If You Want to Know Whether Your Brain is Flabby, Feel of Your Legs

THIS is one of the great tragedies of modern life. Men are forgetting how to walk.

They travel by taxi-cabs and street cars; they travel by automobile; they project their personalities over a telephone wire.

But they do not walk.

There is a double loss in this.

A loss in health, first. Most of the diseases of modern men originate in the intestines. Formerly men and women walked enough to keep the stomach muscles firm, the intestines healthfully agitated.

Now men—and women even more so—sit all day slumped in.

Germs settle down inside them gladly; and Death, his work made easy for him, laughs.

And there is another loss, equally great. A loss in mental keenness and mental wealth.

Did you ever take a walk in the country with some one who really knows to walk?

Some one of the type of the naturalist Linnœus, for instance?

Linnœus walked into Oland, and found the lands of the farmers ruined by sand blown from the beaches.

He discovered that the roots of a certain beach grass were long and firm: he taught the farmers to sow that grass along the beach, and so preserved their lands from ruin.

He walked into Thorne, and found that at a certain period in every years the cattle fell sick and died.

It was a curse, the people said—the act of angry spirits.

But Linnœus, examining the pastures, uncovered a noxious weed, and showed farmers how the work of one laborer for a few days every season would root it out.

In his walks he examined and catalogued 8000 plants, vegetables, and flowers.

How many plants, vegetables, and flowers do you think you could identify if you were able to see them in their native state?

"Few Men," said Dr. Johnson, "know how to take a walk."

It was so in his day. It is true to-day.

But those favored few enjoy a glorious and mysterious privilege.

To discover where the violets first bloom in the spring—

To be able to tell directions in the woods, by knowing that large pine trees bear more numerous branches on their southern side—

Or that grass grows on the south side of ant-hills and whortle-berries on the north—

To be able to greet the wild flowers by name—there are few pleasures more richly satisfying; none that pay larger dividends in health.

The man who goes into the country once a week is a better citizen than the man who never goes, even though his eyes see nothing more inspiring on his walk than a golf ball.

But far more to be envied is that little inner circle of Nature's favorites who speak her language intimately; who read her thoughts in her woods and brooks and flowers.

"You shall never break down in a speech," said a great English statesmen, "on the day that you have walked twelve miles."

Flabby legs usually mean flabby brains.

If you would think clearly, speak forecefully, work effectively, get out into the country when you can—and walk.

Bruce Barton, Editor

Conquering Pneumonia

By BURTON J. HENDRICK

THE popular magazines have told us much in recent years of the progress made in fighting contagious diseases. On one subject, however, they have been discreetly silent. Serums and vaccines have conquered many diseases—diphtheria, typhoid, cerebro-spinal meningitis, even tetanus. Up to date, however, they have made little progress against pneumonia.

Among contagious diseases this exceedingly dangerous one has furnished medical science its greatest problem. It annually kills more people than tuberculosis of the lungs, typhoid, diphtheria, or cancer. It rages particularly in large cities, New York and Chicago numbering their annual deaths by the thousands. The suddenness of its onslaught, the rapidity with which it speeds to its crisis, the sufferings of the victims, and its high mortality rate have made pneumonia one of our greatest popular terrors. Yet, [?] to the present time, physicians have [?] ood practically helpless. They have found no cure for the disease, and hardly any kind of effective treatment; and, judging from statistics, its virulence has been increasing.

The death rates from other diseases have been going down in the last fifteen years, but the death rate from pneumonia has been going up. As a matter of fact, the disease has presented such a mass [?] inconsistencies that even the laboratory workers have had to admit that they knew very little about it.

A Serum for One Kind of Pneumonia

BUT for the last five years the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute, under the direction of Dr. Rufus Cole, has been working on this disease. The labors of Mr. Cole and his associates furnish the best ray of light upon this hitherto baffling medical problem. As a result, medical [?] en now know something about pneumonia. Dr. Cole and his associates have developed a serum for one kind of lobar pneumonia that works with remarkable success. They have also discovered many facts that explain why pneumonia has been such a puzzling and contradictory disease.

If you turn to one of the numerous scientific or popular articles on pneumonia, you will find the same familiar story set down in picturesque detail. The definite organism that causes the disease, you will learn, has been known for many years. Pasteur and Dr. Sternberg, of the United States army, discovered the pneumococcus in the human mouth. Certain learned German scientists had shown definitely its relationship with pneumonia.

Neither Sternberg nor Pasteur associated this microorganism with this disease; superficially, there was no reason why they should have made any such association. Sternberg discovered the organism in the secretions of his own mouth, and the American experimenter was enjoying perfect health at that particular moment. Pasteur unearthed it in the sputum of a child who did not have pneumonia, but who was suffering from an entirely different disease. Further inquiry disclosed that the average human being, sick or well, carried this puzzling microbe in his mouth nearly all the time.

Yet this organism, as the Germans discovered, does produce pneumonia. This certainty was an extraordinary fact. The scientist can take the saliva of nearly every healthy American, and grow from it the cultures of an organism which, when injected into rabbits or white mice, produces the identical disease that ore call pneumonia. Most of us, that is, constantly carry in our mouths the seeds of our possible destruction. Yet we do not all have pneumonia.

Most of us are familiar with the usual explanation. In normal conditions, the body's defenses successfully throw off the constantly threatening infection. Occasionally, however, the body is weakened, through fatigue, disease, hunger, privation, or possibly dissipation; the general physical frame is "run down"; and, under these conditions, the microorganisms break through the defenses, swarm into the lungs, and, multiplying on an enormous scale, set up the death-dealing infection.

It results from this conception that pneumonia is a contagious disease, but of a peculiar kind. The infection does not come from without, but from within. We do not get pneumonia from "carriers"— from sick people, through milk, water, or a transmitting insect. No outside person infects us: we infect ourselves. So well established has this theory been regarded that all modern health practice is based upon it. The law does not recognize pneumonia as a contagious or communicable disease. It is not "reportable," as are tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and smallpox. What is the use, the experts say, of quarantining a person ill with pneumonia? He can do nothing but distribute pneumonia germs; and since the average man, woman, and child possesses several billions of these already, the patient can obviously do little harm.

Pneumonia an Infectious Disease

THE new work of the Rockefeller Institute has completely shattered this orthodox conception of the disease. Pneumonia, Dr. Cole has shown, is an infection of the old-fashioned kind. A gross misunderstanding of its nature having disarmed the thousands of health workers in all parts of the world, pneumonia has consequently had a free rein to work its destruction—a fact which explains the increasing virulence of the disease.

It now appears that we do indeed constantly carry Pasteur's and Sternberg's pneumococcus in our mouths and throat passages, and that this does cause the disease. The startling part, however, is that this produces only one type of pneumonia, and this the least common and least virulent of all. Besides this there are three other types. In other words, lobar pneumonia is not one disease, but four.

Dr. Cole and his associates have isolated four separate groups of organisms, each group related to the others, but entirely distinct from them. The mild cases that usually result in recovery are caused by the ever-present pneumococcus which we have known about for so many years. The swifter and more terrible kinds are caused by organisms that science has hitherto overlooked. And we do not constantly carry these more virulent enemies in our mouths. We "catch" the more deadly kinds of pneumonia from some outside source, probably from a human being who has had the disease.

Briefly, the mild type of pneumonia is not contagious; the other three severer kinds certainly are. This simple fact immediately clears up several puzzling questions. Thus, although we have always recognized pneumonia as a contagious disease, in the sense that a microorganism causes it, one attack has apparently not protected the sufferer from recurring ones. If we have typhoid fever, scarlatina, or smallpox, we almost never have them again. But those who have recovered from pneumonia, far from being protected against a recurrence, seem to have acquired an increased susceptibility.

The fact that pneumonia is virtually four separate diseases explains this peculiarity. An attack from type IV probably protects against a recurrence of type IV; but, naturally, it does not protect us against types I, II, and III. As the bedside manifestations of all four types are essentially the same, the differences consisting only in the violence of the attack, the practising physician has never suspected that he was dealing with several different infections.

This multiplicity of types also explains why serum treatment has hitherto failed so lamentably. When Pasteur made his amazing discovery of antitoxin treatment or serum-therapy, an enthusiastic world at once concluded that it held the secret that would rid the world of all contagious diseases. Humanity for ages had noticed that people who had once had a contagious disease seldom had it again, but had never succeeded in penetrating the cause.

Pasteur's Discovery of Immunity

SOME children taken down with scarlet fever or diphtheria recover, while others die. What is the explanation? Pasteur tore the veil from this mystery, and introduced a new magical word—immunity. As soon as disease germs assail the body and circulate in the blood, the outraged human system sets up its defenses. These disease bacteria let loose certain poisonous bodies, or toxins, which cause the physi-

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cal manifestations of the disease. These same poisons are set free in such quantities that they frequently destroy the body. But the body, as soon as it is assailed, starts its mechanism of defense; the blood automatically manufactures antitoxins that destroy the attacking poisons.

When the body produces these antitoxins in sufficient quantity, the invading enemies are vanquished and we get well. Very frequently, however, it does not do this, and the bacterial poisons thus carry the day. In many diseases the antitoxins, after accomplishing their beneficent task, remain in the blood for years, which explains why, once having had the disease, we do not have it again.

Now, Pasteur's idea was to reinforce the body artificially in its contest with these microscopic enemies. His most sensational adaptation of this principle was his treatment of hydrophobia. Two of his pupils, Roux and Yersin, had much to do in developing the idea in its most familiar application, that of antitoxin for diphtheria. In this case a horse is inoculated with successive cultures of the diphtheritic microbe, each one increasing in virulence. This immediately starts up the animal's resistance or immunity; that is, his blood begins to manufacture the antitoxins that destroy the invading poisons. In a few months, as a result of the successive inoculations, the horse becomes so resistant that it is impossible to infect it with diphtheria, no matter on how enormous a scale the inoculations may be made. Its body is literally swarming with antitoxins. Its serum—that is, the watery part of its blood—is then drawn off and placed aside for future use. This, injected into a human body suffering from diphtheria, destroys the poisons in nearly every case, and the patient recovers.

Reasons for Failure Now Apparent

THIS is the great serum principle, which has been applied successfully to diphtheria, cerebro-spinal meningitis, dysentery, and, in somewhat different form, to tetanus and typhoid. It has not been applied to scarlet fever or measles, chiefly because the germs of these diseases have never been discovered. Before you can manufacture your antitoxin in a horse, you must first isolate the causative organism; for each particular microbe must have its own particular anti-body. As pneumonia is caused by a microbe, the scientists have many times attempted to obtain its antitoxin. But they have not succeeded, and the reasons, thanks to Dr. Cole's work, are now apparent. The experimenters have immunized their horses with a particular type of pneumococcus. If the patient suffers from pneumonia produced by that particular type, the serum might have some effect; if from other types, it would be as valueless as dish-water. The reasons why pneumonia serums have worked in such contradictory fashion—sometimes curing, more frequently failing—is now apparent.

Four Types of the Disease

DR. COLE and his associates, as already said, have isolated four different types of pneumonic organisms. Clearly, therefore, not one serum, but four, are needed to treat all types of this disease; and, before using any one of these serums, the physician must first determine the particular type of organism that is responsible for the infection. Studies have gone far enough to make it reasonably sure that no serum will ever be found for type IV. This is the type caused by the organisms normally localized in the mouth and throat. The amazing thing about this group is that every strain is different. You have one branch of this particular microbe family in your throat; I have another in mine. There are apparently as many varieties as there are individuals.

In order to utilize the serum treatment, therefore, we should have to develop a separate serum for each sufferer. As it takes several weeks to immunize a horse, this means that, long before the treatment could be utilized, the patient would have recovered or died. But this disappointing discovery is not so serious practically as it might seem, since this particular kind of pneumonia is the least dangerous of all four. About twenty-one per cent. of all the cases in the Rockefeller Hospital had this type of pneumonia, and their mortality has been only 6 per cent.

Again, the experimenters, for various recondite reasons, have not yet succeeded in developing a serum for type III. This is more unfortunate, since this is the most deadly type of all. In the Rockefeller Hospital it has a mortality of 47 per cent. and in the Pennsylvania Hospital a mortality of 67 per cent. The fact, however, that this type of pneumonia, although the most dangerous, is comparatively infrequent, makes the failure to develop a serum less of a calamity than it might be.

When it comes to the last remaining types—I and II—the experimenters have had greater success. The serum against II works fairly well,but more work will be necessary before it achieves complete success. Against type I, however, that goal has already been reached. In this particular type of pneumonia it can fairly be said that we now have a specific cure. In the last two years almost every pneumonia patient with type I recovered after the use of the serum.

Pneumonia "Carriers"

AT first sight this seems a comparatively small accomplishment. Five years of unremitting experiment has produced a serum useful in only one of the four pneumonia types! In reality this achievement marks a turning-point in the treatment of this fearful disease. For type I includes thirty-five per cent—more than one third—of all the cases of pneumonia known, and nearly thirty per cent. of all the patients die. One single fact emphasizes the tremendous addition this makes to our resources: this single type of pneumonia causes more deaths in the United States than diphtheria and typhoid fever combined. A disease as fatal as these two enemies of the human race taken together has, therefore, found its conqueror.

