Moses Lived to Be 120—He Camped Out Most of His Life

A CARAVAN consists of a tenth-hand wagon costing not over $25—
—drawn by a veteran horse costing not over $40
—loaded with some camping effects
—and surrounded by two or more people who don't care where they're going, but are on their way.

Here is a picture of a caravan:

The camping equipment with which this wagon is loaded—tent, cooking utensils, mattresses, etc.—cost next to nothing. And the whole family enjoyed such a vacation as John D. Rockefeller might envy.

They saw the most wonderful scenery in their State.

They walked themselves back to health.

They bought green vegetables and fresh milk from the farmers, thus cheating the high cost of living.

The reason most of us break down and die early is because our bodies are a battle-ground. Inside us is going on all the time a terrific fight between the man that nature made us and the man we are making ourselves.

By nature we are nomads: by hard fighting we have tamed ourselves never to travel except on the 7:56 in the morning and the 5:56 at night.

Nature made us loafers: by hard drill we have forced ourselves to, back into the shafts, every morning and pull all day.

By nature we were intended to lie down and sleep as soon as it grows dark, and get up as soon as it is light: by habit we sit up half the night, and sleep away, five or six good hours of daylight.

We never relax. Even when we play, we play to win.

When we "get back to nature" we go into the woods; but we don't discard our bad habit of doing something all the time: we have a program for every day—we are still under discipline.

For this unbroken and almost unbreakable tension there is no cure like camping—and especially caravaning.

Moses spent forty years caravaning in the wilderness.

He "was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated."

If you would travel with a caravan, you must have no program. You must go wherever the road leads, and sleep wherever night happens to fall.

You must take as few belongings as possible.

You must take no books except George Borrow's books about the gypsies and his "Bible in Spain"—a wonderful book that tells nothing about the Bible and very little about Spain.

A famous English nerve specialist prescribes caravaning for his city-sick patients, and charges right royally.

I pass on his prescription to you.

It costs you nothing.

Which is lucky, because you won't use it.

You will go away to the same summer hotel where you went last year, and come home tired out.

Oh, yes; you will.

The Surgery of the War

By Burton J. Hendrick

THE civilized world now, for nearly two years, has been completely surfeited by the horrors of warfare. Fortunately, the picture has another side. If this has been the most dreadful war in history, it has also been the most merciful. Science has found new ways to destroy, and has also found new ways to restore.

The last thirty years have been the age of Moltke and Krupp; it has likewise been the age of Pasteur, Lister, and Koch. While one class of inventors has been busy constructing submarines and floating mines and lyddite shells and asphyxiating gases, another class has been constructing plastic surgery, antisepsis, serums, sanitation, and vaccines. These two tendencies have met in the battle-fields of the present war.

This conflict, from whatever point of view we regard it, is different from any other ever known. The soldier who dies in this European war, dies, in almost every instance, from a wound inflicted by the enemy. He does not succumb to disease that arises in his own ranks. Bullets, shrapnel, explosive bombs, and fragments of hand grenades are the deadly weapons to-day. In former wars the microscopic I germs of typhoid, of typhus, tetanus, cholera, plague, cerebro-spinal meningitis, and dysentery decimated armies.

Medical Triumphs of the War

UP to March, 1915, England had sent about 800,000 soldiers into the field. This enormous mass of men, living under inevitably distressing conditions in the closest physical association, had developed 650 cases of typhoid. That is about one in 1200, and indicates that one is less likely to contract typhoid in war than in Peace. In the early days we heard of many eases of tetanus; this disease also has been conquered. The war has witnessed little malaria, or articular rheumatism, or Pneumonia, or appendicitis—all ills that formerly almost inevitably dogged the soldier's footsteps.

There are few deaths from wounds, unless such deaths are instantaneous. Nowadays a bullet or a fragment of shell, in order to destroy, must hit a vital spot. If the stricken soldier crawls to some place where the surgeons can reach him, the chances overwhelmingly favor his recovery. On this point we have a few illuminating statistics. Up to November 30, 1914, the French Service de Santé had handled approximately 500,000 wounded, exclusive of those who had died on the battle-field. Of these 54.5 per cent. returned to the army within a short period; 24.5 per cent. received furloughs and have since joined their commands. Of the rest, 17 per cent., at the time this report was made, were in hospital, with every indication of recovery. Only 2.48 per cent. had died of their wounds, and only 1.48 per cent. had been so disabled as to be unfit for further service. Of these 500,000 wounded men, therefore,—and this included the 112,000 wounded whom the French service had on their hands after the battle Of the Marne,—96 per cent. were sufficiently repaired to be able to resume service in the field. This report covered the early months of the war, before the French had completely organized their hospital service. The absence of disease epidemics and the large percentage of men recovering from wounds, are thus the great medical triumphs of the war.

This War's Peculiar Problem

THIS war, however, though it does not have its disease epidemics, still has its own peculiar problem. And here again it is different from any other ever fought. Not typhoid or tetanus or dysentery or cholera—these no longer terrify: the one prevailing horror now is wound infection.

A microorganism discovered several years ago by Dr. William H. Welch of Johns Hopkins, the bacillus Welchii, though it sometimes masquerades as the bacillus Perfringeus, is the prevailing germ to-day. This bacillus, as much as 42-centimeter guns, submarines, and aëroplanes, is, in a sense, one of the great surprises of the war. Ages before Dr. Welch brought it to light, this destructive bacillus wrought havoc in the battle-field. It probably destroyed large numbers of Caesar's and Napoleon's soldiers. Never, however, has it found the favorable breeding-ground that this war has given it.

Here, again, the explanation is that this struggle, in its technique, is different from any hitherto known. In the first place, it is not, except incidentally, a rifle war, while in all previous conflicts the rifle was the chief engine of destruction. Now, a rifle-ball is the most comfortable form of injury in warfare. It usually makes a smooth, clean wound. If it pierces merely the soft parts, it goes in and out, destroying a blood-vessel, it may be, and so making work for the surgeon, but accomplishing little permanent harm. If it strikes a vital part, like the heart, it kills; if it splinters a bone, it produces unpleasant complications. But the ordinary rifle wound is seldom infected. A war in which rifle wounds play the major part, though not free from gangrenous calamities,—we had plenty in our Civil War,—does not present these as the chief surgical problems. But rifle wounds are not numerous in this war. The damage is done by exploding shells, bits of shrapnel, and bombs from hand grenades. These make ugly, jagged wounds. The shells themselves are covered with colonies of the blood- poisoning bacilli; they carry into the tissues bits of dirty clothing, presenting a splendid field for growing the Welch organism. So the wounds in this war present a new feature, in that they are all infected.

The other circumstance that makes this condition inevitable is that this war is a subterranean one. The whole battle line is a huge rabbit warren, in which armies burrow several feet deep. The particular part of France that has been cultivated and fertilized for centuries is precisely the soil in which these destructive microorganisms most successfully flourish. The trenches are thus culture tubes on a stupendous scale. The bodies of the soldiers, their clothes, their weapons, everything is swarming with them. Once an open wound is made, it immediately becomes infected.

The first surgical problem is rapidity in transporting the wounded. Under old- time conditions the infecting process would have gone so far that only the most vigorous measures, such as amputation, could have saved life. In spite of current newspaper stories, amputations have not been numerous in this war, for the automobile has saved many a leg or arm. If the surgeon can get the wounded man within twelve hours, he can usually stop the infection.

The second problem is the development of an antiseptic that will destroy this infecting process. And here again this war has developed a paradox. The lifesavers have had to push surgery back thirty years; for they have had to discard a practice—that of asepsis—which they have long regarded as the crowning glory of their art. The day of antisepsis has returned. Antisepsis, as developed by the great Lister, was the process of sterilizing surgical wounds. An assistant sprayed the incision with carbolic acid or some other disinfectant, the idea being to destroy the organisms introduced as the operation proceeded. This was a wonderful discovery, the beginning of modern surgery; but, as time went on, asepsis took its place.

In brief, antisepsis destroyed the organisms of blood-poisoning: asepsis provided that there should be no organisms to destroy. The sterilization of instruments, of the surgeon's hands and garments, of the operative surface, the use of sterile gauze and bandages—all this was part of the beautiful new aseptic technique. But this war has blown it all to the winds; for the wounds, as already said, are infected when the surgeon gets his patient. So he has had to go back practically to the original procedure of Lister.

"Places of Refuge"

SANITATION in the trenches has reached a degree unexampled in previous wars. All garbage and refuse is burned as systematically as in a well ordered American town—more systematically than in many. The French soldiers have no alcoholic drinks except the lightest of French wines. Here again the main object is to discourage wound infection, since a body weakened by alcohol has a lowered resistance to microörganisms. Good drinking water, always thoroughly sterilized, is constantly at hand. Even the men in the trenches have frequent baths;

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If the soldier receives his wound in the trenches, his problem is an easy one. Another communicating trench leads from the main line to the "place of refuge." The slightly wounded soldier crawls to the indicated spot, while the more seriously injured man is carried there by his comrades.

Work of Red Cross Dogs

THE problem of the rescue of soldiers wounded outside of the trenches is more difficult. This has developed one.of the most beautiful features of this war, the so-called Red Cross dogs. At the first opportunity after a battle one of these splendid brutes springs from the trench, carrying in its mouth a long rope. It makes its way to a prostrate man and quickly adjusts the noose of the rope around his shoulders. The soldiers underground, as tenderly as possible, then pull their wounded comrade into the trench.

The place of refuge, or sheltered spot within the firing zone, is simply

In the early days, especially after the battle of the Marne, there were thousands of cases of tetanus in both the French and the German armies. Now, however, there are practically no cases of this disease. The auxiliaires, really undergraduate medical students who preside over the first-aid stations, have little hypodermic syringes, which they dip in a colorless fluid, injecting the contents into each wounded soldier's body. This antitetanic serum stops the disease—it is, in a way, the greatest medical triumph of the war. We have had this wonderful fluid for several years, but this is the first opportunity we have had to use it on a large scale. This is because the serum is not a curative, like anti-toxin, but a preventive. Once the tetanus bacillus has gained headway in the body, the serum has no value; but if the body, can be fortified with it in advance, it prevents the disease in practically every instance. The surgeon's opportunity lies in the fact that there is a considerable period of incubation. If every man, woman, and child in civil life who received a dirty wound from a nail, a Fourth-of-July firecracker, or any other agent, would at once rush to the doctor and get an injection of this serum, tetanus would disappear from the face of the earth.

What Americans Are Doing

AUTOMOBILES, frequently driven by Americans,—the automobile itself almost invariably of American manufacture, for a thorough testing has established that American machines have the greatest value for this kind of work,—take the wounded men from the first-aid station to the field hospital. This is the main medical headquarters. It is located outside the firing line, in a château, a school, or a remodeled factory; or, more commonly still, it consists of a long line of tents. Here the swiftly moving white-clad nurses stand ready to receive their charges, and the field surgeons again take up their patient search for the blood-poisoning microbes.

Dr. Alexis Carrel's hospital is the most advantageously placed of all those in France. It occupies Rond Royal Hotel

Dr. H. D. Dakin, of the Herter Laboratory in New York, has had charge of the search for the indispensable antiseptic for the first year of the war. Dr. Dakin experimented with 130 substances before he found the one that apparently satisfied all needs. Sir Almroth Wright, the great English bacteriologist, after spending much time on the same problem, has concluded that no antiseptic serves the present needs, and has recommended other methods, too technical for description here. The work of Dr. Carrel and Dr. Dakin, however, disproves this contention. Dr. A. M. Fauntleroy, the American navy surgeon sent abroad to inspect hospital work, has reported that the Dakin antiseptic is a great success. This method, when properly carried out, he says, will usually sterilize a wound in from three to four days. He notes that there are few amputations in the hospitals where the Dakin fluid is used.

Her Jail-Bird

By Katherine Holland Brown

Illustrations by Harvey Emrich

I'VE lived in Salerno, Illinois, more years than I care to count up. I know Salerno through and through. And I will say right here that that proud old stagnant river town is crammed as full of romance as an egg is of meat. But, of all the stories that Salerno ever told me, the queerest and the dearest and the most exasperating is the story of Miss Felicia Stafford and her jail-bird.

Miss Felicia Stafford was the last gracious flower of Salerno's one and only royal family. She and her little dim Aunt Selina lived in the grand old Stafford place, away up the highest bluff. Eighty years ago, old Judge Stafford, Felicia's grandfather, had built that house. When he died, Professor Felix Stafford, his only son, ruled in his stead. And Salerno folk bowed down to Felix Stafford's wisdom, and his fame among the learned of the land, just as they'd bowed down to the Judge's wealth and splendid rectitude.

But Felix Stafford, for all his knowledge, had no more plain gumption than a three-days' gosling. He mooned through life with his eminent nose in a book, and let his lawyers control his properties. They controlled 'em, all right. By 1884, when Miss Felicia was born, I reckon half the old Judge's holdings had slipped away—though the half that was left was plenty, for that matter. Two years later, Felix Stafford and his meek little wife were both dead. Miss Felicia, aged two, was left alone with her name and her state and her crumbling inheritance.

