexon; an' dere ees de cabin!"

She pointed to the high bank as she spoke; and at the edge of the spruce a little way ahead. Dixon saw a small log cabin, with smoke rising from its stone chimney. Something else he saw also— a sled and a dog-team standing on the frozen creek, with a man at the gee pole, watching another man who stood in the shadow of the spruce, plainly taking stock of the cabin. Instantly he halted, and from the lashings of the sled slipped the Winchester rifle which had been one of the purchases made at Fort Simpson. He stripped the cover with lightning rapidity, and then hailed the man on the bank harshly.

"Come down out of that, 'Frisco."

The man whom he hailed jumped as if he had been shot, swung round, and then his hand went inside his parka.

"Don't, 'Frisco," said Dixon with a deadly quietness that was wholly convincing, for 'Frisco's hand came back empty; and Dixon spared a lightning glance for the man at the sled. "Breed," his mind registered; and then he spoke again. "Come down the bank, pronto! And you at the sled turn the team."

The half-breed obeyed without de-mur, and at Dixon's next command to "mush" drove the dogs down the creek. Frisco Jim began to bluster.

"Flames! What's the game. Dixon?"

"Game is home sweet home. You ain't wanted here. 'Frisco, so you're quitting. Now just hop along after them huskies and keep going, or—"

The lifted Winchester was more convincing than words. 'Frisco Jim had no option. He followed the huskies: but as he passed the pair he scowled and spat venomously.

"I'll have your hide for this Dixon, as sure as I live."

"Keep going!" replied Dixon imperatively, and with the Winchester to enforce the order 'Frisco Jim kept going.

Dixon watched the pair out of sight; then he turned to the girl.

"Best take cover. Mam'selle. I know Frisco. He'll double back come dark, and there'll be lively doings in this creek."

"But—"

"That gold Molineau found! That's what he's after, the scoundrel!"

There was a virtuous note in Dixon's voice that would have made 'Frisco laugh. But it was quite sincere. The man had momentarily forgotten the reason for his own presence on the creek, and was really and deeply concerned for Joy Molineau's welfare. He began to drag his sled towards the hut, but had still some half score of yards to go when something whistled by his ears and plugged a tree beyond, whilst on the heels of it came a sound which reverberated through the silent wood.

"Cr-a-a-n-g!"

"Run Mam'selle," he shouted, and as the girl ran for the hut, he himself made a spurt

Before he reached the cabin the rifle spoke again, but he made the door unhurt, dragged the sled with its supplies inside; and as the girl shut the door swiftly he laughed.

" 'Frisco don't waste time. But I guess we beat him that go. But we ain't done with him yet. His sort don't throw in the cards till the game's clean bust."

That conviction was vindicated in the next two or three days. Neither of the pair could move from the hut without a shot from some unseen marksman driving them back again. Once Dixon had his cap carried clean off his head; and once the girl came running back, white-faced, with a hole through her parka, torn by a bullet. That made Dixon angry. He waited until it was quite dark; and then he took up his rifle, put on his parka and cap, and made other significant preparations. The girl watched him with understanding eyes, and listened when he gave instructions.

"You stop here, Joy. Keep the door barred. Unless you hear me give your name don't you go for to open it. Sit with that little gun o' yours away from the window. If anybody starts meddling with it— shoot an' shoot again. I'm going out to get that pair; an' if I don't come back— well. I guess you'll know."

"But, Deexon," cried the girl, "yo' mus' come back. What weel I do without yo'?"

"God knows!" answered Dixon, quite piously. "But don't you fret, Joy, I'll come back or I'll be wolf-meat."

"Mais— O! Deexon, I cannot let yo' depart. Yo'—" Sobbing the girl buried her face in her hands. Dixon set down his rifle. There was a worried look on his face; but his eyes in the light of the stove had a gleam of honest love.

"But Joy, my dear—"

"O, mon cher—"

Before he knew it the girl was in his arms. He wiped the hair about his mouth and kissed her clumsily, and she clung to him, still sobbing, but smiling through her tears,

"Yo' lofe me, Deexon?"

"Never Adam loved Eve more."

"Yo' lofe me to marree me, Deexon?"

"I ain't fit, but I'll be honored, li'l one. An' I'II cherish yo' like a Christian. An' by God I swear yo'll never have cause to wish it otherwise. From now on it's the prophets and the ten commandments an' the plumb-line for me. I've run free an' wild; I've been in quod, an' Lord knows what else, but if I'd known you was waitin' for me up here. Joy, like an angel from Heaven— "

"Un ange!" The girl laughed tre-mulously. "I am not dat!"

"As near as makes no difference, little girl— an' whiter nor any o' them to me." He kissed again less clumsily, then he freed himself from her arms.

"Now it's business! Keep in mind what I said— an' Heaven take care o' you,  Li'l one."

He picked up his rifle and went out into the snow. Notwithstanding the grim purpose that took him forth, his heart was light; and he had a sense of righteousness which he had not known for years. It was "Frisco's life or his own and Joy Molineau's; and with two lives in the balance against one, in his eyes, his purpose was wholly justified.

There was a green aurora flashing ribbons of light across the northern heavens. The woods were full of the ghostly light; and presently when he came on the tracks of a man in the snow, he was able to follow them quite clearly. They led him to a camp deep in the woods, where a fire glowed redly, but where there was no indication of the presence of the man whom he sought. He was still reconnoitring when on the still air came the sound of a rifle shot, from the direction of the cabin. A little-time afterwards another followed and another, but by that time, with fear for spur, he was running like a madman on the backward trail. As he neared the cabin he heard 'Frisco's voice roaring angrily.

"Come out o' that; an' put down the rifle, 'yo she-cat. or I'll blow you' to blazes."

Dixon burst from the woods and saw the cabin in the aurora's ghostly radiance. The door was open, and lying on the snow was a man's huddled form.

"The half-breed!" his mind registered as he looked round for 'Frisco Jim

He glimpsed a man standing in the shadow of a giant spruce; and in the same moment 'Frisco became aware of him. 'Frisco fired first; and Dixon stumbled forward and dropped in the snow. From the cabin there came the sound of a despairing cry; and Joy Molineau appeared running across the snow. 'Frisco Jim laughed and stepped into the open. He laughed again, as he moved forward to intercept the girl.

"Don't yo' worry about that guy— .' he began.

From the snow Dixon lifted his rifle and with the deliberation of a marksman firing at a range-target pulled the trigger. 'Frisco Jim dropped with the shot. He moved only once and lay still. Dixon picked himself out of the snow, slowly and painfully. There was a bullet wound in his shoulder, and already it was stiffening with the bitter cold.

"O! mon pauvre Deexon," cried Joy, sobbingly, but Dixon cut her short.

"Get inside, my dear. You'll freeze without your furs."

"But yo' mon cher—"

"I'm coming, too. This pair'll take no hurt out here in the snow."

He moved slowly towards the cabin; with an effort stooped over the half breed and saw that he was dead; then he dragged him from the doorway, shut the door, and gave expression to his emotion.

"Thank God, you're safe. Joy... What happened?"

The girl told him whilst she cleaned and dressed the wound. He had gone but a little while when she had heard the two men moving round the cabin. A knock on the door had been followed by a rifle barrel thrust through the parchment window. She had promptly fired; and the rifle had been withdrawn, then she had heard 'Frisco Jim shout to his companion.

"We'll burn the cabin. Roast the kitten alive,"

The threat had scared her. She had a horror of fire, having as a child with Molineau and her mother fled through the woods with the forest afire behind them. She had opened the door with a thought that she would flee to the woods and find Dixon. The half-breed had been close to the door. He had fired off-hand, missed and she had fired in return, the man falling in the very doorway. Intuition told her the words she had overheard were no more than an empty threat, and she had fallen back in the cabin sure that the sound of the firing would bring her lover.

"Thank God!" ejaculated Dixon. "I was in time. You didn't know that 'Frisco. He was an out-an'-outer!"

"Non! I not know heem, but mon Deexon, I know; an' I was sure da yo'  run— "

"Run! Lord love you kid. I flew—"

Dixon knew that his own reputation was not good, so he did not report the matter to the Mounted Police; but using much timber for fires to thaw the ground, he buried the two men deep in the woods. And when two months later Pere Despard from the Nahanni Catholic Mission came down the creek in response to a message that had reached him from Pierre Molineau at Stony Mountain. Dixon told him the whole story and showed him the grave.

" 'Twas them or us, father—"

"Oui. my son! Do I not know it?— And there was the girl's white soul—"

"White as snow, father. An angel—"

"Well, it is not all men who marry an angel, my son— as you will no doubt wish to do."

"Wish—"

"And Pierre Molineau will not mind when he learns how you saved his gold."

"Well, if you like to put it that way—"

"Oh, I know, my son! That was not your first thought. No! But it's the final deed that counts."

"You're right, of course, father. But I give you my honest word that now I wouldn't touch the stuff till Molineau gives the word, not for all the gold in the Territory."

And Pere Despard, wise through much experience of men, knew that Dixon really meant it.

_______________

14: Badger

Winifred Graham

1873-1950

Pingelly Leader (WA) 4 Sep 1911

Matilda Winifred Muriel Graham, English author of some 88 books. She sometimes wrote under her married name, as Winifred Cory

MR. SYRETT lived in Brussels and had taken a villa at Ostend for the season. He was an elderly man of austere mien, with an only daughter of sixteen. She was nicknamed 'Whitemouse,' and promised to become an exceedingly beautiful woman.

Her father's reserved nature repelled her, though she frequently hungered for his love, being naturally capable of ardent tenderness and devotion. Whitemouse was lounging on a balcony, overlooking the sea, her wayward curls fluttering in tho breeze.

'How pretty you are!' said Jerrard Pryce, looking her up and down.

'How rude you are!' retorted White-mouse, compressing her childish lips.

'You are going to ride?' he said, glancing at her habit. 'So am I.'

A sigh of impatience escaped the girl'

' Shall you job a crock off the beach?' she asked.

'No. I have discovered rather a decent thoroughbred at the stables where you put up your pony.'

'Oh, indeed.' She spoke in the same indifferent tone. Suddenly as he watched her the pretty face dimpled into smiles, her eyes lit up with strange tenderness, and all her vague, half-formed beauty burst into admiration. The man looked jealously down the street.

'There is Badger,' cried the girl, bounding out to greet her favourite.  The pony pricked his ears at the sound of her voice. She patted his nose, laying her head lovingly against his neck. Then, with a little mocking laugh at Jerrard, she sprang into the saddle lightly as a feather, and trotted briskly away. In a moment he was after her on his hired hack.

'If you set your heart on any girl,' he told himself, 'marry her young before she meets other fellows to turn her head. A man of twenty-six could win any child's heart of sixteen.'

'I say,' he called out, 'don't clatter so over those cobble stones if you have any consideration for my nerves. It's perfect purgatory riding on such roads.'

'Men ought not to have nerves,' with a disdainful glance at her cavalier.

'Where are you going?'

'On the sands for a gallop. Badger loves sand. This is his seaside holiday, you know.'

'And when this holiday is over—' replied Jerrard, completing his sentence with an eloquent sign intended to convoy a great deal.

'Well, when this holiday is over, what then?' asked Whitemouse carelessly.

'We must part.'

'Of course. I knew that. Tell me something more exciting.'

' No. I can think of nothing else. Shall you miss me, Whitemouse?'

She looked up frankly. 'I don't fancy so. I can't imagine missing anyone in particular— except Badger,' tenderly stroking, his mane. 'You see, I have lived very much alone, within myself, as it were, and this pony is my chief companion and friend.'

The man felt an envious pang. What wasted absurd affection— thrown away on a four-fooled beast! They were down on the sands now in front of the King's Palace. A long stretch of yellow shore lay temptingly before them.

Whitemouse murmured some well-known signal which sent Badger galloping across the firm sand, with the rush of the wind in his ears. Jerrard followed closely behind her, his thin lips lightly compressed, and his eyes flashing at the sight of her trim figure and floating hair. ;

'I will make the little vixen listen to me,'  he muttered, kicking his horse viciously.

'Steady!' cried, Whitcmoase breathlessly, reining in her pony. 'Steady, my boy!'

A rich colour dyed her cheeks. She looked beautiful.

'Child,' said Jerrard; in a voice that startled her, 'do you know what I have come to say— why I forced my company on you unasked this morning. l love you, Whitemouse, as few woman have been loved. I want you to be my wife.'

The girl turned wonderingly.

'You forget,' she replied; 'I am not yet seventeen, or you could not be so foolish. Then laughing spontaneously: 'As few women have been loved! That's nonsense to begin with. Men have died for women, but I don't believe you would scratch your little finger for me. Besides, I have studied your nature almost as carefully as Badger's,' with a fond glance at her pet.

'Have you found it wanting?' he asked bitterly.