These studies will completely change the attitude of boards of health and of physicians toward pneumonia. The Rockefeller investigations have shown that this disease is contagious—that most people who have it contract it from another human being who is actually ill or who has recently recovered. The typhoid carrier—the individual who, like the famous "typhoid Mary," does not have the disease himself, but carries the germs and showers them upon other people—apparently has his counterpart in the pneumonia carrier.

Should Be Made Reportable

ALL these facts indicate that the present happy-go-lucky method of handling pneumonia must give way to a more rational system. This disease, like tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever, and others, must be made "reportable." Boards of health will have to take radical measures to prevent its spreading. The first duty of a physician, when called in to a pneumonia case, will be to determine to which one of the four types it belongs. He will take a specimen of the mouth secretions—if absolutely necessary, he will pierce the lung for this purpose—and send it to the nearest laboratory. This, injected into the peritoneal cavity of a white mouse, will develop a culture which, being submitted to simple laboratory tests, will show what type is being dealt with. If type IV, there will be no recourse, as far as treatment is concerned, but considerable reassurance as to the progress of the disease, as this is the mildest type known. If type III there will likewise be no treatment; but the revelation that this is pneumonia in its most virulent form will put nurses and physicians on their guard and cause increased efforts. If type II, a serum is ready to hand, though one that at present does not always give favorable results. But if type I—and in one case out of three it will be type I—there is a serum that, so far, has given almost invariable success.

New York and other cities are now classifying pneumonia according to the new Rockefeller formula. The New York Board of Health is also preparing the serum. In a year or two, therefore, we shall have definite reports as to its practical workings.

He Started Five Thousand Bank Accounts

CAN you remember how much a dollar meant to you back in those days when your chief ambition was to drive a railway locomotive? It was wealth; it represented a bushel of marbles and a basketful of "jacks." "Daddy" Silverwood of Los Angeles remembers that when he was thirteen years old he was penniless and homeless; to-day he is wealthy, and the most jovial man on the Pacific coast. He can afford to be, for he has started 5000 bank accounts of $1 each for boys. His remarkable thrift campaign was begun on January 1, 1909, when he opened savings bank accounts for 500 boys, depositing $1 to the credit of each. He wrote each boy this letter:

Dear Young Friend: You are one of five hundred boys I have selected in southern California for whom I am opening a bank account. One dollar has been deposited to your credit in the Los Angeles Trust & Savings Bank, corner Sixth and Spring streets. I have stipulated that it remain there five years, except in the case of sickness or death, for the reason that I want to add to it from time to time if you endeavor to do the same.

I started out in life a very poor boy, and at fourteen years of age was earning my living and paying my board.

You are living in a land where nobody is held down by caste—in a country where poor boys from the farm go to the White House; where even boys from the slums become our legislators; where brakemen and even section hands become railway presidents; where the poorest boys become our merchant princes, our great bankers and financiers; where the great factories and institutions of every description are built up by boys with no opportunity except their own energy and integrity.

History has proved many thousand times the disadvantage of too many advantages. Trusting that you will decide to be one of the great men of the future, I remain

Yours sincerely,

F. B. SILVERWOOD.

Each boy also was invited to call on or telephone Mr. Silverwood.

The spontaneous replies to this letter—the personal visits and telephone conversations—showed that the youngsters were deeply interested in the plan and eager to cooperate. A résumé at the end of the first year convinced the merchant

that his school for thrift was succeeding. A newsboy accumulated $275; several other lads saved more than $100; three fourths of those for whom accounts were opened fulfilled the requirements. The intangible results gained by the brave little urchins, and noted with satisfaction by Mr. Silverwood, were increased confidence in the future, growth of ambition, and a strengthening of the desire to become useful citizens.

At the beginning of each new year following Mr. Silverwood established banking connections for 500 or more boys. Every boy on the carefully kept roll receives from two to five letters a year and a present at Christmas. The communications from the boys and their mothers are answered and filed. A secretary attends to most of the correspondence and other details connected with the enterprise, but Mr. Silverwood has made it an unbroken rule from the first to talk with every boy who calls on him, and an average of five a day are received in his back office.

The encouraging progress made by his wards during 1915 in acquiring habits of thrift induced Mr. Silverwood to open accounts for 700 more boys on January 1, 1916, making a total of 5000. The balances of the youthful depositors at the close of the old year aggregated $17,000. More than this amount was drawn out by them during the year for investments and emergency use.

"I want you to know how pleased I am to find your name on the list of my boys who have increased their bank accounts during the year," Mr. Silverwood wrote to the "star" depositors. "I call you my boys' because I have the keenest interest in your welfare and success.

"A large per cent of all the boys enrolled this year have made a good showing at the bank—some have done exceptionally well. You'll be surprised to hear that twenty boys whose names appear on my `Blue Ribbon Roll' have together deposited over $2000 in the past year; the smallest amount was $35, and the largest $348."

One Boy's Success

AMONG the many interesting and enlightening records filed is that of an errand-boy with a widowed mother who,-by his energy and economy, is now an instructor in Stanford University. After this boy had graduated at high school, his benefactor learned that he was contributing to the support of the mother and was unable to continue his education.

"How much do you give your mother every week?" Mr. Silverwood inquired.

"Seven dollars and a half."

"If I arrange for her to receive that amount regularly, can you work your way through the university?"

"I certainly can," the boy replied with determination.

The $7.50 went to the mother regularly for four years. The son graduated with honors at the university.

The files contain records telling how other boys used their savings to pay off mortgages, pay funeral expenses and doctors' hills and meet other emergencies.

The Quitter

By MARY LANIER MACGRUDER

MAVIS awoke at the earliest glow of dawn. Later the wind, the everlasting wind of the plains, would rise and harry the world from red horizon to red horizon; but now all in the earth and sky was soundless. In the strange hush and silence she moved stealthily about through the glimmering darkness of her room. Her clothes were all in order, even to her riding boots beside the chair. Her purse, hung from the chair's back, clinked dully as she brushed against it in passing.

At the big gate of the corral old Pedro stood waiting, with her pinto saddled and bridled. The horse had whinnied once, a shrill sound suddenly muffled. All, indeed, was ready for her flight.

Soon the old dusty trail would gleam out, a broken ribbon leading to the east out of this land of drought and soundless dawns and wind-wrapped, terrible days. Down the trail an hour hence she would have fled—she who had come out of the East with Kane Malloy ten years before.

In the room adjoining her own her husband slept, his heavy, rhythmic breathing audible through the thin barrier of curtain that served for a door. He could sleep so, she thought bitterly, with no intuition of her silent preparation. Once there had been subtle bonds between them—bonds of sympathy, and understanding born of the stronger, more perilous bonds of love. For she had loved him when she had turned her back on her exotic life and followed him into the desert, into the silence and the drought.

IN the years that had come after, the glory of conquest had been his, empty failure hers. The life, the unremitting toil of hand and brain, had bronzed and hardened him into a grim and merciless manhood, virile in its beauty—to her repellent in its sheer brute power and strength. But the same hot suns and remorseless winds, beating upon her, had browned the whiteness of her face and rasped and roughened the lily softness of her hands, that had never learned to do willingly the tasks set for women who dwell in the wilderness. In the desolation her soul made no flights upward and outward toward the vastness and breadth of the world about her. Instead, her spirit had sulked and shrunken and dwindled, sitting in utter, brooding loneliness. Her red lips sagged in ugly curves; her agate-colored eyes had come to look with peevish hate upon all things around her, including even her husband.

It was not his way to question, nor hers to quarrel. The division had grown in bitterness and silence. Wrapped in her own selfish misery, she had never considered Kane's thought of her. Her own thought was for herself—to escape, to get out from the southwest country forever.

She laced her boots with fingers that tangled the strings in their haste; then she tied on her hat and veil. The faint light along the east was fast broadening in mother-of-pearl against the gray earth. The strange cry of a bird rose piercingly clear from the wide, blurred space beyond the piazza. She fastened the little bag of clinking gold at her waist, and became aware, all at once, that the sound of Malloy's breathing had ceased to come from the room beyond.

Her ear took alarm. She stood listening, leaning against the bed's railing. There was the unmistakable pad-pad of slippered feet in Malloy's room—the crackle of a match—

A panic seized her—the forerunner of an inexpressible terror. She wheeled and sped wildly across the room's space toward the outer door. Her foot caught in the velvet rug, and she fell, with her head striking the corner of a heavy oak table. There was a blur of brightness in her brain, a deadly nausea and faintness, and then—darkness:

When she opened her eyes she was lying on her own white bed, and outside the wind had risen and set its wild currents flowing across the thirsty land. The bird was still singing the intermittent song of drought and sadness. She moved and moaned a little, for darting pains pierced her forehead under the bandage Malloy had tied there. With the gesture the bag of coins at her waist jangled and clinked. She lifted her heavy lids. Her husband sat at the foot of her bed, facing her, his arms folded upon the railing. His chin was thrust forward, and in his bronzed throat, where the collar was thrown open, the pulse beat visibly. He sat and studied her face curiously.

SHE closed her eyes, a wave of fright submerging the sick nausea through her body. But, as if impelled by some mysterious bidding stronger than her own will, she opened her eyes again to stare at her husband.

"So you were going?" he said. "A quitter? You, a Van Rysdyck!"

Her heart leaped, startled. A quitter! She blinked and winced. He sat there looking at her fixedly, with a sort of tached, impersonal scrutiny.

"You might have told me," he continued. "Or perhaps there is some one waiting for you—along the trail?"

"Kane!" she cried thickly. "You dare to say—that—to me?"

"A man dares say anything to a woman who leaves his house in the dawn as a thief might leave it."

"The money," she stammered hotly, "is mine. I drew it the last time I was in Santa Fe. It was the money for the sheep that were mine on the lower ranch."

He dismissed this with a contemptuous movement of the head.

"Money? Who spoke of money? You could have had what you wanted of mine. It was all for you, anyhow, that with it I might ease the hardships of this life so that you would be even a little content. But all to no use. I've known you were going sometime. I've seen it in your sullen eyes, in your every word and look. But I thought you'd be frank with me at the last. But instead you chose this way. Do you know why?"

"It was easier—for us both," she faltered, her fingers plaiting at the quilt. "I always hated quarreling, Kane."

"You chose this way because you are a coward and a quitter," his level voice went on. "You know there would have been no row. Do you think I should have tried to hold you by mere brute force? No; you knew in your heart you were a quitter, and you could not face both your own contempt for yourself and mine for you."

She lifted herself from her pillow, and out of her pale face her eyes, harried by the shadows of the years of loneliness and broodings, flashed their despair into his own.

"You knew I hated this life with every fiber of my soul—hated its everlasting wind and its terrible monotony of days and years, its heat and its bitter cold, every phase of it like wormwood to the soul and body of me, till I am drenched and bitter with, loathing through and through. In the end, so I have come to loathe even you, because to me you are a part of it. And yet, you would not yield. You kept me here, and any day you could have sold the land in the past two years since the settlers have come to the other valley and the railroad's coming through; and yet you will not go."

"No," he said. His gaze had left hers now and had fixed itself upon the purple sea of plain. "No, I shall not go. The things you want back there in the East—the things we were bred to—are the things I loathe. So we are as far apart as the poles, and that's pretty far. You have never understood the joy I've had in the mastery of the desert. For I've had joy in the winning out. And I won out—alone. You failed me, Mavis, long ago. I thought it was money you wanted. We have that now, and you are no more content than you were that year we lived in the dugout on the banks of the San Felipe."

She looked at his profile with the storm in her eyes unspent. Her head was still dizzy and confused from the blow she had in falling, but some struggling wonder awoke in her—the thought that, after all, she might not have been quite fair to Kane.

"You know I used to be so bitterly disappointed that there was no child. I've got over that. I've got over it so well that I'm thankful there is none. I should not care for a son who might be like his mother—a quitter too."

She gasped suddenly, going dead-white. But Malloy, without glancing at her, got up and went to the window. He leaned out, drawing the green shutters inward; then he lowered the shade. She watched him with a pale fascination. Words formed at her lips and died there.

"You had better not ride to Corwin today," he said in the same level voice. "It's going to be hot, and you've a pretty bad bruise on your head. Pedro can take you over in the light wagon when you are able to go. I am going to the lower ranch to-day, so you won't be bothered with good-bys."

The curtains fell behind him.

THE sun was high when Mavis rode down the trail—going, as she had planned to go, alone. The bag of gold hung clinking at her side, and the dull sound of the coin irritated some sore nerve of her soul. Her head throbbed and swam; the wind beat and sang in her ears; and a strange nausea shivered her body now and then.

The month was May, but even in the high altitude the day was blistering hot. The spring had been dry, and the dust lay inches deep along the trail. The taste of it, gritty, nauseous, was in her mouth. She lifted her veil to wipe the grime from her face. The pony fell into a sort of canter. What was it his galloping feet struck out in their dull thudding along the dust? Some remorseless rhythm of sound—oh—"A quitter, a quitter, a quitter!"

She gasped and touched the pinto's flanks. The pony broke into a gallop. But over and over, remorseless, unbroken, insistent: "A quitter! A quitter!"

But Mavis rode on toward the east.

The copper glow of the sky was dashed along the horizon with amethyst and wine, and the sun hung a red disk in the west, when Mavis rode into the little village. Standing on the platform, she watched the headlight bear down upon her: the express headed for the east—and home.