AS the last Stafford, she was all the more the queen. Not a soul in Salerno but loved her, reverenced her, almost—though nobody ever knew her, any more than you'd know a marble statue on its pedestal. She was a pale, shy, serious little girl, who grew up a pale, shy, stately woman. She was as fair as a lily, with brown, clear eyes, and brown-gold hair, folded like satin on her lovely head.

She did not go into society much. Once a year she opened her house and gave a great reception to all Salerno, with flowers and an orchestra and a marvelous supper sent up from St. Louis, all as grand as the balls the old Judge used to give his friends. She'd be dressed for it, too, in a wonderful new gown, with her mother's pearls on her white neck, and her grandmother's diamonds glittering like hoar-frost in her brown hair. But when the ball was over, she'd step back into her quiet aloof life.

But, all of a sudden, the town's dull days were rent as by an earthquake: the Bellamy scandal.

NOW, Colonel Bellamy, that strutting old fighting-cock, ranked himself as lordly an aristocrat as old Judge Stafford himself. But between the Staffords and the Bellamys there was a great gulf fixed. The Bellamys had come up from Mississippi five or six years before, a hard riding, blustering crew of three—the last of the fire-eaters, my nephew Augustus called them: the Colonel, a red-faced, swaggering old bully; Roderick, his older son, and his image; and Richard. Richard was a superb youngster, a great brawny six-footer, with flashing black eyes, and a thatch of black hair, and a laugh that would charm the birds off the bushes.

He'd turn out the wildest of the three, so vowed Salerno gossips. But he was the only one of the three that ever turned his hand to anything useful. He loved tools and machinery. He fitted up a workshop in the carriage-house, and spent half his time there. The Colonel was mightily ashamed of his boy's hobby, too. "I've reared my sons to be gentlemen, suh!" he used to bellow. "Yet, by Jove, suh, my Dick has the tastes of a mechanic!"

The Colonel bought Carruthers' Folly, a magnificent ramshackle old palace away across town from the Stafford place. There he and his boys kept open house to Salerno's smart set. And Salerno's smart set, righteously shocked at their roistering hospitalities, accepted none the less.

The Colonel went the pace at a rapid clip. Apoplexy struck him down at sixty-three. A month later, Roderick went out like a candle, with pneumonia. That left Richard, at twenty-two, alone. The death of his father and brother hit the boy hard. He quit all his gay company. He tore around the country on horseback, or shut himself up in his tool-shop days on end. Presently he sent away the servants, and he lived alone in that great echoing house. He did his own cooking, even. He hardly spent a cent. Folks wondered and whispered and surmised. Finally it all came out, with a bang.

The spendthrift old Colonel had run through all his property except his partnership in a big drainage company. Along that fall came the panic of 1907. That company went on the rocks with the first gust. The other partner promptly scooped up all the firm's money and lit out for Australia. Richard Bellamy found himself not only penniless, but saddled with the company's enormous debts. For assets he had Carruthers' Folly, a couple of rusty steam-shovels, a leaky old flat-boat, and his riding horse. That was all.

THE creditors brought suit at once. Day after day, Richard Bellamy, young, ignorant, bewildered, sat in stuffy courtrooms, and heard himself abused and his dead father maligned.

Ayres, the chief attorney, seemed to delight in hectoring the boy.

But one day Ayres went a step too far. One fleering gibe against the dead man's word, and young Richard's last bond snapped. They said he sprang on Ayres like a tiger. Before they could drag him off, he'd beaten the life nigh out of him.

Ayres didn't die. In three weeks he was up; in six weeks he'd hauled Richard into court again, and had him sentenced to five years in the penitentiary, for assault to kill.

All Salerno battened on excitement those days. All Salerno, that is, except Miss Felicia. She was down East, that winter, for a long visit. She came home only a day or so before Richard was sentenced.

However, that very morning she drove downtown in her phaeton, her little dim aunt by her side. The horses were young and skittish; Miss Felicia had her hands full. As she reached Court-house Square, the crowd was pouring out, staring and whispering. Richard's trial was just ended. Richard himself, his head flung high, his black eyes afire, was coming down the steps, the sheriff at his side.

People were swarming like ants. Miss Felicia stopped her horses to let the crowd pass. The team danced and curveted. Just then a motor-cycle whizzed up the road. Both horses leaped straight into the air. The reins were snatched from her hands. The horses reared, plunged, started to bolt.

The crowd stood still, horror-struck. All but Richard Bellamy. He sprang down the steps, dashed across the lawn, and caught the horses' heads. Twice they threw him to the pavement; but he never loosed his grip. Before they could run twenty yards, he had dragged them to a standstill.

Everybody was screaming and wailing and spluttering—everybody but Miss Felicia and Richard himself. Miss Felicia, quite white and dazed, gathered up the broken reins. Richard, whiter than she was, spattered with mud from head to foot, gave her a curt bow, then strode away. A moment more, and Miss Felicia had driven up the hill and away. And Richard Bellamy had crossed the street to the jail.

FIVE years, it was, before Richard came back. Those years had passed uneventfully for Salerno, but they had branded Richard deep. He wasn't a boy any longer. He was a man of twenty- eight, and he looked fifty. His black eyes had dulled, his feet shuffled, his voice held a furtive tremor. Even his big, splendid body was sunken. He hadn't a thing left, except his leaky old boats, and Carruthers' Folly, so ramshackle now that you couldn't give it away. He slept up there, and wandered around town day-times, looking for a job. But nobody would give him a job.

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It was a hot, steamy June night—the night of the high school commencement. Everybody was there, of course. All the town loafers were hanging around the Opera House doors. Among them stood Richard Bellamy, in his cheap new check suit, forlorn as a ghost. For, with infernal village cruelty, not even a loafer would speak to him. But Richard was so starved for companionship that he'd take contempt, if he couldn't get anything else.

ALL Salerno was streaming in, all gay summer gowns, and high greetings, and laughter. Presently a street-car stopped at the corner. Miss Felicia stepped off, as stately as if she alighted from a gilded coach. (She'd given up her phaëton the year before. Everybody wondered why.)

She drifted slowly up the dusty steps. As always, she walked alone. Much as we loved her, nobody ever presumed to elbow up and walk beside Miss Felicia. At the top step she paused, in the full light. I looked at her, and said to myself that she was twenty-seven years old that very month; yet she was lovelier and younger than any of the rosebud girls that would graduate that night.

She did not see me. She was looking past me, past her nodding, smiling groups of friends, straight across at Richard Bellamy.

A moment she paused. Then her beautiful face flushed pink; her dark eyes lighted. Across the portico she went, straight to Richard Bellamy. Right in the face of pop-eyed Salerno, she put out one slender white-gloved hand.

"This is Mr. Bellamy, I know," she said, in her clear, carrying voice. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Bellamy. I have long been in your debt for your courage in helping me check my horses, that morning years ago. I am happy to thank you now."

Richard didn't speak. He didn't put out his hand. He just stared and stared, as at some embodied dream.

"You are attending the commencement?" her clear voice went on. "I happen to have an extra ticket. Will you not use it? I shall be so glad."

And into the crowded Opera House swept Miss Felicia Stafford, with Richard Bellamy, jail-bird, at her side.

Well! I needn't tell you that Salerno just lay back and gasped. And when Salerno finally caught its breath—I needn't tell you what happened then. Everybody agreed that Miss Felicia, our lovely princess, should be spoken to. She must be reminded of Richard's disgrace- ful past. But who would dare to speak?

HOWEVER, Miss Felicia herself cut that tangle. A month later she gave her yearly reception to Salerno. It was by far the most sumptuous entertainment she had ever vouchsafed us. In her filmy gown, decked with her quaint old jewels, never had Miss Felicia looked so exquisite. My heart all but stopped when the first dance was called and Miss Felicia stepped out on the polished floor. Graceful as a dryad, she trod. Beside her, straight and tall and defiant in his shabby evening clothes, stepped Richard Bellamy.

That shock was too much. I reckon it shortened the days of some of the worthiest members of our Woman's Club. But worse was to come. Next thing we knew, Richard had fired up his rickety steam- shovel and was draining Miss Felicia's bottoms farm. Next, Miss Felicia brought him to the First Presbyterian Church three Sundays in succession, and they sat together in the old Judge's pew. And the next cataclysm—

"I don't believe it!" I gulped, when Augustus told me. "I sha'n't!" Whereat I fled trembling up to the old Stafford place, my knees shaking with every step.

Felicia met me at the door, sweet, cordial, serene.

"Felicia, I've come—" I quavered.

"You've come to give me your blessing; haven't you, Miss Lillie?" Felicia held up her little soft hand. On the third finger shone a thin gold band, with an old flat-cut emerald, gleaming dark.

"It was Richard's mother's," she said softly. She laid the dusky old jewel against her warm, flushed cheek.

"But, Felicia—oh, Felicia! When you think what he—what he—"

"What he has had to endure?" Felicia's dove eyes flashed. "I don't let myself think of that often, Miss Lillie. I'm trying to help him forget, too. For we're beginning again, together, you know. It's going to be a new life for us both."

"But, Felicia, have you realized—"

"What people will say?" Her soft laugh rippled. "That he's marrying me for my money? They'll learn better. For I'm mighty near as poor as Richard, Miss Lil. When dear father died, the property was badly involved. And now I have nothing left, except my house, and my bottom- land farm. Richard has Carruthers' Folly and his boats. So we're starting even."

I sat down, breathless.

"Felicia! Yet you gave that grand party! Of all the mad extravagance—"

"That ball was my swan-song, Miss Lillie. No more balls for me. I wanted it gay and lavish and memorable for Richard's sake. Don't you see?

"One thing more, Miss Lillie." She bent to me swiftly. Her eyes flashed into mine. "Salerno must know, once for all, that I'm not marrying Richard to reform him. Reform Richard Bellamy! When he's the bravest, strongest, most wonderful— No; I'm marrying him because I

Well, that was enough for me—chicken-hearted old ninny! I caught Felicia into my arms, and hugged her, and cried over her, and vowed she was making the wisest, truest choice of her whole life. And I went to that wedding, the only guest save the little dim aunt and the minister and his wife. But eye never saw a lovelier bride.

Yet I kept turning from Felicia's white radiance to stare at Richard Bellamy. He held his graying young head high; he stood up straight as a lance. His eyes clung to Miss Felicia's face as the eyes of one long blind might cling to the promise of sight. Yet upon him there lay still that dull, ineffaceable stain: that weariness, that blank despair. Yes, the prison brand had burned deep. With all her wisdom, with all her tenderness, could Miss Felicia ever heal that scar?

She tried hard enough, you'd better believe. All that summer she played the bride, gay, glowing, arrogant, and played it to a fare-you-well. She strolled with Richard down the twilight streets, her frilly skirts flaunting, her face like the heart of a rose. She bragged of him to her gaping callers with the sweetest gay insolence. She quoted him, and praised him.

BEHIND the scenes, she worked with him shoulder to shoulder. She was comrade and yoke-mate, with all her adoring might. And Richard played up to her lead. Whatever faults he had, there wasn't a slack bone in him. He worked like a horse, and he thrived on it. His color came back; his body grew straight and strong; his very youth awoke in him. But, for all their love and toil and passionate ambition, everything went awry.

First, there was her bottoms farm. It was rich land, but hardly worth planting, for Paint Creek overflowed and washed the crops out, year after year. Richard started to deepen the creek channel, working like a stoker, fourteen hours a day.

"Richard will make that land pay, for the first time," declared Miss Felicia proudly. "His grasp of drainage problems is astonishing."

Three months of tremendous hard work, and he had deepened the creek bed, rebuilt his fences, and finished his fall plowing. Right then, if you please, along came a court decision confirming a heavy assessment on the bottoms land-owners for a new levee. All Richard's hard work was a total loss. Moreover, the assessment was so severe that Miss Felicia decided to sell her farm rather than borrow money to pay it.

Dire ill luck, that! But Miss Felicia said serenely that Richard had sold the land to excellent advantage. It was a cash sale, anyhow—what there was of it.

THEY spent that pitiful little sum in furbishing up Carruthers' Folly, to rent. But for a year no tenants appeared. At last Miss Felicia leased it to the contractor who was building the cement plant. He made it a hilarious Liberty Hall. At the close of a convivial week-end, somebody threw a lighted match into a waste-basket. It was a windy October night. Half an hour more, and Carruthers' Folly was a smoking heap.

"Insurance? N-no." Miss Felicia smiled, with white lips. "But, as Richard says, we're rid of that odious tenant. That's something!"

Well, the land wasn't burned. It was a splendid terrace overlooking the river. Richard rolled up his sleeves and pitched in. He cleared away the ruin, and put up six trim little shacks, cottages for the Chautauqua people. He built them himself, with Miss Felicia helping, wherever he'd let her. She painted the walls, and stained the floors; she braided rugs and mended old furniture; she spent every penny she dared for bright new tins, and stoves, and china.

SHE and Richard were worked down to the bone by spring, but they were bubbling with satisfaction. Here was an investment that would pay them dividends for years to come. Then, like a bolt from the blue, didn't the Chautauqua managers sell the old grounds, and rent a new location ten miles up river!