'I have found it— well — mixed. That is the word to express my meaning.  When I am nice to you, then you love me in the good way, the gentle way in which men should love women. But when I treat you badly, then you hate me. I can see it instantly. That hate is so strong and passionate that you mistake it for the passion of love. You confuse the two, and persist in useless attentions and compliments which I detest.'

Jerrard started at her accuracy. Girls of sixteen could be sharper than he suspected. The 'hate passion' was creeping over him then as she lightly discarded his love.

'You don't care for me?' he gasped, amazed that such a thing could be.

'Honestly, no. I think I am very cold-hearted, cold-blooded, with little or no love in my nature. Having no mother, it was not cultivated as a child. My school-fellows called me 'The Fish,' saying I could not feel. Sometimes they tore my favourite books to try and make me sorry, but I never seemed to care. They tried to find something I really loved to take from me. It would have been so pleasant for them.'

Jerrard gazed steadfastly at the proud young face. An idea struck him. He sympathised with those childish tormentors. It would be good to make her feel, to pain her, as she had hurt and wounded him. His eyes fell on tho roan pony she was riding.

'Those are the people,' he said aloud, 'who love most deeply when onco their affection is centred on some object.'

'But that object not being Jerrard Pryce, shall we change the subject and ride on?' said Whitemouse saucily.

'I believe you care more for that beast beneath you than for the feelings of a man whose life you have wrecked.'

'I wish I need never grow up,' she sighed, 'if that is the sort of rubbish I must hear. Of course, I love Badger far, far better than any man, except my father,' with a lowering of her voice. Rather a wistful look crept into her eyes as she mentioned Mr. Syrett.

'Good morniug, said Jerrard abruptly. 'I will leave you to the lively companionship of your dumb animal.'  As he spoke he slashed his hack and rode away furiously.

'Jerrard!  Jerrard!

He pulled up sharply. 'Whitemouse!' turning eagerly at her call.

'You say you Iove me.'

'I said I loved you.'

'Then give me one promise before we part.' She spoke commandingly. ' I have heard you do not treat your horses well; you have a bad name as a rider in England. You see I am candid. That is one reason why I cannot like you.

'If you will be kinder; if you will promise to be kinder— you shall have that big photograph of me that you always wanted: but you must give me your worn of honour that you will destroy it with your own hands directly if you should ever again ill-treat a horse or be cruel in any way  to the animals I love.'

He was silent, but his face darkened at her words.

'I will promise nothing,' he answered, riding back, while Whitemouse and Badger wandered on by the sea.

'Her father has a miserly nature,' reflected Jerrard, 'and could never resist a big profit. It would be a splendid revenge.'

'GOOD morning,' said Mr. Syrett, stepping on to the balcony.

'Good morning, replied Jerrard, joining him. 'Your daughter has gone off on your roan pony. It's a first-class animal; but you are not fond of horseflesh yourself, I know; and Whitemouse will soon be back at school.  I've taken a tremendous fancy to Badger. I suppose you don't want to part with him?'

'Well, no; I had not thought of it.'

'Forgive my inquiring ; but I leave by to-morrow night's boat, and would have given any reasonable price you named to take Badger with me.'

Mr. Syrett remembered Badger's price, and quickly doubled the sum.

'You can have him for that,' he said. 'I will get Whitemouse another.'

Jerrard expressed his delight, and hurried away with profuse thanks. He saw Whitemouse pass from his hotel window half an hour later.

She met her father as she entered

'I've sold your pony,' he said.

'Sold— sold Badger!' stammered Whitemouse, pale to the very lips.

'Yes. Mr. Jerrard Pryce has offered me, a very handsome profit on him. It 's well worth the deal.'

'But father— I— I love Badger so.' She started forward in piteous appeal, but he was thinking of the money, andd not notice the misery depicted on his daughter's face.

'Nonsense, child,' he retorted coldly, 'I'll get you another when we go home.'

So saying he passed on unheedingly, leaving Whitemouse petrified.

'But it won't be Badger! It won't be Badger!' she moaned to herself, rushing to her room to hide her tears. 'Jerrard shan't have him— not if I am alive to stop it— never, never, never!'

It was five o'clock the following morning when Whitemouse crept quietly downstairs, and let herself out of the house. She was in her riding habit, and found Badger, ready saddled in the yard. She was accustomed to give her own orders, and trotted away without creating suspicion.

'It is a long road to Bruges,' she whispered in Badger's ear, 'you must put your best hoof forward, old boy, or I shall lose you for ever and ever. I am riding against fate, we are running away from destiny.'

The pony seemed to understand, for he tossed his head and snorted. Whitemouse looked along the canal straight towards Bruges.

'It is a great many miles,' she said.

Some hours later a hot and dusty traveller rode through the streets of the quaint old town to a house which neither she nor Badger had visited for years.

Whitemouse sprang from her saddle and pealed the bell.

'I want to see M. Anatole,' she said in fluent French. 'Please ask him to come, and speak to me at once.'

She waited impatiently, till an elderly gentleman of benign countenance appeared in the doorway.

'Why!' he exclaimed, holding out a fleshy hand, 'the little Miss Syrett and her pony, as I live!'

Whitemouse retained the fleshy hand in a pleading grasp.

'You remember Badger, don't you?'

'Indeed, shall I ever forget the day you bought him from me? Mon Dieu! how the English Mies could ride!'

'I have come to ask a favour of Monsieur,' continued Whitemouse in trepidation. 'I want to beg you to keep the pony for a little while. Unless I can find a home for him till we leave Ostend (she meant until Jerrard leaves Ostend) I must part with my pet. You have horses and a large stable—'

She broke off shortly, confused at her own daring, while tears flooded her eyes. 'But I am asking too much!'

'Pas du tout, pas da tout, Mademoiselle,' declared the old man. 'Badger rests with me till you are ready for him. He has a good bed, much to eat, and healthy exercise— Mademoiselle honours me by entrusting him to my care.'

How Whitemouse thanked him she never knew. She was conscious of a lump in her throat, Of feeling M. Anatole press a kigs in courtly fashion on her hand, and ask her to partake of dejeuner. A quick refusal and, renewed expressions of gratitude— a last look at her well-loved steed, and then the run to catch the train which should carry her back to Ostend.

It was a very pale and tired Whitemouse that entered the picturesque villa, horseless and alone. She was so accustomed to come and go at pleasure that no one had yet missed her. Sho quickly made a fresh morning toilette, and when Jerrard called, with ill-concealed triumph lurking in every line of his countenance, she looked as fresh and as little travel-stained as on the previous, day.

'I suppose you have heard I am leaving to-night ?' he inquired.

'Yes, and not alone,' with a mock tremble in her voice.

'Oh! Mr. Syrett has told you. I have bought Badger.'

'That was very cruel,' she replied.

'You were cruel first,' he retorted.

'Who made me so? If somebody had not been vain enough to imagine me in love with himself, somebody would not have been disappointed.'

Inwardly, Jerrard was annoyed that Whitemouse had not fallen on her knees to implore for Badger's "ransom."

'If you care to havr a farewell turn on Badger to-day, I should be delighted, although I have sent a cheque directed to your good father.'

'It would he too painful,' turning to the window to-coneeal a smile. .

'I should not care to ride any horse but my own.'

'Not even a crock on the beach?' recalling her jibe. 'But when Badger is preparing for his sea voyage to-night, you will console yourself with ices at Noppenoy's, and the Kursaal dance.'

Whitemouse did not deign to answer. She only looked at him with silent disapproval, and swept out oft the room. Absence would be her best friend, as attempting to parry questions might prove fatal. She would pay a promised visit to her cousin at Blankenburg, and was soon on her way thither in the steam train.

Late that afternoon it was discovered Badger had been missing since the early morning.

'It is a most extraordinary thing,' said Mr. Syrett; 'it appears Whitemouse took him away at 5 a.m., and in addition has taken herself off also. It is evident she did not intend you to have Badger afterall, Mr. Pryce.'

The usually stern man had a vein of humour in his nature, and a deep-seated though hidden weakness for Whitemouse. There was nothing he admired more in woman than determination and pluck.

'Do you actually mean me to understand,' stammered Jerrard, red with rage, 'that I have bought the horse your daughter has dared to abduct my property? I never heard such a thing! Why, it is downright robbery to you and me.'

But this was a irifle mere than the paternal feelings could stand. With a courtly air Mr. Syrett handed back the cheque which Jerrard had written that morning.

' We will leave my daughter's name out of this question,' he said.

'But I think if you knew all,' continuecL Jerrard, his evil temper overcoming him, 'the disgraceful way in which she has treated me, and her cruel disregard of my feelings—'

'Your, feelings, sir; what have your feelings to do with it?'

'A great deal,' retorted Jerrard, blustering on. 'At one time I thought Miss Syrett was worthy of an honest love. She proved I was mistaken. Her heartless conduct—'

'Oh!' exclaimed the s!d-u- man, a new light breaking in upon him, 'so you've been making love, have you, to that Lit of a child I not out of the school-room? Had I suspected any such nonsense I should have made short work of the matter. I can understand now why you wanted the pony— a sentimental desire to possess something of hers. Really, Mr. Pryce, I thought you were more sensible!'

'Indeed, it had nothing to do with sentiment. I knew at the time she did not wish to part with Badger.'

'And that was your only reason for buying him?'

'Something of the sort, since she was so inconsiderate of me.'

'Worse and worse,' exclaimed Mr. Syrett. 'You are not contented with putting absurd ideas into the child's head, but even contemplated wreaking so mean a vengeance. Under the circumstances, Mr Pryce, I am glad she took the matter into her own hands.'

Jerrard snatched up his hat— and went. After this, Whitemouse and her father understood each other better.

_________________________

15: La Haute Finance
A Tale of the Biggest Coup on Record

Richard Marsh

1857-1915

The Windsor Magazine Feb 1902

"BY JOVE! I believe it could be done!"

Mr. Rodney Railton took the cigarette out of his mouth and sent a puff of smoke into the air.

"I believe it could, by Jove!"

Another puff of smoke.

"I'll write to Mac."

He drew a sheet of paper towards him and penned the following:—

Dear Alec,

Can you give me some dinner to-night? Wire me if you have a crowd. I shall be in the House till four. Have something to propose which will make your hair stand up.

Yours,

R. R.

This he addressed "Alexander Macmathers, Esq., 27, Campden Hill Mansions." As he went downstairs he gave the note to the commissionaire, with instructions that it should be delivered at once by hand.

That night Mr. Railton dined with Mr. Macmathers. The party consisted of three, the two gentlemen and a lady— Mrs. Macmathers, in fact. Mr. Macmathers was an American— a Southerner— rather tall and weedy, with a heavy, drooping moustache, like his hair, raven black. He was not talkative. His demeanour gave a wrong impression of the man— the impression that he was not a man of action. As a matter of fact, he was a man of action before all things else. He was not rich, as riches go, but certainly he was not poor. His temperament was cosmopolitan, and his profession Jack-of-all-trades. Wherever there was money to be made, he was there. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he was there, too, when there was money to be lost, His wife was English— keen and clever. Her chief weakness was that she would persist in looking on existence as a gigantic lark. When she was most serious she regarded life least au sérieux.

Mr. Railton, who had invited himself to dinner, was a hybrid— German mother, English father. He was quite a young man— say thirty. His host was perhaps ten, his hostess five years older than himself. He was a stock jobber— ostensibly in the Erie market. All that he had he had made, for he had, as a boy, found himself the situation of a clerk. But his clerkly days were long since gone. No one anything like his age had a better reputation in the House; it was stated by those who had best reason to know that he had never once been left, and few had a larger credit. Lately he had wandered outside his markets to indulge in little operations in what he called La Haute Finance. In these Mr. Macmathers had been his partner more than once, and in him he had found just the man he wished to find.

When they had finished dinner, the lady withdrew, and the gentlemen were left alone.

"Well," observed Mr. Macmathers, "what's going to make my hair stand up?"

Mr. Railton stroked his chin as he leaned both his elbows on the board.

"Of course, Mac, I can depend on you. I'm just giving myself away. It's no good my asking you to observe strict confidence, for, if you won't come in, from the mere fact of your knowing it the thing's just busted up, that's all."

"Sounds like a mystery-of- blood-to- thee-I'll-now- unfold sort of thing."

"I don't know about mystery, but there'll be plenty of blood."

Mr. Railton stopped short and looked at his friend.

"Blood, eh? I say, Rodney, think before you speak."

"I have thought. I thought I'd play the game alone. But it's too big a game for one."

"Well, if you have thought, out with it, or be silent evermore."

"You know Plumline, the dramatist?"

"I know he's an ass."

"Ass or no ass, it's from him I got the idea."

"Good Heavens! No wonder it smells of blood."

"He's got an idea for a new play, and he came to me to get some local colouring. I'll just tell you the plot— he was obliged to tell it me, or I couldn't have given him the help he wanted."