She looked from the window of her section while the engine thirstily took water at the tank. It was her last look, she told herself, at the New Mexican sky and plains. She shut her eyes suddenly, for her lids burned, uncooled by tears. When she opened them a rider had swung into

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sight, coming at a hard gallop down the greet. Opposite her coach the rider reined in his lathered horse. A cry broke from Mavis's lips:

"Kane!"

He looked up at her from under the brim of his hat, his eyes fierce and bright in his dark face. But he spoke no word, sitting there a silent, grim figure on his panting horse. She wondered why he had come, since he did not speak even her name nor good-by.

Suddenly she leaned out of the window.

"Good-by, Kane," she said.

He lifted his hat then and bowed, an ironical smile twitching his lips. Was he thinking, as she was, how she had come a bride to the station ten years before? She had clung to him, and the promise of all protection lay in his strong young arm.

And, thus remembering, the world of sunset was blurred out, and with it the silent, still figure of Malloy. And, unheeded by her, the train began to move with rattle and clank and roll.

She sprang up in a sort of wild surprise and alarm, and ran the length of the car to the door. The conductor, swinging it shut, looked at her in disapproval.

"I've—I've forgotten something," she stammered. "I'm sorry, but I've got to—go back."

"It's too late," he said coldly. "You'll have to wait till you get to the next station."

She went back to her place, and leaned out as far as she dared from the window. But the train was flying east now, and Corwin was a dim spot on the plain's center. She sat down and began pulling at her veil with fingers that soon ceased their trembling.

"It's too late," she thought dully. "It's too late!"

THE orchestra was playing in the palm-room, and the wild Hungarian air translated itself into supreme loveliness and sorrow to Mavis's ears. She sat with Tommy Eversley at a table in a secluded corner. Down the aisle she could glimpse now and then her Aunt Julia's bare white shoulders, or catch the flash of the jewel in her hair as she nodded smilingly to some newcomer. Mavis sat listening, her hands lying tense in her lap. The blood beat in her throat in a sort of ecstasy.

She became aware of Tommy's eyes staring at her from between his puffy lids.

"Gad, how you must have missed it all, Mavis! Your face looks like Ellen Terry's in—what? Ophelia?"

Mavis, roused from her dream, laughed tremulously.

"Oh, you can't know—you couldn't guess! There's the music now—"

Tommy's brows went up. He turned an indifferent glance upon the musicians.

"Awful!" he said grumpily. "Next time we'll go to Tony's. Cabaret place, y'know—lobsters and truffles on the side. Tell me about Kane," he demanded. "Good old Kane! I bear him a grudge for taking you away from me, but tell me. We have been hearing how he's made the desert blossom, y' know. Gad, how I wish I were in his shoes!"

"You?" Mavis said.

The faint intonation of sarcastic surprise stung the color into Tommy's cheeks.

"I guess we do look pretty rotten to you after ten years out there where they do things. Oh, some of us do things hack here; but little Tommy's a lily of the field who can't even buy a bond without it turning out a gold brick. I know how to spend, that's all, and after a while a fellow gets tired of spending and getting in return nothing but a dark-colored taste in his mouth. I wanted to go when Kane went, but I hadn't the ginger. I'd have been a failure there—a quitter; and I hate a quitter. That's why I've such a distaste for my own society."

Mavis had risen. Tommy saw that her face was pale and tired.

"Going? All right. It's early, but I forget you've been away from the bright night lights so long. But you haven't told me of Kane."

"Some other time," she said indistinctly. "Aunt Julia's waiting."

Why, she asked herself bitterly that night, did every one want to talk to her of Kane, quite as if Kane had financed a revolution or set up an empire? Kane had done no more than thousands of other men all over the Southwest. In what way was a man superior to his kind who declines to live among them, and who elects to spend his days among cow-boys and long-haired Mexicans?

Resentment enveloping her like a torturing garment, Mavis turned off the lights and lifted the shade to let in the fugitive moonlight. Then, with the remembrance that. this was New York and not New Mexico, she drew the shade and crept into bed. She lay there wide awake, the darkness oppressing her. The once familiar noises of the Avenue now came up disturbing, alien, and the far-away roar of the elevated drummed too heavily on ears grown used to no sound at night but the wind of the plains.

HER hour of ecstasy had passed. Over her crept at last the certainty, growing slowly through the days, that she had ceased to he all that she once was. Ten years had wrenched her, root and branch, out of the old life, and the fibers of her being had refused to be transplanted into the new.

A month had passed since she had first set foot, dust-worn and shabby, in her Aunt Julia's drawing-room. Since then, if her days had not been full, the fault had not been with Aunt Julia. There were endless rounds of visits to the manicure, the milliner, the costumer.

With amiable serenity Mrs. Ryburn waved away Mavis's protests as to the cost.

"This is my particular treat. You poor child, life owes you something for those ten years!"

But, lying there in the darkness, Mavis recalled that look she surprised sometimes on Aunt Julia's face—when, for instance, interested friends persisted in talking to her of Kane, and asking when Mavis would return, and why Kane had not come, too? The look was always veiled quickly by Aunt Julia's dropped lids, but its hard, cynical amusement rasped on some raw nerve in Mavis's soul.

WHEN Mrs. Ryburn announced placidly one morning that they would leave that afternoon for her summer home on Long Island, Mavis flushed with pleasure. She had always loved the place because the water was near. On their first night there, a summer storm came up, and, lulled by the ruffled waters of the Sound and the rushing wind, Mavis fell asleep. She slept long and late—and went down to find her aunt home for luncheon from a cross-country drive, and Isabel Jerome with her.

For ten years Isabel had haunted Mavis's memory like a half-forgotten phantom. Once Kane and Isabel had been sweethearts. They were distantly akin, and the family had expected them to marry. Mavis knew that Kane's relatives had suffered a shock of surprise and disappointment when Kane had married her instead. Now, suddenly visualized, the phantom appeared—no apparition at all, but very beautiful flesh and blood. A quick color sprang to Mavis's face as she gave Isabel her hand.

"Why didn't you bring Kane with you?" Isabel said. "Or is he joined to his idols?"

"Kane has never wanted to come back," Mavis said coldly. She did not explain that there had been no time in all the years when he could have come.

Isabel drew off her gloves.

"The life absorbs one. I know about it—a little—from friends out there. They are friends of Kane's, too—the Livingstones."

Mavis looked at her swiftly.

"They are forty miles from us, on the other side of the cañon. I do not know them very well."

"They are worth knowing," Isabel said quietly. "You remember Betty Travis?"

"No," Mavis said. "I've heard of her, I think."

"She and Cleve Livingstone had been married a year when the doctors found that Cleve had tuberculosis and ordered him West. Cleve's money had gone, like Kane's, in the failure of the Randall Trust Company, and it was little enough they had to go West on, poor children. I have never had the full story from Betty. There are things women won't tell. But, looking at her face now, one can guess at the tragedy of those awful first lean years. When Betty came back to us for the first time last year, her eyes had that look, indelible, unforgettable—the look of memory. But there was something else, too, in her face, that made one glad to see it, and that was—victory."

"Victory," Mavis said slowly, a dull fire in her agate-colored eyes. "Over what?"

Some latent astonishment was manitest in Isabel's face. "You, as Kane's wife, ought to know what life there means—at the first."

"Oh, I know!" Mavis laughed suddenly. With an impatient gesture, she took up a rose Isabel had laid upon the table and began tearing it apart, petal by petal. "I know," she said again.

There was a silence, broken by neither. Mrs. Ryburn leaned back in her chair, her glance playing lightly, smilingly, from one to the other. Isabel leaned forward.

"Do you women of the plains never look back on us here—and pity us? Or guess how some of us envy you the bargain life's made with you?"

"Bargain!" Mavis said. "Do you ever consider the price we pay?"

"We pay, too," Isabel said gently. "But at the end your days, your hands, are full. And ours are empty. That is the difference."

When her aunt and Isabel had gone out again, Mavis went down alone to the shore, where a long, low line of cliffs sprang up from the sands. She flung herself down on the bracken, and lay staring out at the purple waters. There was no reason why her thoughts should revert so persistently to Kane. Her manner of leaving him, his bitter, contemptuous arraignment of her, had snapped asunder any lost links of love the old years had forged for them. The word with which he had branded her, that false word—"quitter"! Had she not the right to choose her own way and life, as Kane had?

And still the vision of Kane's fagged face and haggard eyes swam before her. Even the sea held the color of his eyes dark purple, with the tawny under-color, those wistful, entreating eyes of Kane!

In an upflash of rage at her own vacillation and useless retrospection, Mavis fled back to the house and called up Tommy Eversley.

TOMMY came down promptly. After dinner he and Mavis motored up to town to the theater and supper afterward. And on the homeward way, being a bit dazed by her high spirits (and perhaps by other spirits as bubbling and much more confusing to a small-caliber brain like Tommy's), he tried to kiss her, and—

White and shaking with rage and loathing, Mavis descended from the car and ran up to her room. She switched on the lights—and confronted her aunt, sitting beside the window and evidently waiting for her.

"Mason told me you had gone into town with Tommy Eversley. I meant to tell you there are safer men than Tommy in New York."

"I have discovered that." Mavis laughed shortly.

"Drunk?" her aunt said casually. Mavis nodded. "And by now I hope he is dead."

A line appeared between Mrs. Ryburn's delicate brows.

"This isn't—ah—the West, you know. I hope there was no scene."

"There wasn't," Mavis replied. "I pushed him out of the car and told the chauffeur to drive on. He was quiet enough when he struck the ground."

"My dear Mavis!" her aunt protested. "You are primitive, if you don't know it. And—don't you think it better to be off with the old love before you are on with the new? You can't hedge about Kane always, you know."

The dark color dyed Mavis's face. She knew her aunt spoke the truth, but tonight the truth was the last thing Mavis wanted to hear. From the door Mrs. Ryburn looked back at her niece.

"Isabel had a letter from the Livingstones to-day. There's a baby, and they want her to come out for the christening. She's going Thursday."

She closed the door, to open it again almost immediately.

"I don't know whether it will interest you, but Kane has been having trouble with some Mexican squatters, and they burned some barns and shot him in the shoulder. Nothing serious, however."

The night was very still, with no sound from the sea except now and then the shriek of a tug or the long, far-off blast of a steamer. Over the plains, Mavis thought, the stars were gold in a sky of brilliant blackness, and about the stone house behind the pepper and eucalyptus trees the wind was whirling and rising and falling all night long.

And Kane was there alone.

Presently the cycle of her thoughts swung round to the squatter. It must have been Martinez. It was he who had stolen the sheep in the lower ranch, and, when Malloy and his men were hot on the trail, had forsaken his spoil and fled to the foot-hills. There had been no absolute proof, but suspicion had clearly pointed to Martinez. If he had declared vendetta on Kane—

And Isabel was going out to the Southwest country—Isabel, who had wanted Kane!

And even Tommy Eversley hated a quitter.

IF Mrs. Ryburn was aware of under-currents in Mavis's newly ordered existence, her placid air gave no hint of such suspicions. She managed this outing and that; she ordered clothes, and more clothes. She looked on with her sure smile as the tan and roughness vanished from Mavis's hair. She beheld Mavis with the bloom of girlhood given place to the full flower of womanhoodsaw a beauty so long shadowed by sullen discontent respond like a flower to the sun.

July had gone and the August tides were flinging the seaweed on the sands. Mavis, coming in one afternoon with her skirts and loose blouse damp with the smell of the sea, found her aunt dressed for going out and impatiently waiting.

"Had you forgotten the matinée?"

"No," Mavis said. "I'm not going."

"Shall we drive over to Alice Bingham's for tea, then?"

"I don't want to go."

Mrs. Ryburn let asperity at last creep into her voice:

"Well, for heaven's sake, what do you want?"

"I want to go home," Mavis said.

"Why don't you go?" her aunt snapped.

"Because I'm a quitter."

"A—a—what? Oh, I think I understand." She sat down on the nearest chair. "Well?" she said.

"You see, I failed Kane. All the years he was toiling and fighting drought and desolation and loneliness, I was sulking. I was so busy being sorry for myself, I forgot—Kane. I hated the life. I wanted to come back—here. I thought I did, and now it's thisI hate."

"You seem to be rather changeable in your opinions," her aunt said dryly.

"If I'd come back before now, I'd have got my perspective. Still, it seems to me I had as much right to choose our manner of life as Kane did."

"No," Julia Ryburn said. "Get that fool feminist notion out of your head. Kane was the bread-winner. He found his work and did it. Yours was there too, but you didn't do it. I don't mean you needed to sow and reap with your hands, but to stand by Kane as he did them, whether he failed or succeeded, whether he lived or starved. Few women can hope to marry men as fine as Kane Malloy."

Mavis's quick breaths were audible. Her aunt's inflexible voice went on:

"The silences, the desert, make men and women—or break them. The fittest survive, and beyond the borders of civilization

---

a strong race is bred. It sends its sons and daughters back to feed the cities. For after the fourth generation there are no city-born. God sees to that."

Her gaze turned slowly upon Mavis—the cold, merciless appraisal of her eyes lighted by some inner flame.

"Kane should have married Isabel; she was his mate. Do you suppose any force of earth, or any misfortune of lean years, or any loneliness. could have sent her from him? In the desolation and the drought men and women find each other—and God."

