This Chart Will Give You a Jolt

THIS chart will give you an unpleasant sensation: but look at it just the same.

Disregard the shaded portion: that refers to England and Wales.

The black portion shows the death rate at various ages in New Jersey and Massachusetts—two representative States.

Study that black portion. In infancy, you see, it is very low. that means a decreased death rate due to Better Baby campaigns, pure milk stations, etc.

But notice how, at the age of forty-four, the black portion begins to mount by leaps and bounds.

What does that mean?

It means that in this country men are dying middle age. We are saving men from croup and killing them by Bright's disease. We are preserving their lives at the time when their worth is least, and letting them slaughter themselves in their prime, when their worth to themselves and the State is greatest.

The chart spells two words—Hurry and Worry.

The human body is a self-repairing machine. The tissues that are worn out during the day's work will, under normal conditions, be restored by the night's sleep.

But the wear and tear that Worry and Hurry inflict on the body can not be repaired so quickly. When you run for a car your heart action is speeded up; your blood pressure is increased; your arteries are hardened a bit.

Now, your arteries will stand just so much hardening and no more. When they grow too hard, you die.

When you get angry, when you worry, your digestive processes are affected; the various secretions of the body are stimulated; and added burden is thrown on the house-cleaning organs. These organs will stand just so much burden and no more. When the burden grows too heavy, when the body is clogged with waste matter that can not be eliminated, you die.

That is the meaning of this chart.

Cut it out and paste it up over your desk.

Look up at it at once in a while and ask yourself:

"What good is the hurry if I am going to kill myself at forty-five?"

"Is this thing that I am worrying about so important that I can afford to let it shorten my life?"

"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and die thirty years before his time?"

One Woman's Story

SOMEBODY has called it a social industrial romance—the life story, up to date, of Zaidee Lord Murphy.

The social part came first when, not so long ago, Mrs. Murphy might be discovered during the shopping hours on Fifth Avenue, spending a part of her $7000 a year dress allowance. Besides being a generous patron of the most exclusive shoppers, Mrs. Murphy was known as the vivacious descendent of Abigail Adams and Priscilla, of the good though crowded ship Mayflower, the granddaughter of the multi-millionaire Thomas Hicks, and the wife of a prominent Wall Street broker.

Then came the sudden death of Mr. Murphy, together with the knowledge that there was no money in the bank and that there was a baby on the way.

And now comes the real story. For the chief attributes of the Mrs. Murphy that New York society knew—her ancestry, her costumes, and the rest—had been, as the children say, "wished on her." The new Zaidee Lord Murphy is the product of her own courage and initiative and brilliant inventiveness.

"I had painted water-color place-cards and menus which friends declared more original and artistic than they could buy in the shops," explains Zaidee Lord Murphy, in her picturesque studio shop. "It was this friendly praise that gave me the idea. I learned, through the young woman who had previously handled my designs,—I had sold them occasionally for pin-money,—that there was a place in New York for the novelty shop I had thought of. Then, also, came the discovery that the head of the manufacturing department of a famous toy house was opportunely dissatisfied with his job. The situation heartened me to go into Wall Street, where capital was raised and the company incorporated of which I am the president. The saleswoman and the toy man, whose sympathetic coöperation gave me the courage to strike out for myself, are treasurer-secretary and vice-president. Each has a salary and an interest in the business.

"For two years," she admits, "I have furnished the ideas that made the shop a go. It would hurt me to buy ideas elsewhere. There is the papier-mâché birdcage I introduced as a dance favor. The success of this design led to a demand, and it was not long before the department-stores had them—less artistic, less expensive, but—bird-cages!"

Society Willing to Pay

Society, Mrs. Murphy finds, is willing to pay handsomely for novelty. Born and bred to its whims and fancies, rich in its inherited traditions, this clever gentlewoman anticipates society's wants. Herein is her unique asset as a business woman.

An illustrated birthday candle, thirty-six inches in height, with the most notable event of each decade of the host's or hostess's life reproduced in water-color down to the date of the fête celebrated, is another of her devices.

Her most ambitious feat was a dinner of Mr. James B. Regan's. The table, which covered three rooms, was, in deference to the ruling passion of host and guests, a veritable golf course. The menu was in golf terms. Knives, forks, and spoons were done up in brown golf-bags.

The basement of Mrs. Murphy's shop is confined to the making of children's toys.

"War, as a subject, has no place in our output," declares the proprietor; "for our aim is constructive education and entertainment." Numbers of "cotton kits" for knapsacks and war baby layettes have gone out from the little shop to the war zone.

Zaidee Lord Murphy is never encountered, in workshop or sales-room, without a chic hat, snugly veiled, and a smart gown concealed by a blue denim jumper. "From overalls to glad rags—in the interest of business," she will tell you, is her continuous rôle.

Making Train Robbery Unhealthy

By EDWARD HUNGERFORD

IN the gray hour that immediately precedes the breaking of the dawn, two masked men halted the Overland express. At the point of the rifle they forced the engineer and the fireman to detach the locomotive and the express car from the train and to run forward out of the shadows of a near-by wood. Then they entered the express car through its "blind end," and, catching the messenger off his guard, looted it at their leisure. And what loot! Fifty-two thousand dollars in gold was the rare prize that the bandits threw out of the broad center door of that express car.

In all the history of train robbers, no other one had succeeded in capturing so rare a prize as this. Measured by mere weight, it passed two hundred pounds. It was a troublesome haul because of this very fact. And, after the bandits, coolheaded in their hour of success, succeeded in getting their two-hundred-weight treasure out of the car and the train on its way again down the valley, they were troubled to know how to carry it. Sacramento was but a few miles distant. In an hour it would be known in that capital town that the Central Pacific Overland express had been held up and robbed; posses would be organizing; the outraged law of the State of California would slowly begin to assert itself.

So, as the gray fog gave way to the dim outlines of early morning, the two men dug a deep hole not far from the point where they had held up the train. Into this hole they dropped their plunder, quickly covering it again with soft, fresh earth. They marked the place in their memory, sprang quickly to their horses, and rode away into the gray. And, as they did so, a man came out of the fog and began feverishly scraping at the top of the soft, fresh earth.

If California considered that its reputation for law and decency had been violated, how about Wells, Fargo & Company, whose express lines radiated the entire State? For more than forty years it had been said throughout the West that there were two dangerous institutions for bad men to tinker with—the Federal government and Wells Fargo. This Sacramento robbery did not chance to be the government's affair. But it was decidedly Wells Fargo's. Moreover, it marked a sort of climax in a series of bad train robberies. Within a comparatively few months two of the express company's messengers had been killed in defense of its treasure. And this, coming hard upon the heels of those two offenses, was the last straw.

"It's a job for Captain Hume," said the express people. "It's the biggest job he has ever had to tackle." And they knew, when they said it, that the veteran head of the secret service had tackled some pretty big jobs. On one notable occasion he had traced an absconding cashier to a desolate island in the South Sea islands. There the cashier had laughed at the detective. For he was safe—there was no extradition law there; he had the money in gold bags, and with it he had married the princess of the island and had been crowned its king. But Wells Fargo, in the person of Captain James Hume, did not laugh. It watched the absconder, at the point where he was extradition-proof. Hume watched him as a cat watches a rat- hole. He was waiting for him to come out. In the long run Captain Hume lost. The rat never came out. He spent his gold, and the queen went elsewhere. He drifted low, even as the low standards of the South Sea islands go. And he died in a raging fever, a derelict beach-comber, realizing for the first time that he had spent thirty-two years on a forlorn island, a veritable prisoner, denied even the association of white men.

A Great Detective

JAMES HUME was one of the great detectives whose biography has never been written. He would have preferred that it be not written. He never craved notoriety. He was not dramatic. But his memory was long-reaching, and when he got hold of a man he never let go. It was because of Hume, and of the bull-dog tactics of Johnnie Thacker, his associate, that when they buried a bandit out in the West they put upon his wooden slab his name and then marked underneath the cryptic legend: "Wells Fargo never forgets."

Captain Hume caught the two men who had looted the Central Pacific train near Sacramento—one might almost say, of course. After a safe lapse of time they had returned to dig out their treasure. They dug in every direction, but they did not find it. They returned again and dug again. But the gold was gone. It was irretrievably gone. When the bandits finally realized that, they fell back on their profession once again. After all, there were other trains, other express cars laden with golden opportunities. It was one of these that they held up a few months later—not far from Redding, California.

This was to be a complete job. While one man tackled the express car, the other wandered into the sleepers. The passengers tumbled out of their berths, held up their hands, and consented to a removal of their watches and their wallets. That is, all the passengers save one consented to the performance. This man—he was the sort that novelists like to describe as a "big, upstanding man"—said that he would die in his boots rather than surrender to any outlaw. He was the sheriff of Tehama County and he had a reputation to sustain. In the end he sustained his reputation—and he died with his boots on, right there in the aisle of the Pullman sleeping-car. But the outlaw who had killed him paid the price before he ever left the car. The rest of the passengers took courage from the sheriff, and they fell upon the murderer and filled his body with bullets. The other thief heard the commotion in the sleeping-car, and rode off into the brake, leaving his booty.

They sent down to San Francisco by telegraph for Captain Hume, and he came hurrying up to Redding on a special train. For three days he rode off into the brake, alone, in search of the other bandit. When he returned, it was with the bandit's body—and this confession:

"That gold from the C.P.'s gone," gasped the bandit. "We haven't it."

"Of course," had been Captain Hume's laconic response. "We've got it."

Jesse James' Predecessor

BY a slow, laborious, painstaking method of piecing together clues, Captain Hume had found the man who rose out of the gray that morning as the bandits rode off. This man was a hobo—a man who slept his nights under the California stars and who measured off the railroad miles as his daily walking expedition. By pure luck he had chanced upon the hold-up; and he had carefully removed the gold to a biding-place of his own. But, before he could spend more than a fraction of his suddenly acquired wealth, Captain Hume's long fingers were upon him. The inscrutable mental processes of the Wells Fargo chief of secret service had again proved unfailing. And the company's reputation, gained in the days when it operated and protected more than two thousand stage-coaches, had been maintained.

This was something more than twenty years ago. It marked the practical ending of train robbery in California. The sport had been made unhealthy in the Golden State. But there were places, to the east, where it seemed to be alive and thriving. In northern Missouri, for instance, train robbery had been almost a recognized industry since the days of the Civil War, when a man named Bill Anderson had held the entire countryside terrorized for months at a time. Anderson was train robber and much more. He and his gang fought several battles with United States troops—on one occasion meeting two hundred regulars sent to capture them and leaving but thirteen to tell the story. The James Brothers (Frank and Jesse) and the Younger Boys shared some of his exploits in the closing days of his notoriety and succeeded him. For after he was finally gone, his body literally riddled with bullets by the troops sent to catch him, the men of the black flag still terrorized the country along the banks of the lower Missouri. For a time their record ran high.

Their successors in the ungentle art of holding up and robbing trains were a group of men known as the Dalton gang. For forty-five months they successfully stood off the law. They had the little towns

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It was Wells Fargo that was finally given the job of cleaning up this gang. It was a big job. Train robberies in the infected territory were averaging one a month, and the men who committed them were almost invariably getting away. One Santa Fe train was robbed three times at a single station within eighteen months. But before the special officers were done with their work the score told the story. There had been eighty-three men concerned in this carnival of train robbery. Of these thirty-nine were sent to the penitentiary, forty-four to their graves. Not one escaped.

Most of the original Dalton gang perished in an attempt to rob the two banks of Coffeyville, in the broad daylight of a September morning. It was a bloody rout—twenty minutes of fighting in the streets of the Kansas town and eleven dead men lying on the pavements, four of them members of the five original Daltons who had ridden in at ten o'clock in the morning to make a clean haul of two fat banks.

The Daltons had their imitators and their successors. For instance, there was the Doolin gang, and the Bill Cook gang, made up among others of the aforesaid Bill Cook, a bandit known as "Skeeter," and one Cherokee Bill, whose ancestry was divided into four quarters—Creek, negro, Chickasaw, and white—and of whom it was said that he combined in a singular degree all the vices of the four peoples and none of their virtues. That is, unless you call sheer bravery a virtue; for Cherokee Bill knew not fear.

Ike Rogers will tell you that. Ike Rogers threw up his peaceful job of tending cattle ordinary days and acting as United States marshal on Fourth of July and circus days to help the express company get hold of Cherokee Bill. For the company itched to get hold of him. In the beginning the Cook gang had operated only against banks and stores; it finally decided to tackle Wells Fargo.

Dolf Chapman was the man who rode the express car down the Santa Fe the night chosen by the gang. Dolf was on a sharp lookout, partly because that was his nature, but more particularly because he had an envelop with $2000 in currency consigned to the new bank at Guthrie. But it was while he was getting his freight ready to go off at Red Rock that the Cook gang "got" him. He threw up his hands, dropping his way-bill book to the floor quietly as he did so. Tremblingly he unlocked his safe. The bandits took out sixteen dollars and eighty cents, kicked Chapman down as an evidence of their hearty feeling in the matter, and left the car cursing. But when Chapman came to his feet it was with a grin. For there in the pages of his book was the envelop containing" the $2000 in nice new bills which he had contrived to save for his company.

Of course $16.80 was no king's ransom, but the principle involved was large. The company traced down Cook and sent him to the penitentiary. And then it turned its attention to Cherokee Bill. It enlisted, as we have just said, the services of Ike Rogers. Only, of course, no one knew that. Ike's friends thought that a good man was going bad. It was rumored that he was beginning to drink and to steal cattle, and then it was said that they had taken his United States marshal's badge away from him. Nor did the Federal authorities stop there. They shoved a few indictments against him for the contemptible crime of cattle-stealing, and Ike was relegated to the companionship of thieves and outlaws. In the course of a short time he came to know Cherokee Bill.