That was an ugly blow. But Miss Felicia laughed, undaunted. She'd make those cabins pay, willy-nilly! She emptied the six little kitchens, so painfully eked out, had Richard rig up a cook-tent, then advertised the cabins for a private summer camp. By luck, she rented them for six weeks—but only six weeks. It was too lonesome. Folks wouldn't come.

Meanwhile Richard wasn't twirling his thumbs. He was timekeeper at thecement plant; he kept books evenings; he got up at gray dawn to work in the garden. They needed all he could earn; for the little dim aunt was dying, after a long, costly illness. He even went to Kansas, that summer, and bossed a harvesting gang. He was foreman of an ice-cutting crew the next winter. He snatched at work wherever he could lay hands on it.

But old Colonel Bellamy had brought up his sons "like gentlemen, suh," so Richard must take what he could get. Besides, nobody would give him a real job—because he'd been sent to the pen, you know.

Maybe a year more, and the fates relented—a little. The cement plant was having a hard time to keep labor. The men were restless and discontented, with no amusements within reach. Richard and Felicia talked the matter over; then Richard went to the chief with a plan.

Richard's old flat-boat was tied up alongshore. He offered to calk it and paint it, set up plank walls and roof, put

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The chief pounced on the scheme, and the thing went like wild-fire. Within a month it was paying expenses, and more.

"A success? Of course it's a success, the way Richard manages it," sparkled Miss Felicia. "Ask Mr. Augustus to come up Saturday evening, and see how admirably Richard superintends things."

AUGUSTUS went. He came home at midnight, with a black eye and a sprained wrist. At first he wouldn't tell me a word; but I screwed it out of him.

The cement men were a sober, well behaved crowd. But about ten o'clock, when everything was going as smooth as silk, along came a half tipsy gang from the levee contract up river. They swarmed across the gang-plank, and demanded admittance. Richard went on deck, and explained that, being Saturday night, the boat was crowded. Sorry, but he must ask them to come some other night.

Most of the gang turned back, grumbling. But a dozen or so shouldered right in. One drunken rowdy took the lead.

"We've got a right on a public boat!" he yelled. "Rush him, boys!"

The gang threw themselves at Richard. A crowd of cement men dashed gleefully into the fray. There ensued what Augustus described as the liveliest free-for-all he ever mixed into. I regret to say that he evidently enjoyed it. Richard bolted into the thick of the scrimmage, headlong. Three minutes later the levee gang scuttled ashore, a sadder and a wiser crew. Richard, chortling with laughter, but queerly white, dropped on a chair. Blood dripped from his right sleeve.

"One of those scalawags must have stuck a knife into me. Odd that I didn't feel it—"

He pitched out of his chair and lay limp.

Richard had guessed rightly. The dirk had struck twice—and struck deep. Richard would live, so the doctor told Miss Felicia, very gently, but he must lie still for weeks, perhaps months. There was a lung puncture.

"Richard is wonderful," said Miss Felicia, her lips parched, her brown eyes burning. "When he's so patient, surely I can't dare be unhappy."

"But who will run the boat?"

"I will."

"Felicia Stafford!"

"Yes; I mean it, Miss Lillie." Her beautiful face grew stern. "Richard—sha'n't ever know. Don't look so shocked. Hard work never hurt anybody, Miss Lillie."

Hard work—maybe not. But hard work, plus worry, plus grief, plus torturing fear! No wonder Miss Felicia grew white and drawn and silent. But she ruled each day like the princess she was. She nursed Richard; she ran that boat. She never faltered, never whined. And the deeper springs never failed her. Times I'd go there, and see Richard lying so wan and spent, all life and will drained out of him. Then I'd see his eyes meet Miss Felicia's, and my own eyes would dim for thankfulness. The old enchanting magic still called in their hearts. For them, the winds of Arcady still blew.

After four months, Richard could sit up. Two months more, and lie could drag on crutches to his tool-house, where he worked long hours.

"Richard always had a talent for invention. He is working on a new type of steamship propeller," Miss Felicia told me.

"Inventions!" groaned Augustus, when I told him. "Swing out the life-boats!"

BY June, Richard, still on crutches, was hobbling back and forth to the overall factory, where he helped in the office. In August came the war. The factory shut down promptly. Richard went back to his tool-shed and his propeller. By September the cement plant shut down. Miss Felicia was left with the worthless, gaudy boat on her hands.

They got through the winter somehow—nobody knows just how.

One muggy April morning, I took the packet for St. Louis. The first person I met on board was Miss Felicia.

"Yes, I'm going to the city. A business errand," she said quietly, to my greeting.

"Let me go with you. My shopping can wait," I urged. Somehow, her hot, tense face scared me.

"Oh, I can manage alone, Miss Lillie."

"Well, I'm going with you, whether or no," I insisted, old Meddlesome Matty that I am.

Miss Felicia stared away from me, out at the low green shore. She was quivering all over. Suddenly she turned to me, with a desperate courage.

"No, Miss Lillie, please. I'd rather go shopping alone."

"Why, Felicia—"

"Because—because I'm not going to buy, but to sell."

"To sell—what?"

"Listen, Miss Lillie. Richard has finished his propeller model, and patented it. But—we find it will take money to put it before the ship-builders. A good deal of money. I am going to—to borrow some—on my pearls—so that he can go to Philadelphia and offer his patent for sale."

My head swam.

"Felicia, you're mad. You—you're throwing those jewels away. You never can buy them back. Never."

"Yes, I shall, Miss Lillie." Felicia's voice rang steel. "It may take some time. All inventions are a little slow. But Richard's propeller is a work of genius. It can not fail."

"But your mother's pearls! Can't you sell the diamonds, instead?"

"The diamonds went long ago. When poor little Aunty left us. Doctors, nurses—the diamonds barely tided us over."

"Felicia! If you'd only let me help—"

"No, Miss Lillie! No; I can not. Not even you.

"Richard will make successful disposal of his patent, I know," she went on in that clear, unflinching voice. "Before the year is out, you'll see us quite prosperous. It will be good to be prosperous again," she added, with a queer, harsh little laugh.

I followed her glance. She was staring across the cabin at a baby, crowing and bouncing in his young mother's arms. Her eyes were wide with a terrible envy.

"I don't think I'm unreasonable, Miss Lillie. But sometimes I get a bit sullen, when I see—when I see what we can't afford."

"Felicia, don't!" I cried out, stabbed through with pity.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Lillie. I forgot myself. Now, good-by. I'll meet you at the wharf for the six o'clock boat. No, please! I am going alone."

Three days later, Richard, pallid and frail, leaning heavily on his crutches, started East. Miss Felicia saw him off. She had on an old white dress, done up crisp as new, and fresh silk roses in her hat, and she bade him good-by as lightly as if he was off for a week's trout-fishing.

"It's such a satisfaction to know he's off at last," she smiled to me buoyantly. Under the rose-wreathed hat, her eyes were wet, her sweet mouth trembled. Terror pulsed in her throat and whitened her cheeks to ashes. "As I told Richard, now our fortune is made. All that remains is the trifling formality of this sale."

"`Trifling formality—' Gosh!" sighed Augustus, when I told him.

"The late King Solomon," he went on, "once observed that a good wife is above rubies. But a wife who is a good booster, a wife who brags about you right and left,—she puts Solomon's gracious lady into the discard. That girl's faith would wake the fighting spirit in a clam."

THE hot spring days fled on. It was a month since Richard went away; six weeks; two months. Day after scorching day, Miss Felicia went down the hill past my house, to get her mail. Day after day, she climbed back up the hill, her face a little whiter, her smile a little more fixed. Sometimes she had a letter in her hand; sometimes not. Always she bragged her brags, assured, serene. Richard was getting on splendidly. No, he didn't write details. "Success, you know, needs no explanation."

Suddenly, like fire through dry grass, an ugly rumor hissed through the town.

Richard Bellamy had failed. He had spent Miss Felicia's last cent. He was never coming back. Very like, those "letters from Richard" were all her piteous pretense. He had deserted her. Well! A jailbird! What else could you expect?

LATE one sweltering June afternoon, Miss Felicia went by, on her forlorn daily journey. She swayed a little as she walked. Under the faded old parasol, she looked fagged to exhaustion. I watched for her to come hack, meaning to call her in and give her some elderberry wine. As she came around the corner, I jumped up, then saw that she was turning in at my gate.

I hurried down the walk. At sight of her face, my heart dropped, lead.

She came staggering toward me, whiter than clay. Her lips were bitten in, her eyes were flaming.

"Good afternoon, Miss Lillie." She spoke up, sharp and hoarse. Her, eyes glittered. The letter in her hand shook with her long, hard breaths. "I stopped in to ask a favor. I—I want to telegraph to Richard. I haven't any change with me. Could you lend me fifty cents?"

Stupidly I fumbled in my purse. So it had come to this! Richard had failed—and she hadn't even the fifty cents to send him her loyal cry of love and sympathy.

"Yes," she went on in that strange, high, shaken voice. "I want to acknowledge his letter, and it's after bank hours; so I can't get in to cash a check."

Pretense again. They hadn't had a penny in the bank for two mortal years. I knew that, for Augustus is cashier.

"I do wish I could get into the bank," she added. "I shall be scared to death to keep this in the house overnight."

"Scared to keep what?"

"This. If I just could deposit it—"

"Deposit—"

"Look, Miss Lillie."

She thrust two fingers into the letter and drew out a purplish oblong strip. Carefully she laid it on my outstretched hand.

I reckon I gaped at that purple strip a good two minutes. When I did speak, the words came out of me in witless gasps and gurgles. I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't dare. Yet the breath was nigh driven out of me with amazement and unbelief.

"Felicia! It isn't—it can't be—"

"Yes, it is, Miss Lillie." Then suddenly Felicia's arms went round me, and Felicia's laughing, sobbing, exultant face was pressed to mine. "It's a check—a check for five thousand dollars. The advance from the Craven ship-builders. Then there's twenty thousand more coming as soon as the contracts are drawn. Oh, Miss Lillie, put your hat on this minute, and go to St. Louis with me, and help me buy back my pearls!"

I reckon there isn't much more to tell. Miss Felicia and I went to St. Louis on the packet next morning, and bought back her pearls, from the limpid old necklace to the Judge's sleeve-buttons.

Five days later, Richard Bellamy came home. Somewhere on the way, he'd mislaid his crutches. He leaped off the train, and came racing down the platform, his face shining like a boy's. But when he saw Miss Felicia waiting for him, all the blown triumph went out of him, and into his face came the deep, still wonder of their wedding night.

I MET Miss Felicia at the lace counter at Field's, the last time I was in Chicago. They live in Chicago now, for Richard is Western manager for the Craven firm. For a moment, I didn't know her. She had on a gray velvet dress, the mist-gray of a pussy-willow stalk, and under its short skirt were the slenderest little gray shoes, and over it rippled a great coat of silver fur.

Framed in the flaring, audacious collar, Miss Felicia's face was rosy as arbutus, and her eyes were brown stars—and I know that Miss Felicia will never see thirty again.

"I wish all Salerno could see you now," I said, when she'd all but squeezed the breath out of me. "Dressed up like a queen in a picture-book, and buying real Valenciennes by the bolt!"

"Real Valenciennes isn't a bit too fine." Miss Felicia touched the fairy edgings softly. "It's for Richard Second's christening dress, you know. Oh, Miss Lillie!" Her brown eyes shone on me, her soft hands gripped me tight. "Come home with me, quick, and see him! Think of it—he's six weeks old to-day, and you've never even laid eyes on him! He's his father right over again. The most wonderful—"

Somehow the utter rapture in her face made me choke all up.

"Braggart forever!" choked I.

The Biggest Laugh in Baseball

By Billy Evans

"WHY don't you play, if you're so good?" remarks a fan to Herman Schaefer.

"The team is strong enough without me," replies the comedian of baseball. The crowd laughs, Schaefer bows, and the fan subsides.

Herman Schaefer, the funniest man in baseball, has come back. American League fans missed him greatly. In former years the presence of Schaefer made many a dull; uninteresting game worth while. Schaefer spent the season of 1915 in the Federal League.

Ex-President Taft is one of the few baseball fans who do not appreciate Herman Schaefer. Mr. Taft favors silence from the coachers, and but very little of that. President Wilson, on the other hand, evidently gets a great deal of enjoyment out of Schaefer's antics. They tell this story of Schaefer's advent into the Federal League. Knowing he was popular with New York fandom, it was figured that he would be a good attraction with the Newark Club. He was called into conference with President Gilmore. After discussing the game in general, the conference narrowed down to a question of salary. Schaefer's demand was far in excess of the amount for which Gilmore thought he could be signed.

"Your figures are entirely too high," flashed Gilmore. "I understand that you are through as a player—that you are merely a comedian."

"Sure," replied Schaefer. "That is why I figured I would go so good in your league. You know, the public does not take it seriously."

With some presidents that would not have made a hit; but Mr. Gilmore has a sense of humor. The answer gave him a good laugh, and incidentally landed Schaefer a contract at his own figure, which Schaefer admits might have been a few dollars in excess of his worth.