Her voice took on a more incisive note:

"You played the quitter, Mavis. Now stay quit. Don't go back and tangle things. Give Kane a chance to mend his broken life. There's Uncle Asher's money we can live on comfortably, luxuriously even, as parasites do—women like you and me, for whom men toil early and late and barter their souls in the market-place, that our bodies may have fine raiment and our souls their cheap gilt pleasures."

Her laugh rippled out, keen with self-scorn, perhaps with pain. She moved away without a backward glance.

ONCE, while at school, Mavis had gone to an oculist complaining of her eyes. The great man had directed her to spend an hour each day looking out to sea at the farthest ship or the sky-line.

"The long focus is what your eyes need," he said. "That is all."

Now her soul had had the long focus, and its vision had strengthened and cleared. Before her there loomed the one great compelling fact that dominates existence past all environment, past all faring or fortune—the love of man for woman, of woman for man. And she saw, too, how that love becomes sometimes like clouded liquor in a glass with much in suspension and wanting the precipitant. If that be absence or separation, or even an Isabel, what matters the medium, if by its magic all is made clear and fair?

And beyond all this swift, marvelous clarity of perception her aunt's voice rang in its bitter, sinister accusation of herself—Mavis, the quitter! A wild wave up from the eternal deeps of love and longing swept over her. Stand by, would she, and give Isabel right of way? Never! She would go back to the Southwest country. She would start this hour, even though she went knowing that all the odds were against her.

TWILIGHT was deepening to dusk, and there was no moon. Mavis, descending from the train to the station platform, almost ran into the station-master. He dropped his mail-bags to shake hands with her.

"Bless me, it's Mrs. Malloy! You sho' have been gone a long time. Lookin' for anybody from the ranch to meet you?"

"No; I thought I'd get a way out somehow."

"Well, I kinda hoped some of the boys would be in. I reckon you know about Martinez layin' for Mr. Malloy? Well, he got away acrost the State line, as everybody thought. But, as sure as I am livin' and lookin', Mrs. Malloy, Juan Martinez got off that early train that comes through here at three in the mornin'. I flashed my lantern in his face, and he dodged and jumped and rolled down that bank there, and I had no chance to go after him. But I wanted to send word to Mr. Malloy. There'll be more mischief to pay, and to-night's a good night for it, with the moon coming up late."

"Well, if you will get me the loan of a horse, Mr. Perry, I'll be out to the ranch by midnight."

"My pony's in the stable, and you're welcome. But you oughtn't to go alone, Mrs. Malloy."

"I am not afraid," she said. "And I want—to get home."

Leaving her in charge of the station, Perry vanished, to reappear in a scant ten minutes leading a wiry range horse.

"Here's a gun you strap on," he said. "It's loaded, and there's more cartridges you can slip in your pocket. Now, I saw Mr. Malloy yesterday. He was up here with the Livingstones and their company—they's a swell-looking girl from the East visitin' them."

In the dressing-room on the Pullman, Mavis had exchanged her traveling dress for a riding skirt. Now she got into the saddle, conscious of a choking pain in her throat. Dare she blame Kane if he rode with Isabel?

The horse swung out on the long trail. The short summer night had fallen over the plains, but the road rail a white ribbon between the green, irrigated fields. The stars came out with increasing brilliance, and the wind was but a fitful breeze laden with pollen from the corn and the sweet, cloying smell of alfalfa from pastures where the Herefords were feeding.

The pony loped on, and Mavis let the reins lie loosely on his neck. What was waiting for her at her journey's end? Were there years enough in the future in which to drown the hateful past?

FROM some far-away ranch-house there came at last the crowing of cocks. Suddenly off to the east the moon-glow lightened the sky. Limned against it stood the great tower of the windmill, and below it the dam of the reservoir circled, its dark ellipse bordered by young willows of a year's growth—the reservoir whose completion marked for Malloy the turn of the tide.

What a great day it had been for Kane when the pumps had begun to force the water into the empty basin! Even she, standing beside him, had felt, grudgingly, a secret thrill at sight of his face.

With a sudden impulse she wheeled the pony sharply to the right, and, finding the gate wide open, rode noiselessly over the turf, green and soft where the water trickled down from the troughs.

So softly, indeed, did the little horse set down his feet that a man kneeling at the head of the dam, and very near the completion of his task, was made aware of their presence only by the pony's snort and start at the sputtering snake of fire in the grass. Already on the verge of flight, the man yelled, leaped, and with no further word or sound fled like a rabbit toward the trail.

For a bare moment Mavis's brain went numb and cold with shock. Then realization of the low-lying, sinister play of sparks sent her to fling herself from her horse and in wild haste to beat and pinch at the sputtering fuse. Failing to subdue the persistent spark, she wrenched wildly at the thing, and the bit of twisted fibers came away in her hand. The spark dead, she flung it from her and sank upon the dew-drenched grass, her limbs drenched with the dew of terror. All the devilish plan became clear to her.

Martinez, by dynamiting the dam, would have sent the flood of stored waters down to the valley, intending ruin not only for Malloy himself, but for the settlers in the cañon! And at the thought of Martinez escaping the vengeance of the law, Mavis got to her feet and into the saddle, and sent the pony flying over the turf.

Martinez would make for the high lands up from the dam. With her heels she dug the tired pony's sides, and the indignant little horse answered with a spurt of speed up the trail. The moon, now above the sky-line, revealed a horse and rider ahead. A shot in any language means "halt." Mavis lifted the heavy Colt's and fired. But Martinez kept to the road.

She fired again, aiming now at Martinez. Almost instantaneously, it seemed to her, the horse under Martinez stumbled and fell to its knees. Mavis was now fifty yards away, and the Mexican, out of the saddle and shrieking curses, wheeled, and Mavis caught the glint of a gun. There was a shock, a jar, a splintering tingle in her knee. Involuntarily her finger pressed the trigger, and twice she heard Martinez cry; then—

"I've got the drop on you, Martinez," she said. "Don't move or I'll finish you."

She saw the gun at his feet, and guessed at his shattered arm.

"Move back now," she said. "Back!"

HALF dazed as he was by misery and fear, the Mexican, looking into the muzzle of the automatic, fell back step by step.

"Now face about, straight ahead—no! down the trail. And remember, if you try to run or get away, it is all up with you. I shoot straight, you know, Martinez."

He knew. He moved ahead, twisting his sleeve about his wounded arm.

"Walk faster," she commanded. For there was a red, wet stream dripping from her ankle, but Martinez must not know. She was not afraid of the Mexican, but she was afraid that the deadly weakness would conquer her before they reached the end of the trail.

"Faster, Martinez," she said again. In her own ears her voice sounded thin and far away. Ah, there were the lights of the bunk-house, and lights, too, in the stone house. She wondered if the shots had been heard. Martinez was staggering; twice he moaned, and the sound wrenched her. It was not pleasant to do to a human being what she had done to Martinez. But was Martinez a human being, or just a toad or a snake?

The corral, dark and low behind the row of pepper trees, seemed lit suddenly with dancing lights. Noises hummed in her ears, droning like bees.

"F-faster, Martinez," she gasped, her voice a waif of sound.

Then out of the black void enveloping her came another voice:

"Who is it? Great God! it's—"

"It's the quitter—come home," she murmured—and pitched forward into Kane's arms.

SHE awoke at dawn, but the everlasting wind of the plains, with its wild song of drought, lulled her to sleep again, for to her it sang the song of home.

She did not rouse again till noon, and Kane sat beside her bed, his chin leaned on his palm, his elbow on his knee. The collar of his shirt, thrown open, revealed his lean brown throat and the rapid pulse beating there. His eyes glowed from his gaunt face, but he made no movement toward her.

"Martinez?" she murmured, taking up the broken thread of her thought.

"Safe," Kane said grimly. "But lie won't talk. Tell me, when you are strong enough—"

She told him in few words. At the end his face was gray as ashes.

"We found the dynamite, but we couldn't understand where you came in. Do you know how much of that fuse was left after you put it out? Two inches!"

Suddenly he slipped to his knees and flung his arms fiercely about her.

"Mavis, after you'd gone I knew I'd not been fair to you. Then I tried to face life without you, to stick it out, but—I failed. To-morrow Lawton is coming to close the deal for the ranch—everything. We'll go back—together."

"No," she said; "we'll stay here. I want to. There never was a Van Rysdyck who was a quitter."

"Mavis!" he implored.

"I had to come back," she whispered into his shoulder. "For there was Isabel."

He drew back and stared at her. The Mavis of old, his girl-wife, looked at him once again from her eyes; and there looked, too, that kindling signal of alarm by which a woman warns her lord that she will hold him as her own against all the world.

He laughed a great laugh then, and gathered her in his arms.

The Man in the Stone House

By FREEMAN TILDEN

Illustrations by George E. Wolfe

THE next morning news was being industriously circulated that Ezra and Lyddy Mudge had quit Boxton on the "sleeper" at mid-night. Louise, they said, had been left behind, and had gone over to stay at Dr. Crumb's.

"Well, Ezra turned tail and run," was Joel Tibb's satisfied verdict.

But J. Bradlee Starr shook his head.

"I wouldn't jump at conclusions," he warned. "There's a lot of fight in that old hide yet. We don't know what he's got up his sleeve."

It was true that Ezra and Aunt Lyddy had gone. Only one person in Boxton knew why or where, and that was Louise. And Louise, weak and dizzy and full of foreboding, was sitting in her room over at the doctor's, that next morning, when the door opened and her old friend and playmate, Katherine Burbridge, burst in, flew to her, and, putting her arms around the other girl's neck, gave her a hearty hug.

"Own up, Lou!" cried the visitor, "you're surprised."

"I own up," replied Louise, with a smile of pleasure. "How in the world did you get up here? I thought you were at Narragansett."

A mildly wicked look came into beautiful Katherine Burbridge's eyes.

"It's more fun to come here, Lou," she answered. "I like—I like to taunt these people in Boxton. I like to gloat a little, as they did once over me."

ONCE every summer Katherine Burbridge, now a New Yorker but once of Boxton, came back to awe and discomfit her former acquaintances.

Her people had been miserably poor, up to the time Katherine was seventeen years old. It was true, as some of her Boxton friends pleasantly asserted, that she had gone barefoot for want of shoes, and had regularly driven the cows home from pasture at night when the late Mr. Burbridge had gone too deeply into the mysteries of the fermentation of apple-juice. But things had radically changed since those lean days. Mr. Burbridge, after a long and violent spree, had "stepped out," as they say in Boxton; and a long-forgotten brother of Mrs. Burbridge had "stepped in" from the Canadian Northwest, after a period of successful land speculation.

That was the end of bare feet for Katherine. Since then she had been in Europe, had been diligently subjected to a process of cultivation by music teachers, dancing teachers, language teachers, and dressmakers, and was finally able to return to Boxton and gaze serenely upon the scenes of her youth—through a lorgnette.

Now, as she chattered gaily on about the people and doings of Boxton, she suddenly saw the lips of Louise tremble. Impulsively she laid her hand on Louise's shoulder.

"I know," she said quickly. "The old gossips have told me. Poor Louise! Poor Walter! But it will all come right, I know. Remember, I'm here, and I'm going to help you."

"Well, Kate," said Louise, when she had recovered her equipoise, "you've come at an exciting time. Have you heard about—last night and everything? And about this man Starr—and what he and Joel are doing? But it's mostly Mr. Starr, I guess."

"He must be wonderful. I've simply got to meet him," said Miss Burbridge emphatically.

"He may be wonderful," replied Louise, with a tinge of bitterness, "but I wish he'd stayed at home. Perhaps I oughtn't to say that, though. Of course, it isn't his fault. But I'm not going to talk of that. I mustn't. Have you heard about the program for the celebration? They say it's the biggest thing ever attempted for a small place in the State. A whole week of Carnival,—Merchants' Carnival, they call it,—and an Old Home Week, to which all old residents are invited home. And the first old resident that gets here next Monday morning is going to be met at the station and escorted to the hotel, and given the freedom of the town, whatever that is, and put up at the hotel at the town's expense.

"And then, Henry Treadway—the editor of the Banner, you know—has started a voting contest for the most popular man in Boxton. Whoever gets the most votes is elected King of the Carnival, and has a right to choose his Queen for the parade, and gets a big silver loving-cup besides. The Ladies' Auxiliary is to have a float in the parade. Yes, you came just in time."

"Tell me, Lou," Katherine whispered suddenly into her companion's ear, "is Walter really so nice?"

Louise Searles swept the other's cheek with a butterfly kiss before she answered.

"He's a little bit vain," she said judicially, "and he's too everlasting proper and conventional; and when he's with me he's apt to be stupid; but—"

"You don't have to tell me, Lou. He is nice. If he weren't, you wouldn't take the trouble to pick out the defects."

Louise suddenly gave her friend a great squeeze and exclaimed: "I'm so fond of you, Katherine!"

"Lou," said Miss Burbridge, becoming strangely serious, "listen. Do you know why I say mean things to those women? Really, Lou, that isn't me at all. I'm foolishly good-natured. But I can't help remembering that years ago—"

She halted, and began to swing back and forth nervously.

"Yes?" asked the younger girl.

"Never mind, dear. I won't bother you with unpleasant memories. They weren't all nasty to mother and me. Mrs. Williams, for instance, was as kind as could be. So was your Aunt Lyddy. And so were you, dear, when you were only a little girl and I was head and shoulders taller than you. You were a dear. One day you gave me five cents—remember?"

"Yes," whispered Louise, a bit shamed at the recollection.