Ike Rogers came to know Cherokee Bill well. He slept alone with him in an abandoned ranch-house. That is, Ike pretended to sleep. He used to lie there on his bunk in the half-light of a dying fire and sometimes rise to see if Cherokee slept. But every time he arose he saw the bandit's opened eyes, the gleam of the firelight along the barrel of his pointed rifle. Yet Ike knew that his opportunity would come. And when it did come it was in an unexpected fashion. The two men had breakfasted, as was their custom, in silence and with their guns pointed at each other. But Cherokee Bill had an itching for a cigarette. Moreover, he was beginning to trust Ike Rogers.

For an instant he rested his gun, went over to the fireplace, and knelt down to pick up a live coal to light his cigarette. In that instant a gust of March wind blew the smoke of the fire into Cherokee's eyes. The half-breed sneezed and coughed in the blinding smoke. Then he groaned. His companion had clubbed him over the head. Before he could get his senses back Rogers had hog-tied him, had carted off his guns, and was calling upon a farmer driving by on a distant road to help.

Bravery of Some Express Messengers

A GOOD deal of credit goes to the individual bravery of the express messengers. Four years ago a messenger named Trousdale was working in his car in the still watches of the night, in the desolate country between San Antonio and El Paso, when he was ordered "Hands up!" by a man armed with a Winchester. The man's companion had the entire train crew huddled at the front of the train, and at the point of a gun he was forcing the engine crew to uncouple the express-car from the rest of the train.

Trousdale submitted so meekly to the bandits that he disarmed their suspicion. He remarked to the man who stood guard over him that he was not paid to fight armed men bare-handed and he did not care what was stolen. The robber laughed and crossed toward the far end of the car. As he did so he unintentionally stepped closer to the messenger, causing him to brush up against a crate of oysters that was lying opened near the side door of the car. On the top of the crate rested a mallet used for breaking ice. Trousdale saw his chance. He asked the robber to reach for a package that rested on the floor—remarking that it was valuable. The robber bent for the package. He never straightened again. For the express messenger brought the heavy ice mallet down upon the top of his skull.

Trousdale still had another antagonist. He caught up his rifle and his revolver, extinguished the lights in the car—and waited. It was two hours before the robber came climbing into the darkened car, and began calling for his partner. The answer was a rifle-shot. Trousdale's aim with the rifle was as good as it had been with the mallet, and train robbery in the Southwest was made unhealthy for a number of years to come.

It was one of these cool-headed, iron-nerved express messengers who invented a little mechanical device some years ago which he at once called the "train-robber eradicator." It consisted of a short "L-shaped" gas-pipe extending through the floor of the car and down under it. When the messenger was suspicious of trouble, all he had to do was to extinguish the lamps in his car and drop a lighted signal fuse down into the pipe. It flared with a brilliant white flame which illuminated the space under the car and around it, while the messenger in the open door was left in darkness. The "eradicator" helped wipe out the train robber's profession.

There have been other contributing causes, of course—not the least of them the telephone and the automobile. But these things, after all, are only mechanical. The great factors in the all but entire elimination of the train robber west of the Mississippi have been the unending courage, the strength, and the ready wit of the men who guard the treasure-cars of the mail and the express.

The Troubles of a Handsome Man

By ADA PATTERSON

"REPUTATION for good looks is a curse to a man."

Hamilton Revelle told me this. Mr. Revelle is ranked by authorities as "the handsomest actor in the world." Instead of enjoying his reputation as a twentieth-century Apollo, he resents it; quarrels with it; even—far from petticoated presence, of course—swears about it. He told me the mournful story of the man who is accounted a professional beauty. Great are the woes thereof.

First and foremost, according to Mr. Revelle, is that to the popular mind beauty is invariably accompanied by brainlessness.

"I don't blame people for thinking so," complains handsome Mr. Revelle. "I do myself. When I happen to be sitting with the audience in a theater, or when I see an exceptionally stunning expert tangoist at a ball or a cabaret, I always settle back doggedly with a 'show me' feeling and manner. Like all the rest of the world, I assume that because he has straight features, a clear complexion, a figure conforming to the inverted wedge model, and a wave (more or less natural) in his hair, nature has endowed him with no other gifts. I suspect that his head is a resounding vacuum. Prejudice against the handsome man is deep.

"As surely as the handsome man is judged to be brainless, he is ranked as conceited. This prevents his making friends. I—who believe myself anything but handsome and who hate to see my mug reflected in the looking-glass, yet have had the trade-mark of good looks branded upon me—have missed many friendships that I would otherwise have enjoyed. People, at mention of my name, have said: 'Hamilton Revelle? I don't want to meet him. He is probably the usual senseless, conceited ass that all pretty men are.'

"Miss Russell has told me that it is hard work to be a beauty, and she is right. Mind you, I don't admit that I am good-looking. God bless Leichner! He is the man who invented grease-paint, you know. He is the actors' friend. By his magic, one transforms a plain man or woman into a semblance of beauty. What Miss Russell meant by saying, 'It is hard work to be a beauty,' I put in different form: 'It is hard to live up to one's retouched photograph' ; or, as I heard a star say, 'It is hard to live up to your lithograph.'

"It is hard work to be rated as handsome, in the popular opinion, because one must never appear in public looking anything but one's best. My valet, Henry, is my master. He is a funny fellow and reeks with candor. He will say to me in the morning, 'I would sleep another hour if I were you. You are looking old to-day.' He won't let me wear an old coat to which I am deeply attached outside my studio.

"I may say to him, 'But, Henry, I am I only going on Fourteenth Street.'

"He will answer sternly, 'But you don't know whom you may meet.'"

"One must give time to handsomeness?" I suggested.

"One must give time to keeping thin," he answered. "I have had to lose twenty-one pounds recently. I did it by refraining from all but two meals a day, and those light ones. Every morning I do absurd exercises for ten minutes, so that no manager or matinee maid will say, 'He is getting fat.'

He Must Live Up to His Looks

"A SO-CALLED handsome man has to live up to his most picturesque moments. When I played in 'The Rose of the Rancho,' you remember, I wore the colorful, picturesque costume of a Spaniard. One afternoon I came out of the theater with Miss Starr. A double line of girls had formed outside the stage door, most of them, I suppose, to see Miss Starr. When the stage door closed with a bang, I got a mental bang. For one of the girls, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, said on seeing me: 'My Gawd, that's him!'

"Do you know what the aim and hope of every so-called handsome man is? It is that he may soon grow old, so that he may wear ancient clothes and aged shoes as much as he likes. You saw 'Years of Discretion'? You remember in the last act how comfortably the hero settles down in his old clothes? I found great joy in that scene. For me, 'that is the life.'"

The Night Run

By GRACE SARTWELL MASON

Illustrations by Robert Amick

WHEN the train pulled out of Franklin at eight-forty-five, the first snow-storm of the winter was settling down to business.

The conductor, craning his neck out from the steps of the smoker as the car slid past the telegrapher's bow-window, received a wet portion of the storm beneath his collar, and growled under his breath.

He was beginning to dread winter-station platforms six inches deep in slush, trampled snow on the car-steps, aisle mattings wet from tracked-in snow, in every coach a reek of damp woolen garments, of rubber and leather scorching against the steam-pipes, of unaired humanity. It was no fit job for an old man subject to lumbago and rheumatism, he thought.

Opening the door of the smoking-car, he went in. He thrust his right arm through the ring of his lantern, cuddling it against his side, and took out his ticket-punch. The inadequate lamps showed his face—close-mouthed, seamed, and rugged; in every wrinkle tolerant with the humorous, grim tolerance of a man that every day comes close to the weaknesses of human nature, and every day knows them redeemed by courage or loyalty or pity.

On the grinding platforms between the smoker and the next car behind, he met the trainman.

"Charley," he said in his terse voice of authority, "wake up the young fellow—light overcoat—middle of the car back there. See he gets off at Mead. Old Griffin's boy. Been up to Buffalo. Soused. Young fool. Help him off."

He went on into the ladies' coach.

The car was badly lighted, and the air was heavy. The car swayed drearily, and the occupants of its gritty red velvet seats swayed with it, benumbed, in a state of soggy weariness. On the right-hand side of the car, a few seats from the rear, he came to the only woman passenger that had got on at Franklin. Rather absentmindedly,—for he was thinking how the snow always drifted on the Fishbasket grade,—he held out his hand for the ticket.

"I—I haven't a ticket," her voice came up to him.

He brought his mind and his gaze back to his passenger. She had peeled off her glove, and he saw her slim white hand fumbling in her wrist-bag. "I didn't have time to get a ticket at Franklin. How much will it be?"

"Where to?"

"Oh!" She gave a little nervous laugh, and then he noticed that the hand that held the purse was trembling. "To Centerville Junction, please. How much?"

"A dollar eighty-five," returned the conductor.

He shifted the lantern slightly, and it flashed from his passenger's hands to her face. The conductor's eyes grew keen with surprise.

"'Evening, Lois!" he exclaimed. "Didn't know you. Don't often see you going this way."

His passenger gave a start and looked up at him, jerking her head back as if he had startled her beyond control. The stark light of the clean, bright lantern fell upon her young girl's face. The lips were parted a little and the eyes wide with confusion.

"Oh!" she gasped; and added, stammering: "How do you do, Mr. Jackson? I—didn't—know you were on this train!"

"Have the night run just now," said the conductor pleasantly. And through his brain flashed: "Scared! Up to something. What's she going to the Junction for?" Then aloud he asked, poising his punch: "Return, Miss Lois?"

"No; one way," she said in a low tone.

"What! Not leaving us for good?" the conductor chuckled genially.

He punched the receipt slip very deliberately, and, still retaining it in his hand, he leaned his right elbow upon the back of the seat ahead. The lantern flooded her with light. It showed her shrinking against the velvet back of the seat, a slender, daintily dressed young girl, pretty as a flower, with a primrose fluff of hair glinting under a black velvet hat—and a piteous embarrassment in her face. On the seat beside her was an expensive traveling bag.

"What'll your grandpa do without you?" the conductor went on conversationally.

The girl's face quivered. She nervously fingered the clasp of her bag, moistening her lips with her tongue as if they were parched. Before she could answer the conductor's attention was diverted. He knew by the motion of his train that they had reached the curve where the road crossed the Allegheny, and he went ahead to the platform; for Charley, the trainman, was new to the run and required frequent prompting.

WHEN they had made the bridge and were getting up speed again, the conductor turned over the first seat of the smoker, and began to arrange his tickets in piles, as if he were going to have a game of solitaire. His broad back bowed over the task, but his hands moved slower and slower, his eyes fastening themselves on the slip of paper in his hands. It indicated that one cash fare had been paid to Centerville Junction.

"What's she scared of?" he thought. "If it was any other girl than the Judge's granddaughter, I'd know she was up to something—something she hadn't ought to be doing."

Presently, impelled by a curious, vague, irritating worry, the conductor strolled back to the ladies' coach. He walked rather fussily now, and stopped by the young girl's seat as if he had merely paused on his way to important business in the car behind. The girl was staring fixedly out of the window at the whirling, snowy night. She started and looked at him wide-eyed as he spoke to her.

"How's your grandma, Lois?" he inquired easily. He rested an arm on the back of the seat ahead, and his lantern was full on her face.

"Grandma is—well, thank you."

"And the Judge—hale as ever?"

"Oh, yes, thank you!" Her voice was fainter. "He's holding court this week in Cameron Center."

The conductor smiled reminiscently.

"Your grandfather might he made of iron, for all the wear he shows. Why, there's only two years' difference in our ages, and he's as straight as a ramrod. Steps out like a boy!"

"He is—iron!" The girl whispered the words as if to herself. The conductor heard perfectly, but he showed no sign.

"I guess it's because of the way you and your grandma've spoilt him," he went on genially. "Last time I was up in Knoxville—let's see, that was two, three years ago—your grandma was trying to get him to let you go away to school. Did she get round him finally, Lois?"

Into the girl's gray-blue, dreamy eyes a smoldering resentment came.

"Grandma never gets round him. He never would let me go away. He thinks a girl ought to stay at home and knit and cook, like the girls did when he was young. He thinks it's enough if a girl has a good home and nice clothes—" Her voice broke off sharply.

"Well, well," soothed the conductor, "you've certainly got a nice home. Biggest in the county, I guess."

The girl's lips curled.

"Yes, but it's in Knoxville! I—hate that town. All the girls go away to school and meet nice people, and—and—"

"Get married!" The conductor laughed the tolerant laugh of an old man talking to a young person; but his eyes, under the visor of his cap, were fixed on her face relentlessly and keenly. "Suppose all the nice boys go away, too, and forget to come back, eh?"

Her face flamed; even her delicate ears grew pink. "If there ever were any nice ones in Knoxville! Drug clerks, ministers' sons!"

"How about Joe Urquhart?" quizzed the conductor.

The red flood ebbed out of her face. She looked out the snow-flecked window.

"He went away two years ago. He never came back. I don't blame him!"

"Nice, upstanding young fellow, Joe was," ruminated the conductor. "The Judge don't seem to have much use for the young chaps of the present day, but even he told me guessed Joe'd make his mark."

The girl turned back to him sharply. For the first time her eyes met his frankly.

"Did grandpa say that? Why, he turned Joe out of the house the one time he ever called on me!" She gave a little hard laugh. "He was the only boy that ever dared to come to the house, and he never did it again! My grandfather is a hard, selfish man. You can tell him I said so, if you like!"

The conductor took his ticket-punch out of his pocket and looked at it as if he hoped for counsel from that faithful implement. At last he said, irrelevantly:

"Recollect the year the big hemlock tract was opened up above Knoxville, and your pa and ma died from the typhoid that come down from the lumber camps. Bad time! Bad time! 'Member, the day your grandpa brought you home to live with them. 'Bout two years old, wasn't you?"