Nothing Fazes Him

NO situation flusters Schaefer. An incident that he pulled at the expense of Slim Caldwell, star pitcher of the New York team several years ago, is still fresh in my memory. The score was 5 to 4 in favor of New York. The inning was the last half of the ninth, Washington had men on second and third, and two men were out. Caldwell purposely walked the next man, filling the bases, preferring to take a chance on the following batter. Manager Griffith spoiled the strategy by sending Schaefer to hilt in the pinch. A base hit meant the ball game. In such a crisis most players would have forgotten all about the humorous side of life. Schaefer is one of the few exceptions. Selecting his bat, he walked toward the plate, then turned and faced the grandstand. He addressed the crowd much in this style:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I must offer an apology for Mr. Caldwell. He has forgotten I am still a member of the Washington team. I realize the game has been a long-drawn-out affair, that you are all anxious to get home, and I shall do my very best to send you on your way by hitting the first ball pitched to left field for a single. This hit should score two runs and win the game, unless the runner on second falls down and breaks a leg. Ushers, kindly open the exits."

The delay had done Caldwell no good. The speech had drawn a smile even from him. I was umpiring the ball game, and also waiting patiently for Herman to conclude his address of farewell. Turning to me at the conclusion of the speech, he said: "Let us resume the game." Stepping into the batter's box, he hit the first hall pitched squarely on the nose to left field for the cleanest kind of a single, both runners scoring.

It is easy to imagine the frame of mind that speech and that hit sent the crowd away in. Even the Washington players rushed from the bench to first base, where Schaefer had assumed an I-told-you-so pose, and carried him from the field.

One afternoon in Cleveland, just before the start of the game, Schaefer took the megaphone from the announcer, walked to the home plate, and, with several shouts for attention, quieted the audience. Then he cut loose:

"I had a dream last evening. I must relate it to you, for it concerns to-day's game. I regret to say that the score will be"—a slight hesitation on his part made the fans all the more curious—"7 to 3 in favor of Washington. Cleveland will get away to an early lead, Griffith will send Johnson to the rubber in the fourth, Washington will tie it up in the sixth, and the rest of the way it will be easy."

What Schaefer predicted is just what happened in that game, even to the slightest detail. Cleveland fans were amazed at the prophecy; some of them still talk about it. To the Cleveland fans present that day it was a remarkable incident. However, it didn't strike me in that light, for I had heard Schaefer make such a speech in every American League city, and Cleveland was the only one that he put it over, even to the result.

Seven or eight years ago, when Schaefer was a member of the Detroit team, the Tigers were playing a game in Cleveland. Cleveland got away to a big lead, and rain threatened. The Tigers resorted to every possible stunt for stalling, but I malnaged to get in five innings before the rain started. About the first of the sixth, it was raining hard—so hard, in fact, that the Tigers besought me to suspend play. I was a bit peeved, and decided it would not be a bad idea to force every one to play a few innings in the rain, as a sort of object lesson that might tend to eliminate dilatory tactics in the future.

How He Managed the Umpire

WHEN Detroit went to the field in the eighth inning, a peculiar sight greeted my eyes. Schaefer had bargained with a spectator for the loan of his rain-coat and umbrella. He had donned the coat, carried the raised umbrella in the right hand, while on the left he wore his fielding glove. The crowd had the laugh of the year. Incidentally, I decided it was my cue to call the game.

While Schaefer may not be the player he was five or six years ago, still I regard him as a most valuable asset to a ball club. He is a heady coacher. He is a big favorite with the fans. The players all like him. American League fans are sure to welcome him back.

The Burning of Shantytown

FOR the first time ever recorded in history, an entire city was destroyed by fire without the fire department making an effort to save it.

And it was no "movie" city being destroyed for the benefit of the film cameras, but a real city of more than 300 real inhabitants, every one of whom lived in and owned his own home, some of which contained big families of six or more children.

This strange little city was situated in the western part of Cincinnati, and was known as the city of Shantytown.

Shantytown was a real municipality all in itself. Mayor Williams presided in office. He never was bothered by the elections which other mayors have to contend with. He "ran" the city, was its court and ruler, and the little city lived and grew under his rule.

But the city of Shantytown was doomed to destruction despite Mayor Williams and the rest of the community, for its inhabitants were squatters on land that belonged to the city in which it grow. They never paid taxes, and lived in a happy-go- lucky manner by fishing, hunting (on the city dumps), and day-long odd jobs.

Shantytown was doomed for destruction by the Cincinnati Board of Health because it was judged to be a menace to the health of the city. Inhabitants were served with notices to vacate after the city of Cincinnati bought up the "homes" at $25 a throw. At the expiration of the fixed time, officials of the Health Department and city firemen entered the doomed city with a supply of gasolene and torches, and began "firing" in true incendiary style. In a few minutes violent fires were raging.

Inhabitants who had ignored the notices to vacate ran from their abodes in wild confusion, while the fires raged and

Mayor "Bill" Williams, owner of the most pretentious residence in the city of Shantytown, received from the Cincinnati authorities a sum of $47 for his house, and was allowed to remove it from the grounds if he liked; but Bill, not owning a lot upon which to locate his residence, thought it would be best to let the city of Cincinnati have the house; so, removing his goods and a pair of new shutters from the building, he moved across the Ohio River to Kentucky for the sum of $3.

Patrick Anderson threatened to sue the city if it touched his house. He had been there for fifteen years, which gave him a squatter's right to the place. Pat stayed to the last, and saw his entire household furniture and house go up in smoke.

"I am going to see by what right they can come down here and destroy my home. I don't have to sell out. I'm from Missouri, and they'll have to show me."

Pat was still hanging around, threatening disaster to the Health Department and Cincinnati officials, when the last house in the city of Shantytown was reduced. to smoldering ruins. It cost Cincinnati something like $200 to destroy the city of Shantytown; but it was considered a fine investment from a health standpoint, at that. Every one seemed to be satisfied except Pat.

The Idea that Got Me My Raise

Give Your Salesmen Automobiles

I HAVE been with my present employer just six months as chief accountant and cashier. We employed some twenty salesmen on salaries to cover the city alone, and we had a fairly prosperous business. Several times, however, it had occurred to me that, in the first place, some of the men were not putting in all their time; and, second, that, no matter if they were doing the best possible, we could cover the territory with less than half the force, and still get more business, by furnishing each salesman with a small runabout and increasing his territory.

I made this suggestion to the boss, with the request that he allow me to 'spend two days in the territory of each man I had spotted as a possible shirk. He advised me to try it—and I did, with the result that I located some eleven loafers, who were "laid off" forthwith. Six of the best remaining salesmen were supplied with cars, and to-day those six are taking care of the entire city and adjoining towns, and bringing in three times as much business as twenty did formerly. I am sales manager, and have doubled my former salary as cashier.

Money in Empty Boxes

MY job is in a retail shoe store. Each month we paid out ten dollars to have thousands of old paper boxes carted away. I suggested to my employer that he get a paper baler. He did—and sold the waste paper and boxes to wholesale paper dealers for $12. Thus he made $12 and saved $10. Result—gain of $22 a month.

We formerly kept all our shoes in the store, and were crowded for room. We were about to move to another store, where we should have had to pay $35 more rent a month. I suggested that we put all our surplus shoes in our capacious basement, keeping only one pair of a size upstairs. It saved roomand $35 a month in unnecessary rent.

A few minor suggestions added to these, and one Saturday night I found a material increase in the size of my envelop.

The Idea that Got Him His Wife

I WAS one of three linotype operators on a small city newspaper, each of us receiving $15 a week. Our repeated appeals for an increase in salary had been refused by the proprietor because the lino- type operators did not turn out as much work as operators in larger cities. I greatly desired a raise, as the girl I was engaged to said she would not marry me until I was earning $25 a week.

Then the idea struck me to go to a larger city and investigate how the operators could turn out so much more work than I could. I went to Buffalo, and in the newspaper offices found that only typewritten copy was given to the lino- type operators, who were thus saved the time it would have taken to study out written copy.

Returning home, I suggested to the proprietor of the newspaper that lie provide his two reporters with typewriters and thus get a big increase in production from his three linotype operators. He could not see it.

I purchased a typewriter, and in six months was proficient. Then I offered to do the work of the two reporters who furnished hand-written copy for the salary the proprietor was paying one of them if the linotype operators did not increase their output at least one third. If the operators made the increase he was to pay me $25 a week. The newspaper owner accepted the proposition.

The plan worked out my way. I secured my $25 a week and my wife. While reporting I came in contact with the owner of the leading hotel in the city, and heard him say he would like to have a man do typewriting for the hotel patrons. I jumped at the chance, and spent two hours each evening at the hotel taking the letters of traveling men. This averaged me from $12 to $15 a week, bringing my salary up to $40.

My wife was economical, and in two years we laid by $1000. While attending the foreclosure sale of a house in my capacity as reporter, I saw my opportunity and bid it in at a very low price. It was a two-family house, and in three years we had paid for it from the rent of half of it and the saving from my salary. We now have another two-family house which we are rapidly paying for.

This Man Knew Human Nature

ONE day I got orders; from my employer—I work for a firm of roofing contractors—to go with my men and help another foreman and his men complete a house they had been working on for a week. The house was to be completed that day, if possible. A barn was to be shingled too, but that was to be left for the following week.

Arriving at the house with my men, I saw that by a little extra effort we could complete both the house and the barn. When I mentioned this fact to the other foreman, his answer was that it would be impossible. I called the contractor and asked him if he would allow all the men a full day if we completed both the house and barn, regardless of what time we got through. He consented, and this is what came of it:

I told the men that all would receive a full ten hours' pay, regardless of the time we got through, 'if we completed both house and barn. Dividing the men so as to make the best headway, I started in, and we worked our best. The job was finished by two-thirty. Both the men and the contractor profited by this. The men received ten hours' pay for seven and a half hours' work. The contractor saved one whole day's work of ten men. My pay was raised from $3.50 to $4.50 a day, and at the end of the year the contractor told me that I had made more money for him than any other of his men.

He Put Life into Dead Capital

THE wholesale silk house in which I was employed as a stock clerk carried, among many fabrics, a line of fancy silks that had long since gone out of style, and that represented dead capital of about $10,000. The firm calculated selling these goods at a big loss.

I asked permission of the manager to send samples of this silk to the shoe and neckwear manufacturers in different parts of the country—two trades that we had never catered to before. I received this permission, on condition that it would not interfere with my other work.

The first twenty-five letters brought $600 worth of business, and inside of two months' time I had disposed of the entire lot, having received many re-orders. This simple method got me a raise of $3 a week, and later resulted in the development of a tie-silk and shoe-cloth department in which I hold a good position today as a salesman; having in one year more than doubled my salary.

Stopping the Company's Leak

I WORK for a large Eastern railroad whose plant covers many acres of land in New Jersey. The company employs what it calls an "outside material man," who takes charge of all the iron, steel, wheels, axles, and all the other heavy materials used in the repairing of ears and locomotives. This man is supposed to keep an accurate account of all materials disbursed, and to get the proper tickets for them, so that the material may be charged to the proper engine, car, or job. I discovered that there was no way to check this man's reports, and also that at nearly every inventory the account was short.

Various schemes had been employed to stop this leakage, but none was entirely successful. I suggested to the storekeeper, one day, that the outside man keep a careful record in a ledger of the materials disbursed, and send the charge tickets to the office I was in, where I would have the weights verified and take a record of the materials myself. At the end of each month I would take his ledger and compare it with mine. When ever there was a shortage it would be an easy matter to get a record of what had been put on each ear or engine passing through the shops. If there was anything on this record that I did not have a charge for, I could then show the foreman where he had used the material but had not given a charge ticket to cover. This plan is working so well that there is now a clear record and no shortages, and consequently on the 1st of January I received a raise.

He Fired About Half the Force

A LITTLE over six months ago I went to work for a certain brokerage concern. I have just inaugurated economies which will result in a saving of about $3000 a year, and have been rewarded with a raise of $500. This is how I did it:

I was employed as one of three bookkeepers. In the same large room were two blotter clerks, a statistical and filing clerk, two mailing clerks, and two stenographers. I soon noticed that the work of the bookkeepers was heavy in the morning and light after 3:30 P. M. except at the end of the month. I also saw that the blotter clerks, who figure the purchases and sales, were quite inactive until after the close of the stock market, when they were rushed to death. It was evident that, for some reason, a great amount of work was held up and put through after the close of the market. I resolved to remedy that, and soon found that it was caused by the laxness of the order clerk. He had been holding back the orders and making them all out after 3 P. M. I suggested that they be sent through immediately upon execution; and the rush at the end of the day soon became much less violent.

I next suggested that, as the bookkeepers' work was light in the afternoon, one bookkeeper could shift over and take the place of a blotter clerk when the latter's work was heaviest; I took over this work myself. This arrangement made it possible to dispense with one of the blotter clerks, a saving of $22 a week. Then I persuaded one of the bookkeepers to handle the mail in the late afternoon. In this he took the place of two small boys who had received together $16 a week. He received an additional $5 and handled the work more efficiently. I found that the two stenographers could alternately take the place of the filing clerk in their spare time in the morning, and thus save $10 a week. In other words, a redistribution of the work of the department meant a saving of four unnecessary salaries, amounting in all to $43 a week.