"It wasn't the five cents I remember, Lou. It was the way you looked and the way you acted when you gave it to me. I'll never forget it; I'll never—never—"

"Dear Katherine!" said Louise, patting the other's shoulder.

A LONG freight train rumbled into the Boxton station on Monday morning and went on the siding to allow the seven sixteen to pass. A train-hand ran back to throw the switch behind the freight. A few minutes later the passenger whistled at the box-factory crossing. There was more than the usual crowd at the station.

The hand-shaking committee, who had come down to welcome the first returning old resident and present him with the freedom of the town, eagerly scanned the faces of the half dozen person's that alighted from the seven-sixteen. Three of them were track-workers in overalls; one was a well known traveling salesman who "made" Boxton every Monday morning; and the remaining two were a poverty-stricken couple that lived on the other side of the mountain and didn't even trade in Boxton.

"Nothing doing!" said Henry Treadway, as the train pulled out.

"Too early," replied Starr comfortingly. "But we've got to be here for the next train."

The conductor of the freight waved his arm, and the long line of box-cars creaked and began to move backward off the siding. Then he approached the handshaking committee and greeted them with a hearty railroad voice.

"Going to have a big week, eh?" he said. "And say, I've got a dead-head in the caboose—here he comes now. I told him I'd give him a lift as far as here. Picked him up at the Falls. He says you'll vouch for him. He didn't look exactly like a hobo, so I took him on."

It was a seedy remnant of a middle-aged man who hobbled across the tracks and approached the hand-shaking committee. He was short in stature, but he made up for this in width. On his head, surmounting a massive and unshaven countenance, was a ridiculous golf cap; he was bald except for a fringe of hair that began at his ears and crept hesitatingly down his neck. His trousers were so tight at the thighs that they seemed almost like a bathing suit. Their former owner, too, had probably not given them decent attention. But he wore a brand-new pair of shoes which seemed to be several sizes too small. The Boxton eye, reviewing the outfit, could come to only one conclusion—that he had stolen the shoes.

The man came up, puffing like a small locomotive. There was something of the mendicant in his approach; yet something confident, too. He had breath enough, when he reached the platform, for one short sentence:

"Did I get here first?"

"First? What d'ye mean?" asked Henry Treadway. "What d'ye want?"

"You look at me like you never saw me before," replied the man. "And me one of your regular readers, too! Is this right, what the Banner says?"

He had pulled a greasy and tattered copy of the newspaper from his coat pocket, and spread it lovingly before the gaze of Mr. Treadway.

"I've come back to the old town!" he explained. "Did I get here first?"

Mr. Treadway exclaimed suddenly, "Joe Tinker!"

"You said it," was the reply. "Glad to see you again, Mr. Treadway. And you too, Mr. Tibb. These other two gen'lemen I don't seem to reco'nize. Don't say you don't know me, Mr. Tibb! Remember, I worked for you, haying, when you owned the Spear place over on the Fair- lake road? That was the Fourth of July the lightning busted the steeple on the Congregational Church. Gosh, this seems like old times! To think I should be right back in old Boxton! And you gents don't look a day older."

MR. TIBB looked at Mr. Treadway, and Mr. Treadway looked at Mr. Tibb.

"He's all right, I take it," suggested the freight conductor. "You gentlemen seem to know him. Good luck to the celebra-tion!" He swung aboard the caboose as it cleared the station. The hand-shaking committee were left with their prize.

The crowd of station loafers gathered around. Mr. Tibb pulled at his collar and tried to think of something to say. He looked up at Starr, and was further embarrassed to see a broad smile on that gentleman's face.

"Well, Joel?" said Starr.

"Now, look here, Tinker," began Joel Tibb, in a low voice. "You know we don't want you here. You just better get right back to where you come from on the next train. Here's a dollar. You needn't ever pay it back."

Continued on page 13

After My Husband Died

The Villain Still Pursues Her

---

Watch Their Steps

The Man in the Stone House

Continued from page 8

Mr. Tinker, the returned Boxtonian, looked at the bill that was extended toward him, and then looked at Mr. Tibb sadly. There was something in that regard which was like the pity of a man when he sees another man wronging himself.

"Why, Mr. Tibb," said Joe Tinker, in a tone of mild reproof, "that ain't worthy of you—honest, it ain't. I'm surprised—honest, I am. After me seeing what you printed in the Banner, and coming all this distance to be here Old Home Week!"

The smile on Starr's face grew broader, but he said nothing. Walter Eadbrook sat down on a truck and watched the proceedings with faint interest.

"When we printed that in the Banner," said Mr. Treadway, "we meant reputable citizens. We didn't mean—tramps."

It was Starr that winced at this. Mr. Tinker shed the unkindness very easily.

"We can't all be rich," he said, with amiable philosophy. "Some of us has had bad luck. Don't you want anybody to come back to Boxton unless they can spend money?"

The retort brought the red to Mr. Treadway's ears. He gurgled a moment in search of a fitting rejoinder, and then turned helplessly to Starr.

"What'll we do?" he asked.

Mr. Starr rubbed his chin reflectively before he made any reply.

"Is he an old resident of Boxton?"

"He used to live here," grudgingly admitted the editor. "But he warn't any good."

"Was he born here?"

"Yes, sir, I was," replied Joe Tinker—"in the house they tore down when Mr. Williams built his big place. Wasn't I, Mr. Tibb?"

"Don't ask me," replied the grocer irritably. "I don't see what difference it makes.

"Where'd you get that copy of the Banner?" asked Starr.

"I found it 'side of the railroad track down to the Falls," admitted Joe Tinker. "I s'pose one of the trainmen had it in his dinner-pail."

Starr turned to the other members of the hand-shaking committee. It was evident that he was almost boiling over with laughter.

"Fellows," he announced, "I don't see but what the joke's on us."

"You don't mean to say—" began Messrs. Treadway and Tibb in chorus.

"Well, what can we do?" replied Starr. "This old college chum of yours has fulfilled all the requirements. He's a native Boxtonian and he got here first. He came on a freight, but we didn't specify what he should travel on. Let's be sports. Mr. Tinker, welcome to our town! In behalf of the people of Boxton, we give you the glad hand of fellowship."

AS he spoke, Starr extended his hand, and Joe Tinker was amazed into thrusting out his own. In his most scientific and professional manner, J. Bradlee Starr drew the ragged stranger to him and welcomed him home.

"Better shake with him," he advised the other members of the committee.

"Me? Not if I know it," said Joel Tibb. "You don't realize what you're doing, Mr. Starr!"

"I realize that we've invited this man to come home, and he's come home; and that we can't welch on our own proposition;" replied Starr. "Tinker, I'll get you some clothes and make you look decent. The town'll put you up a week at the Commercial Hotel free of charge. According to the wording of our advertisement, you're entitled to the freedom of Boxton. Understand, that doesn't mean that you can grab everything that isn't nailed down. It's an honorary matter. If you've got manhood in you, this ought to help put you on your feet. If you're a bum at heart, you'll remain a bum. But you'll never be able to say we quit or lay down on our word!"

Mr. Tinker looked at his benefactor, quite stupefied.

"You're kiddin' me," he said.

"No," replied Starr.

Joe Tinker took one more scrutinizing view of Starr. Then he summed up his feelings in one brief utterance:

"I guess you warn't born and raised round these parts, mister."

Mr. Tibb and Mr. Eadbrook preferred to walk back to the Center. So Starr and Henry Treadway pushed their honored guest into the carriage and went down to the hotel.

When they were inside the clean, large room that had been reserved by the hand-shaking committee for the first returning Boxtonian, Starr said:

"First thing you want to do, my friend, is to take a bath. We'll make you look like a new man. We'll send up—well, what's the matter now?"

"Am I going to sleep here?" faltered Mr. Tinker.

"Yes."

"Gee!" was the reply. "I ain't awake, that's what's the, matter! I've gone to sleep along the road somewhere, and I'm dreaming this. Good Lord! I wish old Mudge could walk in and see me!"

"Old who?" snapped Starr, clutching at the name.

"Old Ezra Mudge. I don't suppose you know him. He's probably dead before now."

"No," replied Starr. "He's alive. Look here, my friend, what do you know about Ezra Mudge?"

"Me? I used to work for him. That was the last job I had before I left Boxton. Don't I remember him, though? His wife warn't so bad as he was. Aunt Something, they called her."

STARR came over to the town's guest and looked at him closely. He was excited, but he was trying not to show it. In a low voice he asked Joe Tinker:

"Was there—er—a child in the house when you worked there? How long ago was it?"

"I know what you mean," was the crafty response. "I see what you're

getting at. You mean a little baby they brought home."

"Yes, yes," cried Starr breathlessly. Somehow, he felt that this man's advent in Boxton was going to be fraught with more significant results than any one dreamed. "You were there at that time? You know something about that? If you worked there, perhaps you might have heard—something?"

The eyes of Joseph Tinker, Esq., assumed a craftier look. He had been long enough on the road to become sharp to small opportunities.

"Well, maybe," he responded cautiously. "What of it?"

"You answer my question," said Starr. "Were you working there when Ezra Mudge and his wife went away and brought back a child?"

"Yes, sir, I was," said Tinker positively. "I was stable-man and weed-puller and wood-chopper and forty-seven other kinds of a hired man. They didn't keep no woman."

Starr looked at his watch.

"I've got to be going," he said. "This is a big day for us. I'll tell Weatherbee how to fix you out. You're not to go outside the hotel till I come and look you over. Understand?"

PERCHED upon a big box outside the tent of "The Catornos," a swarthy little man was shouting:

"The show is just about to begin! The biggest show on the grounds! Señorita Catorno in her wonder-r-rful Spanish dances and the thr-r-rilling dagger-r-r act; seen and applauded by ex-President Roosevelt and all the cr-r-rowned heads of Europe! The show is r-r-ready to begin !"

Señor Catorno had steadily been announcing, for the past twenty minutes, that the show was just about to begin. Senorita Catorno, half dressed for her act, crept up behind him and whispered:

"Better start it. Bill. The crowd inside won't wait any longer."

"You keep quiet!" was the reply. "I'm running this."

Nevertheless he took the advice, and growled himself inside the dressing-tent.

At one end of the little weathered second-hand tent a stage had been hastily knocked together. There was no curtain. When Señor Catorno appeared again, it was upon one end of this stage. He brought a kitchen chair with him, and a mandolin. By the simple expedient of shedding his street clothes he had become a grotesque travesty on a Spanish bullfighter.

The man assailed the mandolin as if it had done him some unforgivable injury. Nobody could pretend that the resulting noise was music, but it sounded very much like what a gypsy accompaniment should be. Then, with ,a, manufactured cry of abandon, Señorita Catorno swept to the center of the stage.

SHE wore the usual spectacular red, with a many-colored sash around her waist. A red rose in her mouth and a set of castanets completed the illusion.

And she could dance! She was tired, listless, and angry in her heart, but no one in the crowd below dreamed that she was not enjoying herself to the utmost.

It was a small "house," and neither performer had the intention of completing the full act. Señorita Catorno finished one dance, bowed coldly at the resultant applause, and then took her place at the farther end of the stage, against an upright wooden stand much scarred and dented with past performances. Señor Catorno produced nine ugly-looking knives, each about a foot long, laying them upon the chair he had just deserted. A tremor of expectation ran through the crowd. Señorita Catorno gave the crowd a pitying stare and braced herself for the ordeal.

He surveyed the distance a moment, this burlesque troubadour, then silently picked up a knife, drew back his arm, and sent it flying toward the girl. It stung its way into the soft pine, and stayed, trembling, scarcely more than an inch from the girl's ear. "My God, that was close!" said somebody aloud; and the reward was a leering grin from the knife-thrower.

Then, one—two—three, as fast as he could pick up the knives and take aim, Catorno threw the remaining knives. They went unerringly to the spot, making the complete round of the lithe body against the wood. The last one quivered in its place a moment, and then clattered to the floor.

Without a word, and with just the semblance of a stage smile at the spectators, the señorita left her place and went from the stage. And scarcely had they gained the outer air when they saw the erstwhile troubadour, reclad in his street garments, mount the big box and send forth his announcement:

"The show is just about to begin! The biggest show on the grounds! Señorita Catorno in her wonderful Spanish dances and the thr-r-rilling dagger-r-r act"

ALL around the Catorno tent on the Coppins lot other fakirs were plying their trades. Every one was doing well except the Catornos. Nobody could have told why this should be so. The Catornos certainly could not. They had a "good show." The señorita was pretty. The señor had an act that was a thriller. But business was bad. It may have been that there was something about that swarthy face, something about the two glittering lines of teeth, the thin lips, and the malevolent eyes, that frightened people away.

When the last reluctant urchin had been chased from the grounds, the Catornos began to quarrel. They had been quarreling now since the second week of the present season.

This time it began over the first knife that had been thrown. Not until she stepped from her place of danger did the señorita know how close that first knife had come to her right ear. She knew by the position of the knives, then, that she

Continued on page 17

How I Got into the Open

She Might Have Played Juliet

L'ART and lobster and one-night stands did Miss Anita Angelina Murdock renounce in order to aid her parents. She was studying Juliet and Zaza in an Eastern dramatic school when her family lost everything they owned in a fire and had to move to a poor tract of land twenty miles from any railroad on a lake known as Turkey Lake.

