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A PERSONAL LETTER TO THE KAISER

FROM BRUCE BARTON

MY DEAR WILHELM:

This is the second anniversary of the beginning of the war, and we are both of us hoping that the end will come before another anniversary. So I think I ought to write and tell you something of what has been going on in America.

Of course I know that you have been hearing regularly from Ambassador von Bernstorff; but Mr. von Bernstorff is in a difficult place to secure any real information. He is in Washington, completely surrounded by politicians; he never meets us common Americans. It is easy in Washington to get the idea that the American people are very much interested in politics and politicians, whereas the truth is that we care almost nothing about politics and absolutely nothing about politicians. We love our wives and are interested in our business, and want to raise our sons to be a little better men than we are; and while we aren't too proud to fight, as your English cousin George can tell you if you ask him to look up his records, we do think that a lot of fighting can be avoided if one doesn't take politicians like yours and our own too seriously.

You and I were pretty good friends, Wilhelm, before the war. Of course I used to laugh a bit at you, on the quiet. But it was the friendly sort of laughter that I have for Teddy. You and he—painting pictures, writing books, pretending to know more about everything than anybody else knows about anything—you're a good deal alike, you know; I laughed at you, but I liked you just the same. In spite of all your peacock struttiness, you have created and inspired the most marvelously efficient nation that the world has ever seen. You have abolished poverty; you have so arranged your social system as to take care of a very large population in a very small country; you have made it possible for every man to be sure of a job, and of a comfortable instead of a dreadful old age. You have eliminated loafers and made life a happy experience for your people. No other ruler has ever done so much, and my hat was off to you for it.

I was forever writing editorials to point out how much better you run your schools and your cities and your business life than we do.

NOW, as we get toward the end of the war, the question is, How can you and I become friends again? For the war has strained our friendship a good deal, Wilhelm; I wouldn't be frank with you if I tried to pretend otherwise.

I'm not going to discuss the beginning of the war, and my advice to you is not to discuss it, either. Most of the fellows over on this side blame you for it, and nothing that you can ever say will change their opinion. They say that the ultimatum which Austria sent to Serbia was a brutal document; that it was meant to be so worded that Serbia couldn't possibly accept it; it was meant to start trouble. They still believe and always will believe that you could have held Austria off if you had wanted to; they think that if you had known that England was going to enter the war you would have held her off. And so they blame you, Wilhelm: you got off on the wrong foot with them at the start.

I partly agree with them, but I go back a little farther than they do. I realize the position you were in. There you were with a population that was outgrowing your country. Bismarck never believed in colonies, and shut you off from getting any good ones when the good ones were being given out. And when you did get around to it, all that was left was a few swamps in Africa—everywhere else you looked in the East you found England quietly intrenched; and over here, behind the Monroe Doctrine, were we. You've had diplomatic setbacks right along ever since the Congress of Berlin. Two or three times you've "rattled your shining sword," but each time the Powers have stepped in and made you back down. It just looked to you as if the only way you could get a "place in the sun" was to fight for it. And you thought that 1914 was the time. You were ready; and every year France and Russia were getting readier: every day that passed made you comparatively weaker: 1914 was your year.

But that is past and gone. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life hating you because you started the war. And the best thing you and I can do is not to discuss it.

I'm going to pass over all this stuff about Kultur, too. Some of our fellows over here have taken that very seriously, but I haven't. When your professors and preachers and you yourself talk about Germany's Kultur, about her divine mission to spread her superior brand of civilization over the world, I just laugh. Because I have heard a hundred freshly picked college graduates talk just exactly like that. Every boy who comes out of college, if he amounts to anything, has a deep-seated conviction that the world is pretty much wrong and that he is peculiarly set apart to put it right. It's because Germany is just a college graduate among the nations that she talks like that—just a vigorous, lusty youngster who has studied a little too hard and not played football quite enough. When Germany is older, she will understand that every nation feels itself divinely ordained to perform a mission in the world; she will know that the highest Kultur belongs to that nation which boasts the broadest tolerance. There never was a nation so insignificant or so debased that its people, deep down in their hearts, didn't believe they were a bit better than any other people in the world. The most civilized nation is that one which, without forfeiting its own self-esteem, is quite happy to allow every other nation the same comforting illusion.

WHEN I was a boy ten years old, Wilhelm, each of the families that lived beside us had one of your fellow countrymen as a coachman. They were Prussians: they had decided they would rather be coachmen in a country where they could walk on the grass if they felt like it than to dwell in a land where too many things were verboten. And, generally speaking, they were pretty useful citizens. I remember once, though, that we got into a snow-ball fight—the two men against the ten-year-old boy. And I remember how they chased me across an open lot, throwing hard, icy snow-balls; and how I fell down and cut myself on the crust, and cried; and how they stood one on either side of me and continued to throw, after I was flat in the snow, and how they laughed when they saw me cry.