The girl nodded, her face softening.

"I had the old K. and F. run then, the conductor mused. "Used to stop overnight with your grandpa and grandma—before your grandpa was made Judge. Had the little house by the old station then. Your grandpa used to get down on his hands and knees and play with you, sometimes, when no one was around to see him but your grandma and me. Pretty stuck on you, he always was!"

"He never showed it much!" the girl flashed.

"Apple of his eye!" the conductor went on, as if he had not heard her. "Always talks about you when he goes up to the county-seat on my train." He straightened up. "Apple of the old boy's eye!"

The girl's face set mutinously. "Never shows it!" she muttered.

"Well, for the matter o' that," returned the conductor easily, "you'd never think him and me have been good friends for thirty years. Kind o' stiffish, the Judge is."

"Cold and selfish!" whispered the girl.

AND all at once it seemed as if beneath the surface of the dialogue portentous meanings flowed. The girl had muttered to herself, and the old man had looked out of the window and fumbled among his memories; but between them a duel had begun. The girl was parrying in defense of some secret intention in her heart, and the old conductor was thrusting keenly, fighting against some disaster he but dimly apprehended.

"Built the big house on your account," he put in.

"Proud and cold!"

"Told me he wanted a house you would always be proud to live in. 'Member the time he come up from Harrisburg after seeing the architect. Showed me the plans. 'Judge,' says I, 'seems to me that's an awful big house for such a little girl!' 'Al,' says he, 'it can't be too big or too fine for the finest little girl in Pennsylvinia!"

The girl looked down at her locked hands. Her mouth worked uncontrollably and her long eyelashes were wet. All at once the conductor's soft heart betrayed him. He could torture her no longer. He did not know what was wrong, but her tears begged for mercy. He peered out of the window, looked at his watch, made an effort at a jovial voice. "Well, well, can't stand here forever talkin' to the only pretty girl on the train. 'Gainst the rules! See you later!"

He turned away; but before he had taken many steps down the aisle he heard the girl's soft voice calling him. He went back. She was leaning forward, trying to smile.

"Will you—give grandfather my love—when you see him again?"

"Why, sure! But if you're visiting in the Junction you'll see him before I do. won't you? He has to wait there forty

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Her eyes fell. "—may not be there when he goes home. I—I may go on to Harrisburg to-night!"

A queer silence fell between them.

"Plague take the snow!" the conductor exclaimed irritably. "Ought to have made the Mead's Fork bridge five minutes ago. Well—"

He turned away, but not before he had seen a curious change come over the girl. Her slender body stiffened, the pupils of her eyes dilated until they made her eyes almost black. A wild-rose flush spread over her delicate face.

"Are we almost at Mead's Fork?" she asked.

"Six minutes," replied the conductor, bustling away down the aisle.

AT Mead's Fork only three passengers boarded the train. They were all men. Two of them settled down in the smoker and the third went back to the ladies' coach. Presently the conductor, punch in hand, opened the door. He took in the length of the car in one practised glance. Over the back of the seat in front of the girl was a fur-lined overcoat. The owner of this garment was sitting beside the girl. Their faces were turned toward each other, the girl's drooping a little, but tremulous, happy; the man's excited, triumphant. The conductor knew that their hands were clasped.

He came down the aisle very slowly. His face, seamed, grimly placid, showed no sign; but his mind was working rapidly, darting from picture to picture in the long rows of faces that lined the walls of his trained memory. Before he reached the girl's seat he had definitely placed the owner of the fur-lined overcoat. He had tagged and catalogued the girl's companion, and he understood now the nature of the disaster toward which the Judge's little granddaughter was speeding.

When the conductor went back to the front seat in the smoker he walked like an old man. As he spread out his tickets on the seat in front of him his hands trembled. He had already attended to this task, but he wanted to be alone—he wanted to think.

He sat hunched over, his head turned sidewise, staring at the snow that sifted in under the loose window-frame. He found it was hard to think. Inconsequent thoughts, memories, and emotions had their way with him. He fell to thinking how he had always longed for a daughter. Sons he had, and they had turned out well; but to have for his own a little girl child—that had always seemed to him the supreme miracle-touch of life. That was the one possession of the rich old Judge he had coveted—his little girl. She had always from her babyhood seemed so mysteriously different from other children, so like a little princess, with her big, dreamy, blue-gray eyes, her delicate perfection of detail, her dainty gowns, her primrose fluff of hair. Her grandmother and the Judge had always treated her that way, as if nothing material was too good for her, and nothing human quite good enough!

The engineer whistling for the next station aroused him. When the train slowed down, he swung himself off into the slush of the platform so feebly that the trainmen reflected with some complacence that the old man was about due for retirement and a pension.

As the train started on again, the conductor followed a woman and two sleepy children into the ladies' coach. As if very busy with affairs in the coach behind, he passed Lois and the man beside her without an apparent glance. But he missed nothing of their constraint. The girl looked proudly and defiantly straight ahead; but the man avoided the conductor's possible glance with the effect of a swagger. A high color burned in Lois's cheeks; but her eyes looked as if she had cried a little between the two stations.

The conductor completed his tour of the train and went back to the smoker. This time he did not sit down, but went out to the platform of the car. Across and back, across and back, like a captain pacing his bridge, he tramped, his knees giving to the bumping of the train. He was gnawing a corner of his iron-gray mustache, and slowly a mighty anger was mounting in his blood. As a man, he wanted to stride back to the car behind, pick up a certain one of his passengers, and throw him out into the snowy night. But as a conductor—whose job is to get his passengers to their destination, not to censor their moral conduct—he, could not do it, not even though he knew what he knew about the young man in the fur-lined coat, not even though he had to stand by and see the loveliest thing in his life being impelled to its own destruction.

What, then, could he do? He looked at his watch, craned his neck, and took an observation from the whirling night. In an hour and ten minutes they should make the Junction. Between their arrival and the departure of the Harrisburg night express would be about half an hour. He had, then, a little more than an hour and a half in which to do what he could. A few minutes later, as the train slowed down at the next station, the conductor dropped off and made for the telegraph station.

"Jake, what time does Number 2 leave Cameron Center for the Junction?" he inquired.

The telegraph operator looked up, at the clock. "She'll pull out o' there in thirty-two minutes, Al."

"Thought so!" The conductor bent over a little and lowered his voice. "Want you to send this right off. Want an answer at Elk Run. Ready?"

"Fire away," said Jake; and the conductor began to dictate a message to Judge Fitzjames Knox, Hotel Cameron, Cameron Center, Pennsylvania. When he had finished he scratched a furrow through his thick iron-gray hair. "Now, take another to Bob Pierce:

"Hold Number 2 ten minutes for Judge Knox if necessary. AL JACKSON."

Then the conductor straightened up, with a grim smile.

"Exceeding authority, mebbe! Got to be done! Got to be done!"

The conductor climbed hack on to his train, glancing as he did so into the ladies' coach. Judge Knox's granddaughter sat crowded a little into the corner of the seat by the ardent attitude of her companion; but her young face was lifted toward his with a tremulous radiance, a half frightened happiness that made the conductor clench his hands.

"Going to hurt the little girl like hell!" he thought miserably. "But there don't seem to be any other way."

CAMERON JUNCTION is composed mainly of railroad station, freight-house, signal-tower, water-tank, little rusty-red tool-houses, and a deplorable railroad hotel. To-night, when the conductor's train pulled in, all these were like wedding cakes, frosted white with snow. This was the end of the conductor's run. Usually he dropped off his train with a subconscious sigh of relief; but to-night every nerve in his body was strung taut. As quickly as he could he disposed of his official affairs.

He was behind the ticket-seller's partition when the man in the fur-lined coat bought a ticket and made a Pullman reservation to Harrisburg. A moment later the girl's voice, with its young diffidence, asked for a ticket to the same place and a Pullman reservation. After that the conductor, glancing slantwise through the wicket, saw the two of them sitting together in the dimly lighted waiting-room. They were not talking now, The girl's head drooped until the brim of her hat hid her face; the man held an unlighted cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and his long-lashed dark eyes, set too close to his handsome, curving nose, glanced here and there find were never still. Now and then he moistened his lips with his tongue, or looked at his watch.

The conductor went out on the snowy platform. He was supposed to be on his way to the hotel for his night's rest. The station-master called good night to him, and for the first time received no answer.

"Old Al's gettin' a little deef," he observed to the telegraph operator.

But old Al's ears were keen enough. He was straining them for the sound of Number 2, whistling for the crossing below the Junction. A spur of the main road ran from Cameron Center to the Junction, a distance of about ten miles; and over this road Number 2 should now be rounding the last curve. But the empty rails stretched away through a valley that lay in a blue-white silence. The conductor felt in his pocket nervously. A yellow slip of paper there informed him that the Judge would catch this train. So that was all right! But what if; as frequently happened, Number 2 should lose half an hour on the bad up-grade? She was a spoilt train, having the road to herself so much of the time; and in bad weather she had been known to cough and lie down with the excuse of a mere two-inch drift. At these times the haughty Harrisburg Express refused to wait for her humble sister beyond a limited number of minutes. What if to-night should be one of these times?

The conductor muttered under his breath one of his infrequent oaths, and his hands went clammy.

"I couldn't do it," he groaned. "If the Judge don't get here—oh, Lord! it's no job for me!"

Presently, down in the yards, began a shunting of cars, lights waving; a warning whistle. The Harrisburg train was being backed up to the station. The conductor took out his watch. Three minutes and the Harrisburg train would be called, the passengers would go aboard. Five minutes more and she would be due to pull out—say fifteen minutes if she waited for Number 2.

A perspiration broke out on the conductor's body. He walked to the far edge of the platform, where he could command a mile of the valley. Not a light, not a sound. Then, for the first time, the conductor had a sharp picture of how the Judge was going to feel when Number 2 got in. In the telegram the Judge had merely been urged to come up to the Junction on personal business extremely important to himself. When the conductor dictated that wire he had thought of himself as meeting the Judge and somehow breaking the shock of the affair for him—of somehow getting between the Judge and his granddaughter and easing the situation, if it could be eased. But now there was going to be no time. He saw himself hustling the Judge into that Pullman with one minute in which to shatter his friend's world into fragments. He visualized that encounter between the Judge and his granddaughter—the punctilious, honorable, proud old man, and the terrified girl, with half a dozen looking on, and the Pullman car for background.

"By gad, no!" he exclaimed. "Wouldn't do! Wouldn't do!"

He cast one last glance down the sleeping valley. Then, turning, he walked quickly toward the door of the waiting- room. Just as he reached it the Harrisburg train moved slowly past him, being shunted into position. As if the sound drew him forth, the man in the fur-lined overcoat opened the door and stepped on to the platform. The conductor went up to him briskly.

"Want to speak to you a minute, Gunter," he said.

IN the act of lighting his cigarette the man started and half turned, cupping the lighted match with his hands.

"Your mistake, I guess," he returned. "Name's not Gunter."

"Mebbe not now. Used to be." The conductor glanced at the window of the waiting-room and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Come up here a ways."

For an instant Gunter hesitated. Then he lighted his cigarette with hands that were not quite steady, and with a swagger followed the older man.

"I gotta take this train. What do you want?"

The conductor did not reply until both of them had rounded the corner of the station and stepped into the shadow of the freight-house. Then he turned upon the younger man. There was the authority of thirty-two years of power in his voice.

"I want you to go on to Harrisburg—without that girl."

Gunter gave a little snarling laugh.

"Oh, ho! that's the game, is it? Well, let me inform you, Mister Fix-it, that girl's over eighteen.' She's going of her own

Page 7

"Oh, no, it don't!" the conductor replied calmly. "Because I know you!"

"You do!" Gunter's voice was threatening. "Well, what do you know?"

"You're a skunk!"

In the darkness the lighted tip of Gunter's cigarette described a fiery arc and fell into a snow-bank.

"You say that again!"

"Look here, Gunter." The conductor's voice was conversational. "I'm not going to waste time with you. I don't know exactly what your present game is, but I know you. All along the line I've heard about you. You're a crook. And there's one girl you're not going to put your hand on."

"Is that all?"

Gunter's sneer attempted to convey a biting sarcasm, and at the same time to let the other man know he was holding himself in with difficulty.

"Well, I kind o' suspect"— the contractor's words came more slowly—"that's enough."

Then, in amazing contrast to the slow mildness of his tone, the conductor's arm shot out. In spite of its age, it was an efficient, well muscled arm. Twelve years of railroading as fireman, brakeman, and trainman had laid a good foundation on that arm, and the subsequent years on runs where the Saturday night crowds are often riotous had kept it fit. Besides, that arm had back of it a temper famous over several lines as the slowest in the service to arouse, and the most accurate when once in action. The young man in the fur-lined coat felt one instant a conviction that he had run the point of his jaw into a shunting engine; and then he lay down suddenly in a snow-bank.

The conductor walked back toward the waiting-room. He felt young now. The good, warm blood coursed happily through his veins. He had to wipe an elated grin off his face before he opened the door of the waiting-room.

THE girl was sitting on the edge of her seat, one hand nervously grasping the handle of her traveling bag and her eyes fixed on the door. The conductor went straight across the room and stood in front of her. They two were at the moment alone in the room.

"You're not going to Harrisburg tonight, little girl!" he said gently.

She sprang to her feet, quivering, the blood first flooding her face and then leaving it.

"What do you mean?" she whispered.

"You're not going, because that young man out there has changed his mind."

"You—?"

"Yes, I persuaded him."

"Oh! What right have you—"

"Look here, Lois, my dear—" He put a hand on her arm, gently forcing her to sit down again, and sitting himself so that his broad bulk was between her and the ticket-seller's window. "Your grandfather and I are old friends, and I feel almost like you're my own girl. I couldn't let you go straight to misery with that fellow."