"Is it essential? I have enough of Plumline's plots when I see them on the stage."

"It is essential. You will see."

Mr. Railton got up, lighted a cigar, and stood before the fireplace. When he had brought the cigar into good going order he unfolded Mr. Plumline's plot.

"I'm not going to bore you. I'm just going to touch upon that part which gave me my idea. There's a girl who dreams of boundless wealth— a clever girl, you understand."

"Girls who dream of boundless wealth sometimes are clever," murmured his friend. Perhaps he had his wife in his mind's eye.

"She is wooed and won by a financier. Not wooed and won by a tale of love, but by the exposition of an idea."

"That's rather new— for Plumline."

"The financier has an idea for obtaining the boundless wealth of which she only dreams."

"And the idea?"

"Is the bringing about of a war between France and Germany."

"Great snakes!" The cigarette dropped from between Mr. Macmather's lips. He carefully picked it up again. "That's not a bad idea— for Plumline."

"It's my idea as well. In the play it fails. The financier comes to grief. I shouldn't fail. There's just that difference."

Mr. Macmathers regarded his friend in silence before he spoke again.

"Railton, might I ask you to enlarge upon your meaning? I want to see which of us two is drunk."

"In the play the man has a big bear account—the biggest upon record. I need hardly tell you that a war between France and Germany would mean falling markets. Supposing we were able to calculate with certainty the exact moment of the outbreak— arrange it, in fact— we might realise wealth beyond the dreams of avarice— hundreds of thousands of millions, if we chose."

"I suppose you're joking?"

"How?"

"That's what I want to know— how."

"It does sound, at first hearing, like a joke, to suppose that a couple of mere outsiders can, at their own sweet will and pleasure, stir up a war between two Great Powers."

"A joke is a mild way of describing it, my friend."

"Alec, would you mind asking Mrs. Macmathers to form a third on this occasion?"

Mr. Macmathers eyed his friend for a moment, then got up and left the room. When he returned his wife was with him. It was to the lady Mr. Railton addressed himself.

"Mrs. Macmathers, would you like to be possessed of wealth compared to which the wealth of the Vanderbilts, the Rothschilds, the Mackays, the Goulds, would shrink into insignificance?"

"Why, certainly."

It was a peculiarity of the lady's that, while she was English, she affected what she supposed to be American idioms.

"Would you stick at a little to obtain it?"

"Certainly not."

"It would be worth one's while to run a considerable risk."

"I guess."

"Mrs. Macmathers, I want to go a bear, a large bear, to win, say— I want to put it modestly— a hundred millions."

"Pounds?"

"Pounds."

It is to be feared that Mrs. Macmathers whistled.

"Figures large," she said.

"All the world knows that war is inevitable between France and Germany."

"Proceed."

"I want to arrange that it shall break out at the moment when it best suits me."

"I guess you're a modest man," she said.

Her husband smiled.

"If you consider for a moment, it would not be so difficult as it first appears. It requires but a spark to set the fire burning. There is at least one party in France to whom war would mean the achievement of all their most cherished dreams. It is long odds that a war would bring some M. Quelquechose to the front with a rush. He will be at least untried. And, of late years, it is the untried men who have the people's confidence in France. A few resolute men, my dear Mrs. Macmathers, have only to kick up a shindy on the Alsatian borders— Europe will be roused, in the middle of the night, by the roaring of the flames of war."

There was a pause. Mrs. Macmathers got up and began to pace the room.

"It's a big order," she said.

"Allowing the feasibility of your proposition, I conclude that you have some observations to make upon it from a moral point of view. It requires them, my friend."

Mr. Macmathers said this with a certain dryness.

"Moral point of view be hanged! It could be argued, mind, and defended; but I prefer to say candidly, the moral point of view be hanged!"

"Has it not occurred to you to think that the next Franco-German war may mean the annihilation of one of the parties concerned?"

"You mistake the position. I should have nothing to do with the war. I should merely arrange the date for its commencement. With or without me they would fight."

"You would merely consign two or three hundred thousand men to die at the moment which would best suit your pocket."

"There is that way of looking at it, no doubt. But you will allow me to remind you that you considered the possibility of creating a corner in corn without making unpleasant allusions to the fact that it might have meant starvation to thousands."

The lady interposed.

"Mr. Railton, leaving all that sort of thing alone, what is it that you propose?"

"The details have still to be filled in. Broadly I propose to arrange a series of collisions with the German frontier authorities. I propose to get them boomed by the Parisian Press. I propose to give some M. Quelquechose his chance."

"It's the biggest order ever I heard."

"Not so big as it sounds. Start to-morrow, and I believe that we should be within measureable distance of war next week. Properly managed, I will at least guarantee that all the Stock Exchanges of Europe go down with a run."

"If the thing hangs fire, how about carrying over?"

"Settle. No carrying over for me. I will undertake that there is a sufficient margin of profit. Every account we will do a fresh bear until the trick is made. Unless I am mistaken, the trick will be made with a rapidity of which you appear to have no conception."

"It is like a dream of the Arabian nights," the lady said.

"Before the actual reality the Arabian nights pale their ineffectual fires. It is a chance which no man ever had before, which no man may ever have again. I don't think, Macmathers, we ought to let it slip."

They did not let it slip.

ii

MR. RAILTON was acquainted with a certain French gentleman who rejoiced in the name— according to his own account— of M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille. The name did not sound exactly French— M. de Vrai-Castille threw light on this by explaining that his family came originally from Spain. But, on the other hand, it must be allowed that the name did not sound exactly Spanish, either. London appeared to be this gentleman's permanent place of residence. Political reasons— so he stated— rendered it advisable that he should not appear too prominently upon his— theoretically— beloved boulevards. Journalism— always following this gentleman's account of himself— was the profession to which he devoted the flood-tide of his powers. The particular journal or journals which were rendered famous by the productions of his pen were rather difficult to discover— there appeared to be political reasons, too, for that.

"The man is an all-round bad lot." This was what Mr. Railton said when speaking of this gentleman to Mr. and Mrs. Macmathers. "A type of scoundrel only produced by France. Just the man we want."

"Flattering," observed his friend. "You are going to introduce us to high company."

Mr. Railton entertained this gentleman to dinner in a private room at the Hotel Continental. M. de Vrai-Castille did not seem to know exactly what to make of it. Nothing in his chance acquaintance with Mr. Railton had given him cause to suppose that the Englishman regarded him as a respectable man, and this sudden invitation to fraternise took him a little aback. Possibly he was taken still more aback before the evening closed. Conversation languished during the meal; but when it was over— and the waiters gone— Mr. Railton became very conversational indeed.

"Look here, What's-your-name"— this was how Mr. Railton addressed M. de Vrai-Castille— "I know very little about you, but I know enough to suspect that you have nothing in the world excepting what you steal."

"M. Railton is pleased to have his little jest."

If it was a jest, it was not one, judging from the expression of M. de Vrai-Castille's countenance which he entirely relished.

"What would you say if I presented you with ten thousand pounds?"

"I should say–-"

What he said need not be recorded, but M. de Vrai-Castille used some very bad language indeed, expressive of the satisfaction with which the gift would be received.

"And suppose I should hint at your becoming possessed of another hundred thousand pounds to back it?"

"Pardon me, M. Railton, but is it murder? If so, I would say frankly at once that I have always resolved that in those sort of transactions I would take no hand."

"Stuff and nonsense! It is nothing of the kind! You say you are a politician. Well, I want you to pose as a patriot— a French patriot, you understand."

Mr. Railton's eyes twinkled. M. de Vrai-Castille grinned in reply.

"The profession is overcrowded," he murmured, with a deprecatory movement of his hands.

"Not on the lines I mean to work it. Did you lose any relatives in the war?"

"It depends."

"I feel sure you did. And at this moment the bodies of those patriots are sepultured in Alsatian soil. I want you to dig them up again."

"Mon Dieu! Ce charmant homme!"

"I want you to form a league for the recovery of the remains of those noble spirits who died for their native land, and whose bones now lie interred in what was France, but which now, alas! is France no more. I want you to go in for this bone recovery business as far as possible on a wholesale scale."

"Ciel! Maintenant j'ai trouvé un homme extraordinaire!"

"You will find no difficulty in obtaining the permission of the necessary authorities sanctioning your schemes; but at the very last moment, owing to some stated informality, the German brigands will interfere even at the edge of the already open grave; patriot bones will be dishonoured, France will be shamed in the face of all the world."

"And then?"

"The great heart of France is a patient heart, my friend, but even France will not stand that. There will be war."

"And then?"

"On the day on which war is declared, one hundred thousand pounds will be paid to you in cash."

"And supposing there is no war?"

"Should France prefer to cower beneath her shame, you shall still receive ten thousand pounds."

iii

THE FOLLOWING extract is from the Times' Parisian correspondence—

"The party of La Revanche is taking a new departure. I am in a position to state that certain gentlemen are putting their heads together. A league is being formed for the recovery of the bodies of various patriots who are at present asleep in Alsace. I have my own reasons for asserting that some remarkable proceedings may be expected soon. No man knows better than myself that there is nothing some Frenchmen will not do."

On the same day there appeared in La Patrie a really touching article. It was the story of two brothers— one was, the other was not; in life they had been together, but in death they were divided. Both alike had fought for their native land. One returned— désolé!— to Paris. The other stayed behind. He still stayed behind. It appeared that he was buried in Alsace, in a nameless grave! But they had vowed, these two, that they would share all things— among the rest, that sleep which even patriots must know, the unending sleep of death. "It is said," said the article in conclusion, "that that nameless grave, in what was France, will soon know none— or two!" It appeared that the surviving brother was going for that "nameless grave" on the principle of double or quits.

The story appeared, with variations, in a considerable number of journals. The Daily Telegraph had an amusing allusion to the fondness displayed by certain Frenchmen for their relatives— dead, for the "bones" of their fathers. But no one was at all prepared for the events which followed.

One morning the various money articles alluded to heavy sales which had been effected the day before, "apparently by a party of outside speculators." In particular heavy bear operations were reported from Berlin. Later in the day the evening papers came out with telegrams referring to "disturbances" at a place called Pont-sur-Leaune. Pont-sur-Leaune is a little Alsatian hamlet. The next day the tale was in everybody's mouth. Certain misguided but well-meaning Frenchmen had been "shot down" by the German authorities. Particulars had not yet come to hand, but it appeared, according to the information from Paris, that a party of Frenchmen had journeyed to Alsace with the intention of recovering the bodies of relatives who had been killed in the war; on the very edge of the open graves German soldiers had shot them down. Telegrams from Berlin stated that a party of body-snatchers had been caught in the very act of plying their nefarious trade; no mention of shooting came from there. Although the story was doubted in the City, it had its effect on the markets— prices fell. It was soon seen, too, that the bears were at it again. Foreign telegrams showed that their influence was being felt all round; very heavy bear raids were again reported from Berlin. Markets became unsettled, with a downward tendency, and closing prices were the worst of the day.

Matters were not improved by the news of the morrow. A Frenchman had been shot— his name was Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, and a manifesto from his friends had already appeared in Paris. According to this, they had been betrayed by the German authorities. They had received permission from those authorities to take the bodies of certain of their relatives and lay them in French soil. While they were acting on this permission they were suddenly attacked by German soldiers, and he, their leader, that patriot soul, Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille, was dead. But there was worse than that. They had prepared flags in which to wrap the bodies of the dead. Those flags— emblems of France— had been seized by the rude German soldiers, torn into fragments, trampled in the dust. The excitement in Paris appeared to be intense. All that day there was a falling market.

The next day's papers were full of contradictory telegrams. From Berlin the affair was pooh-poohed. The story of permission having been accorded by the authorities was pure fiction— there had been a scuffle in which a man had been killed, probably by his own friends—the tale of the dishonoured flags was the invention of an imaginative brain. But these contradictions were for the most part frantically contradicted by the Parisian Press. There was a man in Paris who had actually figured on the scene. He had caught M. de Vrai-Castille in his arms as he fell, he had been stained by his heart's blood, his cheek had been torn open by the bullet which killed his friend. Next his heart he at that moment carried portions of the flags— emblems of France!— which had been subjected to such shame.

But it was on the following day that the situation first took a definitely serious shape. Placards appeared on every dead wall in Paris, small bills were thrust under every citizen's door—on the bills and placards were printed the same words. They were signed "Quelquechose." They pointed out that France owed her present degradation— like all her other degradations—to her Government. The nation was once more insulted; the Army was once more betrayed; the national flag had been trampled on again, as it had been trampled on before. Under a strong Government these things could not be, but under a Government of cowards–-! Let France but breathe the word, "La Grande Nation" would exist once more. Let the Army but make a sign, there would be "La Grande Armée" as of yore.