It's funny, Wilhelm, but I had forgotten all about that boyhood incident until the day when the Lusitania sank; and then suddenly, all in an instant, it flashed over me again. We've read very attentively everything that has been sent out from your side about the Lusitania, and I think we're broad enough to give you credit if any was coming to you. You claimed the Lusitania was armed, which you knew was not true. She did carry munitions, but she also carried women and children, and you knew that also. The submarine commander was under orders; he had no discretion; it was not his to ask, but to act.

And yet, Wilhelm, this is the simple truth: If that commander had been an American instead of a Prussian, he might have fired his torpedo, but he would have managed somehow to miss; and he would have come back to port and taken his punishment like a gentleman. You may not believe it; you may not understand: but it's true. No American would have sunk a boat full of women and children; no American theater audience would have cheered at jokes about it; no American school children would have been given a holiday to celebrate such a sinking. We just aren't built that way, Wilhelm, and if you and I are going to be friends again, you've got to make an effort to understand that.

THERE have been atrocities enough on both sides in this war, God knows, and we, over here, are no Recording Angels, to sit in judgment upon either you or England. We have read everything that you have published about England's atrocities; and we would like to believe that everything England has published about you is untrue. But, unfortunately, Wilhelm, we have the bitter testimony of too many Americans who have been serving the wounded in France. Only a few days ago an American author whose accuracy I have had occasion to test many times, sat and talked with me in my office. He has been working as a stretcher-bearer in France, and he said:

"We don't wear the Geneva cross any more. It makes too good a mark for the German sharpshooters."

Then he told me how he saw a German aëroplane circle over a French hospital tent, glaringly marked on the top with red crosses, and how the aëroplane descended within a few hundred feet and dropped a bomb into the center of it, scattering its helpless occupants to the four winds.

When a man whom I know as well as I know Dr. Grenfell of Labrador comes back from his hospital in France and makes statements like these in the Outlook, we simply have to listen:

One of our doctors who was taken prisoner in the retreat from Mons was allowed to come back after ten months' imprisonment. Among other tales of horror he told us, I remember his saying that for inadvertently neglecting to salute a non-commissioned officer, the officer was ordered to come up and strike the doctor. The officer hit him under the jaw, knocking him right down. The doctor told us that a private had been bayoneted for resisting such brutality, and that he himself offered no resistance.

An old fisherman friend, lying wounded at Yarmouth, told me that after a submarine had sunk his sailing boat and turned the four men adrift at sea, the Germans fired a few shots at them as they rowed away. He was hit through the thigh—an unarmed fisherman.

A little boy of twelve, in a school kept by an American lady near Brussels, cried out 'Vive la France' to some passing soldiers he took to be French. They halted and shot him at once.

"Are the Germans cruel?" Dr. Grenfell was asked, and he answers: "Systematically so. It is part of 'frightfulness.'"

Perhaps our reports of your "frightfulness" policy have been colored by the awful tension of men's minds: we hope so, Wilhelm. But we can't forget that after the Boxer outrages you ordered your soldiers so to conduct themselves that no Chinese would ever dare to look a German in the face again. Our own soldiers remember how yours acted in that day; and—I remember my Prussian coachmen.

Putting it as kindly as I can, it still seems to me

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that in your passion for efficiency you have developed in the Prussian character a certain ruthlessness that gives scant regard to the rights of the weak in the world. And, Wilhelm, it's going to be hard for you and me to become really good friends again until you change that in the character of your people—until I can feel that in my business with them I am going to have a square deal, regardless of my physical power to enforce it.

Of course all the governments have lied a good deal to their people during the war. It will be a pretty good plan if you and all the rest of the kings and czars can work away from that habit after the war, because your people are coming back from the trenches with a good deal more of the "show me" spirit than they had before. You will remember, for instance, that when the war broke out you raised a shout that what you were really fighting for was to save civilization from the devastation of the Russian hordes. It was Russia that had started the war—and your people believed it.

Then, when you were checked at the Marne, it was perfidious England who had leagued the nations against you. To crush England—that was the real reason for the war. And your people believed it.

Now it's for the freedom of the seas that you must take Verdun—and your people apparently still believe.

But in dealing with me, Wilhelm, after the war, if you'll lay the cards face up on the table right from the start, we'll get on a good deal faster.