"I don't know what you're talking about! He and I—we're engaged. We're going to be married to-morrow in Harrisburg. Look—"

She pulled off her glove and showed him a ring, a cheap little solitaire.

The conductor's face, as he looked at the poor little emblem, was contorted with pity.

"Did your grandfather ever see this?" he asked her gently.

"No; grandfather wouldn't have let—"

"Your grandfather wouldn't have let that fellow look at you, if he had known. How did you come to get acquainted with Cal Gunter?"

"He got up the kermess for the new library in Knoxville. He—" She broke off with a growing horror in her face. "His name isn't Gunter."

"That's the name our detective knows him by!"

The girl shrank back. In her face there was so tortured a bewilderment that all its soft young lines appeared distorted and haggard. The conductor made a clucking sound of pity.

"I'd rather be shot!" he muttered.

"Tell me—" the girl whispered.

A TRAINMAN put his head in at the door and announced the Harrisburg train. The girl started and looked at the door, but her eyes came back to the conductor's face and clung there desperately.

"Go on!" she said faintly.

The conductor put his hand on her arm, "He's no good, Lois. I know—very slick and well spoken when he wants to be. Sings and dances, I understand, as well as a professional. But his record's bad. Never did an honest day's work in his life. Lives by his wits. I heard at Kittanning they run him out of town."

The girl put her hands over her face.

"I don't believe it! He—we were going to be married—and travel—and—oh, I can't believe it I can't!"

The conductor took her hands down from her face and held them tightly. His own face was gray.

"Little girl, look at me. Do you think I'd lie to you?"

She looked, and shook her head.

"Lois, I saw him put off the New York Central one day, not more than two weeks ago, him and a—woman—not a nice girl, like you. Both of 'em were the worse for drink. That must have been since he knew you. Wasn't it?"

The girl gave a heart-broken little cry of assent. She tore her hands out of his grasp and covered her quivering face with them. "I want to die!" he heard her whisper.

He put his hand on her knee and stroked it awkwardly.

"No, no!" he soothed. "Why, you've got your life before you. Make some decent fellow happy—be happy yourself and forget all this. Pretty soon some one'll come along that will think you're

Neither of them heard the door open and close; but both of them started like guilty conspirators when a voice exclaimed:

"What are you doing here, Lois?"

The girl sprang to her feet with a terrified gasp, and the conductor likewise faced the tall, severe figure of the Judge. The Judge shot out a judicial lower lip and stared at the two before him from under his thick gray brows. His gaze took in the tear-stained face of his granddaughter, and the traveling bag and folded umbrella on the seat behind her.

"So!" he exclaimed. "This is why you sent for me, Al?" He turned upon his granddaughter. "Where were you going?"

BEFORE she could answer, the conductor had hooked himself by a crooked forefinger to a buttonhole of the Judge's black ulster. With the other stubby forefinger he emphasized his remarks on the Judge's chest.

"Look here, Fitzjames," he said, and his tone matched in sternness the Judge's eyes. "There's a little truth you've got to hear. You're a good Judge, but a darned poor grandfather!"

"What?"

"A regular failure as a grandfather. Now you listen: if you was a successful grandfather, this little girl here wouldn't be running away from home, would she?"

"Running away! Lois, is this true?"

The conductor threw an admonitory glance at the girl.

"She was!" He beat a stern tattoo on the Judge's chest. "Just because—she don't have—the things a girl needs!"

An expression of utter astonishment came into the Judge's face.

"Don't have the things a girl needs! Why, she has the best home anywhere around, good clothes, a good allowance—"

"Grandpa!" the girl cried. "I—"

The conductor interrupted:

"A girl can't get along with just clothes and a roof over her. That's why she was running away, I tell you!"

A white and haggard bewilderment began to show itself in the Judge's face as he looked at his granddaughter.

"But what on earth did you propose to do?" he demanded huskily.

Lois opened her mouth, but before a word could come out of it, the conductor leaped into the conversation.

"Had one of those silly girl notions of being independent—typewriter, clerk, some such nonsense as that. Told her she was foolish. Knew she'd be sorry. That's why I wired you. Knew you could patch up your differences in a jiffy."

He was talking against time now, one eye on the girl's face, watching it for some sign of comprehension. When he saw her look up at him, startled and incredulous, he knew that the mettle in her was responding.

"That's what you thought of doing, wasn't it, Lois, typewriting, clerking—eh?"

There was a strained pause while the two men waited. The conductor glared anxiously. Then the girl slowly bent her head in acquiescence.

"That is what—I should probably have done—in the end," she said faintly.

And the conductor, as if a weight rolled off his heart, slapped the Judge on the shoulder.

"That's all there is to it—just a girl's notion," he declared jovially. "But see here, Judge, you've got to remember a girl's a girl. She's got to have young folks around her. That big house you built for her—how many dances and parties and things have you let her have in it—eh?"

"There are very few suitable young folks in Knoxville—"

"Then why haven't you let me go away to school?" the girl interrupted, her eyes unexpectedly flashing. "Why haven't you let me learn to do something with myself?"

"Why—why," the Judge, for probably the first time in his existence, stammered, "it seemed to me that if a girl had a good home she ought to be contented in it."

"It wasn't a home! It was just a big house. Grandma never dared give me parties, because no one was quite up to your standard. I couldn't bring even the girls home with me, because if they laughed they'd disturb you in the library! I never even learned to dance until—" her voice choked—"until the kermess!"

The Judge stood silent, an immense and honest bewilderment in his face.

"You mean you were not happy, Lois?"

"I was—so lonesome! The girls I liked went away to school. The only—only boy that ever called on me you turned out of the house!"

The Judge looked down at the floor, his mouth working.

"It always seemed to your grandmother and me that there wasn't any one good enough for you. We—we set such store by you—dear."

THE little word seemed to break up all the hardness in the girl's face. She flung out her hands toward him.

"Oh, grandpa!"—her cry was piteous. "I'm human!"

The ticket-seller put his head in at his window. "Lady going to Harrisburg, Al?" he called.

"No!" The conductor picked up a suitcase that had stood all this time within three feet of the Judge, and with it in his hand he went hastily out upon the platform. At the door of the lunch-room he encountered his trainman.

"Charley," he said, "fellow up there by the freight-house in a snow-bank. 'Least, he was there ten minutes ago. Ticket for this train. Hustle him on. Here's his suit-case. Goo' night!"

He walked back to the waiting-room and put his head in at the door. His blue eyes had never looked younger.

"Say, when you two get through holding hands," he said, "you'd better come on and have a bowl of oyster stew with me. No train now till I take mine back in the morning. I'm hungry as a fox myself!"

Missing — Roberta Hoyt!

By ADELE LUEHRMANN

Illustration by R. M. Crosby

I DID not have to wait for the papers, as it turned out. Tal himself gave me the particulars of Miss Hoyt's disappearance on our way back to Riverton that night.

It was about eleven-thirty when he blew into the lobby of the Cecil, and found me waiting up for the first editions.

"Want to go back to Riverton?" he asked. "We've just time for the last train."

"Where's Ferry?"

"Backed out—doesn't believe the man we met was Farnham. You see, it's been learned that Farnham has not been seen at his hotel or club since Friday, the day Bobbie Hoyt disappeared, so everybody's jumping to the conclusion that they're together. They did get a license at Riverton, as that chauffeur told us, so it does look like an elopement, I'll admit. Ferry says it's a hoax—that she's trying to create excitement and get into the papers again, and ought to be spanked. Says he's not going to lose any sleep over her, and everybody else at the office seems to agree with him. But, no matter how you look at it, Dick, there was something wrong about that limousine episode; and if the man was Farnham—"

"But you've no evidence that he was, except that kid's opinion."

"I've got a hunch, and this time I'm going to follow it up. I was a fool not to do it at first. Come along or not, as you like." And he made for the door.

"But what are you going to do when you get there?" I protested, following him out to the street.

He got into a taxi and told the driver to speed it to Grand Central.

"It's the wildest thing I ever heard of," I grumbled, falling into the cab after him. "You haven't a thing to go on."

"Yes, I have. Listen. I 'phoned to the hospital at South Eden,—there's only one,—and was told no patient had arrived there to-night and none is or was expected. So, whoever the man was, he was lying—that's fact one. Fact two is the queer way he and the woman acted. Fact three: they were headed toward the Hoyt place. And that groan we heard—"

"It was a moan," I corrected.

"All right, but it may have been a woman's—that's fact four."

"And fact five: you're a nut." He snorted disgustedly.

"All right; if you haven't enough imagination to see that there's something very queer about the affair, go on back to bed and sleep your fool head off."

All the way to Riverton he talked, discussing the details of the disappearance of Miss Hoyt as they had reached the newspaper office. But I may as well give the account that the Record printed next morning. It contained all the facts generally known at that time.

THE police were notified last night of the disappearance from her home of Miss Roberta Hoyt, twenty years old, grandchild of the late Robert Hoyt, millionaire shoe manufacturer. According to Mrs. Otison, an aunt with whom she lives, the girl has not been seen since last Friday afternoon, nearly five days ago. She left home about three o'clock to go to Cécile & Company, the Fifth Avenue dressmakers, and Peter Barney, her chauffeur, says she left there shortly after four and ordered him to drive her straight home, but that, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, just in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, she stopped him and got out, remarking that it was such a fine day she preferred to walk home. And since that moment, as far as is now known, she has not been seen nor heard from.

The first night of her niece's absence, Mrs. Otison says she had inquiries made at all the hospitals, fearing that Miss Hoyt had met with an accident; but she had since taken no further steps toward discovering her whereabouts. She shrank, she says, from making the facts public, because of the unpleasant notoriety, and clung to the hope that Miss Hoyt had followed some sudden caprice and would soon return of her own accord. For that reason she enjoyed secrecy on the servants, and ordered that any one calling or telephoning should be told that the girl was ill. It was William Rosser, Miss Hoyt's guardian, who, learning of his ward's disappearance on his arrival yesterday afternoon from Europe, at once took charge of affairs and notified the police.

Mr. Rosser seems to place little confidence in Mrs. Otison's theory of voluntary disappearance. Miss Hoyt, he says, is very impulsive and high-spirited, with a tendency to do spectacular things, but is too kindhearted to persist in a course that would occasion distress to others. He expressed the hope that publicity would result in a solution of the mystery, but did not conceal the fact that he was seriously alarmed.

Miss Bridget O'Halloran, proprietress of Cécile & Company, when reached by telephone last night, stated that she had seen Miss Hoyt in her shop Friday, but had noticed nothing unusual in her manner. Miss Hoyt had insisted that a certain gown be finished by Saturday evening, and an appointment had been made for a fitting Saturday morning. On her failing to appear at the time set, Miss O'Halloran said, she had herself telephoned to make inquiries, and had been told Miss Hoyt was ill and could not keep the appointment.

When last seen Miss Hoyt was wearing a brown velvet suit with a fisher neck-piece and muff, a large black velvet hat, high brown shoes, and white gloves. Her height is five feet six, and her weight a hundred and thirty-five. She has dark red hair, naturally curly, blue eyes, and fair complexion with high color. Her manner is exceedingly animated, and she is considered beautiful.

She was wearing several pieces of jewelry: a bar-pin of sapphires and diamonds, a cluster sapphire-and-diamond ring, a pearl ring, and a bracelet-watch. In addition to these, she wore on a gold chain an old French locket which had been converted into a modern vanity-box. This was of old gold, quaintly engraved with a Crusader charging a dragon, and bore the motto: "Pour la croix et toi" [For the cross and thee].

Miss Hoyt is an orphan, her parents having died in her infancy. She made her home with her grandfather during his lifetime, and was looked upon as his sole heir; but when he died about two years ago it was found that his large estate had been left to her conditionally, the condition being that she marry before reaching the age of twenty-one. On failing to do so she was to forfeit all claim to the fortune. This provision of the will excited wide comment and was generally condemned; but those who knew his devotion to his granddaughter understood it to be a last desperate protest against her pronounced independence of mind, and particularly against her activities in behalf of woman suffrage, a cause with which the old millionaire had neither sympathy nor patience.

For several months rumors have been current of an engagement between Miss Hoyt and Herbert Farnham, an Englishman, only son of Lord Darrow, and though there has been no public announcement of the engagement, it is known that a marriage license was issued to them at Riverton, New York, a few weeks ago. As far as is now known, no marriage took place. Efforts to reach Mr. Farnham last night failed. At the Fitz-Maurice, where he has an apartment, it was said he had not been seen for several days, and inquiries at several clubs received the same answer. Whether the young Englishman's invisibility has any bearing on that of Miss Hoyt is still a question, but it seems probable that her mysterious disappearance has back of it nothing more mysterious than a wedding journey.

Miss Roberta Hoyt, though but twenty years old, has several times achieved a prominent place on the front page of the New York newspapers. At the age of fifteen she held a burglar at bay for an hour in her room at a boarding-school; at eighteen she was arrested in connection with a shirtwaist workers' strike; and more recently her photograph in man's polo attire occupied a full page of a Sunday supplement.

It may be unfair to imply that Miss Hoyt seeks the lime-light, but certainly she attracts it. She has a remarkable talent for conspicuousness, an uncommon gift for drawing the public eye. We venture to predict that when the hue and cry over her disappearance has reached its height, when the search for her has become desperate and the mystery impenetrable, when the stage is set and the orchestra properly attuned and the audience raised to the gasp of expectancy, then—and not till then—will Miss Bobbie bob up again.

The last few paragraphs were, of course, editorial comment, but I quote them because they represent a view very generally held and very unfair.

I confess that I felt very uncomfortable and hypocritical, sitting there on the train that night, listening to Tal's earnest discussions of the case. But how could I tell him of my meeting with Miss Hoyt?

WHEN we reached Riverton we found our chauffeur waiting. Tal had telephoned the station agent to pass the word to him that he would pick up a fare if he were on hand. "The Martin place," Tal directed, as we started off. He was in front, and from the back seat I leaned forward, for I knew he meant to do some pumping.