That night there was a scene in the Chamber. M. de Caragnac— à propos des botte— made a truly remarkable speech. He declared that permission had been given to these men. He produced documentary evidence to that effect. He protested that these men— true citizens of France!— had been the victims of a "Prussian" plot. As to the outrage to the national flag, had it been perpetrated, say, in Tonkin, "cannons would be belching forth their thunders now." But in Alsace— "this brave Government dare only turn to the smiters the other cheek." In the galleries they cheered him to the echo. On the tribune there was something like a free fight. When the last telegrams were despatched to London, Paris appeared to be approaching a state of riot.

The next day there burst a thunderbolt. Five men had been detained by the German authorities. They had escaped— had been detected in the act of flight— had been shot at while running. Two of them had been killed. A third had been fatally wounded. The news— flavoured to taste— was shouted from the roofs of the houses. Paris indulged in one of its periodical fits of madness. The condition of the troops bore a strong family likeness to mutiny. And in the morning Europe was electrified by the news that a revolution had been effected in the small hours of the morning, that the Chambers had been dissolved, and that with the Army were the issues of peace and war.

ON THE DAY of the declaration of the war between France and Germany— that heavy-laden day— an individual called on Mr. Rodney Railton whose appearance caused that gentleman to experience a slight sensation of surprise.

"De Vrai-Castille! I was wondering if you had left any instructions as to whom I was to pay that hundred thousand pounds. I thought that you were dead."

"Monsieur mistakes. My name is Henri Kerchrist, a name not unknown in my native Finistère. M. Hippolyte de Vrai-Castille is dead. I saw him die. It was to me he directed that you should pay that hundred thousand pounds."

As he made these observations, possibly owing to some local weakness, "Henri Kerchrist" winked the other eye.

_______________

16: A Spirit Elopement

Richard Dehan

1863-1932

In: Off Sandy Hook and Other Stories, 1915

Clotilde Augusta Inez Mary Graves

WHEN I exchanged my maiden name for better or worse, and dearest Vavasour and I, at the conclusion of the speeches— I was married in a traveling-dress of Bluefern’s— descended the steps of mamma’s house in Ebury Street— the Belgravian, not the Pimlican end— and, amid a hurricane of farewells and a hailstorm of pink and yellow and white confetti, stepped into the brougham that was to convey us to a Waterloo Station, en route for Southampton—our honeymoon was to be spent in Guernsey— we were perfectly well satisfied with ourselves and each other. This state of mind is not uncommon at the outset of wedded life. You may have heard the horrid story of the newly-wedded cannibal chief, who remarked that he had never yet known a young bride to disagree with her husband in the early stages of the honeymoon. I believe if dearest Vavasour had seriously proposed to chop me into cotêlettes and eat me, with or without sauce, I should have taken it for granted that the powers that be had destined me to the high end of supplying one of the noblest of created beings with an entrée dish.

We were idiotically blissful for two or three days. It was flowery April, and Guernsey was looking her loveliest. No horrid hotel or boarding-house sheltered our lawful endearments. Some old friends of papa’s had lent us an ancient mansion standing in a wild garden, now one pink riot of almond-blossom, screened behind lofty walls of lichened red brick and weather-worn, wrought-iron gates, painted yellow-white like all the other iron and wood work about the house.

“Mon Désir” the place was called, and the fragrance of potpourri yet hung about the old paneled salons. Vavasour wrote a sonnet— I have omitted to speak before of my husband’s poetic gifts—all about the breath of new Passion stirring the fragrant dust of dead old Love, and the kisses of lips long moldered that mingled with ours. It was a lovely sonnet, but crawly, as the poetical compositions of the Modern School are apt to be. And Vavasour was an enthusiastic convert to, and follower of, the Modern School. He had often told me that, had not his father heartlessly thrown him into his brewery business at the outset of his career— Sim’s Mild and Bitter Ales being the foundation upon which the family fortunes were originally reared— he, Vavasour, would have been, ere the time of speaking, known to Fame, not only as a Minor Poet, but a Minor Decadent Poet— which trisyllabic addition, I believe, makes as advantageous a difference as the word “native” when attached to an oyster, or the guarantee “new laid” when employed with reference to an egg.

Dear Vavasour’s temperament and tastes having a decided bias towards the gloomy and mystic, he had, before his great discovery of his latent poetical gifts, and in the intervals of freedom from the brain-carking and soul-stultifying cares of business, made several excursions into the regions of the Unknown. He had had some sort of intercourse with the Swedenborgians, and had mingled with the Muggletonians; he had coquetted with the Christian Scientists, and had been, until Theosophic Buddhism opened a wider field to his researches, an enthusiastic Spiritualist. But our engagement somewhat cooled his passion for psychic research, and when questioned by me with regard to table-rappings, manifestations, and materializations, I could not but be conscious of a reticence in his manner of responding to my innocent desire for information. The reflection that he probably, like Canning’s knife-grinder, had no story to tell, soon induced me to abandon the subject. I myself am somewhat reserved at this day in my method of dealing with the subject of spooks. But my silence does not proceed from ignorance.

Knowledge came to me after this fashion. Though the April sun shone bright and warm upon Guernsey, the island nights were chill. Waking by dear Vavasour’s side— the novelty of this experience has since been blunted by the usage of years— somewhere between one and two o’clock towards break of the fourth day following our marriage, it occurred to me that a faint cold draft, with a suggestion of dampness about it, was blowing against my right cheek. One of the windows upon that side—our room possessed a rather unbecoming cross-light— had probably been left open. Dear Vavasour, who occupied the right side of our couch, would wake with toothache in the morning, or, perhaps, with mumps! Shuddering, as much at the latter idea as with cold, I opened my eyes, and sat up in bed with a definite intention of getting out of it and shutting the offending casement. Then I saw Katie for the first time.

She was sitting on the right side of the bed, close to dear Vavasour’s pillow; in fact, almost hanging over it. From the first moment I knew that which I looked upon to be no creature of flesh and blood, but the mere apparition of a woman. It was not only that her face, which struck me as both pert and plain; her hands; her hair, which she wore dressed in an old-fashioned ringletty mode— in fact, her whole personality was faintly luminous, and surrounded by a halo of bluish phosphorescent light. It was not only that she was transparent, so that I saw the pattern of the old-fashioned, striped, dimity bed-curtain, in the shelter of which she sat, quite plainly through her. The consciousness was further conveyed to me by a voice— or the toneless, flat, faded impression of a voice— speaking faintly and clearly, not at my outer, but at my inner ear.

“Lie down again, and don’t fuss. It’s only Katie!” she said.

“Only Katie!” I liked that!

“I dare say you don’t,” she said tartly, replying as she had spoken, and I wondered that a ghost should exhibit such want of breeding. “But you have got to put up with me!”

“How dare you intrude here— and at such an hour!” I exclaimed mentally, for there was no need to wake dear Vavasour by talking aloud when my thoughts were read at sight by the ghostly creature who sat so familiarly beside him.

“I knew your husband before you did,” responded Katie, with a faint phosphorescent sneer. “We became acquainted at a séance in North-West London soon after his conversion to Spiritualism, and have seen a great deal of each other from time to time.” She tossed her shadowy curls with a possessive air that annoyed me horribly. “He was constantly materializing me in order to ask questions about Shakespeare. It is a standing joke in our Spirit world that, from the best educated spook in our society down to the most illiterate astral that ever knocked out ‘rapport’ with one ‘p,’ we are all expected to know whether Shakespeare wrote his own plays, or whether they were done by another person of the same name.”

“And which way was it?” I asked, yielding to a momentary twinge of curiosity.

Katie laughed mockingly. “There you go!” she said, with silent contempt.

“I wish you would!” I snapped back mentally. “It seems to me that you manifest a great lack of refinement in coming here!”

“I cannot go until Vavasour has finished,” said Katie pertly. “Don’t you see that he has materialized me by dreaming about me? And as there exists at present”— she placed an annoying stress upon the last two words—“a strong sympathy between you, so it comes about that I, as your husband’s spiritual affinity, am visible to your waking perceptions. All the rest of the time I am hovering about you, though unseen.”

“I call it detestable!” I retorted indignantly. Then I gripped my sleeping husband by the shoulder. “Wake up! wake up!” I cried aloud, wrath lending power to my grasp and a penetrative quality to my voice. “Wake up and leave off dreaming! I cannot and will not endure the presence of this creature another moment!”

“Whaa—” muttered my husband, with the almost inebriate incoherency of slumber, “whasamaramydarling?”

“Stop dreaming about that creature,” I cried, “or I shall go home to Mamma!”

“Creature?” my husband echoed, and as he sat up I had the satisfaction of seeing Katie’s misty, luminous form fade slowly into nothingness.

“You know who I mean!” I sobbed. “Katie— your spiritual affinity, as she calls herself!”

“You don’t mean,” shouted Vavasour, now thoroughly roused, “that you have seen her?”

“I do mean it,” I mourned. “Oh, if I had only known of your having an entanglement with any creature of the kind, I would never have married you— never!”

“Hang her!” burst out Vavasour. Then he controlled himself, and said soothingly: “After all, dearest, there is nothing to be jealous of—”

“I jealous! And of that—” I was beginning, but Vavasour went on:

“After all, she is only a disembodied astral entity with whom I became acquainted—through my fifth principle, which is usually well developed—in the days when I moved in Spiritualistic society. She was, when living—for she died long before I was born— a young lady of very good family. I believe her father was a clergyman... and I will not deny that I encouraged her visits.”

“Discourage them from this day!” I said firmly. “Neither think of her nor dream of her again, or I will have a separation.”

“I will keep her, as much as possible, out of my waking thoughts,” said poor Vavasour, trying to soothe me; “but a man cannot control his dreams, and she pervades mine in a manner which, even before our engagement, my pet, I began to find annoying. However, if she really is, as she has told me, a lady by birth and breeding, she will understand”— he raised his voice as though she were there and he intended her to hear— “that I am now a married man, and from this moment desire to have no further communication with her. Any suitable provision it is in my power to make—”

He ceased, probably feeling the difficulty he would have in explaining the matter to his lawyers; and it seemed to me that a faint mocking sniggle, or rather the auricular impression of it, echoed his words. Then, after some more desultory conversation, we fell soundly asleep. An hour may have passed when the same chilly sensation as of a damp draft blowing across the bed roused me. I rubbed my cheek and opened my eyes. They met the pale, impertinent smile of the hateful Katie, who was installed in her old post beside Vavasour’s end of the bolster.

“You see,” she said, in the same soundless way, and with a knowing little nod of triumph, “it is no use. He is dreaming of me again!”

“Wake up!” I screamed, snatching the pillow from under my husband’s head and madly hurling it at the shameless intruder. This time Vavasour was almost snappish at being disturbed. Daylight surprised us in the middle of our first connubial quarrel. The following night brought a repetition of the whole thing, and so on, da capo, until it became plain to us, to our mutual disgust, that the more Vavasour strove to banish Katie from his dreams, the more persistently she cropped up in them. She was the most ill-bred and obstinate of astrals— Vavasour and I the most miserable of newly-married people. A dozen times in a night I would be roused by that cold draft upon my cheek, would open my eyes and see that pale, phosphorescent, outline perched by Vavasour’s pillow— nine times out of the dozen would be driven to frenzy by the possessive air and cynical smile of the spook. And although Vavasour’s former regard for her was now converted into hatred, he found the thought of her continually invading his waking mind at the most unwelcome seasons. She had begun to appear to both of us by day as well as by night when our poisoned honeymoon came to an end, and we returned to town to occupy the house which Vavasour had taken and furnished in Sloane Street. I need only mention that Katie accompanied us.

Insufficient sleep and mental worry had by this time thoroughly soured my temper no less than Vavasour’s. When I charged him with secretly encouraging the presence I had learned to hate, he rudely told me to think as I liked! He implored my pardon for this brutality afterwards upon his knees, and with the passage of time I learned to endure the presence of his attendant shade with patience. When she nocturnally hovered by the side of my sleeping spouse, or in constituence no less filmy than a whiff of cigarette-smoke, appeared at his elbow in the face of day, I saw her plainly, and at these moments she would favor me with a significant contraction of the eyelid, which was, to say the least of it, unbecoming in a spirit who had been a clergyman’s daughter. After one of these experiences it was that the idea which I afterwards carried into execution occurred to me.

I began by taking in a few numbers of a psychological publication entitled The Spirit-Lamp. Then I formed the acquaintance of Madame Blavant, the renowned Professoress of Spiritualism and Theosophy. Everybody has heard of Madame, many people have read her works, some have heard her lecture. I had heard her lecture. She was a lady with a strong determined voice and strong determined features. She wore her plentiful gray hair piled in sibylline coils on the top of her head, and— when she lectured— appeared in a white Oriental silk robe that fell around her tall gaunt figure in imposing folds. This robe was replaced by one of black satin when she held her séances. At other times, in the seclusion of her study, she was draped in an ample gown of Indian chintz innocent of cut, but yet imposing. She smiled upon my new-born desire for psychic instruction, and when I had subscribed for a course of ten private séances at so many guineas a piece she smiled more.