Miss Anita Angelina Murdock knew her duty and she "done it." Two weeks after her parents settled in their new quarters, she left the dramatic school and joined them. She had come to stay—but on one condition: she was an artist; they must respect her sensitiveness. They must change the name of the lake to Moonlight Lake.

Then She Advertised

THIS problem settled, she hired some labor and began to build along the shore a number of shacks and boat-houses; she also bought a dozen canoes. Then she advertised in the daily Bugle that on Moonlight Lake one might find all the comforts of home, also hunting and fishing.

She says: "In less than a week I was swamped—shanties and sheds all full, many persons growling because I didn't have more boats and offering double prices if I would get extra ones. I hired two women from town to do the cooking; we had plenty of game and fish, for the outers' were only too glad to offer all we could use.

"I now have twelve boats, which I rent for ten cents an hour, and they are in use practically all day—and nights too," observes Miss Anita Angelina Murdock. "The moonlight on the lake is beautiful."

And the Camp Is Still Growing

SHE charges a dollar a day for boarders; and, though on some days she may have only seven or eight, she must be ready for as many as thirty. Already she has cleared two hundred dollars, and "Camp Murdoca" on "Moonlight Lake" is growing fast.

And now Miss Anita Angelina Murdock wonders how fate could be so cruel to Miss Deslys and Mme. Bernhardt and those other unfortunates, who might have been just as successful as she if they'd only had the chance.

No Tonics for Him

PEOPLE pay well for sensational, heart-accelerating news: mine (from the family doctor) cost me $5 and a nervous breakdown first; afterward, a $60 job plus a $40 railroad fare.

I was a bookkeeper, unmarried, and I had been working eight years. For these eight years I had to show just $500 in cash, over against a big deficit in the matter of health. My doctor told me I had better hunt another job; and, on thinking it over, I agreed with him.

In the spring of 1907 I began my hunt near Windermere, Florida. Windermere is in the lake region of the peninsula, which accounts for my choice.

Land was cheap near the railroad, but cheaper across Lake Butler. For twenty- five acres on the opposite shore I paid $200; and, with tools that raised many a blister on my hands, I set out to clear the few acres of muck near the water. By winter I had vegetables both for "home" use and for sale to a boardinghouse several miles away, which I reached by a boat I made myself. I confess that everything—my boat, my house, my garden—was as crude as one would expect from an impractical bookkeeper.

But my new life began to please me—hard work, lonesomeness, and all—yes, and the little income that meant more than a much larger one had ever meant to me back in the North.

I had planned to have a grove of oranges and grapefruit, and I was anxious to have the land ready for tree-planting in the spring. With a negro and his mule, our triple alliance burned out the inflammable turpentine pines, grubbed out the oaks, and hauled off the refuse. I hoped to sell at least five acres for funds with which to develop my grove.

But there was no chance to dispose of land that winter. So, with a sort of gambler's thrill, I mortgaged everything to a nursery company in return for a ten-acre planting of their best stock. My funds gave out completely the following summer, and I was forced to work away from home, after getting further into debt to the nursery company for an advance of fertilizer.

I Am Content

FORTUNATELY, Windermere land began to boom the second winter. Prices mounted, and I sold five acres for $500 to a wealthy Northerner, who also engaged me to take care of his property.

My health was restored by this time; my land title was cleared; and nothing could have persuaded me to return to my former estate. This was a life of exertion; but what a delightful sensation to feel muscular weariness instead of brain- fag! Summers and winters passed on the double quick. And, now that the grove produces double $60 a month, I have installed machinery to ease the work.

Windermere has grown into a winter resort, and it is a great pleasure to keep the grove a show-place for the owner and his visitors, many of them my customers. With a little motor-boat, I am their "official" guide through the extensive Butler chain o' lakes. Sam P. Chase

Is Your House in Style?

"SOLOMON in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these," was what Mrs. Charles Macintosh wanted people to say about her clients. She was a dressmaker, and she knew just the slightly girlish angle at which to hang your aunt's gown. But, one day, the doctor called upon her and, in that practical, omnipotent way of medical men, informed her that she must give up her business and thereafter live at least half her life outdoors. "Work with a pick and shovel would do you good," he added.

The Macintoshes had just bought a lot where they were planning to build a house. One afternoon Mr. Macintosh, rambling home from his office, saw a neat pile of earth heaped up in-the center of this lot. Remembering that if any one was seeking or finding buried treasure there, it belonged to him, he investigated. In a short, stout khaki skirt and blouse (fashion papers please copy) there stood his wife, resting on her shovel.

Mr. Macintosh was shocked. But Mrs. Macintosh announced that, now she had started the basting, she wouldn't stop until she'd hemstitched and shirred every blessed inch of that house. It ended with Mr. Macintosh taking off his collar and helping.

It took them several weeks to dig their cellar. By the time it was finished, Mrs. Macintosh had decided that the life of a day laborer was the life for her. From that time on, she sawed out the lumber herself, mixed the cement, pushed it in the wheel-barrows, and of course she did all the paper-hanging. Every day she worked with her pick for several hours.

The result was that before the house was finished Mrs. Macintosh could have gone back to her old job and done a dozen trousseaus without feeling it. But by this time she didn't want to stop. So she proceeded to grade the lot and even to cement the walks. Altogether they saved, in building that house, about $2000—not to speak of Mrs. Macintosh's life.

Mrs. Macintosh has now decided to take up building for her profession. She finds mortar and timber more satisfactory materials to work with than lace and silk. In a few months she will start a cottage for a young couple, which will be her own work to the last shingle. It's really much simpler than dressmaking, and fashions in houses don't change as suddenly as fashions in skirts. Of course, things must hang right, and not be too much on the bias—but, at least, there aren't any buttonholes.

She Will Risk Her Life to Take Your Picture

MISS GERTRUDE A. BRUGMAN feels that she has won an outdoor free life after sixteen years of plugging at every sort of job. When she came to New York from Holland she couldn't speak English and had to earn. her living in a big restaurant. She worked hard enough at this to push her way to the position of cashier. But even this pinnacle didn't satisfy her, so she decided to take a vacation and visit the family in Holland.

On this visit she took with her a three- dollar camera. Whether it was the result of explaining subtraction and addition to irate customers from behind the cash register, or whether her broadened perspective allowed her to see new lights and shades, she returned to New York with a collection of little pictures that an art dealer bought up at once.

Her Hobby Earned Her Living

THE possibility of actually earning her living by what she had thought of as merely a hobby urged her to sacrifice her vacations, to get up at six in the morning and to work evenings. But printing, developing, and finishing the pictures took far too much money to allow of her giving up her regular job.

Gradually, however, people learned that here was a girl who did not fear the flimsiest scaffolding, who was willing to take a time exposure from a cornice of a skyscraper if it would make a good calendar picture. And she had a little trick of snapping the wedding party, say, so that every one of the bridesmaids looked as if she must be the next to love, honor, and obey, and you really were sure to mistake the bride's mother for the maid of honor.

Which was all very well, you know, and sure to make Miss Brugman a necessity in the community; so that last year she wouldn't have continued in her job if they had doubled her salary.

All of which goes to prove, young lady, that the only thing in the world you should take really seriously is your pleasure.

When Stuff Put It Over

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by F. Vaux Wilson

IT begun with Sadie's gettin' interested in this Swede girl that comes to do her hair and put the piano-top effect on her finger-nails. Sadie used to take her hair and finger-nails to town, until one day this meek little ash blonde in the rusty black dress hails me as I'm swingin' off the afternoon express at Rockhurst.

"Pleass, sir," says she, "I find no Mees Wilburjones."

"Eh?" says I, whirlin' around to look her over. She looks scared.

"Mees Wilburjones," says she.

"Oh!" says I. "Wilbur-Jones? Why, they sold out and moved months ago. Went broke, you know—busted."

She stares at me puzzled. "I ban work for Mees Wilburjones," says she, "when I go by Sveden. My mudder she die; and Mees Jones he say I coom back, too."

"I see," says I. "Well, it's all off. If I was you I'd hike back to the intelligence office and draw another address."

She listens wide-eyed and a bit stupid, and as I finishes she shakes her head. She explains how she's just lent out all her cash to a steerage friend with a sick baby, and she displays a shabby little purse, as empty as a last year's robin's nest.

"Well, well!" says I. "On the rocks, ain't you? Come inside while I 'phone Mrs. McCabe and see if there's any vacant kitchen portfolios up at our house."

And Sadie, when she hears the details, gives me a decision right off the bat:

"Of course. Send her right out. She can help Mother Whaley with the children."

So inside of an hour Miss Olga Hansen is signed on as assistant nurse. And say, after Sadie'd rigged her out in a white cap, shoulder-strap apron, and a pair of decent shoes, she's about as ornamental a nursemaid as you'd find anywhere.

Ornamental, but hardly useful. For instance, Mother Whaley'd start her givin' baby sister her bath, and an hour later she'd find Olga squattin' beside the crib, gazin' admirin' at the youngster rollin' on her back, and the bath water gettin' cold. As for her helpin' manage Sully—say, the way she'd let that kid rough-house her was a sin. Anything he demanded—from frosted cake in the middle of the night to havin' the dog put to bed with him—Olga would go trottin' for. Course, we couldn't stand for that. He's enough of a young tarrier as it is, without being humored.

IT'S just by accident that Sadie discovers what an artist Olga is with a brush and comb. Then it develops she can do seventeen varieties of shampoo, execute a facial massage that's like havin' a happy dream, and handle the chamois buffer equal to any barber-shop queen.

"Why on earth didn't you say so before?" demands Sadie.

Olga shrugs her shoulders and gives her one of them stupid baby stares.

Course, in a small and select fam'ly like ours there wa'n't near enough hair-dressin' and manicurin' to keep an expert busy. Lendin' Olga out to Mrs. Purdy-Pell gave Sadie her grand idea. She 'phones around her callin' list, tellin' what a wonder Miss Hansen is, and inside of three days she's started her out with a complete outfit,—electric vibrator, little black bag, and date book,—and the first thing Olga knows she's earnin' twenty or more a week, easy money. Next she hires rooms in the village and opens a little shop for the carriage trade.

You'd 'most thought she was off our hands for good by then. Sadie insists, though, on keepin' close track of her, and durin' her Saturday calls she pumps out of Olga all the thrillin' details.

"What do you think, Shorty?" she announces one day. "Olga has a beau!"

"Good for Olga!" says I.

Sadie shakes her head. "I'm not at all sure what sort of a young man he is."

"Oh, leave it to Olga," says I.

"But she is such a simple, trusting soul," protests Sadie. "And, you know, she hasn't a single relative or friend in this country. I understand she comes from a very good family, too. Her father, she tells me, was a ship-builder, and she has an uncle who is captain of a steamer. Then, she's rather a beauty. I wish we could find out something about this young man of hers."

"Oh, come!" I says. "She ain't any first cousin of ours, you know."

I can't make her see it. She insists that havin' started Olga in on her manicurin' career, we are responsible for her.

"Even to who holds her hands evenin's?" says I. "Say, count me out. I ain't any public chaperon."

Sadie keeps bringin' it up every now and then, though, sayin' she hopes the girl ain't runnin' around with any worthless party, or worse.

"For the love of soup," says I, "why don't you ask Olga about him?"

"As though I hadn't!" says she. "All I can get out of her is that his name is Hickley, and that he says such funny things he makes her laugh all the time. Oh, yes, he's a lovely dancer, too; and he has told her that he's going to be rich."

"What more could you ask?" says I. "Entertainin', a swell trotter, and a bud- din' elute! I should say Olga had drawn a prize."

WELL, a month or so later along came this bulletin about how Olga had become an heiress. Fact! The captain uncle had shuffled off—not shipwreck or anything excitin'; ptomaine poisonin'. Anyway, his life insurance and a third int'rest in an old tub of a freighter had all come to Olga, his favorite niece. Near ten thousand in real money!

Course, there had to be more or less jugglin' with lawyers first. Twice I towed Olga into town to sign her name to things. It was on this second trip that I had a glimpse of a young gent stretchin' his neck after us from a doorway.

I'd looked over the papers, just to see that she wa'n't bein' bilked more'n usual, left her chewin' the pen-holder, and I was pikin' back for the Studio, when, as I steps out of the elevator, here's the neck-stretcher waitin' for me.

"Say," says he, messy, "wa'n't that Miss Hansen you was with a minute ago?"

"Good guess," says I. "What then?"

"I'm a friend of hers," says he. "That's why I'm crashin' in. What I'd like to know is, who the blazes are you?"

"Excuse me for not wearin' a tag," says I. "McCabe's my name."

"Oh!" says he. "Professor McCabe?" "Right," says I. "And if it's in order, maybe you can do as much for me."

"I guess Olga's told you about me," says he. "I'm Hickley."

"Not the Hickley?" says I.

"Sure," says he.

So it's natural I looks him over a bit curious. A stocky, bullet-headed party he is, with plush-cut hair that grows down to a point in front, and a pair of bright brown pop-eyes.

"Yes," says I, "we've heard you described some. Kind of a humorist, eh?"

"Me?" says Hickley. "Nothin' to that. I'm no joke-book. I'm a business man."

"But Olga says you keep her laughing."

"Oh, her!" says he. "She laughs easy, Olga. And I expect I can pull a line of light chatter when I try. Some queen, that girl, Swede or no Swede. She's my best bet. I make a hit with her too, eh?"