"Seen anything more of that limousine we met to-night?" was his beginning.

The driver shook his head.

Thought not," said Tal. "You were

Continued on page 15

Seeing America Easily

Want to Live to Be a Hundred?

Page 11

How to Live on Nothing a Year

Photographs by Gertrude A. Brugman

There, dear reader: we have taught you in one page how to save all the money your husband now spends—and you needn't make your phonograph into an ice-box, after all. How wonderful editors re!

Once to Every Woman

By CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT

Illustrations by Arthur Litle

AFTER her office hours were over and her last patient for the day had presumably come and gone, Dr. Taylor sat long, staring perplexedly into the gathering darkness. Now and then she lifted her right hand and stared at it curiously, as if she had never seen it before. It was a good hand, strong, stub-fingered, preeminently useful-looking. But no one would ever call it delicate. Certainly Dr. Taylor had never done so.

But that afternoon something had happened that suggested to her that hands, woman's hands, even her own hands, might on occasion serve purposes other than the strictly serviceable. The idea— at least, as it applied to herself—was disquieting.

A little later she got up and went to the office mirror and studied her reflection in the glass. Then, suddenly, she pulled down her hair and put it up again with nervous haste in another style. Her fingers, wonderful as they were, had not been trained in hair-dressing; and her hair was rebellious, as indeed it might justly be at being called upon so abruptly to abandon the arrangement in which it had been regularly bound for at least a dozen years. Still, the result was not unpleasing: it made Dr. Taylor look only five instead of ten years older than she was.

Then she came back to her desk and sat down.

"It does feel easier," she muttered. "I really believe it will stop my headaches."

Not for a moment did she suspect that she had changed her hair for any other reason than to check headaches. To suspect the real reason required a training, or an instinct, that she did not possess.

Then she looked again at her right hand and wrinkled her forehead in disquietude. The fact was that Dr. Taylor was sprouting a soul; and birth pangs are notoriously painful, whether they are of the body or of the soul.

The electric-light globes along the street suddenly crackled out, white as exploding popcorn in a skillet; and in their glare Dr. Taylor saw a slender, undersized, middle-aged man standing on the pavement close to the door, scanning the doctor's signs that framed it. The sudden access of light seemed to show him what he sought, for he raised his hand and pressed an invisible button.

DR. TAYLOR'S office bell clanged in response. It was characteristic of Dr. Taylor that her office bell should clang instead of tinkle.

With a motion of her shoulders as of one throwing off a physical incubus, Dr. Taylor got up and opened the door.

"Come in," she invited.

Her voice, though not harsh, was not sympathetic. Like her hands, it seemed made for work, not for pleasure.

The little man came in hesitantly. For a moment he blinked in the unshaded light; then, "I am Mr. Wood," he said. "I have come to apologize!"

Dr. Taylor's eyes narrowed and her forehead wrinkled perplexedly.

"Oh, yes!" she said. "I remember now. You were here this afternoon. I'm glad to see you. Will you sit down?"

"Thank you!" Mr. Wood sat down.

Dr. Taylor did the same. She stared at her visitor curiously in silence.

"My words this afternoon were really inexcusable," he said. "I can only plead that I was very much excited."

Dr. Taylor seemed to have some difficulty in concentrating her thoughts.

"Yes," she said. "I remember. You called me a 'sumph.' Why?"

Her tones expressed no irritation, but much perplexity.

Mr. Wood started. His clean, intellectual face brightened. For a moment he hesitated; then: "Of course! Of course," he murmured to himself. "I should have expected it." Aloud he said:

"Must I answer? If I do, perhaps I shall have to apologize for my apology."

Dr. Taylor waved aside the evasion.

"Never mind the apology," she said. "Apologies are not in my line. Many men have cursed me, but none have apologized. You called me a 'sumph.' Why?"

"Why?"

"Yes! Why? A miserable tramp, a whisky-soaked bum, falls in front of my door. With your aid I bring him into my office. I find he is dying, and I do what I can to make his death easy. He becomes semi-conscious, remembers the life from which he fell—apparently because some woman was wise enough to read him aright before it was too late. He goes back, as I say, calls for her; thinks I am she; and tries to grasp my hand. I jerk it away. And then you call me a 'sumph.' Why?"

Mr. Wood settled back in his chair. Clearly he was beginning to take a keen delight in the dialogue.

"Perhaps for the same reason that many men have cursed you and none have apologized," he answered deliberately.

"Meaning—?"

"Meaning no disrespect. Meaning merely that in a moment of stress I—probably like those other offenders—recognized your essentially masculine temperament, and yelled at you just as I should have yelled at another man."

"But 'sumph'? Why 'sumph'? Sumph means simpleton, doesn't it?"

Mr. Wood laughed.

"I don't know. I doubt whether it is a dictionary word at all. I suppose I used it because, at the moment, I thought you lacked something—some tenderness that I looked for in a woman, forgetting—also for the moment—that tenderness is not characteristic of the masculine temperament."

Dr. Taylor nodded slowly. Then she harked back.

"Then," she said, "those other men did not apologize because—"

"Because they felt that you had a man's spirit and would understand—as I think you did."

"Yes; I—that is, I mean I never thought of it at all."

"Exactly."

"And you? You apologized because—"

Mr. Wood shrugged his shoulders. "Probably because I am more convention-ruled than they. I apologize once more: I apologize for apologizing."

Dr. Taylor did not echo the other's merriment. She rose and went to the glass and examined her plain, broad, competent face. At last she came back.

"So you think me essentially masculine, do you?" she demanded.

A SHADE of perplexity came into Mr. Wood's eyes. For the first time he seemed to note—what Dr. Taylor had forgotten—the change in her mode of hairdressing; and for the first time he seemed to realize that some powerful undercurrent ran in her questions.

"Don't you want to be?" he retorted.

Dr. Taylor stared at him strangely.

I don't know," she answered slowly.

Then, as if the gift of tongues had descended upon her, she went on:

"I don't know! I never thought of myself as a woman, or even as a sexed being, until to-day. I've had no time to think of myself at all. I've had to work too hard. And I've had no one really to teach me anything. I've had to learn everything for myself: and I've had to work for the privilege of learning it. I made beds and swept at the orphan asylum, and I scrubbed floors at the surgical college, and I took men's tricks on ambulance runs, all to get the chance to learn. When I learned that there was something to be learned, I went to the right place and learned it. But I never learned to be a woman; I never knew that it had to be learned. I never thought of men and women as men and women—till to-day. I never knew that a man could call a woman 'Mary' and speak to her as that—that bum—spoke to-day. I never had a man try to take my hand, even by mistake—till to-day. I have missed something; I don't know what it is yet, but I want it; I want it. Is it too late? I am only twenty-eight and—"

The telephone on the desk rang sharply, interruptingly. Dr. Taylor took the receiver from the hook and uttered a gruff "Hello!"

The answer came sharp and quick. Through some idiosyncrasy, either of the speaker's voice or of the telephone, the words boomed out almost as if they were spoken by some one in the room.

"Say!" said the voice. "Can yous chase over here quick? There's a man been knifed, see, an' he needs a doctor bad."

"Where are you?"

Dr. Taylor's voice had regained its crisp, metallic ring. The doubt; the quaver, had disappeared.

"Over on the avenoo, south of your street, No. 926—Foley's-place.' Ask for Foley. Say, hit it up, doctor, will you? He's mighty bad."

"I'll be right over."

Dr. Taylor got up and reached for her doctor's satchel. Mr. Wood also stood up.

"Wait a moment," he objected earnestly. "You can't go to Foley's place. You don't know what sort of place it is!"

"Don't I?" With swift precision the doctor was placing bottles and packages in the satchel. "Well, I suppose my essentially masculine temperament will carry me through."

She reached for the door and held it open.

"Good night, Mr. Wood!" she said. "I'm glad to have met you."

Wood drew himself up.

"If you're going to Foley's I'm going with you," he declared. "I can't let a woman go alone at night to such a place as that. I—"

The doctor laughed. "You are a very —surprising man," she said. "No one else has ever suggested that I needed protection—but then, no one else has ever said that I had an essentially masculine temperament. Thank you! Good night!"

"But—"

ABRUPTLY the doctor's face darkened. "Damnation!" she rasped. With one hand she caught Mr. Wood's arm and literally pushed him across the office threshold into the hall, and with the other she drew the door shut.

"Don't you understand that a man is dying while you keep me waiting?" she demanded harshly. "Yes; I know Foley's place,"—she pushed by the man as if he were a piece of furniture and pulled open the outer door of the house,—"and I know I'll have enough trouble there without having to take care of you!"

Mr. Wood jumped as if he had been shot. Then he laughed grimly.

"You needn't worry about learning to be a woman, doctor," he said. "You've begun already. That last thrust was exceedingly feminine."

Dr. Taylor had passed through the doorway and was hurrying down the street. But Wood's words must have reached her, for she stopped, faced around, and came back. Vividly alive she was, cheeks, lips, eyes aglow in the glittering night lights.

"Look! Look!" she cried, throwing out her arms in an all-embracing gesture to the infinite stretches of light-splattered streets from which the night tide was swelling. "I've lived in New York for

Page 14

Eager, swift, strong, she sped away till the distance swallowed her up.

Gaspingly Mr. Wood stared after her.

"Now, what in heaven's name have I done?" he demanded of himself, in desperate dismay. "What volcano have I touched off? What earthquake have I loosed? This woman—good Lord! That's it! That's the very point of it! An hour ago I didn't think of her as woman. Now I do! Why? Because she is a woman, of course. Because my sex answers hers. Because she's ceased to be a man. And she doesn't know it. She's going to Foley's place to physic some ruffian who's been knifed! Knifed! Knifed in some drunken brawl, I suppose. I think I'll go home and wash my hands, like Pontius Pilate. For if something doesn't happen to-night—to her or somebody else, I'll—I'll— Well, anyway, I'll certainly never call any one a sumph again as long as I live."

MEANWHILE Dr. Taylor turned into the avenue and hurried on, pulses dancing and heart elate. A sense of power was flowing in her veins. Her widespread eyes were dazzled by the lights that hung like moons above the pavement, that blazed in the shop windows, that rocketed past with the elevated trains. She took no note of the increasing tawdriness of the things they revealed yet transfigured, of the slime (organic and inorganic) of the streets, of the sin and the shame that hid behind the house-fronts that rose, blankly, behind the white lights. Child of the city though she was, in that

To Foley's place she came at last, pushed open the swinging doors, and went in.

The place was ablaze with light. By and by it would be crowded to suffocation; but the night was still young and its regular habitués had only begun to arrive. She pushed to the back of the room, passed through a door, and turned toward a dimly lighted flight of stairs.

On the bottom step a sloppy waiter stopped her.

"Say, sister, you got the wrong dope," he rasped hoarsely. "The other stairs for yous!"

"Nonsense!" Dr. Taylor's tones were crisp. "Where's the man that's hurt? I'm the doctor Foley 'phoned for."

"Doctor! You! Say, what you givin' me—"

"Yes! and I'm the doctor that patched up the hole that Red Dugan made in your skull six months ago. Now, where's my patient?"

The man stared.

"Damn if you ain't!" he exclaimed. "Beg pardon, miss—"

Dr. Taylor's eyes flashed. Another man had apologized to her.

"Beg pardon, miss," he repeated. "I didn't know you, for a minute. You look different, somehow. But we ain't got no hurt man here. Somebody steered you wrong."

Dr. Taylor did not argue the question.

"Go find Foley," she ordered crisply.

FOLEY, however, was already hurrying up. He was a stocky man, broad, stoop-shouldered, bullet-headed. As he came nearer, Dr. Taylor saw that he was laboring under some stress that exaggerated his harsh features into actual hideousness.

"Out of this!" he roared. "Out of this! You—"

"Nonsense!" Dr. Taylor did not stir. "I'm the doctor you 'phoned for. Where's the man that's hurt?"

Foley's face flushed dark with disbelief. The waiter saw it and struck in:

"Used to be on the Emergency ambulance, boss," he interpolated hastily.

"Was it you talkin' over the 'phone?" Foley demanded.

"Yes!"

"Well! Why didn't you talk like a woman? I didn't want no woman doctor!"

The doctor's eyebrows wrinkled. "Well, you've got one," she said. "Are you going to take me to my patient or not?"

Foley nodded slowly.

"All right," he said, jerking his head toward the stairs. "Go on up."

He faced toward the waiter. "And, you! Keep your mouth shut. See?"

Unheeding, Dr. Taylor ran up the stairs. She felt no fear. It was understood that physicians were sacrosanct among the roughest —protected not so much by gratitude as by a sort of tacit agreement that it was inadvisable to do anything that might Make a doctor hesitate to come when called. But, even without this understanding, Dr. Taylor would not have been afraid—not on that night!

Foley, following, threw directions forward over her shoulder, and she, obeying, turned down a corridor, opened a door, and went in.

A MAN was lying on a bed—a horribly red-stained bed, on which the stain was growing inexorably wider. That he was conscious his fierce eyes told, though he moved no other single muscle.

Dr. Taylor came forward lightly. She was not pretty—she never could be pretty; but at that moment she seemed almost beautiful. Glowing, palpitant, she might have posed for a Valkyr or a Brunhild.

Her eyes and those of the man on the bed met. Instantly her cheeks flamed with sudden color, and the man's fiercely handsome features lighted up. His eyes flashed wide.

"God!" he muttered. "God!"

The doctor's color deepened. Her breath came faster. Her satchel slipped from her fingers and fell upon the bed.

Then Foley came, forward. He had stopped to lock and bolt the door. "Hey! What's this?" he growled, staring from one to the other. "You two know each other?"

The wounded man's eyes flashed.