BUSINESS, Wilhelm, is nothing but credit. That's old stuff, of course, but true. Money is only scraps of paper: all I've got to show for my life savings are a few scraps of paper printed in green ink and red. When you were fighting France in 1870, and had her army penned up against the Belgian frontier, she surrendered rather than regard her treaties as mere matters of convenience. That little remark about "scraps of paper" and the careless way in which your press bureau handles facts (that funny note, for instance, about the ship you sunk being some other ship than the Sussex—you remember, the note with the foolish little drawing), things like that make me wonder whether you are fundamentally a truthful citizen, or whether you are only truthful in so far as it suits your convenience. I just can't help it, Wilhelm.

There are a half dozen little things, Wilhelm, that have sort of estranged me from you; but I'm going to pass them over, because I want to get the big things set right first of all. And the other big thing that sticks in my crop is this: I can't understand at all why a nation which professes to want peace as much as you do should have to fill the houses of its friends so full of spies. When your troops marched into Belgium, the well-to-do Belgian women looked out of their windows and saw in the front ranks, leading the way, the very men whom they had entertained as guests. They had used the sacred cloak of a guest's privilege to ferret out and report to you all the household secrets of poor little Belgium.

HOW far does this system extend in the world, Wilhelm? I don't know; and the very fact that I don't know makes me afraid. Our factories have been blown up and our ships sunk, our bridges and railroads menaced. Of course, you have explained through von Bernstorff that this was done by fanatics and not at all by your orders. Yet why did the explosions cease all at once after we had finally given von Bernstorff notice that our patience was exhausted and that we were on the point of sending him home? If nobody ordered them to start, who ordered them all of a sudden to cease?

If you really wanted our friendship, Wilhelm, was it tactful to blow us up? And if you really want us to take you at face value hereafter, won't you have to begin right away to throw this spy system out? It puts the poison of suspicion in my heart, Wilhelm. How can I know who is a spy and who isn't? It makes me wonder every time a man named Schwartz or Hinderburg calls on me whether he is going to lift some private papers off my desk when he goes out. And when my friend Hensel comes over to have dinner at the house—though I've known him for years—I just can't help wondering, when he admires my new rug, whether he's thinking how nice it will look in his house when his friends in uniform arrive.

It may be a foolish way to feel, Wilhelm, but I can't help it. I've got some dandy German friends over here. I love them! I want to keep on loving them. Don't you see what a terrible injustice you are doing them, when you make me wonder all the time whether they are, in fact, all that they seem to be, whether they are really and truly my friends, or only pretending to be my friends because it will boost your game? For the sake of our future business relations you simply must let me know where you stand on this spy question. Life is too short to do business if one must keep one hand on a revolver and be looking into a mirror all the time.

It isn't I alone who feel this way. All over the world people are feeling nervous because of the wonderful efficiency of your system of spies. Only last night I was reading about the fight in Holland's Parliament over the admission of twenty-six Germans to citizenship. Holland has always been proud of her hospitality: she has opened the doors of her citizenship freely. But these twenty-six applicants were your countrymen.

"We have a right to know the real motives of these men for requesting a change of nationality," said Mr. Van Doom, the leader of the opposition.

Was it because they really wanted to become citizens of Holland, or was it a part of a well worked out plan of "peaceful penetration"? Holland wouldn't have asked that question before the war: she took your countrymen at their face value. It is the revelations of your spy system that have changed her attitude from frankness to suspicion. Don't you see what an injustice such a system does to Germans in every corner of the world? Can't you understand how it is going to make it hard for them to do business anywhere? Don't you owe it to them, Wilhelm, to put all your efficiency at work right now in cleansing that suspicion from the thought and memory of the world?

I KNOW that I shouldn't call you Wilhelm; the proper formula, of course, is Your Majesty or something like that. But I've called you Wilhelm deliberately, for your own good. I want to get you used to it. For when your men get back from the trenches, Wilhelm, and see you all nice and warm and cozy in Potsdam, you're going to notice something in their attitude that wasn't there in 1913. They're going to be a little restless and shuffle their feet a bit when you tell them how God has called you to rule over them; and they are going to want to know whether God didn't call them also for something better than merely dumbly doing what they are told.

It's coming, Wilhelm; I'm trying to get you prepared for it by easy stages. I call you Wilhelm. But some private soldier is like as not to walk up to you and slap you on the back and call you Bill.

I've tried to keep hate out of my heart in this war. I don't hate you: but we aren't the friends we once were. I—speaking for myself and my crowd of about a hundred million—used to buy a lot of goods made in Germany, and I can buy a lot more. I want to be friends. I don't want to hand down to my son a distrust or bitterness against any nation in the world. But, Wilhelm, right now, before the war is over, I think you ought to begin making up with me. If we're going to do business together as we used to, I've got to know that you're telling me the truth: I've got to know that you are going to be just to me in accordance with deserts, not merely in proportion to my weakness; I must know that while you are calling on me in my parlor your friends aren't around at the back door corrupting my cook.