Madame lived in a furtive, retiring house, situated behind high walls in Endor’s Grove, N.W. A long glass tunnel led from the garden gate to the street door, for the convenience of Mahatmas and other persons who preferred privacy. I was one of those persons, for not for spirit worlds would I have had Vavasour know of my repeated visits to Endor’s Grove. Before these were over I had grown quite indifferent to supernatural manifestations, banjos and accordions that were thrummed by invisible performers, blood-red writing on mediums’ wrists, mysterious characters in slate-pencil, Planchette, and the Table Alphabet. And I had made and improved upon acquaintance with Simon.

Simon was a spirit who found me attractive. He tried in his way to make himself agreeable, and, with my secret motive in view— let me admit without a blush— I encouraged him. When I knew I had him thoroughly in hand, I attended no more séances at Endor’s Grove. My purpose was accomplished upon a certain night, when, feeling my shoulder violently shaken, I opened the eyes which had been closed in simulated slumber to meet the indignant glare of my husband. I glanced over his shoulder. Katie did not occupy her usual place. I turned my glance towards the armchair which stood at my side of the bed. It was not vacant. As I guessed, it was occupied by Simon. There he sat, the luminously transparent appearance of a weak-chinned, mild-looking young clergyman, dressed in the obsolete costume of eighty years previously. He gave me a bow in which respect mingled with some degree of complacency, and glanced at Vavasour.

“I have been explaining matters to your husband,” he said, in that soundless spirit-voice with which Katie had first made me acquainted. “He understands that I am a clergyman and a reputable spirit, drawn into your life-orbit by the irresistible attraction which your mediumistic organization exercises over my—”

“There, you hear what he says!” I interrupted, nodding confirmatively at Vavasour. “Do let me go to sleep!”

“What, with that intrusive beast sitting beside you?” shouted Vavasour indignantly. “Never!”

“Think how many months I have put up with the presence of Katie!” said I. “After all, it’s only tit for tat!” And the ghost of a twinkle in Simon’s pale eye seemed to convey that he enjoyed the retort.

Vavasour grunted sulkily, and resumed his recumbent position. But several times that night he awakened me with renewed objurgations of Simon, who with unflinching resolution maintained his post. Later on I started from sleep to find Katie’s usual seat occupied. She looked less pert and confident than usual, I thought, and rather humbled and fagged, as though she had had some trouble in squeezing her way into Vavasour’s sleeping thoughts. By day, after that night, she seldom appeared. My husband’s brain was too much occupied with Simon, who assiduously haunted me. And it was now my turn to twit Vavasour with unreasonable jealousy. Yet though I gloried in the success of my stratagem, the continual presence of that couple of spooks was an unremitting strain upon my nerves.

But at length an extraordinary conviction dawned on my mind, and became stronger with each successive night. Between Simon and Katie an acquaintance had sprung up. I would awaken, or Vavasour would arouse, to find them gazing across the barrier of the bolster which divided them with their pale negatives of eyes, and chatting in still, spirit voices. Once I started from sleep to find myself enveloped in a kind of mosquito-tent of chilly, filmy vapor, and the conviction rushed upon me that He and She had leaned across our couch and exchanged an intangible embrace. Katie was the leading spirit in this, I feel convinced— there was no effrontery about Simon. Upon the next night I, waking, overheard a fragment of conversation between them which plainly revealed how matters stood.

“We should never have met upon the same plane,” remarked Simon silently, “but for the mediumistic intervention of these people. Of the man”— he glanced slightingly towards Vavasour— “I cannot truthfully say I think much. The lady”— he bowed in my direction— “is everything that a lady should be!”

“You are infatuated with her, it is plain!” snapped Katie, “and the sooner you are removed from her sphere of influence the better.”

“Her power with me is weakening,” said Simon, “as Vavasour’s is with you. Our outlines are no longer so clear as they used to be, which proves that our astral individualities are less strongly impressed upon the brains of our earthly sponsors than they were. We are still materialized; but how long this will continue—” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t let us wait for a formal dismissal, then,” said Katie boldly. “Let us throw up our respective situations.”

“I remember enough of the Marriage Service to make our union, if not regular, at least respectable,” said Simon.

“And I know quite a fashionable place on the Outside Edge of Things, where we could settle down,” said Katie, “and live practically on nothing.”

I blinked at that moment. When I saw the room again clearly, the chairs beside our respective pillows were empty.

YEARS have passed, and neither Vavasour nor myself has ever had a glimpse of the spirits whom we were the means of introducing to one another. We are quite content to know ourselves deprived for ever of their company. Yet sometimes, when I look at our three babies, I wonder whether that establishment of Simon’s and Katie’s on the Outside Edge of Things includes a nursery.

________________

17: The Hope of Hurley

Agnes and Elliot Balestier
fl. 1900s-1920s / 1871-1939

All-Story Magazine Oct 1909

CHRISTOPHER HAZZARD sat at his desk, in the inner sanctum of his modest law offices, and frowned perplexedly at the letter lying open before him.

He was a fairly good-looking young man of twenty-eight, with no particular claim to distinction— one of the type of well- set- up, clean- shaven, wholesome looking young Americans to be met by the hundreds in New York; and being a New Yorker, as well as a lawyer of two years' standing, he prided himself on his studied and secure imperviousness to surprise.

The letter, however, that had come to him this bitter winter morning was certainly odd. "Hum!" he exclaimed. "Huh! Confounded curious that!"

He rose and, walking to the window, gazed speculatively over the extended spectacle of housetops, rivers, bay, and islands that his elevated position in a down-town sky-scraper gave him unobstructed command of.

But though he always had claimed this view to be the most inspiring in the world, it apparently offered no solution of his present difficulty, for after a moment he returned to his desk, and picking up the letter, perused it for the fourth, time.

" 'Hurley House!''' he read, " 'near Rumney, Grafton County, New Hampshire.' "

He touched a button on his desk, and a girl, dark and remarkably pretty, but brisk and businesslike, entered, notebook in hand.

"I'm not ready for the letters yet, Miss Carroll," said Hazzard, "but please sit down. I've just received a rather odd communication, and you may be able to help me."

The girl obeyed demurely, but there was a slight twinkle in her black eyes, almost veiled by heavy lashes. Hazzard's manner with her always amused her, there was so great a difference between his cold formality of address and the unmistakable adoration in his eyes.

"You are from New Hampshire, I believe?" he went on.

"From Plymouth," she admitted. There was a curiously thrilling quality in her rich, throaty contralto.

"That's in Grafton County, isn't it?" Hazzard continued. 'Is it anywhere near Rumney?"

The girl glanced up suddenly with a look that might almost be called alarm.

"Rumney?" she repeated. "Why, yes; there are two or three of them—  West Rumney, and Rumney Depot, and so forth. 'They are all about fifteen miles from Plymouth— northwest."

"This letter is from some one," began Hazzard, " who signs him or herself—  I can't make out which— Hope Hurley, of Hurley House. The name— why, what is it, Miss Carroll; are you ill?"

The girl had suddenly turned very pale, and uttered an exclamation, half fear, half astonishment, all horror.

"No! No!" she gasped, recovering herself with an effort. "How foolish of. me— I— I used to live near there— it startled me— old associations, you know. Please go on."

"No," he protested earnestly, "we'll drop the confounded thing — I'm terribly sorry, Miss Carroll— I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't," replied Miss Carroll gently, quite herself now. " It was only my silliness. Please go on, Mr. Hazzard; I am really anxious to hear the rest."

Hazzard looked at her doubtfully. "Well," he said reluctantly, "I'll read the letter. It really isn't so very mysterious— except in the directions, and the fact that it is addressed to me."

He took up the letter.

"Queer, cramped old hand, too," he added. "And I can't quite make out the signature; there seems to be a middle initial; an 'H' or 'S,' though it looks more like a small 'of.' It isn't clear like the rest." He began the letter:

Christopher Hazzard, Esq.,

Attorney at Law,

Singer Building, New York, 'N, Y.

Honored Sir:

Doubtless this communication from one you deem a stranger will surprise you; but believe me, my dear sir, you are not unknown to me, and I have reason to believe that I may trust you in a matter of great import to me.

It will be necessary for you to proceed at once to the above address; and I must caution you against mentioning my name or the name of Hurley House to any one, more especially in the neighborhood of Rumney.

Above all, neither write nor telegraph me.

You will proceed to Rumney, taking care to arrive there at night. Plainly visible from the depot is the church. In front of this church you will receive further directions.

The enclosed one hundred dollars is your retainer.

Let me urge upon you the necessity for haste, for my health is broken and I feel that I have not long to live.

Believe me your obedient servant,

Honor Hurley.

"I think it is 'of,' " he added, glancing up questioningly at Miss Carroll. Again he surprised the look of fear and horror on her face, and with an exclamation of regret he threw the letter impatiently on the desk.

"Plague the thing!" he said. "I shouldn't have troubled you with it!"

But Miss Carroll picked it up, eagerly examining it.

"Oh," she cried with suppressed excitement, " but I'm glad you did! I'm glad. He speaks of one hundred dollars?" she added interrogatively.

"A one-hundred- dollar bill," replied Hazzard. "Here it is."

The girl took the bill gingerly, as though loath to touch it, and laid it on a corner of the desk, looking at it curiously. "Don't— don't you notice anything odd about it?" she asked.

" Why, no," Hazzard returned slowly ; "it seems all right."

Miss Carroll took the bill and held it toward him.

"Look!" she said. "The date."

"Eighteen-sixty-one," he read slowly. " By Jove! Before the war!"

The girl looked at him, a strange wonder in her eyes.

"Yes," she said in a low voice; "the year that Jacob Hurley— 'The Hope of Hurley House'— died."

Hazzard stared at her in amazement.

" Died!" he exclaimed. ' Impossible! There must be a mistake. Surely," he smiled, "you don't think this letter is from a ghost?"

"I don't know what to think," replied the girl rather. dazedly. "It's all so queer. But— but I know Jacob Hurley is dead."

"But this isn't signed Jacob," began Hazzard. "Perhaps— Would you mind telling me all you know about it?" he interrupted himself. "Perhaps then I can see some light."

"I— I only know the story as I have heard it from my grandmother," replied Miss Carroll hesitatingly. "Jacob Hurley's father was the richest man in that part of New England. He owned the largest farm and considerable other property; and it was he who built Hurley House, which was considered a very grand place at the time.

"He had four sons, all fine boys, except Jacob, the youngest, who was a cripple— a hunchback. But, all within two years, the three eldest died, and Jacob, from being the least considered, became the first— the 'Hope of Hurley,' he was called.

"In his fifteenth year his mother died; and shortly after his father unexpectedly married again, and one son was born; a sturdy child, who was named Philip.

"Thus, from being the 'Hope of Hurley,' petted and made much of (on account of his prospects only, for, like many cripples, he was an evil-tempered, vindictive creature), Jacob returned to the unconsidered, hunchback, ignored and slighted, and receiving at the best, from his father as well as others, only contemptuous tolerance.

"Of course, he was bitter; and as the years passed, and Philip grew tall and straight, his father's idol, and popular with all, the bitterness increased to raging hatred. Then Philip married, and the girl he chose was the one Jacob had vainly wooed; and the last and bitterest stroke was when, at his father's death, he found himself absolutely ignored— left a penniless dependent on his half-brother's charity.

"Philip tried to do his best, but the position was almost impossible; he was a hot-tempered man, and more than once, when the hunchback's vindictive hatred had tried him beyond endurance, he had laid hands on him,

"One day nearly ten thousand dollars in currency, that Philip had drawn from the bank for some purpose, was missing, and he accused Jacob of the theft. There was a terrible quarrel, and after it the hunchback disappeared; later, what seemed to be part of a body and some of Jacob's clothing was found in the lime-kiln back of the house.

"Philip was arrested for his murder; but there was not sufficient evidence, and he was finally released; but every one believed him guilty; and though many considered his provocation, yet his friends and neighbors began to turn from him, or, what is more likely, he imagined they did.

"In any case, he and his young wife closed the house and left town. Then the war broke out, and, leaving his wife and baby in New York, Philip enlisted. Two years later he was killed.

"After that his wife and daughter returned, not to Hurley House, but. to Plymouth. The farm-land was rented, and they tried to rent the house also— but— it is silly, of course— but it had the reputation of being haunted, and they could get no tenants.

"It was said that at night lights were seen at the window, that the fires of the old lime-kiln were mysteriously kindled, and that a strange hunchback figure had been seen, waving his arms and dancing round the house. a

"Of course, it was all the imagination of the country people; but for many   years no one has been near enough to discover if the haunt is still there.  That is all there is to the story."

Hazzard studied the girl's flushed face thoughtfully.

"Hum!" he said at last. "You say Philip was married. Possibly my correspondent is a child of his— or of one of the older boys who died."