"We never saw each other before," he said. "But she's my woman!"

"Oh, hell!" Foley was disgusted. "Cut out the slush. Get busy, doctor!"

"Wait!" The man moved his hand slightly. "First tell her."

"Tell her what?"

"Tell her everything. She won't scare." Conviction rang in the man's tones. "Tell her everything! Everything. You understand?"

Foley did not hesitate. The man on the bed, helpless as he was, was clearly master. He turned to the doctor.

"The guys that handed it to him'll be back sooner or later," he growled. "They're out to get him, an' they ain't goin' to let up till they do. They know he's here an' they're layin' for him. He's got to get to his ship before mornin' or he won't have a dog's chance. You got to patch him up so's he can travel, see?"

Dr. Taylor nodded. With a great effort she called back her vanishing skill. Patch him up? Patch this man up? Oh, yes; she would patch him up—and more. If need be, she would drag him back from the very jaws of death! This was her hour, and she knew it.

SHE said nothing, but she bent calmly and began to clip away the wad of blood-soaked cotton that some one had bound upon the wound.

In a moment she uncovered a small cut, ringed with black. It was not much wider than if it had been made with the point of a penknife, but from it the blood pulsed up slowly and rhythmically. Against its mouth she pressed a pad of gauze and held it there. Then she looked up.

"You are very badly wounded," she said; "just how badly I can not tell. You ought to go to a hospital on a stretcher—"

"I can't. I must get to my ship."

"Very well."

Dr. Taylor accepted the decision instantly and unprotestingly. It never occurred to her to demur. He—this man whose very name she did not know—he had said he must go to his ship. That ended it: go he must. It was her place to help him.

"I will patch you up as best I can," she said with amazing calmness. "You may be able to get to your ship or you may drop dead when you stand up. I can not tell. It depends on how deep the knife went."

"All right!" The man nodded. "Foley, have a taxi ready—oh, you know!"

He turned back.

"Go ahead, doctor. By the way, there's a big price on my head, and the boys will earn it if they can. They're apt to break in the door or slip down the chimney or pop up the fire-escape any minute!"

"Well!"

"Well, this isn't your fight, you know. If they do show up, just drop to the floor and crawl out of the way and give me room. I'm not dead yet, you know."

"Humph!"

The doctor seemed not to hear. With skilful, untrembling fingers she was bandaging the wound. Every movement of her hands was exactly measured, neither too much nor too little, and was made with the swift, unhurried precision of a perfect machine.

Foley had vanished, probably to see about the taxi.

The bandaging took only a few moments. When it was finished, the doctor reclosed and refastened the man's garments.

"Don't try to get up by your own strength," she directed. "Any exertion might kill you. When the taxi comes I'll lift you."

The man glanced up and down the doctor's figure.

"Think you can do it?" he asked. "I'm heavier than I look."

The doctor nodded. "Yes, I can do it."

"Of course you can!" The man reached out and caught her hand. "God, what a woman you are!" he gasped.

The doctor made no attempt to draw back. Her knees were trembling under her, and her brain was swimming. Her panting breath choked her. The face of the man on the pillow wavered before her eyes. Unresistingly, she felt herself drawn steadily down—down till her lips pressed his and clung there, while the world reeled and crashed about her.

Then suddenly he released her.

"Die?" he trumpeted. "I? Die now? He laughed aloud. "Not I! Listen, Mary." How did he know her name was Mary? "Listen, girl." Why had no one ever called her "girl" before? "Once on board, we are safe. They'll attack us on the way, and they may attack us after we're aboard. They'll dog us and track us and try to sink us. But we'll beat them off. Oh, yes! We'll beat them off. Neither man nor God nor devil can stop me to-night. In two hours we'll be in blue waters, and in two days we'll reach the rendezvous; and we'll be rich, Mary—rich and free. We'll roam the Seven Seas; we'll go where life pulses warm beneath the Southern skies; we'll— Oh, there are brave deeds yet to be done in this age and time. The world is not all given over to the policeman—not yet-—ever think it, girl. The Allies, the Germans—who cares which, so long as the pay— You don't care which, do you?

The doctor shook her head. Her eyes were like stars. She did not speak.

"I knew you wouldn't. Come! Lift me up. It's time to go."

THE window shivered in, sash and all crashing to the floor; and out of the star-speckled night two men appeared—not formidable to look at, no match at all in a fair fight for the man on the bed, but deadly in a go-as-you-please struggle by reason of the weapons they carried. Toward the bed they leaped.

But Mary Taylor was quicker than they. The heavy chair from which she had risen was close to her hand. Like a flail she swung it—once, twice. It struck the men squarely and hurled them backward, clutching at each other with vain fingers. Against the low window-sill they tripped and toppled backward, thudding against the rail of the fire-escape—against and over it. From below came up a jar as of a sack of falling coals.

The doctor did not even look to see. As she struck, her ears had caught the creak of the bed as the wounded man sprang up; and she turned just in time to catch him, hold him for a moment, then lay him softly down.

Then she stood staring at him, till Foley, hurrying in, led her away and sent her home, alone, in the taxicab.

NEXT morning Mr. Wood, passing, glanced anxiously at the window of Dr. Taylor's office, and drew a breath of relief as he saw her sitting calmly at her desk. "Thank heaven!" he muttered. "I was afraid—" Involuntarily he shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, I'm an imaginative fool!" he muttered. "She is a sumph, after all, incapable of understanding or of passion."

At the same moment Dr. Taylor was thinking of the man who had died in her arms—the man to whom she had stood ready to abandon her life. She was wishing that she knew his name.

Missing — Roberta Hoyt!

Continued from page 8

mistaken about the man being Herbert Farnham. I happened to hear to-night that Farnham is in Chicago."

The chauffeur looked round in surprise.

"Is that so? Well, I'd have swore it was him! The voice was—"

"English voices are all pretty much the same to us, like Chinese faces," Tal observed carelessly. "Anyhow, it couldn't have been Farnham. Hoyt place all shut up, you say? No one there at all?"

"Only the care-takers—a couple named Higgs."

Higgs! That was the name the excited person had called me over the 'phone from Miss Hoyt's home.

"They're English," continued the chauffeur. "He came up to tend to the polo-ponies Miss Hoyt bought last spring. Mr. Farnham got him the place."

"Is that so?" said Tal. I knew from his tone that he considered the fact important.

"Yes, sir. Higgs worked for Mr. Farnham's folks in England—only left when they gave up their horses. Mrs. Higgs told me once they had a grand place over there, but the old man—'his lordship,' she called him—lost all his money gambling. So they shut up their big house in the country, and the old lord went to London to live in a hotel, and Master Herbert—that's what the Higgses call Mr. Farnham—went out to Australia, and after that he came over here."

"I should say he had done pretty well here."

"You mean Miss Hoyt's money? That's what lots of people think—if they don't know him. But it always looked to me like he was crazy about her. He was working on a ranch out West somewheres when she met him last spring. Nobody out there knew who he was or anything, and she didn't for a long time, they say."

"He knew who she was, I'll bet. What do you think was the reason they didn't marry after they got the license?"

"Search me! Guess she just took a notion to put it off. She's the sort you can't tell what she'll do next. She could keep a dozen fellows guessing if she wanted to. But there's one thing about Miss Bobbie—she's square. She ain't the sort to make a fellow think he's the whole cheese and then turn him down cold."

"Weren't there any other men after her?"

"There was plenty of 'em coming and going all summer, but they all acted like they knew it was Farnham's race—all except a fellow named Winter."

"Winter? What's his first name?"

"I don't know. I heard somebody say he was a broker. He's a tall man, dark hair, and good-looking. Miss Hoyt seemed to like him all right, but I never thought much of him. He was a cracker jack at tennis, but if he lost he'd get mad and try to blame it on somebody. Now, Mr. Farnham ain't that way at all. I've seen him play his head off at polo and then lose, and be as pleasant about it as if he'd won. And you know you can't help liking a good loser."

"You're strong for Farnham, I see."

WE were now approaching the Martin lodge, and the gleam from the gate lamps had become visible. It was our plan to dismiss the car there and continue on foot to the Hoyt place, which lay just beyond.

"Do the caretakers of the Hoyt place sleep at the lodge?" Tal asked the boy.

"No, there isn't any lodge there. Higgs and his wife sleep in the house now, I guess. I've noticed a light in some of the ground-floor windows. They used to have the rooms over the garage, but when the family went away I guess they moved up to the house."

The car stopped, and we got out.

"We'll spend the night here, so you can go on back," said Tal, paying for the trip. "Much obliged to you for meeting us. Good night."

The Martin place extended on for a short distance, then began the low stone wall that bordered the Hoyt property. The house stood well to the other end of the grounds, and our first glimpse of it showed us nothing but a bulky blackness rising behind the lesser shadows of trees and shrubs. At close range it proved to be a sort of glorified farmhouse, bespeaking the simple, democratic tastes of its builder, the dead and gone manufacturer.

"No light anywhere," said Tal, when we had reached a point commanding a view of the entire front and nearer side.

"It's after one o'clock," I reminded him.

I remember how still it was as we stood there, with the live, pulsating stillness of the country. Then, off in the distance, a dog barked.

"The garage must be on the other side," said Tal.

We walked on, past the big, silent house. And then, suddenly, we both stopped dead. We had seen the same thing—a light among the trees. I heard Tal catch his breath, and I held mine too—I don't know why. We were on a public road, not trespassing, and I, at least, had no thought of anybody being about who might wish to do me injury. It must have been the hour, the quiet, and the darkness—for, in spite of the stars, it was very dark. And then, the unexpectedness of it!

We stood for half a minute, tensely waiting. But presently, seeing that the light did not move and must issue from the house, we walked on again, and found that it came from a window on the ground floor toward the rear. Light escaped here and there along the sides of the two windows just back of this one, where the shades did not fit perfectly; but on this window the shade had not been fully drawn, and through a few inches of unscreened space a narrow shaft of light passed out.

THE Hoyt grounds stopped about a hundred feet farther on, and just beyond was a piece of woodland fenced by wires. These, we found, had been so bent, where they met the Hoyt side wall, as to permit of our crawling through, as others must have done before us; for our electric torch showed the beginning of a path slanting off through the woods.

Hugging the wall, and stooping so that our heads did not rise above the hedge, we went stealthily back. Opposite the lighted window we stopped, hoping for a sight of the interior; but the exposed space was too shallow for us, at our distance, to make out anything in the room.

We waited, listening intently for sounds. but if there were any within they did not reach us. And after a little we went on again toward the garage, which stood near the wall, well back from the house. A vine-covered trellis screened it from view.

As we got almost abreast of it we came to a break in the hedge, which, like the opening in the wire fence, had evidently been used by others before us. A few cautious steps then landed us behind the trellis. There it was black night.

Tal tried the garage doors, and reported in a disappointed whisper that they were locked.

"Well, what next?" I whispered back.

"The porte-cochère must be on the other side. We should have come back that way," he said.

But now between us and the other side of the house lay a bare sweep of lawn, circled by the driveway. To cross it would be foolhardy; for, dark though it was, the darkness would not swallow us, and from the light some one must be up about the place.

"Let's go back and come round from the front," I suggested, and Tal agreed.

We had retraced our steps as far as the break in the hedge when a distant noise struck on our ears, and involuntarily we both dropped to the ground. The noise came from the woods; it was the crackling of dry leaves. Somebody was probably walking along that path to the road. Better for us to wait until he was out of our way. Being in front, I

Page 16

"Seems to be coming this way," I whispered. "We'd better get back." And we retreated to the shelter of she trellis.

The rasping of the leaves grew louder.

"Sounds like more than one," said Tal. But from the trellis we could not see beyond the wall.

Then, gradually, we made out a new sound, indefinable at first, but soon—unmistakably—sobbing.

"It's a woman!"

IT was two women. One appeared through the hedge and turned to help the second through. In the dark they showed as shadowy, skirted forms, with veils or shawls about their heads. As they crossed to the house it was evident that the sobbing came from only one of them, the taller and slighter of the two. Her companion seemed to support her somewhat, murmuring inarticulate, soothing sounds. In a few minutes they had disappeared through a back door into the house.

"What's up, do you think?" I questioned of Tal under my breath.

His answer was a warning hiss and a jerk of his head toward the woods. "There are more coming," he breathed.

It was true. I again heard the rustling of the dry leaves, but nothing else.

They were men this time, two of them. The first, a tall, slim shadow, stepped through the hedge and took several rapid strides toward the house, then, stopping abruptly, waited. The second man now came through, and reaching back, drew after him something I could not distinguish, but which made a metallic scraping sound as it struck the stone wall.

"See that I'm all right for gasolene, Higgs," said the waiting man; and at the voice I felt Tal start. I had a queer sensation, too; for the voice was that of the man of the limousine.

"Yes, sir," said Higgs, and touched his cap. "Beg pardon, Master Herbert, but is the young lady to go back with you?"

"No; she'll stop here for a few days, till she's calmer. It'll be safe enough. Nobody will think of looking here."

"Yes, sir."

Farnham—for, of course, it was he—entered the house, and Higgs came on toward the trellis. We sank from our crouching position, and lay prone, hardly breathing. The man's heavy tread came nearer, fell loudly on the concrete driveway, then in a tense moment passed. He must have dragged the metallic object, for it made a harsh sound on the concrete. As he went by I felt something strike softly against my hat—something I thought was a pebble. I gulped at the impact, for it seemed to me like a loud thud, though it was probably all but soundless.

On went Higgs around the corner of the garage, and next we heard the grind of a hinge, as of a door opening.

"Now's our chance!" said Tal; and before I realized what he meant he was on his feet, running across the lawn toward the far side of the house. It looked like madness, but I followed, and we had the luck of the daring. The soft lawn was clear of leaves, and we made the run noiselessly; and the instant we rounded the corner of the house we saw our quarry. In the shadow of the porte-cochère a limousine stood facing us.