The firm had been paying about $15 a week for supper money to clerks working after 6 P. M. With the elimination of the two boys in the mailing department and the general speeding up all around, this expenditure was dispensed with and everybody was happier.

He Got His Raise through Faith

MY first raise in salary came when I had launched an extensive building program for a certain congregation. My previous salary had been $54.16 2/3 a month, and, owing to my faith in undertaking the building of an $18,000 church with no great financial backing in sight, one member made a motion that the pastor's salary be increased to $55 per month. The motion was passed. We built the church and bought a parsonage besides.

My last raise came when the subject of the parsonage was broached. We could purchase an 'old house next door to the church for a reasonable price; but our treasury was empty. I was in favor of buying the property, and subscribed personally $300 toward the house, this sum to be paid in instalments. This action on my part stimulated the members to such a degree that the house was purchased. Before, I had to pay rent and was troubled: now I have a free house, and am happy. This I consider my last raise in salary, for it saves me $240 every year.

This Man Invented Something

WHEN I was nineteen years old and getting $2 a day, it was part of my work to line (or babbitt) bearings for railroad cars.

The New York Central Railroad was having trouble with the bearings in the cars used on the Empire State Express, owing to the great speed at which the trains were run. The bearings that the axles revolve in, and which bear the weight of the car, would get hot, and frequently would burn out and have to be replaced during the trip. The best mechanics and engineers had worked on the problem and had tried many things; but, so far, all had failed.

I discovered that a composition of lead and block tin would give much better results than anything so far tested. When I told the manager of my discovery, he ordered a trial made of it. The results were satisfactory. The composition was adopted at once, and I soon got a raise in salary. But the important point to me was that this incident gave me confidence in myself and proved that there is a chance to succeed, no matter who has tried and failed. I am now conducting a successful business of my own.

Wage Slaves

Lo, the Poor Indian

Page 11

Who Is the Loneliest Man in the United States?

The Black Frock Coat

By Will Levington Comfort

Illustrations by E. Hopper

IT was the missionary Calstrup who suggested that there be two camps. The woman with the babe in her arms didn't appear to like the idea, and certainly Begle didn't. These were a forlorn four who had had their supper the night before from the weather-frames of the brig La Mancha, supposed to be three or four days' sail southeast of Samoa. The gale had risen to a hurricane, and between midnight and dawn the brig had broken between the pounding sea outside and the rising ocean in her hold. The four, in the last and least of the life-boats, had been washed against this reef blanketed with sand.

It was now late in the day. The sea was a tumbling, mass of purple which the distances grafted to the increeping night. Between the two little camps lay the remains of the boat, half beached, its bow mashed in like the head of a viper. As Begle expressed it, the little craft had been "turkey-trotted" by wind and current to this dry bone of land. Throughout that day, they had wondered variously how fared the Scotch skipper, the Dutch mate, and the last of the crew—faces now swiftly receding from memory.

Not considering the infant, the three adults were young. The missionary Calstrup was rotund, but of no great length—a fervently serious and moist face, with eyes that frequently lapsed into absence, denoting deep thought. Begle was a wanderer, a discard from society, by his own word and the deeds thereof. Whatever sorrows the woman had known, she had not let them dig deeply—a blithe and reckless face, much comeliness withal, and gallantly covering the heart-break of her plight with a baby along. She called out now through the dusk:

"I don't know what your idea is, but I'm not going to sit off here alone any longer. If there isn't room for me around your fire, you'll have to talk up stronger than you did."

Begle arose, laughing, and held out his hands. Calstrup had left the fire a moment before.

"It was the parson's doings," Begle remarked. "Not such a bad little parson, only a lot of Pilgrim-father ideas about pro propriety—"

"This is rather a dry place for propriety," she observed.

Begle brought the remains of the woman's fire over to their own on a flat piece of drift-wood. She sat down in the circle of light.

"Thanks. This will be a lot better than doing guard duty in a rival camp."

A STRAINING and creaking as from an overtaxed timber reached them. Glancing down the shore, they saw the black silhouette of their signal pole swaying precariously against the night sky under the stodgy weight of the missionary, who was already half way to the top. Begle grinned to the woman.

"Getting chilly. The parson's mounting up after that pall-bearer's shroud of his."

Dangling from the end of the pole was the black frock-coat of Calstrup's that had done duty as a day signal. After several attempts and much puffing, Calstrup succeeded in poking it off with a stick, and slid to the sand. Approaching the fire, he laid it in the woman's lap.

"The night will be colder," he said. "The little one will need extra wraps."

He sat down by the fire. The silence was considerable while the night thickened. At last the missionary spoke again, in a mournful voice:

"It is dreadful that a woman and a child should be included in this harsh adventure."

"Disappointed again," Begle muttered, with a queer laugh.

"I do not understand—"

"Well, you're a missionary," the other explained, "and about once an hour since we rammed into this reef at daybreak you've launched a remark. I've waited each time for you to register a grievance on your own hook, but it hasn't come. You've dilated upon the woman's misfortune, and upon my own. You've shuddered in pity at the last curses and commands of Skipper McTodd before he—er—went below, and at the infamous dying of the mate Schlettler, who found time to get drunk between the leak and the sinking, and dove overside finally with a bottle of brandy in his hand. What I'm getting at is that you've forgotten Parson Calstrup in your pity. And you're a missionary."

"Our calling teaches us to think of others," Calstrup said helplessly.

"Don't be discouraged about it," Begle said. "Why, I've seen missionaries in Japan and up the Pearl River—seen them in Asia and here in the South Seas. I'm not saying anything about those I know or about missionaries in general; but you

Calstrup thrust out his hand as if to restrain the other.

"We should not frighten our companion unduly," he suggested.

"That's just where I've got it over on you," Begle declared, with a glance at the woman. "At least, I'll stake my judgment that we don't need to curtail conversation so far as her nerves are concerned. Strikes me, if there's a gamester in the party—"

"One might as well look it in the eye," the woman muttered.

There was another silence; but presently Calstrup's face formed itself to speak.

"I'm real sorry," he said softly, "that you haven't met better missionaries. Down here among the Islands, men and women are toiling who would leaven the whole for you. You think it wonderful that my thoughts have concerned the agony of others instead of my own unhappy fortune. Is your own forgetting less remarkable? You have laughed all day and told tales. It was you who fitted with your poncho a shelter for the woman. You divided our precious crackers—and slipped your own share back into the can when you thought I did not see."

Begle noted a quick start on the part of the woman.

"Parson," said he nervously, "it's a great imagination that can conjure virtues upon the person of Dud Begle. You are the first, I believe. I hate to have to tell you, but when a man over-drinks one day, food loses its normal look the next. The pace has told; I'm burned out. Parson, I have dissipated over five continents, seven seas, and eleven archipelagos!"

"Let us talk of other things," Calstrup said sadly. "What brought you to the South Seas?"

"Three great men—very great men. Melville, Stevenson, and Conrad. They painted pictures of these waters and these islands until I couldn't breathe in the north countries. They drained the ocean to learn what lay and moved beneath. They picked their types from the faces at foremast and city-front, and none were too low to study and none too high to blame. They unraveled sunsets to get coloring, and they worked it all out, laughing—because they were masters!"

"Did they ever paint a reef like this in their enchanted archipelagos?" Calstrup asked with animation.

"Come down to the water's, edge, and I'll show you something," Begle answered vaguely. He nodded to the woman and child that they would be gone but a moment.

"Parson," he said, "did you ever notice how the cry of another man's baby bites its way into a man's soul? That kid's hungry. Our schedule won't do for a woman nursing a little chap. She's doin' double. An extra cracker, Calstrup, now. I knew you'd say so. No, you deliver it. That high-cut broadcloth vest of yours is lee shore to any woman, Boston or barbarian."

THE sun was sinking for the second time. The glare gave way to a deep, rich beauty, and drops of color from the melting palette in the west fell upon the wave-crests and slowly stirred and dimmed. Begle came in after a tramp of hours upon the sand.

"What did you find, brother?" Calstrup asked wearily.

"Not a drop of fresh water in this whole sepulcher of sand!" Begle replied.

His eyes were fastened upon the tin can that held the crackers.

"Is the diminutive himself asleep? I hear no sound—"

"Sh!" warned Calstrup. "The little mother cried for the first time while you were gone. She's a martyr. I think she was perishing from, thirst—the child, you know. Forgive me, Begle; I made her drink the last—"

"Say, are you a missionary, honest, Calstrup?" Begle asked, with a smile. Presently he added in some excitement: "Once upon a time I peddled water-stills in New Orleans, when the town was a hundred five, and two fifths typhoid. I believe I might make a sort of still from the cracker-can. Run and gather some drift-wood, like a good chap, and then sliver up a nice pile that will fire easily. If we can muster a vital spark in one of our matches by rubbing the business end gently in our hair, things will brighten up presently."

As he spoke Begle emptied the crackers on to a square of leaded canvas, gathered up the edges, and fastened them with a bit of shoe-lace. Then, in the light of the fire and the moon, he turned the empty tin over and over in his hands. The drops of sweat upon his forehead belied the smile about his lips.

CALSTRUP returned to find the cover of the can bent and carved in a strange fashion, the whole cut down into an ar rangement of parts not larger than a tea-kettle.

"You see, parson," Begle said hoarsely, "I place the salt water in this shallow vessel, which was the base of the cracker can, then put this mutilated cover over it. When the salt water boils, the steam will rise through the hole in this battered dome; and for a cold chamber I use this level piece of tin with a wet rag placed on top. When the steam, rising through the dome, strikes the cool surface, it condenses, parson, and falls in a fresh drop back in the gutter here, which is made from the rim of the old cover. Now for a furnace of stones and the resurrection of a match.

"Do you know the meanest thing about the sea? No, not the tragedy of a storm—that's thrilling. It's the eternal lapping and swishing and gurgling, when it won't stand for a drink, and a man is— But a cigarette is what I want— Say, if I had a cigarette, and you smoked, I'd see you in hell before I'd give you half."

THE moon lay low in the hot, dry sky at the end of her journey. It was the third night. The cry of the child from the folds of the black frock-coat aroused Calstrup to the old attack—the dizzying pain and animal plottings of hunger; the ceaselessly stabbing, unanswerable torture of thirst. Calstrup's first thought concerned the water-still.

The fire was blazing. The glare shrouded the far side for a moment in impenetrable black. Where was Begle? A soft rustle of canvas startled Calstrup's brain and paralyzed his body. It was as if a hand were fingering the valves of his heart. The gloom behind the fire simplified before the straining eyes of the watcher. The form of Begle became apparent—bent over the cracker bag, which had dwindled to the size of a man's head. The string was unloosed, the edges laid back, an unbroken cracker withdrawn.

The idols reared by three interminable epochs of dark and daylight tumbled about their maker. Calstrup could not speak. There was an arc of a smile upon Begle's lips. He did not devour the scrap of food, but refastened the bag, steadied himself to his feet, and silently made his way toward the small, pitiable figure crouched on the sand and holding the wailing child.

Calstrup pressed his hands to his face with all his strength, that he might not cry aloud; and he prayed with contrite spirit some day to stand upon the right hand of God—next to this social discard.

They thought he was asleep. Perhaps they would not have cared, anyway. Suffering had shaken them down and out from all evasion and subterfuge. The two regarded one another without front, seeing what was what. The woman talked in a trailing voice:

"You said a lot about a mottled past, but you're not a bad man—not even a

Page 14

"I knew a whole lot more than they thought I did about them and about life, but I didn't know anything like how much I thought I knew. The truth of it is: I married the meanest of them all. That was two years or more ago. It's exactly true, what I say. I fell for the meanest of a crowd of twenty. I seemed to learn it all in a week, so that the woman who's talking to you now is a whole lot wiser than the girl. All of which introduces to the market that you're not half so bad a chap as you try to make us believe—"

"What became of him?" Begle asked.

"Well, some say it was a falling rock, and some say the rock was thrown at his head. Anyway, it wasn't me who killed him."

"Where were you going?"

"I was going back home to the States."

"So was I," said Begle. "Why did you pick on La Mancha?"

"Because I only had a few shillings to spend for passage."

"That's me, too," said Begle. "Little chap sleeping soft and easy?"

"Oh, I haven't lost track of who's responsible for that," the woman said. "I know who's doin' without, so he can be fed. And I guess you're not making any mistake about why I take the extra allowance—that a woman might do that in my case and not be particularly greedy about herself."

"I got that the first night," Begle said. "And say, about this little parson—"

"He'll be a whole lot bigger parson if we ever get out of here," the woman remarked. "There's a lot to him that's being cultivated for the first time. You notice he isn't praying as much as he did at- first, and he's broke a whole set of proprieties. He's got sense enough to see you, too, Begle. I've seen men love each other before."

Begle's eyes gleamed, his glance darting into the darkness beyond the circle of firelight.

"I'll hold the little chap if you're tired," he said.

The small bundle in the frock-coat was passed over

"Thanks," she answered. "It does me good to see him in a man's arms."

THE fourth dawn inflamed the universe. Begle toiled with the still over the hot stones. His neck and arms were bare, red almost to blistering, but his flesh was beyond perspiration. Upon the nutmeg pole, as usual, the frock-coat hung in limp, unclerical pathos. Calstrup was riding the babe upon his knee. Half nourished and uncomfortable as the mite was, it offered no cry while the man entertained.