I don't suppose Mr. von Bernstorff has ever told you about me at all. But there are a great many million of me, and the subjects that you and von Bernstorff correspond about—politics, internal or foreign—really don't amount to a bill of beans with me. What I'm interested in is, How are you and I, Wilhelm, going to be friends again?

When Astor Ate Ice Cream With a Knife

IN Toledo there is an immense modern factory employing more than ten thousand men and women. We hear figures like that so often that they cease to make any impression on us. But I shall never forget the impression made on my mind when I walked through that immense establishment and remembered that the whole gigantic business had been built up by one man in less than twenty years.

It is only in America that such wonders occur.

Twenty-five, thirty, forty years ago Russian Jews began slipping into this country, a few pennies in their pockets, glad enough to escape from Russia with their lives. To-day those same men have so occupied staid old Fifth Avenue that the merchants of the city are compelled to combine against them to prevent the conversion of the entire avenue into cloak and suit factories. From the Bowery to Fifth Avenue in a score of years—that is the romance of America. It is still the land of opportunity.

We read hardly enough history in America to get a true perspective on our country. We forget how young it really is. We see the Waldorf-Astoria standing, proud and distinguished, on its Fifth Avenue corner. It looks as if it had stood there forever. One shudders to think what would happen if a luckless guest in that gold-trimmed dining-room were to attack his dish of peas with a knife. How the horrified head waiters would pounce upon him! With what pained annoyance would the other diners turn their backs!

An Entertaining Diary

YET, exactly one hundred and one years ago, the man whose money built the Waldorf was shocking polite society by eating his peas and ice cream with his knife.

James Gallatin, whose diary has just appeared, tells the incident:

November 27th [1815]. I had a long conversation with father this morning. For the first time he told me of Mr. John Jacob Astor's generous offer to take him into partnership, with a fifth share in a business whose profits were $100,000 a year. His reasons for refusing were, although he respected Mr. Astor, he could never place himself on the same level with him. I am not surprised, as Astor was a butcher's son at Waldorf—came as an emigrant to this country with a pack on his back. He peddled furs, was very clever, and is, I believe, one of the kings of the fur trade. He dined here, and ate his ice cream and peas with a knife.

At a later date, when Albert Gallatin, father of the young diarist, was our minister to France, Mr. Astor appeared at the embassy, and again was a guest. The occasion is thus recorded:

Really, Mr. Astor is dreadful. Father has to be civil to him, as in 1812-13 he rendered great services to the Treasury. He came to déjeuner to-day: we were simply en famille, he sitting next to Frances. He actually wiped his fingers on the sleeves of her fresh, white spencer. Mama in discreet tones said: "Oh, Mr. Astor, I must apologize; they have forgotten to give you a serviette." I think he felt foolish.

Albert Gallatin was one of the many Americans of foreign birth to whom our country owes a tremendous debt. Coming to this country from Switzerland as a boy, he won a high place in the confidence of the fathers of the Republic, becoming Secretary of the Treasury.

As the War of 1812 dragged to an end he, with John Adams and others, was sent abroad to attempt a treaty of peace. Largely through his tact and sound sense, the treaty was secured in spite of Mr. Adams' churlishness.

I Must Not Die Rich"

MR. ASTOR constantly pressed him with offers of a partnership; Alexander Baring did the same. But to these and all other opportunities to acquire a fortune he responded: "A man holding the position I have must not die rich."

"I have never known of anybody, with the exception of the Due de Richelieu," says his son, "who is so absolutely honest and disinterested; both on his mission to The Hague and to England, he only charged his absolute out-of-pocket expenses. Would there were more politicians in America of his caliber."

THE EDITOR.

An Engineer's Report

By Will Payne

Illustrations by George E. Wolfe

IN 1864 a small ramshackle and weather-beaten wooden building, two minutes' walk from Market Street in San Francisco, bore this new sign: "Berg & Meyer (Successors to Solomon Berg), Dealers in Metal."

It was, in fact, a junk-shop. The junior member had just been admitted to partnership and a share in whatever modest profits might accrue.

If you should, in this year of grace, enter a certain monumental doorway on lower Broadway, and ascend eighteen stories, you would find yourself in a broad marble corridor that runs around the four sides of the huge building. Many glass-paneled doors on either hand give on offices. All the doors to right and left on two sides of the quadrangle bear the sign, "E. Meyer & Sons." No business is designated, nor is any designation needed. Every one knows.