Miss Carroll shook her head decidedly.

"No," she answered. "Philip's only child was a girl. The boys who died were little more than children. There is no one else."

"But, my dear girl," insisted Hazzard, "there must be, unless this chap"— he tapped the letter— "is a rank impostor; and if so— why?

"My two years of practise, while sufficiently successful to keep the wolf from the door, have not been lucrative enough to tempt kidnapers, especially kidnapers with hundred-dollar retainers. The date of the bill is probably pure coincidence. I dare say there are a good many older notes than this in existence.

"And as to ghosts, they write letters for revenue only at spiritualistic séances. Anyway, I will keep the appointment."

"Oh, but you: must not!" cried Miss Carroll, seizing his arm in sudden terror. "Mr. Hazzard, you must not go! I— I don't know why I fear, but do not go to that terrible place!"

Hazzard laughed and patted the hand on his arm soothingly.

"Why, Miss Carroll," he said gaily, "I always thought you the most matter-of-fact person. Come! There won't be the least danger."

But the girl was very much in earnest.

"You must not go!" she repeated firmly. "Tell me you won't, Mr. Hazzard. Send back the money and don't go— for— for my sake!"

Hazzard suddenly possessed himself of the hand on his arm. "Do you mean that, Cecily?" he asked earnestly.

But the girl drew back, flushing slightly. "Please don't," she said gravely.

"We have settled all this before, and it isn't kind to take advantage of my anxiety."

"But why won't you marry me, Cecily?" Hazzard persisted, the letter forgotten. "There is no reason at all— if you love me."

"There is a reason," replied Miss Carroll gravely. "A reason which I at least consider sufficient to prevent my marrying you— or any other man. But," she added gently, "promise me you will not go."

Hazzard rose abruptly.

"I think you might tell me your reasons and allow me to judge," he said impatiently. "I'm going to take the midnight train to Boston, and go to Plymouth in the morning."

He strode angrily out of the office.

Hazzard's relations with his secretary were somewhat out of the ordinary, in the fact that Miss Carroll was an intimate school-friend of his sister's; and it was at the latter's request that he had given Cecily the position a year before (after her father's death), at a time when his practise did not absolutely warrant the luxury.

There was, as Hazzard said, no reason on earth why she should not marry him, if she loved him. Her repeated refusal to say whether she did or not, or to give any answer other than that there was an obstacle to her every marrying any one, he considered unfair and foolish.

ii

TRUE to his word, Hazzard took the midnight train to Boston and a morning train to Plymouth.

Miss Carroll had said nothing further of the letters, going about her secretarial duties with a gently reproachful silence that irritated her young employer greatly.

He arrived at Plymouth in the afternoon, waiting there for a train that would bring him to Rumney after dark ; so it was long after nine o'clock when he finally stood on the platform of Rumney Depot.

It was a cold, still night; and though there was no snow, the frozen ground
gleamed white and sparkling with frost under the December moon. Far up the road the tall spire of the church rose ghostly above the leafless trees, sentinels over the silent houses.

He had left his suit-case at the hotel in Plymouth, carrying with him only a stout stick; so, slipping his revolver into an outer pocket, he buttoned his fur coat closely round him and set off boldly toward the white spire.

In front of the church he paused, glancing sharply round.

No one was in sight, and only the weird rustling of the dried leaves beneath his feet disturbed the silence; for several moments he paced slowly up and down, still no one appeared.

Could it be possible, he thought, that the whole thing was a hoax— yet practical jokers of that sort did not spend money on their victims.

Suddenly from above him a volume of sound boomed forth, cleaving the still cold air like a cannon-shot, and for an instant his heart stood still; indeed, it was not until the second stroke that he realized that it was only the church clock striking ten.

He stood still, looking up at the clock's face, plainly visible in the moonlight, until the last reverberant stroke died away; then, as he was about to resume his pacing, a figure, squat and shapeless, detached itself from the shadow of the church and came toward him.

"I'd about given you up," began Hazzard, advancing.

At his first word the figure stopped short, its arms waving frantically above its head. Then, with a strange, wild cry, it sped swiftly up the white road.

Without a moment's hesitation Hazzard followed; he was uncertain whether the cry and motions were an invitation or not, but his curiosity was roused, and though the uncouth, bat-like figure set a rapid pace, he managed to keep it in sight for a mile or more, until, with another animal-like cry, it suddenly turned toward the side of the road and disappeared.

For a moment the. young lawyer was conscious of a distinctly unpleasant sensation. So far as he could see, the road ran straight before him, between high stone walls, bordering open fields, the only trees anywhere near being a grove upon a knoll some three or four hundred feet back from the road.

But as he reached the spot where the strange figure had disappeared, he saw that- there was a break of some twenty-five feet in the wall, and that a grass-grown but well-defined lane ran upward toward the knoll and grove, in the midst of which he now made out the black outlines of a great square house.

"Hurley House, I'll bet!" he exclaimed, and the next moment he was hurrying up the lane.

On nearer approach he saw that the house was a massive stone structure, set in an orchard of gnarled and twisted apple-trees. A wooden ell sagged away from it helplessly, and beyond, on the farther side, a great barn and half a dozen smaller outbuildings staggered drunken and broken -backed on their foundations.

It was a picturesque ruin, but, by moonlight, somewhat uncanny. The lower windows were all heavily shuttered, but, above, the black yawning spaces, from which the frames had long since rotted, stared at him unpleasantly, and the black shadows of the apple-trees, grotesque and misshapen, were grimly suggestive of many things.

But most oppressive of all, in this scene of desolation, was the silence; to his city-bred ears it seemed charged with some subtle mystery, brooding, watchful, almost alive.

Hazzard, however, was there for a purpose— he intended to discover who had written that letter, and if the person were in Hurley House, to have him or her out. So, taking a firm grip on his stick, he mounted the two huge slabs of granite that served as front steps and, lifting the iron latch, pushed against the heavy oaken door.

Somewhat to his surprise it gave easily, allowing a rush of musty, cellar-like air to escape. Feeling carefully with his stick for any rotten board, Hazzard cautiously entered.

Presently his foot struck against some article of furniture, and he paused, regretting that he had not had the forethought to bring at least a candle; fortunately he had plenty of matches.

"But even as he was in the act of striking one, a hand, cold and bony, seized his. Only for a fraction of a second did it retain its hold, and almost at once the match flared up. Hazzard held it high above his head.

It revealed nothing. Hazzard's hand trembled ever so slightly.

"Hallo!" he shouted. "Stop this funny business and show yourself, or I'll—"

The match burned his fingers, and he dropped it; but even as the darkness fell, he received a stinging slap in the face. This time he did not wait to light a match, but lashed out right and left in the darkness.

A low, mocking laugh from behind was his only answer, and as he turned he saw against the faint light that marked the open door a squat black figure glide silently out.

He sprang after it, and the next moment, tripping over something, he measured his length on the floor; and though he was up and out in a second, there was nothing in sight.

"Come back here, you imitation ghost!" he cried angrily; but there was no answer; so, with a muttered curse, he turned back into the house, this time carefully shutting the door behind him.

Then, lighting match after match, he began a systematic exploration of the house. Save for the moldy and mildewed furniture, the two front rooms were empty, and he found nothing unusual; but in one of the back rooms he came upon a closet, which was' locked; though the key was in the lock, it resisted his efforts with one hand, and to use both he was obliged to drop his match.

It was the work of a second to turn the key then; but scarcely had he opened the door, when there came a rush, an arm slipped around his neck, a hand closed upon his throat, and in a second he was struggling for his life.

In ordinary circumstances he would have been more than a match for the emaciated form pressed against him; but the attack was so sudden, the arm around his neck held him so close, the cutting off of his breath was so complete, that from the first he was practically helpless,

With all his remaining strength he fought. Round and round the room he dragged his adversary, knocking over chairs and other furniture, and crashing against walls. Still the creature clung, and second by second Hazzard felt himself growing weaker.

His temples seemed bursting, and flashes of lightning played before his eyes. Then suddenly there came a scream, and as with a last desperate effort he threw his assailant from him, a light flooded the room, and, staggering back, he saw in the doorway a girl— a girl in a long fur coat and fur cap, a lantern in one hand, and in the other a revolver.

Hazzard, his hand at his throat, stood staring at her, speechless between surprise and the choking he had received

"Cecily!' he' gasped at last.  "Cecily!"

"I followed you," she said simply.

"Who called Cecily?"

In their surprise both had almost forgotten Hazzard's antagonist, who had fallen to the floor as he had thrown him off. Now, as they looked, they saw that the fallen man was old; a tall, lean old man, with white hair and beard.

"Who called Cecily?" he repeated weakly. "Who are you?"

"Considering the way you attacked me," replied Hazzard grimly, " I think I hare the first call on questions; but as you are the elder, I'll tell you that I am Christopher Hazzard, of New York."

The old man looked up eagerly.

"Ah!" he said, "then I owe you an apology. I came here to get something before meeting you; but as I was leaving the door I was struck down by some ruffian, and when I recovered I was locked in that closet.

"I do not know how long I remained there. I was afraid to call out; and then I heard him— as I thought— and—"

"I see," interrupted Hazzard kindly. "But if you came to meet me, you must be—"

"I am—I am—" The old man hesitated. "It is fifty years since the old name has passed my lips. Even in writing to you I used his nickname. I am Philip Hurley."

With a quick motion Cecily set down the lantern and knelt by his side, resting the white head on her knee.

The old man tried to look at her, but the light was dim.

"I do not know who you are, my dear," he said softly, "but your touch is kind— now. It will do no harm for you to hear what I have to say. It is not much, Mr. Hazzard. Probably you know my story. I murdered my brother— yes, it is true.

"He had stolen ten thousand dollars from me, and I accused him of it; he admitted it, and said I had stolen all from him. I struck him— I was a powerful man then— and he fell. I found the money on him and took it, and then I found he was dead!

"We were close to the lime-kiln— I threw him in, and ran, ran, ran until my senses returned, and I came back to face it. Then, as I thought of my wife, I fought— denied it— and they set me free.

"But in every face I saw an accuser. I hid the money in this house, and with my wife I fled to New York.

"Then came the war— and in the second year I went to Libby Prison. When I was finally freed, I learned that I had been reported dead.

"Of my wife and child I could find no trace. For a whole year I searched; but the last scene of the war was on, and everything was in confusion, and I could not find them.

"Finally I gave them up as dead, assumed another name, and since then I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth. The curse of Cain was upon me."

He paused for a moment, his gaunt frame shaken by emotion.

"At last," he went on weakly, "the longing to see the old home overcame me, and I returned here last week, taking: lodgings in the village. No one knew me, of course, but I learned from the gossips that while my wife and child were dead, I had a grandchild, and, incidentally, that you and your sister, Mr. Hazzard, had been kind to her."

"I?" began Hazzard in surprise; but a gesture from Cecily silenced him.

"Then it occurred to me that she should have the ten thousand, which I had found intact," continued Hurley. "But I was ill— I felt I dared not take the journey to New York— for I feared I might die before I could return; and my dearest wish is that as she nurtured my youth, so may the bosom of the old Granite State receive my old bones.

"That is why I sent for you; and I went to the house to-night to get the money, which I had left where it was for safekeeping, intending to meet you before the church; but, as you know—"

He stopped, his eyes distending with sudden horror.

Through the open door aid come a Strange shape— squat and grotesque. It glided forward, its long arms waving, its skull-like head thrust forward on its skinny neck from between the humped shoulders.

Wicked it was; wicked in every lineament of the buzzard-like face, marked by every evil passion that brain can conceive.

For a moment it stood glaring— then a shriek of laughter rang through the room.

"Philip!" it cried. "The handsome Philip. Oh, you fool— you fool! I was not dead! I was not even stunned— Brother Philip— I fixed it all!  Ha ha!"

"For fifty years I have lived in the house you stole. For fifty years you have been a wanderer on the earth. How does it feel to wear the brand of Cain— on your soul, not on your brow— good Philip?

"Fifty years I have played ghost to frighten the fools away, and robbed their hen-roosts and their stores by night. I am not in the lime-kiln yet— good robber-brother— I am still the Hope of Hurley. Fifty years it has been mine— and now, to-night, it is mine still. Smell! Smell how it burns!"

He rushed to a window, dashed open the shutters, and sprang out.

"Come!" cried Hazzard hastily as curl of acrid smoke swept into the room. "He has fired the place!"

Together he and, Cecily assisted Philip Hurley out of the house, and from a safe distance they watched the hungry flames lick up the dry wood; and as the fire gained headway, they saw, too, the hump-backed dwarf, dancing like an evil spirit, hurling his taunts and curses at them.

In a sudden access of rage, Hazzard seized his stick and started for the uncanny figure that flitted in and out of the leaping shadows.