The woman held two untouched

Calstrup turned from the child.

"Begle, my brother," he pleaded, "won't you eat a morsel this morning? I—I am not formed from the stuff of captains, as you are, and must needs devour my portion; but for God's sake—for my sake—you eat!"

The eyes of the woman passed from one to the other.

Begle stared miserably up from the still.

"I—I ate my cracker on watch," he said huskily, "and took a big drink of water, so I am fixed until to-night. By the way, we've steamed out nearly a pint, and the little still is busy booming, so don't be afraid. If I had the butt of a cigarette Turk, dobie, or Canada scrap—I'd die shoutin'. . . . I'm goin' along the shore to hunt for a crab or a sea-serpent. If that pious coat don't bring a boat today, the fire will to-night!"

The woman laughed.

"I was thinking of that big drink you took on watch," she said queerly.

Begle didn't appear to hear, but bent over Calstrup and the infant.

"Say, little pal," he muttered, "I'll bring you a big, bee-yight sea-shell, that will whisper eternal tales of old ocean in your ears. Say, he's got regular ears, hasn't he?"

"What did you think he wore?" the woman asked.

"I didn't suppose they unrolled so young," Begle remarked.

They watched him move swiftly away along the shore, with thoughts too deep for utterance. The child whimpered.

ACCORDING to their bewildered reckoning, it was the sixth night—Begle's watch.

There had been wind throughout the day—a hot, skin-shriveling simoon. The tails of the black frock-coat on high had been whipped into tatters. The moon was now navigating other seas and the stars were a few, far company.

The glare of the flaming drift-wood played upon the woman's eyelids until they opened. The child lay in the hollow of her arm. Her head was too heavy to raise.

The firelight had never before so distorted the features of Begle. Calloused as the mother was by the dreadful succession of days and nights, and worn down by famine and thirst, yet the face of the man at the fire marshaled a horde of strange fears. The change had been wrought as suddenly as dissolution. The red of the beacon only heightened the tallowy hue of his sunken and altered features.

Begle was lying, breast down, holding the shallow vessel of condensed steam in his two hinds. His head neared the rim, slowly, tensely. His eyes were shut, his tongue outstretched. All that he knew and hoped and honored battled against that demand of the body.

The woman's prayer that he would lose the battle, and drink, did not avail. A sort of smile revived for an instant about the white lips. Begle remounted the parts of the still, gained his feet gasping from the effort, rubbed his face strangely, and stared into the four quarters of the dark. And this was the man who said he had fallen into abandon from rum.

A full moment he stood there, swaying. His eyes roved downward to the place where Calstrup lay moaning in his sleep, and there was thrilling tenderness in his glance.

The woman closed her eyes quickly as his face turned toward her.

And then the alleged discard waded into the sea, slowly, noiselessly.

The light of the fire followed him until he was thigh-deep. The woman saw him halt, lean forward—until his face touched the swinging brine. Then she screamed.

Calstrup caught the dripping figure in his arms. The woman was at the water's edge, peering into Begle's wet face.

"God help us—did you drink? Did you drink?" the missionary cried.

"How did I happen to disturb you all?" Begle asked hoarsely. "My face was hot from the fire. I—I just wanted to cool it off in the sea! Parson, old fellow, my time is hardly up, but you watch the fire. The night has netted another pint. There would have been more had I been able to reef that greed of mine. I'm going over to the coves to lay for light. Maybe I can stalk a bird or a worm—"

His voice cleared as he spoke; his eyes were fired with unwonted brilliancy; but his hands twitched and darted in pitiable uncontrol.

Calstrup stood apart. The child, roused by the tumult, was grieving softly. Begle held out his arms for it. His head was bowed.

"I am going—going over to the coves—" he mumbled.

The rest was lost, for the child was close to his face.

A pyramid of gray had reared itself suddenly from the eastern sea. He handed the babe to the woman and mumbled that he wouldn't be gone long.

For a moment she sat still, staring at the fire, then held the child to Calstrup, saying:

"I'm going after him."

BEGLE did not turn. His steps were less steady as the distance from the camp increased. The woman noticed this, for walking was a great burden to her. For a moment it seemed as if he were running. The day had not yet quite mounted the east.

At the edge of a low bluff, he disappeared. She could not call, but tried to run, her steps noiseless in the sand. Leaning over the bluff, she thought of the babe and felt a deep clutch at her heart—until his figure formed for her eyes in the dusk below.

There was a sudden breach in the shore at this point, an abrupt fall of rock and sand. The water had the complacent look of great depth. Begle was staring into this dark pool.

Ease came to her body. Her eyes were steady, indomitable, as they waited for him to look up.

"Do you want to see me grovel?" he asked.

"It isn't in the cards," she answered. "Shall I go down there or will you climb up? Come to think of it, you better come up here, Dud Begle—"

He obeyed. A mist came to her eyes as she watched him try to cover his weakness in the climb.

At the last moment she gave him her hand.

"Now sit down," she said.

"I couldn't stand it to see you with the little chap—the canvas empty all but a few crumbs—"

"It takes a good deal of a man to pull a woman's mind away from her baby at a time like this, but you've made good on that, it appears. Anyway, I came out here to tell you something—"

He looked up, his eyes turning back to the sand from time to time.

"In my country they used to call 'em mavericks," she went on, "—the stray cattle that got lost from the herd, like you an' me. A couple of mavericks met up together. Now, I'd die for the child—you know it; but I've got a picture that that won't have to be. Anyway, we've done all we could, and the suffering's over, or will be to-day. Let's you and I sit it out, Dud Begle—"

"An' if a ship comes in time?" he asked.

"That's up to you," she said.

He shivered. He started to rise.

"Sit down; I'm not through."

"I've been everything—" he began.

"I haven't," she said, "but I know a man when I see one. Say, there's a clean-cut little turn to your mouth, Dud Begle, that wasn't there six days ago. I'd have mated with you then, and what has come since is pure velvet."

"God, you're a gamester!" he muttered.

"Making that little water-still was like a sign to me."

"WHEN did you know I was mad on you?" Begle asked the woman, a little later.

"The third night," she answered. "Any woman would know, if she saw you take another man's baby—like that."

They were sitting together in silence when they heard Calstrup cry. The woman arose and answered, her voice like a song.

The missionary rushed toward them, his limbs fainting, his ankles turning in the heavy sand—the child held low in both arms. Often he jerked about and pointed to the sea.

They hurried forward, their eyes held by a great shadow far out on the water. It was not passing, but bearing down—the runt liner Caledonia, whose business it was to chart the bad lands of Polynesia, verify reported reefs, and prick off new coral syndicates for the Pacific survey. She had picked up Skipper McTodd two days before.

Begle and the woman stood together on the shore, laughing weakly and uncontrolled. The high, distant creaking of the Caledonia's davits, lowering a small boat, was bringing back with an overwhelming rush all the old ties, memories, smells, and faces that the recent parching days had obliterated.

They looked about for Calstrup. Then the swaying of the nutmeg pole caught Begle's eye, as on that other night. The little missionary was putting forth his last ampere into the climb for the tattered day signal.

"It's that uniform again," said Begle.

Laughing drunkenly, he tottered down the beach.

LATER the three and the infant sat together in the stern of the long-boat on the way out to the liner's anchorage. Calstrup arose, soberly unfolded the black frock-coat, and put it on. Begle glanced at the woman.

"We don't want to let that black frock get too far away for the present," he said. "It's kind of been the hub of things the last few days, an' it might officiate once more."

The woman looked back at the reef.

"The real ceremony was pulled off back there—at least, it meant that to me," she added.

Tenting on the Old Camp Ground

IF you should land in New York slightly strapped after touring from Denver to the coast in your Ford car, and should decide to save hotel bills by camping for the night in Central Park, there is every likelihood that the nearest cop would run you into the nearest jail and take away your license. So much for Eastern hospitality.

If, on the other hand, you start from New York and end up in Denver, you will meet with an entirely different sort of reception, showing once again that East is East and West is West.

Right where the Zoo ends in Denver's City Park, and the big trees begin, you can camp down with your belongings, and sleep all night as the guest of the city, with a special policeman to guard you. Free water, free wood, and free bricks to build a stove with will be furnished on request.

The Zoo Keeps to Itself

A HEAVY wire netting keeps out the wandering buffalo from the Zoo. An arc light in the center of the camp throws light on the festive scene. Free from the shackles of civilization, you can roll up your sleeves and refresh yourself by chopping wood, while your wife cooks beans and coffee over the camp fire and your children carry water from the free pump.

Some of the more advanced campers bring electric stoves and irons with automobile attachment and do the family washing in the open.

Of course, when a theatrical troupe lands in Denver to find a notice from their manager that their play will be discontinued until the author can appreciate the genius of said manager and allow him to cut out the first act, they all scurry to the municipal camping ground. Free water, free wood, and free bricks—what more could a soubrette want?

That is the great advantage of this place—you can go and keep your self-respect. No one can tell whether you are broke or merely a fresh-air crank. There you can decide in dignified leisure whether you will continue a career or return to rejoice the family with your talents.

Within hearing distance of this snakeless, arc-lighted Eden, free band concerts are given every night in the park pavilion, and the tired business man from Brooklyn or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, can drop off to his well earned rest, cradled by the hospitable strains of "Home, Sweet Home."

Take Your Choice of These Vacations

WE started out to see the big trees of California—three college students and a slow horse. Notice that word slow, and remember it. The slower your horse, the better time you will have; and the more scenery you will see.

In our wagon we had just the right amount of equipment, and just enough food to last a week; and the entire expense, counting the hire of the outfit, was only a dollar a day for each of three persons. For equipment, the following can hardly be improved upon:

Three blankets each—for the nights in the Sierras are cold;

The amount of good, wholesome groceries that you can buy for five dollars is amazing. Of course you will not forget bacon and eggs, flapjack flour, plenty of bread, coffee, milk, butter, potatoes, sugar, flour, and salt.

The horse and wagon you can hire for as little as a dollar and a half a day, feeding the animal yourself. But if you are wise you will camp at night in a place where the horse can graze, thus eliminating the necessity of carrying along a lot of hay in addition to the sack of feed which the horse will eat up in a week.

Of course in making an ascent of 2500 feet in eight or ten miles, all but the driver must get out and walk, to enable the horse to snake its 35 miles a day; but the walking up the grades only adds to the pleasure of sitting in the back end of the wagon and dangling your feet over the edge as the wagon rolls down the level roads that wind around the mountains on the other side of the ridge.

WHEN a native New Mexican wants to travel, he puts his sheepskin and his tent and a little "grub" on the back of his burro, takes his place at the stern, and is ready and able to go anywhere except up a tree.

We adopted his method, and improved upon it by substituting our horses for burros. Other essential items were packsaddles at $3 each, a sheep-herder tent at $3.50, and a few cooking utensils. We had, of course, our blankets, guns, and cameras.

We walked from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Taos over the top of the divide, 13,000 feet above sea-level; across the Rio Grande to southeastern Colorado; and back to Santa Fe. We were gone nine weeks, and covered 450 miles. We were often lost, but it didn't matter. There were wood and water everywhere, and the streams were full of fish. Counting everything, the expense was about sixty cents per day per man.

Walt Mason Turns Nature Fakir

THE hatchery at Estes Park, 'mid Colorado's snow-capped hills, contains a trout which, men remark, should have the head-lines on the bills.

The superintendent, Thompson, stands, as kindly as a hard could wish; he holds a glass jar in his hands, and in the jar you see a fish. Its name is Sunbeam, and the name fits like the paper on the wall: it plays the optimistic game, and never has a grouch at all. Its age is seven; all those years Br'er Thompson made of it a friend, won its regard, allayed its fears, and taught it lessons without end.

It occupies a private trough, and if you speak of babbling streams, it seems to say to you, "Come off! This is the boudoir of my dreams!" And visitors, in eager herds, go there this Sunbeam fish to see; and Thompson then, in simple words, explains its finny history. But first he takes his jar of glass, and in the trough the jar is laid, and into it the fish will pass, all anxious thus to be displayed. A wild fish, if 'twere thus confined, would have three spasms and a fit, and thrash around till it was blind; but Sunbeam basks, and makes a hit.

And while the lecture's going on, it keeps itself on dress parade, and seems to say, "So help me John, I make all other fishes fade!" The lecture over now, the jar is placed back in the trough again, and Sunbeam, gleaming like a star, swims back to his accustomed den.

Says Mr. Thompson: "Fish have brains, and they'll respond to treatment kind, and if their teacher takes some pains, they'll show development of mind."

An Idea Worth $1

THERE are nine people in our family: myself, my wife, and our seven children, ranging from the kindergarten to the high-school age. The number of pairs of shoes that we use up in a year is astonishing—appalling.

One day some one happened to remark to me that the price of leather had gone up. I investigated, and found that a leather dealer in our town would pay a regular market price for anything made of leather. The price fluctuates with the market; at present it is five cents a pound and will probably go higher, owing to war conditions. I began saving our old shoes. I put a barrel for the purpose in the cellar, and as soon as a pair of shoes is worn out, into the barrel it goes. When a barrelful has accumulated, they are wrapped in burlap, weighed, and sent to the local leather dealer, with whom I have a regular arrangement.