Wherever, in all North America, men are digging in the earth for copper, gold, or silver, or dealing in those commodities, the name on the door is familiar and bears a certain significance, like that conveyed by the sterling stamp on silverware.

Except for the two months in winter that are spent on the ranch in southern California, and two months in summer that are spent at the seaside place in Maine, and a couple of months abroad every other year, Emanuel Meyer, formerly junior partner in the junk-shop, still comes down to these offices for a few hours every business day—a tall and burly figure, with a shock of snow-white beard, a mop of snow-white hair, a nose of power, and dark eyes half veiled by heavy eyelids. Newspapers amuse themselves by guessing at his wealth.

THAT long, double-ranked procession of doors bearing his name ends at the northwest corner of the building. The glass panels of the next two doors on the outer side of the corridor are blank. Behind them is an ante-room in which a stenographer sits; then a small office occupied by a sort of private secretary or confidential clerk, whose name is Ruth Berg, a granddaughter of that Solomon who gave Emanuel Meyer his first foothold in business. Not that Emanuel was ever unappreciative. He would have had, at this time, a peck measure full of promises to pay, signed by Solomon Senior and Solomon Junior, if he hadn't burned them all long ago. The Bergs lacked the business sense.

These offices with blank doors are occupied by Emanuel's grand-nephew, Matthew Stein. He also lacks the business sense. His absence of mind is astonishing. At any moment he is rather more apt to be thinking of a new book on philosophy, or of music or painting, than of mine engineering. Yet, when he does think engineering, it is to good purpose. For those who know, his name has the sterling mark. With some proper ambition, he might put himself at the front of his profession.

Ruth, at this time, had been in his office three years—taken at first as a kind of genteel charity when she finished college. He had grown so used to her that trying to imagine the office without her would have startled him, if such an exercise of imagination had ever occurred to him. It did not. He accepted her as he accepted his pleasant apartment, his satisfactory servant, his always having some money in the bank when he needed money. Affairs were so ordered. His thoughts were upon other things.

He was thirty-two now, of medium height and slender. He gave the impression of being rather frail without being sickly, and his face was not of the most familiar types of his race. His eyes were blue and round, his hair dark brown and of silken fineness—getting a little thin just over his high forehead. His face was brown too, for he had always spent much time out of doors to correct a constitutional delicateness. It was thin and smooth-shaven. He was well dressed—thanks wholly to a competent tailor and to a competent servant who saw that he did not start downtown in a smoking-jacket and without a neck-tie.

He looked like a dreamer. Even now it was obvious that he dreamed—as he sat humped over at his desk with the tip of a slim forefinger against his lips, which were pursed as if he might be going to whistle, his round blue eyes staring at some papers that lay on the desk. It was the moment for an important decision; yet one could see that he dreamed. He was hardly aware of the papers under his eyes, or of the room, or of himself. His mind drifted, absorbed in some drama of which these objects about him were not the properties.

"I don't know what to do, Ruth; I don't know what to do," he said absently.

MISS BERG was standing at the end of the desk. Upon her the mark of race was indubitably stamped. The most casual glance showed her to be a Jewess. It was so indubitably stamped upon her that one might have thought of a fresh-minted gold coin with every line in the die exquisitely clear; nothing dulled, nothing obscured. Her hair was really black. It was only by contrast with it that one saw the brown in her oval eyes. Her nose was delicately arched, her lips full. She was nearly as tall as Stein, and as she stood gracefully by the desk her pale shirt-waist and plain brown skirt seemed unfitting. She should have flamed in oriental color, with flowing lines. As she looked down at Stein her face was impassive, yet with a subtle hovering, half sad, half fond, that shimmered in her deep eyes and touched her curved lips.

He sighed deeply and ran a slim hand over his hair, which was a bit too long to be strictly conventional, and brushed straight back from his high forehead without a parting. Then he picked up one of the papers—a sheaf of long typewritten sheets fastened together at the top with brass clamps and bound with a heavier sheet which was bright pink in color and showed the marks of considerable handling. An inscription, typewritten in black ink, appeared on the back of this pink binding sheet.

Stein turned the pages rapidly, like one familiar with their contents, until he came to the signature on the last page. At that he stared a long moment; then slowly shook his head, sighed again, and tossed the document back on the desk.

"I don't know what to do, Ruth," he repeated absently. Abruptly he looked up at her. "I owe him a terrible debt—a debt I can never pay."