The hunchback saw him coming and, with a taunting laugh, turned to flee; but too late he: saw where he was; he strove to recover himself, slipped, and with a cry of rage toppled over into the caved-in kiln.

A few moments later Hazzard returned to the pair by the house. The old man was smiling softly.

"Let him go," he said. "He has wrought all the evil he can, and in his last act is only good. I shall not die now; I am at peace. Let him go."

"He has gone," said Hazzard; but he did not tell them that, on the piles of brick and mortar in the time-wrecked kiln, Jacob Hurley lay dead, his neck broken by a short ten-foot fall.

"I have been telling grandfather," said Cecily, and it was not wholly the flames of Hurley House that deepened her cheeks, "that he will soon have a new grandson as well as a granddaughter."

Hazzard stared from one to the other in blank amazement. "Granddaughter! " he gasped. "You? He?"

Cecily came to him.

"His daughter was my mother," she said gently.

A sudden light broke upon Hazard.

"Then, that is the reason you would not marry me before," he whispered.

She nodded half shyly.

"Would you have married the granddaughter of a fratricide?" she asked.

Hazzard took her suddenly in his arms, regardless of the soft smile of Philip Hurley.

"My dear," he said with grim tenderness, "I'd have married you if you had murdered your whole family."

______________________

18: The Sporting Chance

Harold Ward

1879-1950

10 Story Book, July 1934

HIRAM AKLEY and Martha Sneed had been "keeping company" for several months when Jabez Sneed's attempt to corner the agricultural implement market of Sac City terminated with disastrous results. When the wreckage was cleared away, Jabez found himself the owner of a house decorated with mortgages, a ledger filled with bad accounts and a pique against the world in general. Whereupon, he splattered his brains against one side of a newly papered bedroom with an old Colt's revolver, and his creditors started fighting over his assets before the undertaker had finished his. melancholy rites. He bequeathed to Martha his love, a thousand dollar insurance policy and a strain of sporting blood inherited from some longforgotten progenitor.

In spite of the fact that Hiram was the village cut-up, Martha loved him with old-fashioned devotion. She would have married him in a minute had he said the word. But, alas for her peace of mind, he never said it. Hiram, it was hinted, went to a leg— er— burlesque show every time he made his annual visit to New York to buy shoes for the Emporium, of which he was proprietor. Likewise, he oiled his hair, waxed his mustache, played penny-ante and chewed peppermint lozenges which, in Sac City, is Prima facie evidence that a man drinks whisky or eats onions. This accumulated mass of bucolic devilishness made Hiram the object of many a whispered conversation at sewing, society meetings and, incidentally, a man to be shunned by all Sac City maidens who hoped to preserve their unsullied reputations. Hence, Martha's association with Hiram ostracized her in Sac City and she found herself, upon the death of her father, alone in the world and seemingly doomed to a life of spinsterhood in a town where scandal-mongers make mountains out of mole hills over night.

Martha realized this. So did Hiram. In fact, he rather enjoyed his bad reputation. But Martha, being a wise damsel, knew, deep down in her heart, that Hiram was not, never had been and never would be a real, honest-to-gawd sport and she felt, if she once got the matrimonial hook in his gills, that she could straighten him up with a jerk. The trouble was to hook him. For Hiram was wise beyond his years and having broken her heart, as he supposed, turned his gaze towards a fluffy-haired blond from a nearby town.

If Martha had shriveled up and died of a dislocated heart, Hiram's cup of happiness would have been filled to overflowing; his reputation as a real goldarnit would have been made and all the girls in Sac City would have worked overtime flirting with him. But Martha was not an ordinary girl. She declined to shrivel. Besides, she was a regular reader of Zippy Stories and knew all the ropes. So while the town gossips were busily engaged in raking skeletons out of the fluffy-haired blond's closet, she cashed her insurance policy, pocketed the money and slipped away.

A month after her disappearance, Hiram received a letter from her telling him that she was in New York working twenty-four hours a day as a model for Rolf Armstrong, Norman Rockwell and other artistic lights. Hiram sat up and took notice. He had never thought Martha especially beautiful, but he realized that possibly familiarity bred contempt. He dug her photograph, done by Sac City's best photographer, out of his bureau drawer and inspected it carefully. Yes, he decided, she was pretty. Strange that he had never noticed it before. All of the sporting blood within him surged to the surface. Hiram, too, read Zippy Stories and he knew that models are the alpha and omega of naughtiness. He expected to make his annual pilgrimage to the city within a few weeks and he felt that his acquaintance with Martha would allow him to open the muffler and hit the high places in a way to astonish the natives. She might even visit a cabaret with him and all the blase New Yorkers would point him out and ask each other who the handsome man was over there in the corner with the pretty little model.

Martha's next play brought Hiram up standing. She sent him a photograph, decolette, bearing Sarony's imprint, "Merely one of the number of little studies for magazine covers," she wrote. "For your own personal inspection, only, for people back home are so funny, you know." She also suggested that, as it was nearly time for his annual trip to the city, he pay her a visit while in New York. Then followed several pages of gossip in which she told of prominent authors, illustrators and actors she met daily, of studio life and Bohemianism in general. Oh, Martha had Hiram going, all right. She knew that he would do just what he did do— seize the bit in his teeth, date his trip ahead two weeks and send her a wire that he was starting next day.

Hiram was so excited, upon his arrival, that he indulged in the unaccustomed luxury of a taxi and hastened to Martha's address. It was— or seemed to Hiram— a palace. An attendant in gorgeous raiment piloted him to an upper floor in a gilded cage, a dainty maid with a white cap and a French accent ushered him into Martha's presence. She was entertaining that evening, it seemed, for the apartment, half drawing room, half studio, was filled with people in evening dress. On a spacious balcony just outside, as Hiram could see by looking through a pair of half-opened Florentine doors, distinguished looking men chatted with equally distinguished looking women. Upon his entrance Martha gave a happy, excited little squeak and rushed towards him, arms outstretched, then, greetings over, she ushered him about the spacious room, introducing him to various celebrities of whom he had read— authors, artists, poets, musicians. Hiram was dazed. He gazed about the room, taking in the gold Spanish leather hangings, the rich curtains, the Sarouk rugs, the rich prints on the walls, the Sheraton chairs, after which he did some rapid mental arithmetic. Almost immediately the maid served refreshments from a tray and what Hiram took for an excellent grade of hard cider from a bottle. As the bubbles mounted to his head, he recovered rapidly from his bashfulness and in less than no time was cutting capers with Jake Lubert and Irvin Snobb. He even called David Selasco by his first name and danced a set with Lyndia Pinkham while Hank Wilstach played the piano. In fact, he was "feeling his oats," as they say in Sac City, when the party broke up and the guests took their departure. At Martha's request he remained until they had gone.

"Now," she demanded, as she snuggled down beside him on the settee, "tell me all about yourself and the folks back home."

Hiram's answer was an attempt to fold her in his arms, but she gently repulsed his advances.

He was surprised. "Why, I thought," he blurted out, "that all models—"

"Were immoral," Martha interrupted. "Well, I'm not."

Hiram did some more rapid calculating. He appraised the furnishings, Martha's gown, everything. She had never looked so radiant to him before. He realized, all of a sudden, that he wanted her. It may have been the bubbles going to his head, but that has nothing to do with this story. He turned upon her suddenly.

"Then, how the dickens," he exclaimed, "did you pay for all these things? These here rooms must rent for near a hundred dollars a month.

"A hundred a week," she returned, lazily.

"And you've got a hired girl—"

"I only pay Felice thirty dollars a week, Hiram."

"Thirty dollars a week for a hired girl that can't hardly speak English!" he shouted. His eyes blazed. "Martha, are you making this money honestly?"

"What do you mean?" she returned angrily.

"Nothing, only I've heard how they treat models here in New York and—"

"They pay well."

"But, Martha, you hadn't ought to be here in the city all alone, exposed to the temptations and everything. And you are so darned pretty, too. Why didn't you stay in Sac City and marry me?"

"Why, you never asked me, Hiram."

"Would you if I'd asked you?"

"I might have."

"Will you now?"

"There's a preacher lives down the street just a block," she answered, "and I've heard he keeps open all night, like everything else in New York."

TWO DAYS later, when the bubbles had cleared from Hiram's aching brain and he had completed his buying they were speeding homeward. For the first time since his arrival, he left her for a few minutes while he enjoyed a cigar in the smoking compartment. During his absence, she drew a small account book from her mesh bag and rapidly conned over the entries. The were itemized as follows:

She leaned back and meditated.

"Only fifty dollars left out of Dad's insurance. It's a good thing Hiram didn't postpone his trip until the usual time, or the money wouldn't have lasted. Well, it was a sporting chance and I took it." And she tossed the little book out of the open window.

_______________

19: White Lie

Lester Weil
fl 1934

10 Story Book July 1934

I can find out nothing about this author, and this seems to be his only published story— unless it is a pseudonym.

ONLY great people can make great mistakes. I would have laughed, five years ago,—I would not have believed the great white doctor could be so very wrong that he could cure misery. But when his error brought a blessing to the hated tabu that is Pala O’Sheil, even the brown sorcerers of our island raised an eyebrow of scorn.

I was going through the grove of banyan trees to the pool under the little water fall when I first saw Althea. My head, heavy with sadness, was bowed or I would have seen her long before I stepped on her few clothes, all silk and shining, lying near the edge of the water.

Her face was turned from me as she stood where the cool water falling from the rocks splashed down on the round shells that were her breasts. Her skin was so white. I stepped behind a miki bush and breathed heavily like a man running. White! I looked at my own body that was like the shadows between night and day. Half-white! The curse of the gods of Rua Maluri, my mother— as for the God of my Irish father, He too would have none of me. Nor I of Him.

I do not know how long I watched Althea as she dived and jumped about and swam there. Not as strong in her motions as our brown girls. But quieter, softer.

Her shoulders drooped like the branches of the Tao, and were not straight and high like those of our island women. When she stood on a rock to dive her hips were slender like a young cocoa palm— but so white. No color but her hair— rust gold like the sun when it dips down in the sea.

The sweet smell of some strange scent was blowing through my head. Did these women from far away rub themselves with fragrant oils as did our girls? Could any perfume of her carry to me there? Then I knew. It was from her thin silk things that lay near my feet. I crept to them on my stomach so she would not see me— for being white she has learned to hide always the beauty of her body. They were green, these clothes, green as the baby leaves of the hotu, but when I raised the heap of them to my nose the scent made my heart beat in my chest like the beating of bells in Father Benadotte’s mission. My brain was dancing as when I drink much kava. I buried my face in their soft smoothness.

The blood of Rua Maluri races through my flesh; had I stayed another moment the white men would have killed me for I was crazed enough for any folly. But I ran, ran as though ten devils were at my back. Nor did I stop until I had climbed high up into the mountain of Harnoa, where my hut is hidden like the nest of the little green dove. Where I can look down at last on the tiny valley and on the brown and white men who look down on me when I am with them.

I could not rest. All night that sweet smell was blowing in my head as I rolled on my mat. Next day I was down at the pool at the same time waiting for her— but she did not come. On the day after I awoke trembling and told myself I would not go. Yet I was there waiting, early in the morning. At last she came slowly to the edge of the stream, let her clothes slip off and fall at her feet, then stepped over them to slip into the cooling waters. When she saw me running to her she swam with much splashing to the other side of the pool.... But the race was short. As she reached the rocks on the other side I caught her tiny foot and pulled her back. Putting my arm around her waist I swam back with her to the bank. She tried to beat my face with her hands; that only made me laugh wildly. She was so short of breath and choked with water she scarce could scream.

Up the hills I scrambled with her sparkling body over my shoulder, jumping from rock to rock. She was so light and tiny. When finally we reached my bamboo hut I set her down on a mat of scarlet cocoanut fibre; she sat up with tears running down the sides of her nose.

“They will kill you for this,” she said, looking at me for the first time.

“You are right,” I answered, “but it does not matter.”

Then I got some figured tapa cloth, tore off a large piece and gave it to her to make a pareu. Eagerly she seized it and tied it in folds about her waist....

Most of the day she sat there in silence, only looking at me when I turned my eyes away from her. I put foods before her— taro, cocoanut meat, and a shell of pot poi—but she would touch none of it. She seemed to be lost in her thoughts, planning perhaps to get back to the valley. I asked her questions, who she was, why she was on our island, her name. She only shook her head and stared around the little hut with her wide eyes, green-gray as the mists of early morning. I was sorry for her, yet no power could have swayed me to take her back.

“You like music?” I asked, as the evening was coming. Without answer I got my guitar that my father had left me and sang for her all the native songs I knew. She seemed to rest easier then, perhaps she was no longer afraid I would roast her; perhaps she could hear in my songs how I was lonesome, lonesome— always so alone.

As darkness wrapped us she watched my every move, her eyes followed me while I lit some strings of candle-nuts hanging from the cross poles. At last she spoke.