"She says you're a swell dancer," says I.

"She's a judge," admits Hickley. "I got trot steps some of these exhibition ginks never dreamed of; just make 'em up out of my head. But I don't let any tango parties trip me up on business."

"Comin' strong, are you?" says I. "What firm you with down here?"

"Cole, Black & Matthews," says he.

"Well, well!" says I. "Solid people, they are. Let's see, you're—"

"OH, I'm only on the quote board now," he cuts in. "You know—I put up the numbers as they come in off the ticker. Been at it three years. Think of keeping me on a job like that! But say, between you and me, our people are a bunch of dead ones. They don't know talent when they see it. I've told 'em a dozen times how I was just bein' wasted on the board. I ought to be general manager by now. Honest! Why, I've put 'em on to schemes that would have—But I'll show 'em one of these days. I got the pipes all laid."

"Going to land a better job, are you?"

"Job? No," says he. "I'm goin' to put over something big; on my own, you understand. And say, take it from me, there's somebody home here"; and he taps himself on the bristly pompadour.

It was a shame, too, that Hickley had to get back to the office so soon, or I might have had full details of what a great man he was. Didn't mind tellin' me in the least.

I knew Sadie'd be interested to hear that I'd seen Hickley at last. She was.

"He's all right, I guess," says I. "Quite a lad."

"How do you know?" demands Sadie.

"Why," says I, "he—he confesses it."

"Humph!" says she. "Does he know about Olga's inheriting that money?"

"We didn't go into that," says I. "Mostly we stuck to the main subject—Hickley."

"What is Olga going to do with it?" asks Sadie.

"Put it in the Rockhurst National," says I, "until she decides how to invest it. She's to meet me there in the mornin'."

"If Hickley doesn't see her first," says Sadie.

HOW do women do it, anyway? Can they sense things that we don't? Or are they just naturally more suspicious? I tried to show her she was crazy in the head. And then, one night, I comes home to find her waitin' for me with a high- tragedy look on her face.

"Well," says she, "that Hickley person has done it, just as I expected."

"Eh?" says I. "Done what?"

"Gotten all of Olga's money away from her," says she. "Every dollar, including what she had saved. He has been after her for the last week to turn it over to him—for investment, he says. And yesterday she did it. I pumped it out of her this morning. So now what do you think, Shorty McCabe?"

I'll admit too she had me with my mouth open, lookin' foolish. I looked more so after dinner, when Olga came up by request, and we had a little three-cornered session. Oh, yes, Olga admits it all, calm and cheerful. She'd drawn out her whole cash reserve and passed it over to Hickley without gettin' back so much as an I.O.U.

"Huh!" says I. "As a reward for makin' you laugh, or as a dancin' prize?"

Olga just blinks them cow eyes of hers.

"Meester Hickley he say he make very mooch money," says Olga, "and then he coom back and—and—" Here she drops her chin kittenish.

"Yes; what then?" says I.

"We—we gets married," says Olga.

"You absurd, silly girl!" breaks in Sadie.

"Don't you know that very likely you'll never see him again?"

"He coom back, Meester Hickley," insists Olga. "That what he say."

Well, what was the answer to that? Just on a chance of catchin' Hickley, I chased down to Cole, Black & Matthews' first thing next mornin'. One of the clerks gave me the tale.

"Stuff Hickley?" says he. "Oh, he jumped his job, three days ago. He's a bird, that lad. Got an idea he's a young Napoleon of finance, you know. The firm is staggering under the blow, but we are managing to keep the doors open, just as

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though nothing had happened. No, he didn't leave any address. Yes, I'll let you know if he ever shows up."

And that seems to finish the incident.

Two weeks later we get the next jolt. Sadie 'phones in the bulletin.

"Shorty," says she, "Olga's gone."

"Gone where?" says I.

"Goodness knows," says she. "Just disappeared. Last night sometime. Left nearly everything in her rooms. She must have been dreadfully worried. You don't suppose, Shorty, that she could have—"

"There's no telling," says I. "I'll call up the coroner's."

Not so cheerful, huntin' that kind of news. Nor little trips to the morgue.

"Sadie," says I, after a few days of that, "I don't often start any home, reforms; hut, believe me, from now on I'm off this Swedish philanthropy act for life."

"Poor Olga!" sniffs Sadie.

WE'D closed the book on the tragedy and was tryin' to forget it, when here the other mornin' I gets another call on the wire and a familiar voice salutes chirky.

"That you, Professor?" it says. "Well, say, this is Hickley. . . . Uh-huh! Stuff Hickley, you know. Say, me and the Missus are up here at the Plutoria, doin' the honeymoon stunt like reg'lar parties. Only we're lonesome-like. Come up and feed with us, won't you?"

"Look here," says I. "What Missus is this you're talkin' about?"

"Why, Olga," says he.

"Then I'll come," says I.

Yep! It's the same Hickley, wearin' the same plush-cut hair on his bullet head, but sportin' a cutaway coat and yellow gloves, also one of these neckties with red, green, and orange stripes.

"Zing-g-g!" says I, shadin' my eyes. "Who you in mournin' for?"

"Who, me?" says Hickley. "That's the last thing I'm thinkin' of. Mournin' be blowed!"

"Where's Olga?" says I.

"Up in our suite," says he. "Get that? Three and bath, gold chairs, and a tub big enough to swim in. Come on up."

It's all he describes, that suite. As Hickley pushes me in, he sings out:

"Hey, girlie! Got 'em all on? Come show the Professor. Ah, there you are!"

Lucky I knew who to expect or I'd never guessed. She's Exhibit A, all right. Dolled? Say, the modest dressed little Olga we knew once looks as much like this one as a bunch of parsley does like an Easter lily in full bloom. Nothin' more'n black and white velvet and white fur, but there's all kinds of zip to it.

"Show him the boots, girlie," says Hickley. "Fur on 'em, too."

There was. And the skirt is plenty short enough not to hide the tops.

"Some Eskimo effect," says I, gaspin'.

"Such a lot for boots," says Olga, gazin' at 'em doubtful. "Eighteen dollars!"

Which reminds me of something. I pulls Hickley one side.

"Course," says I, "it's her money, and all that; and now you two are hitched you got a right to blow it as speedy as you please; but Olga can't depend on losin' an uncle every month, you know."

Mr. Hickley chuckles.

"Say, girlie," he calls out, "flash that new bank book of yours on the Professor. He's uneasy in his mind."

And Olga produces a yellow pass book. "See," says she. "He gets it all back for me."

IT'S a fact. Here's the ink hardly dry on a ninety-five-hundred-dollar deposit.

"This ain't her blow," adds Hickley. "It's mine. Goin' to last just five days more, too. Then we settle down in a nice little apartment on Riverside Drive. How? Say, didn't I tell you I was goin' to put over something big? Well, I landed. Ah, say, what else is there big money in nowadays? War babies. Sure! I saw the boom comin'. I was in on the ground floor, top. That was one of the things I wanted the firm, to back me in. Why, I had a list of munitions industries and the stocks all located a month before the big buying began. Would the firm touch it? Not with a hay-rake! So I plunged on my own hook."

"Must have had an uncle up your sleeve yourself," says I.

"Not me," says Hickley. "But you don't think I handled the numbers all that time with my eyes shut, do you? I got to know a lot of the firm's good customers; and I always was a good guesser. So when I thought I had something good I passed it on, confidential-like. When they won I got my rake-off. Salted it, too. Say, one week there, back when New Haven was takin' a tumble, they fed me over two hundred in tips just for puttin' 'em wise. And all I risked was my reputation. So I piled up quite a wad.

"But when I got the idea that these war stocks was goin' soarin'—Well, that was my own little private hunch. I wanted more'n just tips on that. I could smell profits—big profits. That's when I begun organizin' my pool. Uh-huh! Why not? I knew how it was done. And I had friends that I'd made good with. Ten of 'em came in, at five thousand apiece, agreein' to split fifty-fifty with me on the profits. And I put in my last dollar. Oh, sure, on margins. Handled it right there, through Cole, Black & Matthews, where I could watch it. J. T. Dobson, the account stood. Me, I was Dobson. Ten per cent. was all they made us put up at first. And inside of two weeks we had from twenty to thirty points velvet.

"Maybe you know what happened then. The big fellows got their eyes on war babies. They started a combine of their own, to shake out the small holders. Munitions stocks took a slump. The firm boosted the margins to twenty, thirty, forty per cent. Course, even then we could have pulled out with a fair profit. Some of 'em wanted to. But I wa'n't goin' to let that Bethlehem bunch throw a scare into me and hog all the kale. It was my one chance. Look at who I am, Professor. Know where I came from? An orphans' home over in Jersey. Ran away when I was sixteen, and had to rush the ticket-chopper at Pavonia ferry to get to New York. Bootblack, newsie, errand-boy—that's my record. Then on the board at Cole, Black & Matthews. And at last I'd beat the game up to a point where I stood to win big stakes—enough to put me on my feet for good. There was Olga, too. I had to make good.

"THAT'S when I quit my job and rustled. Day and night for three weeks I was at it, raising the coin to cover with. I hunted up every one I'd ever known that had a spare hundred. And right when I thought I'd lost out I hears about this money of Olga's. I hated to do it, too. But she's a brick, Olga is. She believed in me. So—well, she let me have it. I covered and held on."

"They didn't shake you out, eh?"

"Not much!" says he. "And when war babies came back our pool cashed in half its holdings. Say, some of them stocks that. I got around thirty I unloaded as high as one hundred and fifty. We had all we could swing, too. So I guess eighteen for a pair of boots ain't goin' to break me."

We swaps a grin at that.

"I expect you'll start buckin' the market like a reg'lar guy now, eh?" says I.

"Not me," says Hickley. "I'm goin' back with the firm."

"On the board?" says I.

"Hardly," says he. "They've found out who was runnin' that Dobson account, and how it was done. So they're pu ttin' me in as manager of their uptown branch, just like I told 'em they ought to more'n a year ago. Twenty-five hundred to start with, and a commission on all business. Not so worse, eh? Let's go down and eat."

And say, maybe I didn't have a report for Sadie that night.

"Yes, yes," says I, windin' up; "you got to hand it to Hickley."

"Oh, well," says Sadie, "I'm glad I was wrong about him, for Olga's sake. I hope she's happy."

"Happy!" says I. "She can't dodge it. You ought to see them boots."

Continued from page 13

had had another in a long series of escapes.

"Are you trying to kill me, Bill?" she cried, thrusting her face forward toward his. "You're drinking too much, that's what's the matter!"

He showed his teeth and laughed a sick man's laugh.

"Sometimes I feel like I'd just as soon put one of 'em into your throat."

She shivered a little and changed the subject: "What's the gate to-night?"

The question roused the man's dormant anger. He jumped up and paced the tent, cursing Boxton and Boxtonians in frightful oaths.

"There it is!" he cried, throwing down a canvas bag. "It won't pay expenses."

She took this unfortunate moment to show him her street shoes.

"I've got to have some new ones," she said. "I can't walk in these things anymore. If you was any kind of a man you wouldn't want to see me go out in those. If you'd spend less for rum—"

"Shut up!" he answered, with a shriek.

She answered by calling him unlovely names. But she knew just how far to go. Of a sudden, she adopted new tactics.

"Bill, you don't want me to go barefooted," she pleaded.

He looked at her a moment, and a villainous smile leaped out of his mouth.

"There's a shoe store uptown," he replied. "It's run by a boob named Eadbrook. I guess you hadn't ought to go without shoes."

She flushed.

"No more of that stuff!" she cried. "I'm tired of that game. I'll stand for your dirty treatment, but you ain't going to send me out rustling for my clothes, Bill. I ain't got so low as that. Next thing, you'll be wanting me to put over a badger game on somebody.

He grasped her by the wrist with his long, powerful fingers, and made her wince.

"You'll do as I say," he muttered.

"Not that, Bill; not that," she replied.

"Listen, Rose," the man continued. "I'm getting sore on you. You better begin to get wise. You've been stalling along and playing the queen long enough. Now you're going to wake up and get busy. You're going to help me—"

"Not that, Bill—not that!" she cried, wrenching herself away from him and facing him panting.

"Who said anything about a badger game?" he growled. "That's your idea, not mine. I've something bigger than that in view. We can't follow this game any more. Next week we'd be hitting the ties. Well, don't believe that I'm going to swing a pick, Rose. I'm going to get next to something worth while. And you're going to help me."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"None of your business," he said. "You'll know soon enough. "But I'm going to tell you what you're going to do. You're going to get acquainted with this guy at the shoe store—this Edbrook, or Eadbrook, or whatever his moniker is. You're going to twist him around your finger, like that. You can do it—you can do it and take care of yourself. He's an easy mark; I can see it in his face."

"Yes; for a pair of shoes," she answered, with a sneer.

"For a pair of shoes!" he echoed, imitating her voice. "No, you fool, not for a pair of shoes! For two thousand pair of shoes. For a carload of shoes! Listen, Rose. I've been busy to-day. I happen to know that the guy is handling the money for this bunch of jays. He's the treasurer of the Boosters' Association, or whatever they call it. He's signing real checks for real money. He's—what the devil is the matter with you?"

The girl had turned her back on him. She was rummaging in a trunk at one end of the tent. Suddenly she drew out a small-caliber pistol with an ivory handle. She turned on the man, and his face grew ashen when he saw the revolver. But he mistook her intentions. She let it lay in the palm of her hand and said simply: "When it comes to that, Bill—this for me!"