She noticed that, although his round eyes were fixed upon her face, he was hardly aware of her; that, although he used her name, he was talking to himself rather than to her. It was that way between them. Often he spoke out whatever his mind was busy upon, as if she were only a sort of intimate atmosphere in which he could think aloud.

"He saved my life," Stein went on, staring at her without exactly seeing her. "It was a great deal more than saving my life, too. I had put Dot and Tommy into the carriage. This was at Emma's, five years ago—up at the beach."

SHE knew, of course, that Emma was his older sister; Dot and Tommy were her children. Five years before they must have been mere babies. Stein had a singular affection for his two sisters' children—an affection oddly worshipful, with a touch of awe in it.

"I shouldn't have put them in the carriage at all," he went on, in his dream. "The coachman wasn't there, and the horses were restless. It seemed to be a strong strap that they were tied with, though. The children begged to get in, so I lifted them in. Then I climbed in with them."

He put his finger to his lips, and his eyes wandered from her face to the wall. But that made no difference, for in either case what they were seeing was the black horses tied to the post, the carriage, the two little children and himself on the back seat.

"A dog rushed out, chasing a cat. It seems the horses were afraid of dogs. They were restless brutes, anyway—not fit for women and children to ride after. Emma liked them, though—drove them herself."

He looked back at Ruth then, really addressing her, after a moment's meditation:

"It is very singular—the likeness and unlikeness of brother and sister. Emma looks more like me than Sara does. In some ways we are much alike. But about horses, now—Emma is fond of horses; likes mettlesome ones; likes to master them. But I—from my earliest recollection I have had an unreasoning terror of horses. I have tried to master it—made myself ride and drive when it was all I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. I was delicate and timid when I was a boy. I am still—very easily frightened. I never get down from any old cow of a horse without feeling as if I'd been reprieved from a death sentence."

His eyes wandered again.

"I saw the horses fling themselves aside and strain at the strap. It's a terrible picture of brute power—two big horses, wild with fear, straining with all their might. I suppose it lasted only a few seconds. The strap broke. They sprang away. You see, the lines were wrapped around the whip up by the coachman's seat. Of course I should have leaped for the lines the moment I saw the cat and dog run out toward the horses' feet. I should have climbed over the seat and got them. But I couldn't. I was paralyzed with fear. I just sat there gaping, and put my arms around the babies, one on each side—an utterly useless thing to do."

He shook his head over it, slowly, as over something beyond words; then passed his hand over his face.

"You've been up there. You know the road turns only a little way beyond the cottage. I have no doubt the wild horses would have gone straight on into that rocky gully. We would have been dashed to pieces. But Mark was there. He ran into the road straight in front of them, and managed to seize one of the bridles. They swept him off his feet; but he hung on, struggling. Even then I knew I should have climbed over the seat and got the lines to help him; but I just clung to

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the children. His weight turned them to one side. They ran into the iron fence. It broke the pole of the carriage and bruised him badly. But he never let go until the coachman ran up."

Again he looked at her and really addressed her:

"Only Mark and myself knew how it actually happened. I said I was just getting into the carriage when the horses broke away, and it was all over before I comprehended what was happening. I don't think Emma or Gus really blamed me at all. They didn't know I'd come within a hair's breadth of killing their children. It seems very strange to me, as I look back at it now, how little they made of it at the time. It was treated almost as an every-day sort of minor accident. At the time—say, within an hour or two—I myself hardly realized what had happened. But I have had plenty of time to think about it since, Ruth."

He clasped his hands loosely in his lap and looked into her face with perfect candor.

"So, you see, it was far more than saving my life. It was even far more than saving the lives of the children. What he did was, in a way, to save my soul. If my awful cowardice had killed those babies I would have been utterly damned. You see what I owe him. What can I do?"

She stooped a little toward him, laying one hand on the pink-bound document, and spoke softly, in a voice low and rich:

"But this is your honor, Matthew. It is your reputation. It is even the reputation of Meyer & Sons. You can't let him take that."

"No"—he sighed uncertainly; "I suppose I can't—yet you can see what it means to him. What can I do?"

They heard the hall door open and shut, then a voice in the ante-room—loud, aggressive, metallic—saying, "Is Mr. Stein in?"

"He's here!" Stein exclaimed under his breath.

Without speaking and with a swift motion, Ruth gathered up the papers on the desk, Stein hardly noticing what she did, and went quickly to her own office. A moment later the stenographer appeared in the doorway; but the man at her heels pushed by her before she could speak, and strode into the room. As she retired, in some confusion, he shut the door after her with a bang; then stepped over and helped himself to a chair at the desk opposite Stein.