“Play some more, please,” she said.

Her voice went into me like a knife, yet it was soft and pleasing. Something like a bird sound, only so very sad. Like a sadness that had been over her a long time. I sat with my legs under me and picked from the strings all the songs I knew. A few bits of the white man’s songs, too. She was thinking while she listened; I could feel the poor little thoughts flowing through her mind. We people of the island of Motu Nova have always taken our women, but the Irish in me was tearing at my heart. One by one the candle-nuts dropped their black ashes on the mats and fluttered out. As the last one threw shadows across our faces she drooped like a weary puppy and lay down. There was all darkness and I could hear nothing but her breath, like a wind sighing among the palms. Out under the stars I walked through the night, asking questions of the strange God of my father.

IN THE morning she spoke to me. “What shall I call you,” she said.

“My name is Pala O’Sheil,” I replied. She opened her eyes in surprise.

“You see, my father was Irish,” I added, “only my mother was of here.”

“They call me Althea,” was all she said.

But she ate heartily when I brought foods and roasted a little fish for her. She began to talk as she ate and seemed no longer afraid. I knew she was thinking of how to get away and her friendliness was to fool me. Sometimes I even caught her smile and although I knew she was pretending, yet it made me very glad. After breakfast I went off in the thickets as though I were leaving but quickly came back and hid behind a pandanus tree to watch her. Althea sat quietly for a long time. When at last she went into the hut she came out with a piece of printed cloth thrown over her pearly shoulders and looked around slowly. She had put on a pair of my sandals, but as they were much too large for her delicately shaped feet she had tied them on with some yellow reeds. I followed quietly as she darted down the mountain path around the rocks. After letting her get along a little way I appeared suddenly before her.

“Oh, I was just looking for some water,” she said as she stopped. “I— I wanted to wash.”

“Very well,” I answered, “I will take you to a stream nearby. It is not very different from that other one. And I should like to bathe, too.”

With a laugh I picked her up and carried her to where the mountain was split apart and where white waters splashed and swirled and dropped downward on their way to the valley. There were many large stones in the stream rounded smoothly by the rushing water. I showed Althea how to slide down in the current over and around them. Soon she was laughing too. Then we would creep out to the bank and walk up the hill together, to come whirling down again, she behind me, her tiny toes poking into my back, when at last she would fall in a heap on top of me as we slid over a bit of a falls into a pool below it.

Wearied after a while we stretched lazily on the bank and looked up into the drooping leaves of a breadfruit tree.

“And why do the natives hate you,” Althea asked.

“Because my mother was tabu,” I answered. “She was not allowed to have a child. She was a taupo in the village, a kind of sacred person, you know, whom no man may marry or even look upon with eyes of desire. They hate me, too, because I will not tattoo my face and body as they do.” I could feel blood warming my face as Althea looked over the whole large length of me.

“You were right,” she said, and then added, “You will take me back, won’t you?”

I looked at her. Something in her face made me want terribly to touch it.

“Althea,” I started, stumbling on my words, “I have never been happy before.” It seemed I was drowning in those gray-green eyes; the wind blew a wisp of bronze hair across her mouth.

“Poor lonely Pala,” she whispered. And she smiled and put her little hand slowly over mine, as though half afraid still.

“Tomorrow I will take you to the valley,” I told her. It hurt me to say it, I would rather have let the shark sink his teeth over my whole right arm. But I could not bear to make Althea sad, as I was. Then she crept to me and put her warm wet lips on my cheek and warm drops of water splashed down on my face from hers. As I held her my throat choked my breath. I could say no words.

That night was cruelly bitter sweet. I can still see her as she sat under the tiny torches, eyes shining with the thought of going back to her people in the morning, her face pink and smiling.

When I could forget the day to come I was filled with a burning joy. I played and Althea sang with me; her voice was clear and tender. And I told her long tales of the islands, of the battles and glories of my mother’s people, great fighters, all of them.

“What is it, Pala?’ she asked once when I had slipped into my sad thoughts again.

“I wish I could die tomorrow,” I answered, “life is heavy on me— it is not good.”

She looked at the mats and was still. When she spoke I could not believe her.

“I wish I were dead, too, Pala,” she said. “Some things are worse. If you only knew.”

“But you have all things,” I cried to her, “all the great gifts of my father’s people. You are white. White people could not be unhappy.” Althea laughed quietly in a strange way.

“Come, Pala, at least we have tonight for singing.”

And she began to sing fast little songs from across the seas with funny quick words. Soon I was trying to remember these songs— and forget that I was Pala.

They came for us just after dawn. The whites stayed outside and let the natives crawl up to the hut— no trouble in getting plenty who hated me enough— and they stank of the rum the whites had poured into them. For I carry my mother’s tabu, they would never harm me unless bribed and driven, I who am kept apart for the revenge only of the gods. Althea’s people took her, while the screaming islanders bound me with ropes of bamboo fibres. Then down the mountain— with me trussed up on crossbars and held aloft to be chanted at madly all the way to keep my evil spirit from strik ing them down. Althea did not come near me.

Back in the village I was slung up from the beams of the Ti, the long hut of sacred rites and weapons, where feet of women have never entered. All day the drums beat; rum and kava flowed. All day the dancing grew wilder while the white men winked and let the forbidden rites go on. All day they laughed hideously in my ears, while I stared sullenly at spears and knives thrust at my face with all their screeching. At last came darkness and the great fires.

I was not afraid to die. If only they would have shot me, decently. But there is an old law among our people, that to prevent a tabu from having revenge after death you must eat his brain. Yet I could not believe the whites would allow the old slow ritual of roasting to go on. The drums beating and beating in my ears was maddening....

As the moon came up outside the Ti where I was hanging, every one of the warriors was out there dancing fiercely around the fire; I knew they would come for me soon now—I was in a kind of stupor, but all I wished for was to have it over as quickly as possible. I heard a noise from the back of the hut as though a dog were trying to squeeze in through the upright stalks of the wall. Looking down I saw a shoulder push through.

“Althea!” I cried in a hoarse whisper, as her face, all pale and frightened, came through the opening. “You must not come here!”

She ran to me, climbed on one of the bamboo logs that was used as a headrest, and slashed at my bindings with a sharp knife.

“Be still, Pala,’ she whispered, “and listen quickly.”

“But this place is tabu, Althea. They will kill you too if they catch you.”

“The devil with their sacred tabus!” she went on as she kept cutting at my ropes. In a few moments she had sawed through all of them and I was on the ground stiff and reeling.

“Listen quickly, Pala,” she went on, “a canoe is waiting for you at the second little bay past the government store. It is filled with everything you will need.”

She pushed a paper bag in my hand; it was heavy.

“If they get close to you, pull the iron pegs out of these and throw them. No one will be able to follow you for they will be blinded by the gas. But keep far from the fumes yourself.”

Before I could answer she pulled my head down, kissed my lips quickly and was off, wriggling her small body through the opening in the back of the hut.

I looked at the balls of tin in the bag. They were strange to me but I had heard of this new weapon of the white man. They had been used on Coulao against the natives during a revolt of the copra workers. As I crawled quietly to the doorway I repeated Althea’s words. “Pull out the iron peg, throw them and run.” Ah, yes— but it would take more than this miracle to get through those howling devils.

Creeping on my stomach I squirmed my way to the outer circle of their fires. Their senses are unbelievably sharp, only their drunkeness could keep me from being seen or heard by at least one of them. Yet I believe I would have gotten past had they not gone in to bring me out to the flames. Then followed a terrific yelling while they scattered about looking and listening. As a few of them got close enough to reach I pulled the pin from one of the tin balls and threw it into the group with all my strength. The effect was magical; I felt like shouting, my body was strong again. I did not stop long to watch them scream and writhe with pain as they were choked and blinded but ran on as fast as I could through the tangled vines and umbrella ferns. But I was not yet clear of them. Somehow a new group got through the gas; they now knew which way I was running. And they began to gain on me rapidly for I was not yet entirely well from the binding ropes, nor had I food or water since the night before. When they were almost upon me, I feared I too would be blinded if I threw another ball. Yet I pulled the peg and let them have it, closing my eyes and holding my breath as I struggled to get away from the gas. I stumbled and fell on my face, expecting to feel them pounce on me. But their screams told me I was now safe, so I crawled out of danger of the fumes and hurried as fast as possible to the bay.

The outrigger canoe was drawn up on the beach in the little cove and Althea had put plenty of food and water in it. Pushing off and jumping in I paddled out past the surf breakers, deciding meanwhile to head up the shore toward the tiny island of Takarao, which is rich in breadfruit trees as well as mango, limes and taro. After tonight I felt sure my people would never trouble me again; the gas must have seemed a just punishment to them for breaking the tabu that protected me. My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of another canoe which suddenly put out from a small bay just ahead of me. Someone was trying to head me off; I still had two gas balls left so I snatched one and set myself to land it in the other canoe when it came close enough. My hand was drawn back.... I heard a voice shout, “Pala!”

“Althea !” I cried, my voiced filled with wild happiness.

I thought she had paddled out to say goodbye; instead she made me help her into my boat, fasten the other at the stern while she sat in the bow and helped me paddle.

“Do not talk with me about it now,” she threw over her shoulder. “Tomorrow you will take me— where I will tell you, but now get away quickly.”

I did not understand, but together we pushed on, resting when we needed, till the dawn found us at Takarao.

Althea was strangely quiet. She kept her eyes away from me and stared down the hill through the trees, down there in the still water of the lagoon where our canoes were drawn up on the sand. We had finished our breakfast of fruits and cocoanut milk.

“Are you too weary to take me there— before the sun goes down?” she asked.

“I am very tired. Where, Althea?”

She was silent. Then she seemed to be talking to herself.

“Oh, it is worse than death— if only I could die now. But the great doctor said it would come slowly.”

“What is it, Althea— what cloud is over you?” I took her hand. She pulled it away from me trembling.

“When you are rested, Pala,” she whispered, “you will take me to... Pokinaru.”

“The leper colony!” I gasped. I can see her now shaking her head in terror, green eyes wide against the paleness of her skin. Her lips moved repeating my words. Scarcely can I recall what I did or said.... she must have thought me quite mad.

“For the love of God have pity on me, Pala..."

Then I found myself on my knees, praying for the first time to the One I had cursed. And in my thankfulness, my eyes that had burned in dry scorn before the tortures of my people were wet with tears. And I did not care.

“Can’t you see, dear Althea,” I said at last as I put my arms around her, “our shadows have met and vanished— we are in the sun now.”

She seemed not to hear. “Why do you think I came to these islands?” she mumbled.” When they read my note at the mission they will know too. I could not tell them, I hoped and hoped it was not so.” Her voice was dull. “They will be glad to have me out of the way. Yes— tonight you must take me—there.”

“I swear I will kill myself if you go,” I cried. “Oh, I love you so!”

“I, too, Pala— that is why we go to Pokinaru tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow has never come, it is always today.”

“I will make you hideous. Your fine strong body— ah no.”

“We have souls— one can live forever in one sweet month— a year perhaps.” I lifted her small form in my arms.

“Your lips burn me dear Pala, but it is the kiss of death.”

“Of life, Althea. Come, we will pull candle-nuts for our altar. When I bring Pere Benadotte here tomorrow he will say, ‘Ah, my boy, have I not always said you would come to the faith of your father?’ And the good priest will laugh.”

“Perhaps, Pala,” she whispered as she pressed her lips to my ear, “we too can laugh then—a little while.”

“Look!” I cried, and I turned her toward the sea. A school of porpoises were playing about on the top of the waters close in to the shore, which is ever an omen of good fortune.

Only great people can make great mistakes. I would have laughed five years ago— I would not have believed the great white doctor could be so very wrong that he could cure misery. But when his error brought a blessing to the hated tabu that is Pala O’Sheil, even the brown sorcerers of our islands raised an eyebrow of scorn.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: The Hunchback of the Casentino / Ida Warner MacLean

- 2: The Unexpected / K. and J. Arnold
- 3: Giles Haggerston's Ward / Annie S. Swan
- 4: Blasphemers' Plateau / Alexander Snyder

- 5: The Feline Light and Power Company is Organised / Jacque Morgan

- 6: The Thing From the Grave / Harold Ward
- 7: Dibbs, R.N. / Gilbert Parker
- 8: Lynch Law / Anonymous
- 9: Two Reflections / Chris Sewell
- 10: The Laughing Death / Stephen G. Hale
- 11: Frame-Up / Gary Robson
- 12: Bootlegger’s Luck / B. M. Bower
- 13: Dixon's Romance / Ottwell Binns
- 14: Badger / Winifred Graham
- 15: La Haute Finance / Richard Marsh
- 16: A Spirit Elopement / Richard Dehan
- 17: The Hope of Hurley /
- 18: The Sporting Chance / Harold Ward
- 19: White Lie / Lester Weil