The temporary fright she had given her partner angered him more than ever.

"Put it down," he ordered.

She shook her head again. Then he leaped for her. He was not more than five feet five inches tall, but years of practice and training had made him as limber and quick as a panther. In a second, before she could defend herself, the man had wrenched the revolver from her, thrown it into a corner, and was at her full white throat. She struggled, but without seeming to put forth her whole strength. Her dark, liquid eyes were fixed upon his with an expression of mingled terror—and something else. It was the something that one sees in the eyes of a dog crouching at the feet of the brutal master. There was admiration in it—and submission.

"Do you want me to do it now?" he hissed at her.

She could not reply.

"You'll do what I tell you to?" he shouted at her.

She tried to nod. He let go his hold, and she fell forward in his arms. He broke her fall, but he let her go to the grassy sod. She lay there, shivering.

There was a long silence. The man sat on a chair with one knee over the other. After a while the girl rose, went to a mirror, and coolly arranged her hair.

"Sit down here, Rose," the man said, looking up. "I want to talk to you."

She sat down, facing him. There was no longer on her face the slightest sign of emotion of any sort. She was placid, receptive, and insouciant.

Do you know where his store is?"

"Yes."

"That's all right. You know what I want. Information. You get it."

She looked at him a moment. Then she said:

"All right, Bill. But it's a shame. It's a shame."

The man laughed.

FULL of determination not to let the public business interfere too much with the conduct of his private affairs, Walter Eadbrook came down to his store early next morning and began working over his accounts. He realized that he had been neglecting his work shamefully. The store had really been registering a steady loss since Starr came to town.

Yet even now, in the midst of his own troubles, Eadbrook suddenly laid down his pen and went to the safe. He took therefrom several books, the records of the Boosters' Association, of which he was treasurer. He was soon poring over these, in defiance of his own needs.

At this juncture opportunity came tapping gently.

It was a pretty young creature. Eadbrook immediately recognized her as the gypsy-looking girl he had seen frying bacon in front of a tent on the Coppins lot. She walked in like a queen. Her shoulders were thrown back in a way that instantly recalled to Eadbrook the pictures he had looked at, as a boy, in the back of the family Bible—pictures of Eastern women carrying water-jugs on their shoulders.

"Good morning!" she laughed at him, showing her even white teeth. "Do you sell shoes?"

There was something infectious about her flippancy. Eadbrook found himself replying: "No, I am a grocer."

She laughed so heartily that Eadbrook

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concluded that he had said something extremely good, and he laughed, too. Then he remembered that he was a dignified business man, an asked mechanically:

"What size, please?"

"A wide four with medium heels."

Eadbrook brought down a box from the shelves. His customer sat on the long bench, and Eadbrook observed that she seemed instinctively to drop her skirts over her ankles. He knew that his customer was a dancer, and that she danced in short skirts, and it puzzled him. He concluded that she was simulating modesty merely to make an impression on him. He shrugged his shoulders, like a man of the world, and fitted the shoes.

"Do these seem all right?" he asked.

The girl declared she had never had a better fit. She said: "I'll wear them, and you can throw these old ones away. Four dollars, did you say?"

She carried a little embroidered bag, in which, with a strange nervousness, she fumbled. Then she turned to Eadbrook and exclaimed:

"Why, I sure have forgotten to bring a cent with me, I could have sworn I put—"

"That's all right," said the shoe dealer innocently. "Drop in any time during the week."

How do you know you'll ever see the money?" she asked quickly.

"Oh, I guess that's all right."

She stared at him a moment. Then she deliberately sat down and began taking off the new shoes. Looking down at her, he could see that she was breathing fast She whipped off the new shoes and had the onld ones on her feet before Eadbrook could imigine what the difficulty was. But, like a good shoe man, he knelt before her and laced up the shabby shoes.

"Aren't they all right," he inquired, perplexed.

"Sure they're all right," she answered, without looking at him. "I'll come back with the money, if you'll lay them aside."

"But, Miss—" he protested.

"Listen!" she shot at him from tightly set lips. "You're too easy, You—I—"

She stopped, and her lips trembled.

Something about her manner informed Eadbrook that she had been, or was now, or expected to be, in trouble. He forgot that the shoe store had been losing money for the past two months, and thought only of the fact that this was a woman who seemed to be in hard luck. He coughed discreetly and said:

"Excuse me, but if it's because—you don't feel that you could afford—let me make you a present—

She had had all that she could stand. The tears streamed from her eyes, and she sat down with her head on her outstretched arm, which rested on the back of the bench, and shook with sobs.

Eadbrook, considerably stirred at the spectacle, resolved upon a bit of boldness. He knelt in front of her, took off the old shoes again, and replaced the new ones. She did not resist. Then he said, "There! The pleasure is all mine," and wondered what was to come next.

AFTER a moment the girl raised her head. A look of suspicion suddenly came into her dark eyes. She gave Eadbrook a piercing glance, and a hard expression came around her mouth. She said coldly:

"Well, go ahead! say it!"

"Say what?" asked the young man.

"Oh, I don't mind. Go ahead. Say what's in your mind. I don't blame you. Go one and ask me when you can see me. Ask me whether I wouldn't like to go out for a carriage ride, or—"

"I don't see what you mean—" began Eadbrook.

"Don't bluff!" she cried bitterly. "Be honest about it, anyway. You don't give away shoes for the fun of it. Nobody gives anything without a come-back somewhere. I ain't sore on you, though. It's all up to me. I know it."

"You're mistaken," said Eadbrook, who was beginning to understand the drift of the matter. "I thought you might be—er—temporarily—er—what do you call it—and I really wanted to let you have them. I don't care if I never see you again. I'm pretty busy this morning; so, if you'll excuse me—"

He turned his back upon her and went toward the desk. It was only after he had sat down, and was making a show of getting back to the books, that he heard a light step behind him and head a voice say near his ear: "Is that honest Injun, kid?"

He resented being addressed as "kid." It sounded positively indecent to his conventional ears. He replied sharply:

"Is what honest?"

"That you don't want to see me again?"

"It certainly is."

She stood there a moment, and then said, with just a touch of pique:

"Maybe you don't think I'm attractive enough?"

The quick shift of emotions and the naïve display of feminine vanity brought a smile to Eadbrook's lips. He replied:

"You don't have to be told how pretty you are. I wasn't thinking of that."

The girl reflected a moment. Then she laid her hand upon Eadbrook's shoulder and said softly: "Say, either you're a clever bluffer or you're—"

"What?"

"You're one of those things I used to hear my mother talk about, but I haven't seen any samples of."

"What's that?" asked the shoe man, with aroused curiosity.

"A decent fellow," she answered. "Or maybe you don't like women, anyway."

A GREAT clutch came at Eadbrook's heart. He looked dimly out the window and hesitated before he said: "No. I'll tell you, Miss—"

"Higgins," she supplied.

"But I thought your name was Catorno—

"That's our team name. My name is Rose Higgins."

Not being familiar with the ways of "artists," Eadbrook decided to ignore the point. He went on:

"Well, I'm—or I was—I don't know now—engaged."

"Engaged?" she cried. "Engaged? And yo let a little thing like that bother you?"

"I don't regard it as a little thing," said Eadbrook very seriously.

"My Gawd!" cried Miss Higgins. "Am I awake or doped? The man takes it in earnest!" And she poured out some fluty laughter that brought the color into Eadbrook's cheeks.

Stiffly he was saying, "I'm glad if it amuses you—"when she extended her hand toward his mouth.

"Don't!" she said soberly. "I beg you pardon. I—guess I'm nervous. I shouldn't have said anything raw like that. Listen: I'm going to run along now. I'll come in to-morrow and give you that four dollars. Oh, no; I couldn't think of taking them—I'll come in to-morrow morning, dead sure. And listen: will yo let me talk a while with you when I come in? No, I'm not kidding. Maybe you'd point her out to me, if she happened to be around. I'd like to give her the once-over and see what she's like. She must be a nice girl. Well, so long!"

She turned to go. Eadbrook replied, "So long," without looking up. When she was half way to the door, he heard her give a little cry, and looking up saw her grasp weakly at the back of a chair.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing. I haven't got used to those shoes, and I turned my ankle a little."

The door opened and closed softly, and she was gone. After a while it occurred to Eadbrook to wonder how she could turn her ankle in a pair of new shoes. He reasoned that it was always old shoes that caused that mishap. The question did not engage him long. He was deep in other things. And, even if he had known the real reason for that little cry, and the sudden weakness on the part of his visitor, might not have suspected the ultimate meaning that lay in it.

What the gird had seen was merely this: the dark face of Señor Catorno pressed against one of the windows of the shoe store.

To be continued next week

Financing the Baby's Future

By Albert W. Atwood

OUR baby, born six weeks ago, received $300 from relatives. I should like to invest this in such a way that it will keep on growing as he grows. What do you suggest?

THERE are so many different ways of investing $300 that it would take a bold person indeed to lay down any hard-and-fast rule and say: "Here is the only way to do it." Unless the mother who asks the question, and her husband, are most persistent and determined people, I am inclined to believe that some form of child's endowment might well be resorted to for a small part Of the funds. It has marked advantages.

Up to the time the infant is one year old, it is possible, in return. for $27.94 a year, to obtain an endowment policy from a leading insurance company which insures the payment to the child, when he reaches the age of twenty-five, of $1000. That is, when he is entering business and needs money most he will have it in return for a very small annual cost. In this case nothing is refunded if the child dies; but by paying a slightly extra sum, $31.42 instead of $27.94, all the money paid in is refunded to the parents at any time if the child should die.

A Start in College

SUPPOSE the boy Wants to go to college when he is eighteen years old. One thousand dollars will give him a fine start, and by beginning any time before he is a year old, $46.29 a year will do it, or $51.23 with premiums returned. In either of the two eases it may safely be assumed that if relatives give the boy $300 at birth they will give him Anywhere from say $10 to $50 a year on his birthdays and Christmas holidays, so that the parents will not be burdened to raise the $30 or $50, as the case may be. Then, after he is twelve or thirteen years old, the boy probably will be able to earn enough in his stammers or during the school year to pay the relatively small sum not obtained by gifts from doting aunts and uncles.

Child's endowment. has the great advantage of being absolutely safe and sure, safer than any single investment which an individual could possibly make, because a big insurance company has its own investments so widely distributed that loss is practically impossible. It is highly desirable to begin child's endowment at age one, because the payments are so much smaller and easier to meet than later on.

We now have either $250 or about $270 left to invest. The odd amount, the $50 or $70, might well be put into one share of a good preferred stock. Fifty dollars will buy one share of American Gas & Electric preferred, one of the best of the public-utility holding companies, to pay 6 per cent. As for the $70, if one wants to be exceedingly conservative, there is Baltimore & Ohio preferred, to be had to pay about 5 per cent. Or a careful study of any table of public-utility stocks will reveal several preferred issues which are safe enough for all practical purposes, selling in the seventies or eighties, to pay 6 per cent. or more.

No doubt the statement will meet with criticism, but I -believe the remaining $200 might well be placed in either one of two Standard Oil concerns—Ohio Oil, or Prairie Oil & Gas. The immediate return in the way of dividends will be small, but the future return is likely to be very large. These are rich, strong, well managed concerns under Standard Oil guidance, and are chosen because their stocks happen to be selling around 200 at this writing. Any one who has bought Standard Oil stocks in the past and held on to them has always profited generously. As far as can now be seen, there is no reason to expect a change in this respect in the future.

$100 Bonds

IF the idea of buying stocks of this character does not appeal, then there are many $100 bonds. I suggest St. Paul convertible 4%s coming due in 1932, just when the boy will be going to college. They are exceedingly safe and pay a little less than per cent. The bond will cost $103.50. For about $95.75 there can he purchased a Montana Power first and refunding mortgage 5 per cent. bond, to net 5.30 per cent. a year, and it will be paid off when the boy is twenty-seven years old.

If a larger return is desired, there are several moderately safe baby bonds to pay around 6 per cent. In any case, the interest that is received on the stocks and bonds should be placed in a savings bank until there is enough to buy another share of stock or a bond.

Free Booklets that You May Have for the Asking

Arrangements have been made by which any reader mentioning this magazine may have any or all of these booklets on request.

The price of Copper continues to rise, sales now being made as high as 28 cents a pound. The ending of the war will not bring lower prices, as the metal will then be in still greater demand for reconstruction purposes. A statistical book, 13-E, on "Copper Stocks," has been issued by Slattery & Co., 40 Exchange Place, New York.

The partial-payment plan of buying one or more shares of investment securities by a small first payment and $5 or more monthly thereafter is fully explained in free "Booklet L-2," published by Sheldon, Morgan & Co., 42 Broadway, New York.

Any one who is interested in the sound investment of moderate amounts from time to time will find it of interest, and advantageous, to read The $100 Bond News. This is a monthly magazine devoted to secure marketable bond investments, and contains a list of more than one hundred and fifty $100 bonds. Address Beyer & Company, 122 Broadway, New York City.

The Citizens Saving & Trust Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, will furnish to our readers, upon request, Booklet P, which contains some very interesting information on banking by mail.

Mr. Atwood has written a financial booklet especially for our readers. Write him at 95 Madison Avenue, New York, inclosing a two-cent stamp, if you want a copy.