Tal flashed the torch. "Same car. Now for the number."

It was a New York license number, and Tal felt in a pocket for a pencil to write it down.

"I've got it," said I, meaning in my head. Numbers stick with me.

Opening the door of the car, he lighted the interior for a moment. It was handsomely upholstered and luxuriously appointed. A rich rug lay crumpled on the floor, another on a seat. Stepping in, he reached for something, which he thrust back at me.

"See what that is," he said.

I could not see what it was in the dark, but my fingers told me it was a small leather case, flexible and smooth, with cards inside.

"Let's have the light a minute," I said, keen for a look at the cards.

As I spoke he stepped back against me with a startled movement.

"What is it?" I asked. But on the instant there came the sound of steps on the driveway, and, closing the car, we crept round to the front of the house.

The steps—it was Higgs—came nearer; then we heard the car rolling over the driveway to the rear, for gasolene probably. After a little it returned, passed our hiding-place, and went on to the gate, where it stopped. Higgs climbed down, opened the gate, closed it after the car, and then we heard his heavy tramp back to the door at the rear of the house. As the door slammed we ventured from cover.

Cautiously we made our way around to the lighted windows, meaning to try for a peep through that unscreened gap in the first one. But, to Tal's chagrin, the shade had been lowered. Nevertheless, we stole up to it and listened. From within came the sobbing, sobbing we had heard before. No other sound. Creeping back, we listened at the other lighted windows. All we could hear was the sibilant noise of whispering. Round to the door we made our way, but it was locked.

"No use hanging round any longer," said Tal, and we were soon out in the road, making tracks for the village.

"Well?" said I.

He made no reply, and we went on in silence until we reached the Martin lodge. There, unable to resist my curiosity any longer, I stopped and, under the light of the gate lamps, examined the leather case.

It was a lady's card-case of fine black leather, lined with satin, and the cards it held were all engraved alike:

I read it aloud, and handed it to Tal, who took it mechanically.

"Where did that mud come from?" He was staring at my hat.

"Mud!"

I jerked the hat off. On one side, clinging to the rough felt, were bits of yellow earth. For a moment I gazed at them blankly; then I recalled the sensation I had had of a pebble striking my hat when Higgs passed us at the garage. I spoke of it.

Tal nodded. "I got some on my hand."

He held his hand to the light. There was a yellow smear across the back.

"It hasn't rained here in a month, but that's mud and nothing else. It came from that pick and spade Higgs was carrying."

He paused and rubbed his sleeve hard against the yellow smear, then glanced down at the reddened flesh.

"There's a new grave somewhere in those woods, Dick," he said slowly, without looking at me.

"What!"

"Surest thing you know. And look at this. I picked it up in the car."

He drew from his pocket a handkerchief—a woman's, very fine in texture, but badly stained.

"Blood," he said.

WE had several hours to wait for a train to New York, and divided the time between tramping the station platform and vainly wooing sleep on a baggage truck. And of course we talked.

I would not admit that our finding the limousine at the Hoyt house proved Miss Hoyt was concerned in its being there. It was possible, I said, that Farnham was using the place and his henchman, Higgs, for a purpose of his own.

"But what did he mean by saying: 'Nobody would think of looking here'? Looking for whom? Isn't it the last place one would think of looking for Miss Hoyt?"

"Surely you don't believe the woman who was crying was she?"

"Why not?"

"Because one of those women must have been the blonde who was in the car with Farnham, and the other was probably Mrs. Higgs—she must have been around somewhere. Then where does Miss. Hoyt come in? But I suppose you think Farnham and the blonde murdered and buried her."

"The idea doesn't strike me as amusing, Dick," he said severely, because I had grinned.

"It isn't amusing; it's absurd."

"I don't see why."

I longed to disabuse his mind of its wild notions—to tell him that Miss Hoyt was in New York, alive and well. Recalling her laughing face and merry good-by, it was impossible to connect her with anything grisly. And our night's adventure was grisly, I had to admit.

"The limousine evidently belongs to Miss Winnington, of the Kensington," I remarked, to change the subject. "Ever hear of her?"

"No. But the Kensington Hotel is at Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, opposite the Cathedral—the corner where Miss Hoyt was last seen."

He said this impressively, but I was not impressed. I knew that was not the place she had been seen last.

"The blonde may be Miss Winnington," I suggested.

"Perhaps. It ought to be fairly easy to find out. But what I want to know is: who was the person we heard groaning? Whose blood is on that handkerchief? What was Higgs doing with a spade and pick? Why was that woman crying?"

"Not because she had committed murder, you may be sure."

"She was hysterical. Didn't Farnham say she had better stay there until she was calmer? Why? What's he afraid of?"

"Why not stay up here and find out?"

"I've half a mind to."

"Oh, you have? Well, you'll stay alone! I'm going back to New York on the first train and get a bath and some sleep. I've got a very important engagement to-morrow—to-day, rather."

"Thought you were all through with your business."

"This isn't business."

"Oh—excuse me!"

"That's all right. I don't mind telling you about it—if you'll promise to keep it dark."

"Of course."

He looked at me expectantly, and I chuckled.

"I'm going to tea at 16 East 80th Street with Miss Roberta Hoyt."

"I must say," he growled, after a disgusted frown, "that you've got a darned queer sense of humor!"

A TRAIN came along after a bit and picked us up. We slept all the way to town, and on arriving got breakfast at a restaurant near the station and looked, over the morning papers. There was a bunch of them, but the accounts of Miss Hoyt's disappearance were all practically identical.

Passing from one to another and from column to column of print, I thought again of that little tea-party of the afternoon before, and it seemed to have receded suddenly into the remote past. Then she had been just a lovely girl, the loveliest I had ever seen, and I had looked forward eagerly to seeing her again and—yes, it had even occurred to me that in Atlanta fifteen thousand dollars is a pretty fine nest-egg for a young couple.

But now the lovely girl had become a personage whom I was pleased to have had the honor of taking to tea; but as for the future—well, fifteen thousand goes into two millions how many times? Besides, there was Farnham. At that long ago tea-party there had been no Farnham.

When Tal and I separated, I went to my room and slept till noon, and when I awoke I again caught myself idly dreaming of a lovely, laughing countenance until, deciding that for my state of mind a cold shower was indicated, as the doctors say, I got up and took one.

While I was dressing a newsboy's piercing voice rose from the street, crying an

Page 17

Quickly finishing my dressing, I hurried out, eager for the news. It met me at the elevator.

"What's the extra about, Jimmy?" the little floor clerk called to a bell-boy, who came along as I surrendered my key at her desk in the hall. "Anything to do with that Hoyt goil?"

"Uh-huh. Whatcher think? Her feller's showed up, and says they ain't married."

"My, but ain't men turrible? A goil ain't got a chanst in this world!"

"Aw, put on the brakes, Mame!" admonished Jimmy. "They ain't been together at all. He says they busted up for keeps a week ago, and he ain't saw her since and don't know nothin' about her—why she skipped nor nothin'."

"You'll never make me believe that!"

"He's got that marriage license yet, that they got up to Riverton, to prove they ain't married."

"That don't prove nothing"—here the porter entered the discussion. "He coulda easy got another. They don't cost but a dollar."

"If you think they're so awful cheap, Rube, it's a wonder you wouldn't blow Mame to one."

"Aw, Jimmy, ain't you turrible!"

"I'd blow you to one all right, Mame," joshed the porter. "Only, getting married's like buying a automobile; it ain't the first cost that breaks you, it's the running expenses." And, with a guffaw in which he was joined by the boy, he trundled his load away.

The elevator door slid back, and two men stepped off.

"What's your theory?" I heard one ask the other. "Don't you think it's strange that Farnham won't tell where he's been?"

"Strange! How'd you like to have a reporter step up suddenly and ask where you've been for the last five days?" was the laughing retort.

THE extra, I found, was chiefly headlines. The news was merely that Farnham had returned, was shut up in his rooms, and declined to be interviewed. He had communicated with William Rosser, Miss Hoyt's guardian, and with her aunt, Mrs. Otison, assuring them that he knew nothing of the whereabouts of the missing girl. She had, he said, broken her engagement to him a week before, and since then he had neither seen nor heard from her. Concerning his own movements he would say only that he had been out of town on private business.

I tried to locate Tal, but found that he had not been at his room nor at the Record office that day.

As I hung about the hotel, I began to regret deserting him. Anything would have been better than this waiting and suspense. About three o'clock the papers came out with the announcement that two persons claimed to have seen Miss Hoyt on Fifth Avenue the preceding afternoon.

Dr. Hollins Rice [the account ran], a physician of 220 Madison Avenue, says he was walking up Fifth Avenue yesterday afternoon about four o'clock, when, at the southwest corner of Thirty-eighth Street, he saw Miss Roberta Hoyt standing in conversation with a young man.

The man's back was toward me," said Dr. Rice, "so I veered a bit in their direction, thinking that if he were some one I knew I'd stop for a word with Miss Hoyt, whom I had not seen for some time. But when I got a view of the man I saw he was a stranger, so I passed on, and as Miss Hoyt happened not to see me, we did not exchange greetings. The man with her was young, twenty-four or so, tall, dark, and good-looking. He wore, I think, a blue serge suit and soft black hat."

Asked how Miss Hoyt was dressed, Dr. Rice said she was in reddish-brown velvet. It was the color which had first drawn his attention to her, he being familiar with it as the shade she affected because it harmonized with her hair.

The other person who claims to have seen Miss Hoyt yesterday is Dennis Mulrooney, a taxi-driver. He was cruising up Fifth Avenue, he says, about five o'clock, looking out for a fare, when, at the southeast corner of Thirty-eighth Street, he was stopped by a young man who was standing there with a young lady. The man he did not know, but recognized the lady as Miss Hoyt. She got into the cab, and the man gave the address, 16 East 80th Street, which Mulrooney says he knew to be Miss Hoyt's residence. As he was starting the car, Miss Hoyt, he says called out something to the young man about a policeman, but he did not catch the other words. They went up Fifth Avenue; but at Forty-ninth Street she told him to stop at the next corner, and he stopped in front of the Kengsington Hotel, and she got out and paid her fair. He did not notice in which direction she went afterward.

Asked how he happened to know Miss Hoyt by sight, Mulrooney says she was pointed out to him last Friday afternoon by his sister, who is employed as a maid in a house opposite that of Miss Hoyt's in 80th Street. He says he was standing at the servants' entrance, talking to his sister, when Miss Hoyt came out and got into her machine. She was dressed then exactly as she was yesterday—in brown, with furs and a black hat. His description of the man with her agrees with that of Dr. Rice.

As the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street is the point where Miss Hoyt was last seen before her disappearance, some significance would seem to attach to the fact that she left the taxi there yesterday. Inquiries made at the Kensington were without results.

The thing that puzzled me, as I laid down the paper, was why the waitress at the tea-room had not been to the police with her story.

At five o'clock, the situation remaining unchanged, I telephoned to Miss Hoyt's home and asked if she had returned. She had not, nor had anything been heard from her. As I left the booth I ran into Tal. He looked all in.

"This thing's got me going, Dick. The more I find out the less I know. Come on up to your room; I want a bath."

There were other people on the elevator, so nothing more was said until my door was closed upon us. He started his bath water, while I ordered up coffee and food for him. Turning from the telephone, I found him standing beside me, feeling in an inside pocket of his coat.

"Exhibit A," he said, and handed me a small white book.

It was an Episcopal prayer-book of white leather, with purple ribbon markers. On the fly-leaf, in a woman's hand, was the inscription: "Mary, from Winifred, Melbourne, October second."

"Who is Mary?" I asked.

"Not sure yet."

"And Winifred?"

"No idea. I found that in the woods at Riverton. Yes, I went back—had to: the thing wouldn't let me rest. Open where the ribbons are."

I OPENED at the markers, and my eye fell on the large type heading: "The Order for the Burial of the Dead." I looked at him. He nodded grimly.

"I found the grave—walked right on it. You see, I went along the wall, as we did last night, and found the shade of that window still down. The other shades were up, but I didn't see anybody about. The kitchen must be on the other side, and Higgs and his wife were probably there. From that break in the hedge I made my way into the woods, guessing at the direction until I found the prayer-book. That gave me a straight line, which I followed to a clump of cedars. They had covered the thing with leaves and stamped them down, and then piled a lot of others on. If it had not been for the give of the ground under me I'd not have noticed it."

"But are you sure it was—that?"

"Yes. Besides, there's that book. There was a funeral there last night as sure as you're you. But whose?"

"Didn't you see anybody about the place at all?"

"Before I left I saw three—all there were, I think. I hid for an hour or more behind the wall, opposite that window. First Higgs came from the house and went all round the place. He acted nervous, I thought, and stared off into the woods for a long time. Then that shade I was watching went up, and the window-sash too, and a woman, short and stout— Mrs. Higgs, I guess—drew back the curtains to let the sun in. A few minutes later she passed the window with a tray, and a half hour after that another woman came to the window and pulled the curtains down again."

"Could you see her?"

"Not her face. She didn't get in front of the window, but pulled the curtains from the side. All I could see was her blue kimono and her hair. She's not Miss Hoyt, that's sure. The hair was golden, or looked so in the sunlight."

"The blonde with Farnham, you think?"

"Of course. I hung round for an hour or so longer, but didn't get another glimpse of her; so at last I came on back to town."

"YOU know, of course, that Miss Hoyt was seen here yesterday?"

"I know some people say they saw her."

"Why—what do you mean?" I asked.

For answer he crossed to the chair where he had hung his coat in the course of undressing, and dug into an inside pocket.

"Exhibit B," he said, and handed me a prescription pad with the heading: "Dr. Hollins Rice, 220 Madison Avenue."

"Dr. Hollins Rice is one of the persons who say they saw Miss Hoyt," he remarked significantly.