One hundred pounds of old shoes, with

I have since learned that in Brooklyn, New York, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul makes it a business to collect old shoes, sending poor children to a seaside home for a two weeks' summer vacation on the proceeds derived from their sale.

The Mystery at Woodford's

By Wadsworth Camp

Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller

QUAILE conquered his repugnance. He entered the passage. He crossed the dark rooms to the lighted study, where the unnatural bell sound still quavered. He thrust his hand toward the telephone, then drew it back. The thought of exposing his senses twice to that incredible experience was abhorrent. He shrank from hearing again the unearthly voice that, claiming the dead Woodford as a source, had warned him away from the theater. On the other hand, the monotonous, wayward ringing placed inaction beyond his control. He stepped forward, gathering his determination.

The bell abruptly ceased. When he placed the receiver to his ear, central cut in with her curt demand:

"Number, please?"

"Sorry—a mistake," he muttered.

He hung up and, his hands in his pockets, looked about him helplessly. There was nothing to be gained by calling the exchange again. He had already been told there was no question: his 'phone had not been rung since noon. That fact destroyed his last hope of a rational explanation that McHugh, indulging in tactless humor, had made the call. Still he clung to the idea that McHugh might offer some interpretation.

WHILE he undressed, several things became clear to him. The unearthly ringing had evidently been timed for his return to an empty apartment; yet, as far as he could tell, no one had known of his visit to McHugh. Certainly no one could have guessed the arrangement he had made to spend to-morrow night in the old theater. It appeared equally obvious that whoever or whatever was responsible for the warning had resumed the ringing just long enough to ridicule his temerity in attempting to trace such a call—to convince him, as Carlton had been convinced, that it had indeed come from the air.

Quaile would not surrender to such madness, but, in spite of himself, his nerves remained taut. He tossed fretfully through long hours, aware that his sleeplessness was the worst possible preparation for the lonely vigil he had undertaken for the following night. Once he lighted his bed lamp and tried to read, but his mind revolted; yet during those restless hours the silence was unbroken by any unaccustomed sound. His wakefulness went for nothing. It was as if it had been forced upon him by some external cause—as another warning, as an undermining of his will for his formidable task.

With dawn he slept a little; but by eight o'clock he was awake, heavy-eyed and unrefreshed.

He breakfasted without appetite, and hurried to McHugh's office. He found the manager chewing, as usual, on a cold cigar.

"What hit you, Quaile?" McHugh asked, glancing up curiously. "Was it an accident or a party?"

"Neither," Quaile answered.

He tried to hide his confusion behind a laugh.

"Only a warning—out of the air."

McHugh started.

"I mean I think I can tell you now just how Carlton got his fright."

McHugh took the cigar from between his teeth.

"The devil you can!" he exploded.

He sprang excitedly to his feet, waving his tortured cigar.

"You wouldn't mix yourself up with fortune-tellers, Quaile. Any warning you got can be traced."

Quaile shook his head. It had become clear enough that McHugh had no interpretation to offer.

"I haven't been near the spiritualists," he said, "but it isn't as simple as you think. Listen. I went straight home from here last night. The minute I unlocked my door, I heard a far-away ringing. It was so unusual, it didn't occur to me at first it could be the telephone. But it was, and a voice as queer as the ringing came over the wire—warned me to keep away from the theater, said Woodford preferred to play his part to empty seats."

McHUGH paced the length of the room. An increasing excitement recorded itself in his face, grew almost to satisfaction.

"Something to go on at last," he cried. "I'll trace that call. I've good friends in the telephone company. I'll turn the whole corporation upside down. I'll lay you golden eagles to rubber dimes I get at that call."

"I pray you do," Quaile said fervently, "but I doubt if you've a chance. You see, I went through the thing—last night."

After a moment's frowning considera-

Page 17

"My boy, when I asked you to hide yourself in the theater to-night, I believed that the only one of us in real danger was the man that plays Woodford's part. Maybe that's so still. But you've had this warning. Call it off; I'll try to make other arrangements."

His attitude was sacrificial. Quaile smiled.

"I'll see it through," he said. "I'm not so easily frightened as Carlton. I'll take care of anything physical. I'll have a revolver."

He released his shoulder.

"So that's settled," he said. "There's one thing more before I go. I've been thinking over what you said last night—about our leading lady. I mean your idea that she might have something to do with the mystery. You know, I'd rather believe in spirits. It would be easier."

McHugh's gravity gathered in a frown. He gnawed at his cigar.

"Seems to me when I told you to get friendly with the girl I might have spared my breath."

Quaile reddened.

"What is it, McHugh? If we're going to work together on this thing, we must be frank. We must share our ideas."

McHugh's frown died. He spoke gently, with an exceptional feeling.

"You trust me, Quaile. You're young and impressionable. You do as I tell you, and let me work my own way. I honestly believe it's the only safe course. There's nothing I can tell you; I'm pretty well in the dark. Maybe I ought to have kept my mouth shut."

His expression hardened.

"Just the same, don't you let anybody pull the wool over your eyes."

Before Quaile could speak, he had stepped back and raised the telephone.

"I'll get after that call of yours," he said glibly. "I expect to have news for you at rehearsal this afternoon."

SO Quaile went, fighting back his temper with the argument that it was only McHugh's desperate desire to find a rational explanation that had led him to turn in such an unlikely and unjust direction as Barbara.

He got Wilkins for luncheon: he would spend as much time as possible with Carlon's successor. And he soon found it would not be an uncongenial precaution; for Wilkins was good company.

During the meal he displayed none of those symptoms that had preceded his request yesterday to omit the scene in which Carlton had dropped precisely in the manner of Woodford's death. In fact, he didn't once revert to the theater or the revival of "Coward's Fare" until they were walking down for the rehearsal.

"Melancholy old hole, Woodford's!" Wilkins said. And a little later:

"Carlton wasn't a man to go out like that. Funny! Darned good actor, too!"

Quaile could guess that the warning, so far, had been withheld from Wilkins.

Then they were in the alley, and a moment later had invaded the somber gloom of Woodford's. Quaile pushed open one of the set doors. McHugh had not yet arrived—a decided variation from his habit. The fathers sat around silently, their glances directed toward the shadow-thronged auditorium. Involuntarily Quaile's eyes turned to the same point.

The shrouded, empty rows of seats sneered at him. Try as he might, he couldn't picture them filled with living men and women, voluble, expectant.

Dolly moved uneasily about at the back of the stage. The old actress called to him:

"No word from the king?"

Quaile strolled up.

"I dare say he'll be here presently." He lowered his voice.

"You're nervous. You feel the—the cat?"

She spread her hands impatiently.

"Always. Always—and close to-day." Her certainty chilled him. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Barbara, who sat alone on the sofa. As he approached he studied her intently. It was the first time he: had seen the girl since McHugh had advised him, she was Worth watching. Surely there was. no evil in the quiet figure—only a slight melancholy.

"You look worried, Mr. Quaile."

"Only sleepy," he smiled.

Dolly had followed him.

"I'm jealous," she said, with a false good humor. "In the old days the authors always made up to me."

Dolly's glance still roved about the stage. Her manner spurred Quaile's discomfort. McHugh's brisk entrance lifted a responsibility from his shoulders.

McHugh clapped his hands. His voice was thin with sarcasm.

"I'm sorry I'm so late. I was detained by a sick friend—or wife—or sister: take your choice. You see how hollow you sound when you try to hand me that sort of dope. Come on, now; let's get busy. We'll rehearse the first two acts this afternoon. Third act to-night."

He raised his voice.

"Tommy! Tommy Ball!"

The dapper assistant stage-manager appeared from the wings.

"Put a call for eight o'clock up. Every night now. Make it big, so they won't say they were near-sighted and couldn't see it or deaf and couldn't hear me. Dolly! Barbara! Helen Hendon! Come here."

When the three women had obeyed, he faced them accusingly.

"Clothes all right?"

They nodded. He simulated a vast stupefaction.

"My God! You're not women. You're sorcerers! Then bring 'em down to-night. I'll have photographers. I want to get flashes of half a dozen poses for the Sunday papers, and something big for a poster—maybe that third-act scene. Understand, you men? No dress rehearsal, but you'll have to get in costume long enough to give me my pictures. Now, then. First act. Come on, Quaile. Over the footlights. Or let's walk through like Johnnies."

With a sly motion he indicated the long, narrow passage that ran behind the boxes. The ruse informed Quaile that the manager wished to speak to him privately. He had an instant's hope that, after all, McHugh had learned something.

"Well?" he asked eagerly, when the door was closed behind them.

McHugh frowned.

"You were right, Quaile. Your warning's got me guessing. Whole telephone company's been working on it. Not a trace. They say the call couldn't have been made."

Quaile braced himself against the wall.

"I had a sneaking hope, McHugh."

"How do you feel about your night's job now?" the manager asked.

Quaile fought a stifling sensation in the narrow passage, which was nearly dark.

"I told you I would see it through," he said.

McHugh's face confessed doubt.

"It's up to you," he said. "Entirely up to you."

"Don't worry," Quaile said. "I'll try to take care of myself."

McHUGH caught him after rehearsal and drove him to an electrical appliance store. He bought a flashlight, in which he had a new battery inserted, and handed it to Quaile.

"Take that with you to-night," he said, "and don't forget your revolver. All the doors, except the stage entrance, will be locked, and the keys will be in safe keeping."

Quaile walked on to his apartment. He approached the door unwillingly. Suppose that remote and unaccountable ringing should fill his ears again? But silence greeted him from the dark rooms. Undisturbed, he entered and changed his clothing. Before leaving he took a revolver from his bureau drawer and examined each deadly cartridge and tested the trigger mechanism. Everything worked precisely. He put the gun in his hip pocket and went out.

He dined at one of Broadway's flashiest restaurants, thinking that the music, the motion, the blatant laughter, would fill him with material and cynical thoughts. But instead of the swaying figures of the dancers he saw Carlton topple and crash to the stage, and above the music he could hear Dolly crying again and again her assurance of a cat.

When he reached the blind façade of Woodford's, he realized that the neighborhood at this hour lacked its afternoon's vivacity. Two photographers lounged with Mike in the stage door.

Quaile stepped through, nodding pleasantly at the old property-man. He observed streaks of light escaping from the antiquated doors of the first-floor dressing-rooms. Soon the company began to appear in costumes of the period immediately following the Civil War.

McHugh's nervous humor, when he arrived, was more pronounced. He summoned the photographers.

After a number of the groups had been taken, he called Dolly, Barbara, and Wilkins down stage again. His manner was hesitating.

"I've got to have the third-act big scene for a poster."

He cleared his throat.

"No lines, you understand. Just the posing. And you'll have to center it some. Everybody else off the stage—out of sight."

Quaile, alert as he was, read no 'change in Wilkins' face. He fancied, though, that the man's shoulders squared a trifle. On his part, he had no fear of this quick posing for a picture. It had little in common with the rehearsal of the complete scene; nor was it reasonable to expect it to approach a similar tragic dénouement. Yet that moment during which Wilkins held the candlestick aloft was eventually to impress him with as thorough bewilderment as Carlton's death. For the present, however, nothing extraordinary passed. The powder flashed for the last time; the photographers collected their paraphernalia and disappeared. McHugh started the rehearsal.

This was Quaile's opportunity to follow the manager's directions. He felt his way through the darkness of the staircase to the dress-circle and balcony. He paused in the box where he had left his overcoat and took the flashlight from the pocket. Armed with this, he invaded the cellar, and later climbed the circular staircase to the dressing-rooms and fly galleries.

HE was relieved when he had finished his inspection. As he descended, convinced that the theater secreted no alien presence, he caught some of the dialogue from the stage. McHugh had gone back to the opening of the act. Therefore, ,when he looked over the railing he was not unprepared to see Barbara in the wings awaiting the cue for her entrance. She still wore her costume of the period of Woodford's beginnings.

At his step she moved back with a little cry, quickly smothered.

He smiled.

"I'm sorry I frightened you."

They spoke in low tones to avoid disturbing the players on the stage. The tenseness left her pose. She put out her hand toward him gropingly. Her voice was not quite firm.

"Why were you prowling up there?"

"Just nosing around."

She was oddly persistent.

"I don't believe you'd do that here without a purpose. Why were you there? You're not—you're not preparing to take chances with Woodford's?"

Her anxiety warmed him, but it brought also a less pleasant stimulation. It swung his mind back to McHugh's distrust of her. As a matter of fact, her manner was strange. There had been about it something unusual ever since the moment of Carlton's death.

She came closer.

"I don't know what you're planning," she said rapidly; "but you saw Mr. Carlton die, and you've heard Dolly talk about the cat, and you've felt—you must have felt what we all have—"

From the stage he heard Wilkins glibly reciting the cue for her entrance; but it entered his ears unimportantly, and evidently it had not reached hers at all, for she hurried on, in a voice so low that be had to bend to catch its eager appeal:

"You won't take chances here, Mr. Quaile, with such forces?"

"You don't believe in them really?" he asked, surprised.