HE was a thick-set, deep-chested person, perhaps thirty-five. He had dark curly hair, a hooked nose, a broad face, rather pasty-white in complexion. There was a deep wrinkle and a curving welt of flesh above his mouth on either side. He wore no jewelry, yet there was a flashy, sporty suggestion in his well made clothes. His brusque manner and his dark, nervous eyes implied a restless, pugnacious, ill controlled energy. There seemed no repose in him.

He spoke aggressively:

"Are you going to ruin me, Matt?"

Stein took up a paper-knife, unhappily dandling it in his fingers and looking at it rather than at the visitor as he replied mildly:

"I've got to think of myself, Mark."

They were second cousins.

"Listen, Matt!" the loud, metallic voice said, with an effect of bursting in. "I made that report in good faith. Maybe my judgment wasn't good. Maybe I felt so sure it was all right that I didn't examine it as carefully as I ought to. You know me, Matt. Sometimes my enthusiasm gets the better of me. Maybe I went further than I should. But, man, you know an engineer's report on a mine is mostly just an opinion, anyway. Haven't the best of 'em been fooled? Say it didn't turn out as well as I expected. Well, it was a mistake of judgment; that's all. Mightn't your judgment be wrong as well as mine?"

Stein frowned unhappily at the paperknife and replied, with mild reproof:

"Why, you knew well enough Lehman was a rogue."

"No, I didn't!" the visitor exclaimed, like the clang of a fire bell. "How was I to know it? Nobody ever told me. I knew E. Meyer & Sons did business with him. Plenty of other people did business with him. He's rich, ain't he? Good credit at the bank? I didn't know he was a rascal. I thought he was a big mining man. It's true I relied on his judgment more or less. Of course, I knew he wanted a favorable report on the mine. I thought he was entitled to it."

IT was painful, to Stein—that bald lie. He knew it was a lie, but he felt curiously helpless before it.

"Lehman's reputation is known to everybody who knows mining," he said. "E. Meyer & Sons may do business with him, but they look out for themselves."

His face still puckered in a frown and with his eyes on the paper-knife, he paused a moment and compressed his lips.

"I've seen the mine—some low-grade ore, hard to get out, hard to handle; practically no transportation. I should hesitate to say it had any value at all. Your report utterly misrepresents it. Lehman wanted that report to swindle somebody. He's handed it over to his fellow Spence, and now Spence is selling it to the public—swindling them, taking money from all sorts of people who can't afford to lose their money; selling it right and left to anybody; advertising a lot of rotten lies about it."

His face puckered still more deeply and he looked across the desk at his relative.

"Why, Mark, you're not a mining engineer! You've never had the proper training and experience. You have no business to report on a mine at all. You're not competent."

"Well, I haven't got your fancy education and string of diplomas and all that," Mark retorted. "I couldn't get 'em. I had to go out and hustle for a living, Matt. And I don't claim any university ever licensed me. I don't pretend I've ever taken any degrees. But I've been around mines more or less all my life. I know something from my observation and experience. I don't see why I shouldn't sell my opinion for whatever it may be worth, as well as you. I don't see why your fancy education should give you a monopoly. Men that couldn't get a fancy education have got families to support, Matt."

"But you signed this report 'M. Stein,'" said Matt.

"Well, why shouldn't I?" Mark demanded. "That's my name, ain't it? I can show you a hundred places where I have signed 'M. Stein.' You always sign Matthew Stein, don't you?"

"Yes," Matthew admitted.

"Well, there you are!" Mark triumphed. "You're Matthew Stein and I'm M. Stein."

"And Spence's circulars are quoting this report as that of M. Stein, Esquire, mining engineer. Of course, everybody supposes that means Matthew Stein. Don't you see, Mark, I can't let him use my name that way."

"But it's my name," Mark insisted.

Matthew was silent a moment, and spoke low, with downcast eyes:

"Of course, I'm willing to let it go that way, Mark—just say it is your name I told the Post-office Department the report was a forgery, that I never made any such report. They let me take the papers to examine. The moment I looked at the signature, I recognized your hand. If I tell them you made the report, they're going to prosecute. You know what that means."

"Yes! What does it mean?" Mark burst in with rage. "It means a frame-up! It means a hypnotized jury that will send anybody to the penitentiary when the United States attorney tells 'em to. A man's got no more show against that than against a mogul engine! They'll smash him every time. Why must the Post-office Department be butting in here? 'Using the mails to defraud'! As if they weren't used to defraud a hundred times a day! A thousand mining schemes that are a lot worse than this have been put over. Why must they pick out this case to jump on?"

He spoke with extreme bitterness, swelling with anger.