"I don't follow' you," I said.

"Well, I can't say I follow very far myself, Dick; but I found that pad in an East 26th Street flat presided over by a Mrs. John Rogers, née Higgs—Higgs' sister."

"How did you happen to stumble on her?"

"Very simply. Rogers, her husband, is the chauffeur of Miss Winnington, who lives at the Kensington and receives on Thursdays."

"The blonde."

"No; Miss Winnington is an old lady of seventy. She is often ailing, and her physician is Dr. Hollins Rice."

"Dr. Rice again!"

"Among other visitors who do not confine their calls to Thursdays are Herbert Farnham and Marcus Winter."

"Winter! Not the broker friend of Miss Hoyt who plays good tennis and hates to lose? But what do these men go to Miss Winnington's for?"

"For the fair sake of Miss Winnington's companion, a beautiful English girl named Mary Leighton. She is a blonde—probably our blonde, and the Mary of the prayer-book; for I was told she had left last night to visit friends in the country."

"But how did you find out all this?"

"By judicious pumping of the Kensington menials. At the garage where the limousine puts up, I learned that it had spent the night out, being brought back early this morning by its natural guardian, the husband of Mrs. Higgs-Rogers, formerly of Castle Darrow. You see, the garage is boastful of the castle."

"But how did you get into the Rogers flat?"

"As an insurance agent. A chauffeur's wife always believes in accident insurance. Now, while I'm in the tub, just put all I've told you into your thinking-pot, stir well, and let me know what sort of a mess you make of it. And just drop in this last ingredient," he paused to add at the bath-room door. "On the mantel of Mrs. Higgs-Rogers, in the place of honor, was a large photograph of an actress, taken in London, with the name in gold lettering beneath: "Mary Leighton."

When he came out of the bath I had several objections ready. His food had come, and he fell to voraciously.

"Those prescription blanks probably have nothing to do with the case," I said. "They might have been left in Miss Winnington's car, and so got to the Rogers flat. And I'd count out Winter, too. Judging by what that boy at Riverton told us, he can't be in league with Farnham."

"I guess you're right about that."

"And even if Dr. Rice is lying about seeing Miss Hoyt yesterday, to shield Farnham, as you seem to think, what of that cabman who saw her?"

"By George, I'm glad' you mentioned him!" Tal exclaimed. "I want to talk to

Page 18

"Here!"

"Yes; I used your name—said you might want to employ him regularly. Had to offer some inducement to make sure of his coming."

I was alarmed. Suppose Mulrooney should recognize me?

"He says he's sure he'd know the man with Miss Hoyt if he ever saw him again."

"That's good."

"And I've a notion that, if he did really see her, the man with her may have been Winter. He's tall and dark and handsome, like the chap they describe."

"When did you see Winter?" I asked.

"Interviewed him once about some Wall Street scandal he was mixed up in. Got a cigarette?"

I supplied him. "What time do you expect this Irishman?" I inquired, trying to make the question sound casual.

"Any time now." He yawned. "Gosh, but I'm sleepy."

"Better sleep, then," was my eager advice. "I'll get out and leave you alone."

"For heaven's sake don't!" he objected. "I'll never hear the 'phone."

HE was snoring a minute after he crawled under the covers. Fifteen minutes later the telephone rang. He did not stir. I took down the receiver with my mind made up. Mr. Mulrooney was going to get the glad tidings that I did not require his services and he needn't wait.

"Well?" I whispered.

"A lady to see Mr. Terrill."

"What! Who—who is it?"

"She didn't give her name."

My heart jumped a foot. There was only one lady in New York whom I knew and who knew where I was stopping. I remembered telling her at the tea-table.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"In the small reception-room."

"I'll be right down, tell her."

At the doorway to the reception-room I halted. The room was empty except for one figure—a black-suited, black-hatted woman sitting in a corner. At sight of me she rose instantly and came forward.

"Don't you know me?" she asked, and then I recognized her. It was the waitress from the tea-room.

"Didn't expect me, did you?"

EXPECT her! I was wondering how in the world she had found me.

"I heard you telling—your friend yesterday what your name was and where you stopped," she said, guessing my thought. "Guess you expected I'd go to the police, didn't you—like the others?" There was a gleam of triumph in the small black eyes. "But I knew you wouldn't want me to do that," she added.

"I don't understand you," I returned sharply. But I did. Both tone and smile implied a discreditable secret between us which she was prepared to keep—at a price.

"If you have anything to say to me, speak plainly," I ordered, furious at her.

"Oh, you're wanting plain speaking, are you?" she snapped back. "I can speak plain, don't worry; but if I do it won't be to you—it'll be to the police."

"What do you mean by that?"

She gave me a sharp glance. "Oh—I see! You're meaning to deny it?"

"I shall deny nothing that's true," I retorted with impatience. "I was at your tea-room yesterday afternoon with Miss Hoyt. She dropped her locket, you returned it to me, and I still have it. You're welcome to tell that to any one you like and whenever you like."

"Why don't you tell it yourself?"

"How do you know I have not?"

"Why do you keep the locket, then?"

For reply I wheeled and strode to the door. Behind me I heard her laugh.

"Oh, you can't bluff me," she said. "I know Miss Hoyt's voice, you see."

I stopped involuntarily, startled. She had not moved an inch to follow me, and there was an assured, unpleasant smile on her thin lips.

"I was a maid awhile last summer at the Rivington Country Club," she explained. "Miss Hoyt used to come to the dances there, and I have heard her talk lots of times. You can't bluff me."

I walked back and faced her squarely. "Just exactly what is it you mean?"

Her black eyes focused themselves on my face and studied it suspiciously; then she gave a short laugh.

"Say, did you think that party with you yesterday was Miss Roberta Hoyt? Honest?"

"She was Miss Hoyt," I answered stoutly; but, even as I spoke, I was asking myself: "What if she were not?"

"No, she wasn't, and you know she wasn't."

"That's absurd, Her personal friend, Dr. Hollins Rice, recognized her when she was standing with me at the corner; and that taxi-driver—"

"He's never seen her but once before, and that doctor just passed her. He didn't hear her talk. Miss Hoyt don't talk like that—that English way. But that girl did look like her. I thought myself it was her when she first came in, and I wasn't sure till I noticed that was a wig she had on."

"Wig!" I was gripping myself to avoid betraying surprise; but her last statement was so ridiculous that after my first gasp I burst out laughing.

"It was a wig," she repeated flatly. "I thought so when I was watching her from across the room. I thought then she'd maybe had a fever and lost her own hair. But when she called me over to get some hot water I had a chance to look close, and just behind her ear a little hair was sticking from under the wig, and it was light—real light."

I made a startled movement and she went on quickly:

"You see, you can't bluff me—I know too much. Didn't I hear you telling her you were stopping here, calling yourself Terrill, and passing off for a lawyer from Atlanta? I don't know what your scheme is, or how she got Miss Hoyt's clothes and jewelry, and what it has got to do with Miss Hoyt's disappearance, and I'm not asking questions. But I guess Miss Hoyt's guardian would make it worth my while to tell what I know—if it's not worth anything to you to keep me quiet."

IT was blackmail. I had seen it coming.

To extricate myself from the difficulty would be easy—I had only to tell everything. And now, looking back, I wonder if that was not precisely what it had been intended I should do. Why? To give the impression that Miss Hoyt was in New York when she was not? If the girl I had met was not Miss Hoyt, but some masquerader, then plainly that was her purpose. But if I were to fulfil it now and talk, the waitress would also tell her story, which would alter the situation entirely.

But if not Miss Hoyt, who was the girl? The blonde of the limousine—the woman who had cried? Again in my ears sounded the sobbing as I had heard it standing outside that window, only now it hurt me unbearably. Could that weeping woman have been she, the girl whose blue eyes had laughed into mine only a few hours before?

Again I saw her face, and the vision for a moment blotted out everything else, even the sordid creature at my side. And then, quite suddenly, I knew what I must do. Whoever the girl was whom I had met, whatever her name,-Roberta Hoyt or what not,—she was for me the one woman; and, whatever she had done, it was for me to shield her. For that and that only was I there, or anywhere.

I looked down again at the gimlet eyes and hard, tight mouth of my blackmailer.

"Sit down," I said.

To be continued next week

"Uncle Burrell"

AFTER spending his first ninety years without knowing a from z when he met up with them, "Uncle Burrell" King is going to school.

He lives in a cove near Pine Knot, Kentucky. To the mountaineers of Kentucky and East Tennessee he is "Uncle Burrell." Fourscore of his years have been spent in that neighborhood.

"Uncle Burrell" is the one remarkable habitant of the region. He has never been shot, stabbed, nor poisoned; only three times married; abhors tobacco; and is a rabid Prohibitionist—with mental reservations.

"Hit's quare how good a dram'd taste this mornin'," he says on short acquaintance. The pocket flask not appearing, his interest cools instanter.

Though unable to read and write, "Uncle Burrell" has been a successful practitioner of law through two generations. Whether he has ever been admitted to the bar is immaterial; he possesses more good, hard common sense than any other man in that section. He is a walking abstract of all lands in his

In criminal cases "Uncle Burrell" brings out an assortment of cross-questions which make the unlucky witness appear to be begging for admission to the penitentiary, via the perjury route. His questions and shrewdness have won "Uncle Burrell" the respect of every court.

"I believe in anything coming up on jestice, without hit's too hard; then I ask for mercy," is his summing up of his methods. "Whenever I git a hard case I'd rather have mercy than jestice."

"Uncle Burrell" is the highest type of pioneer Kentucky mountaineer. The fact that at ninety years of age he is going to school, so that he may learn to read the Constitution, which has heretofore been to him a meaningless jumble of black marks on paper, shows the fiber of which he is made.

Walt Mason Prescribes for a Doc

THE picture shows the good physician just as folks see him every day; o'er mountain roads, in fierce condition, from home, some thirty miles away. He's come to help a mountain woman who's lying sick within the shack; no call for help from ailing human e'er found the doctor hanging back.

For more than forty years he's traveled the hills of northwest Arkansaw, and scientific knots unraveled, with thoughtful brain and skilful paw. When first among those hills he settled, to heal the people with is pills, a man must needs to be highly mettled to face the perils and the ills.

It mattered not how storms were roaring, nor how the darkness grew more thick, nor how the chilling rain was pouring—the doctor went to heal the sick. His years are sixty-five, and truly the doc's entitled to a rest; but at that thought he grows unruly—he still is full of vim and zest. Still active, and with zeal unflaggin', and eager yet to help and please, he travels in his mountain wagon, to put a spoke in some disease.

That country now has younger saw-bones, the graduates of modern schools, distributing through cultured jawbones wise talk of ethics and rules. But when the folks have arches disturby, that throw a scare into their souls, they always yell for Dr Kirby, and briskly to their doors he rolls.

It is not strange that he's a healer; his grandsire was a doctor, too; his father also, was a dealer in drugs that make men good as new. He has two sons prescribing potions to patients who are feeling tough. The family has dealt out oceans of helpful, renovating stuff.

As cheerful as the sky above him, and always patient, brave, and gay—what wonder that his people love him, and bless the doctor every day?

Conserving Our Nervous Energy

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D.
Author of "Side-Stepping Ill Health," etc.

IF we took as much interest in preserving our energy as we do in preserving our clothes, we would be far less interesting as medical "cases."

We waste, in a thousand useless ways, sufficient dynamic physical force to do the work of the world many times over. We apply efficiency to about everything under the sun except ourselves.

Few realize that we have but a certain amount of physical and nervous energy to expend, and that if we waste it in futile and non-productive activities we certainly are going to run shy of "punch" when the real need comes to show efficiency. If every one could know the value of a few minutes' complete relaxation,—the sensible utility of sitting back "as loose ashes" once in a while,—there would be a dearth of nervous breakdowns.

If the student, the mother, the brain worker—if every one who uses energy faster than he manufactures it—would get into the habit of "stretching out" and completely relaxing when they begin to feel fatigued, and give nature a little chance to recharge the magnetic and nervous batteries, we shouldn't need to worry about the lack of insane asylums.

These ought to be obvious facts. Perhaps we ignore them because they are obvious, and because to find out about them costs us nothing except a siege of illness or a ruction in the family. If nervous and physical conservation were something one could take in a pill, we'd all be falling over one another to get a supply.

But we spend large amounts of A1 vitality in soul-racking worry, rapid-fire nervous explosions, and fatuous over-exertion. And then we wonder why adult longevity is decreasing! We wonder why we have to make an involuntary assignment in physical bankruptcy at forty-five or fifty, when we should have a plethoric surplus in reserve.

Not all energy dissipation, however, lies within our preventative power. An incalculable amount of waste occurs because we are overworking weakened external eye muscles sixteen hours a day too long. Nervous exhaustion, epilepsy, "stomach trouble," rheumatism—and even such grave diseases as goiter, diabetes, and Bright's disease—are cured by correcting imbalanced ocular muscles.

Flat Foot as an Energy-Robber

ALSO, we pound a lot of energy out of our systems by decorating our heels with two chunks of leather jammed full of large and very unyielding nails. We pursue the uneven tenor of our ways over hard, unsympathetic pavements, jouncing our internal organs into a state of prolapsus and mauling our sensitive backbones and delicate nervous systems at every step. A pair of springy rubber heels would take the shock out of our systems.

Then, by wearing pointed shoes, we twist our big toes out of their true straightforwardness, and turn them in toward the foot center. This foreshortens the longitudinal arch, relaxing the tension of the transverse arch muscles. This is the chief cause of flat foot, one of the meanest energy-robbers that infests the human race.

To correct flat foot, and prevent this energy loss, it merely needs that properly adapted, scientifically constructed shoes be fitted and worn, and that suitable exercises be taken for a sufficient length of time—although temporarily some mechanical arch support may be required.