"I don't know. Does anybody know? Can anybody say they don't exist?"

She broke off, breathing hard.

"No one can deny such forces with confidence," he agreed. "But we have to live in the world we know. We have to act by common sense."

Again Wilkins' voice came, expectant, querulous. It did not appear to concern him or her. He timidly touched her arm. She shrank away.

"Why are you afraid for me?" he asked gently.

McHugh's impatience forbade an answer. He roared from the front:

"Barbara! Barbara! Where the devil—"

She sighed. The entreaty of her eyes increased. Then she turned and ran on.

Quaile returned to the box, and later to the auditorium.

WHEN McHugh dismissed the company he took out his watch. It was eleven o'clock. It was fully half an hour more before the players had changed their clothing and were ready to leave the theater. Meantime Quaile stood where he could keep an eye on the stage door. McHugh strolled over and for a time lingered with him, but he offered no fresh instructions.

"We've covered everything, as far as I can see. I've nothing to say, except if you want to change your mind it isn't too late."

Quaile shook his head. His brief conversation with Barbara had made him anxious to test his own courage. He experienced a boyish eagerness to prove to her, as well as to himself, that he was not to be startled by shadows.

As he stepped into the alley she came from her dressing-room and passed him. He felt himself flush in response to her glance, questioning, appealing—almost, he would have said, warning.

He watched Mike lock the stage door after the last straggler and pass the key to McHugh. Side by side with the manager, he walked slowly down the alley. When the others had disappeared, McHugh pressed his arm.

"Go back now and see what you'll see. I'm running straight home. If you want me ring me up, no matter how late it may be."

"All right. Good-by," Quaile said, attempting an indifferent tone.

He saw the manager turn into the street. Alone he retraced his steps through the somber alley and faced the stage door. He took the great key from, his pocket and noiselessly inserted it in the lock. Although he was as sure as a man could be that the building was empty, he had determined to proceed as if it might house a multitude of conspirators. So he turned the key quietly; and gently, to prevent the hinges creaking, he drew the iron door back.

The way to the cavern lay open before him.

Its unrelieved blackness, its musty air, in which the perfume seemed stronger than ever, revolted him. He stepped through, closed the door, and locked himself in, returning the key to his pocket. Now, surely, no intruder could enter. He had every assurance that he was cut off from human companionship. That very fact, taken with the appalling night, made it difficult for him to deny the possibility of another sort of fellowship here.

The memory of what he had told Barbara was restorative:

"We have to live in the world we know. We have to act by common sense."

That made it easier to approach the stage. His familiarity with the place was useful, but as he passed the switchboard he combated a desire almost uncontrollable to snap back the switches and flood the cavern with light. Why not, if he was so sure the house was empty? Then he remembered McHugh's instructions, and he tried to sneer. He was to give the supernatural every chance.

He decided that the center of the

Page 18

WITHOUT a sound he clambered over the footlights and felt his way softly up the aisle. He drew back the cover from a chair and sat down. It was the best he could do. If an alarm should come—which seemed wholly unreasonable—he could conceal himself between the seats; he could move the length of the row beneath the protecting cloth.

He took the flashlight from his overcoat and held it ready in his left hand. He kept his right hand in his pocket, fingering the revolver.

Almost at once he doubted the wisdom of the experiment. His imagination was too lively. Constantly it evaded his control. The black building seemed crowded, as if its memories had refused to depart and at this hour disturbed the night with a positive but impalpable activity. A feeling of malevolence near by grew upon him. The perfumed air became poisonous in his lungs. His breath was shorter. A sense of expectancy increased. In spite of his precautions, the building might hold something—

He sprang erect.

A quiet sound, like a breeze over water, had set the darkness in motion, grew in volume until it resembled a riotous wind, then snapped back into the sodden silence.

He slipped the revolver from his pocket. He weighed it doubtfully in his palm. Of what use could that be? Even after the sudden noise, his reason told him that the house was empty.

Quaile stiffened. Little by little, he raised the revolver. He turned warily, so that he faced the pall toward the rear of the house. More startled than he had been by the tempestuous sound, he strained his eyes to penetrate the pall. Through the stillness he had received an assurance that he was no longer alone. Somebody, something, stared at him from back there—something for whom the night could construct no barrier.

STUBBORNLY he tried to tell himself it was fancy; but the sensation of a calm and malevolent regard did not weaken. Then a new sound reached him—the sound of a man walking with a difficult limp: and it came from the dress circle which he had recently searched—which a moment ago he would have sworn was empty.

The one who had stared must have stood at the balcony railing, appraising him who, perhaps, was the real intruder in this desolation.

The steps receded toward the top of the gallery. They turned there in the direction of the stairs, and after a moment were shambling down, as if each forward movement marked the conquest of a supreme pain. Soon he knew they were on the orchestra floor with him, were dragging along his aisle. Doubtless because of their nearness, another step, scarcely more than a mental perception, now filled the intervals between their progress. It was the subdued approach of a cat close behind the limping feet.

Taken with his remembrance of that first day, it was the final proof. Dolly was right. Of course, she had always been right.

Quaile waited hypnotically. There was a fascination about this unseen advance, which continued with a measured and unguessable purpose.

Steadily the limping steps came nearer. The feline pattering grew more clearly audible. He would wait until both were close before flashing his light.

In a moment now—for the footsteps did not vary. If he reached out through the darkness—

He raised the revolver. He pointed the lamp.

"Now! Who are you?"

The words burst forth involuntarily as he snapped the control of the lamp.

The sharp click cut across the black air, but the blackness was not altered. No shaft of light tore through.

With a feverish haste he snapped the control again and again.

The footsteps, unhurrying, limped down the aisle, crossed at the bottom, and entered the narrow passage behind the boxes. There they ceased.

The useless cylinder slipped from Quaile's fingers to the floor and rolled beneath the seats. Without its light he was helpless. The realization conquered his passionate disappointment. Moreover, he could not doubt that whatever had passed him was, through some unnatural means, responsible for the lamp's failure.

Already the warning of the night before was sufficiently justified. There was no virtue in remaining to combat an enemy that could render useless any material attack or defense he might devise. He had followed McHugh's wishes and his own logic. He had given the supernatural every chance. His logic had for the present been defeated. There was nothing to do but go, if he could; for his confidence had not survived the last few moments unscathed.

Perhaps silence was no longer of value, but he felt his way cautiously along the shrouded seats and tiptoed across the orchestra pit. He raised his hands to climb to the stage.

HE drew back slowly, with a choking throat. His hands had touched canvas. Since his entrance the curtain had been lowered. He could not doubt that his escape had been cut off, save through the stifling passage from which he had always shrunk, where the footsteps had stopped, as if whatever was responsible waited for him.

He cursed the foresight that had made McHugh fasten the doors at the front; for it was impossible to remain here without light, constantly aware, of a companionship that could not rationally exist, but of whose actual presence he had had too much confirmation.

He told himself that the limping thing in the passage was no more than human. Armed with his, revolver, he had no fear of a man. For an instant the prospect of a physical struggle stimulated him. He groped his way to the entrance, and, his revolver extended before him, stepped into the passage.

Immediately he knew he was not alone. All at once the footsteps strayed close at hand. The purring of a cat was in his ears.

He pushed the darkness back angrily and took a step forward. Then he paused, recognizing the uselessness of ordinary courage. His way was barred—but not by a man.

There was something scarcely illuminative but like light in the passage—a half-seen radiance which gathered before him. It faded—it strengthened again. He could not fight that. He shrank back. The footsteps were closer. The purring was more contented. He thought that the nebulous light began roughly to assume the lines of a figure. Blind rage drowned calculation. He pointed his revolver at the impossible thing.

"Look out," he muttered. "I'm going to shoot."

He pulled the trigger. The explosion deafened him. It filled the passage with a choking, pungent smoke. But the bullet altered nothing. The footsteps did not falter. The purring increased. Behind the veil of smoke the pallid light grew.

Quaile lowered his arm with the revolver. He shrank against the wall, protecting his eyes with his arm, helpless, no longer able to doubt that the ghastly light was with an extreme rapidity gathering shape to attack him.

To be continued next week

Why Banks Have So Much Money

By ALBERT W. ATWOOD

WE are asked why banks in this country, and especially in New York City, are so "flush" with money at the present time.

Not long ago a financial paper showed that nineteen large manufacturing companies actually had $350,000,000 in cash, or its equivalent, on December 31, 1915. Probably the total is much greater now. The United States Steel Corporation alone had $100,000,000. These great sums had piled up because of the increased business in steel, copper, munitions, and similar products. All this money, of course, goes into the banks.

One bank in New York City practically doubled its deposits in 1915, reaching the stupendous total of $600,000,000. Several smaller concerns doubled their deposits in the same time. In Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, and other large cities money poured into he banks almost as fast. Why should there be so sudden and tremendous an expansion?

The chief reason is to be found in the importation of $400,000,000 of gold into this country in 1915. Foreign nations had to pay for vast quantities of supplies, and at times they had nothing else to pay with, But it must not be supposed that the bulk of the increase in bank money consisted of gold.

Most so-called money in the bank is not money at all, strictly speaking. A bank does a great many different things, but the most important work it accomplishes is not very well understood. This is to create "money" in the form of bank checks, and not gold, silver, or notes, are what do the work of the country. We call a deposit in the bank "money," and there is perhaps twenty or twenty-five billion dollars of such "money" in this country, while there is actually less than four billion in gold, silver, and notes.

A shoe dealer needs "money" to pay the manufacturer. He goes to his bank, gives the bank his note, and borrows "money," which is placed to his credit. He writes out a check on the bank and sends it to the manufacturer. So what the bank really does is to exchange its own credit, which is good anywhere, for the shoe dealer's credit, which is good, but not well known enough to circulate.

$400,000,000 Came Here Last Year

JUST one more point: Most borrowers not only do not cart away the "money" they are entitled to in gold, but they actually leave on deposit a part of what they have borrowed. Even if borrowers at once check out all they are entitled to, which is rare, the loan is used to increase the borrower's business, and this soon means more deposits for the bank So the fact that $400,000,000 in gold came into the country last year gave the banks just that much more lending power; because, as before stated, they must always keep a fixed percentage of their business on hand in real money, and as the loans grew so grew the deposits. Another reason there is so much money in the banks is because, under the new Federal Reserve Law, they do not have to keep as large a percentage of gold and other real money in their vaults as formerly.

This country has lent more than a billion dollars to foreigners since the war started. But hardly a dollar has left the country. These so-called loans were simply book credits extended to foreign governments, which promptly used the credits to buy more munitions from our manufacturers, and those purchases in turn created still more bank credit money.

When the banks are flush with money, as they are now, it should be easy for deserving individuals and enterprises to obtain loans. But the very fact that they have so much idle, loose, easy money makes, or should make, bankers more cautious than ever about placing it at the disposal of merely visionary or unreliable promoters.

Free Booklets that You May Have for the Asking

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

Write Slattery & Co., 40 Exchange Place, New York, for booklet explaining "The Twenty Payment Plan," which enables one to buy bonds, New York Stock Exchange Curb Market, and active unlisted securities, with a small initial deposit, followed by convenient monthly payments. Ask for Booklet 16-E, including statistical book on high-grade dividend-paying Coppers.

The popularity of the partial payment plan, by which you can "buy as few shares as you wish" of stocks or bonds, and "pay when you are able, is steadily growing. This method of saving and investing is interestingly described in Booklet L-2, entitled "The Partial Payment Plan," which will be sent to nay applicant by Sheldon, Morgan & Co., members New York Stock Exchange, 42 Broadway, New York. The firm also offers to supply information about any security.

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.

Sample copies of the Odd Lot Review, a small weekly paper which in terse, frank language of financial developments of interest to the small investor, will be sent on request addressed to 61 Broadway, New York City. The regular subscription price is $1 a year.

Baruch Brothers, members New York Stock Exchange, 60 Broadway, New York, have issued for distribution to investors an interesting booklet on Odd Lots which outlines their Partial Repayment Plan.

A Market Digest which reviews the important changes in the high-grade Outside and Inactive securities market has been issued for distribution to investors by Ebert, Michaelis & Co., Dept. E. W., 61 Broadway, New York.

Your request sent to L. R. Latrobe & Company, 111 Broadway, New York City, will bring a free copy of the "Investor's Guide," together with the firm's Weekly Market Review, or either its booklet on Copper stocks or that on Motor stocks. Ask for Booklet H-8.

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

How I Helped My Husband

I WILL pay $25 for the best letter from a woman on this subject: "How I Helped My Husband." What is the real value of a wife to a man? Does she contribute as an equal partner to the family's happiness and success, or is she a parasite, consuming more than she produces?

How I Helped My Husband Earn More Money; How I Helped My Husband Get a Better Job; How I Helped My Husband When He Lost His Job; How I Helped Him Study at Home; How I Helped Him Build Up His Health; How I Helped Him Make Friends—these may suggest to you the definite experience which your letter will tell.

No letter has any chance is this contest that deals merely with generalities. Each letter must show specifically how the husband was able to increase his earning capacity through the wife's help. All letters good enough to be published will be paid for at regular magazine rates. The contest closes in two weeks. Address "How I Helped My Husband Contest."