"Matt, if I was guilty I'd take my medicine!" he went on passionately. "But I ain't—I'm not! I'm not really guilty. I was terribly hard up. I was in a bad fix all around. Rose had left me. She'd taken the children with her—I suppose you know that. I love my children, Matt; I love my wife. That gave me a fearful jolt. I wanted to put myself right. I wanted to clean up. I wanted to pay my debts and get myself straightened out all around. I wanted to get my wife and children back.

"I know I hadn't treated Rose right. I hadn't treated anybody right. I'm a reckless devil. It's hard for a man like you to understand. But there comes a time when a fellow gets sick of all that—when he wants to clean up and be square. Rose's going away knocked me plumb over. I never thought she'd do it. It crumpled me all up. I wanted to get right. I love my children!" He dashed his hand across his eyes. "My God, I'd give a leg to see little Jackie right now!"

UNDER the urge of emotion he spoke even more rapidly and boisterously:

"Then along came Lehman with this mine. I knew he wanted a favorable report on it. I admit I went further than I should. But I didn't suppose any harm would come of it. He offered me a good thing. I wanted to pay my debts and get straightened out. Of course, an association with Lehman would put me on my feet financially. He's rich, successful. Why should I suppose he wasn't as straight as anybody else?

"I made him the report. That was ten months ago, Matt. Look up my record since then. Ask anybody. Ask Thad Meyer. He'll tell you I've paid him over two thousand dollars of old debts since then. I'm paying 'em all up. Of course, money wasn't what Rose left me for; but it's all been money with me. I mean, I've had to scheme and twist and turn. You can't understand it, Matt, because you've always had all the money you wanted. You don't know what it is to be always all tied up and twisting around to get out. It demoralizes a man all through. When you begin dodging and sliding about your money, you can't respect yourself; you get reckless. One twist leads to another. You get into all sorts of things. You've always had what money you needed. You don't know what it means to have to stand off your wife's dressmaker and tell her the bill's paid. You see, if you lie to her about that you'll lie about other things. You know Rose. I never could bear to deny her anything reasonable.

"So it came back to the money business. I knew I never could get right until I got on my feet financially, with my debts paid up and a steady income. That's why I was so anxious for this connection with Lehman and Spence. Look up my record the last ten months, Matt. Ask anybody that knows me. You'll find it all straight. I'm getting the last of my debts paid now. I haven't drank. I haven't touched a card. I've been straight as a die other ways. Look it up.

"You see, I was determined to make it a whole year—a whole clean year. I wanted to go to Rose and say, 'For a whole year I've been right. I've paid my debts. I've got a decent income. I haven't drank. I haven't gambled. I've had nothing to do with any other woman. There's the record for a full year. Give me another chance.' I knew she'd do it—Rose would. That's enough to keep a man straight, ain't it? And I have been straight.

"It's only a little over seven weeks more now, Matt, until the year is up. And along comes this thing—prosecution, penitentiary probably; for, I tell you, a man stands no more chance in court against the United States government than he'd stand against a tiger with his hands tied. It would just be, 'You signed this report? You're associated with Edgar Spence & Company? All right; five years in stripes for you.' I can't hand that to my little children, Matt!"

Matthew passed a slim hand over his brow and gave a long sigh. "Are you still associated with Spence, Mark?" he asked, under his breath.

"I'll pull out to-day," Mark answered promptly. "This business has come up very suddenly, you know. I'd give back the money I've got out of this mine, but I can't. I've used it to pay my debts with. I want to be square, Matt. I'm willing to do anything I can."

"But what can I do?" Matthew asked, in painful perplexity.

Mark considered that a moment, his dark eyes studying the other man's face.

"You've got my report here?" he said. There was a certain suggestiveness in his manner of saying it.

"Why, yes, I've got it here," Matthew replied, looking around the table where he had last noticed it. "Of course, I'm not really supposed to have it. The inspector made some objection to leaving it here. You see, it's presumed to be in the custody of the government. He's supposed not to let the papers go out of his hands. But I wanted to examine them, so he let me keep them until he comes back."

Mark paused again, studying the other man's face.

"That report is all they've got to hold me on," he said. "If that got lost they couldn't touch me."

Again there was a certain suggestiveness in his manner of saying it; but the suggestion passed clean over the other man's head.

"Yes," he replied simply. "Of course, that's why the inspector didn't wish to let it go out of his hands."

AWARE that his suggestion had quite missed fire, Mark took another tack:

"They can't touch you, Matt. You can snap your fingers at 'em. Your reputation and your money and your connections and all that—you can snap your fingers at 'em. And, you see, you've had no connection with Spence—with this stock-selling end of the business. Engineers make mistakes, you know. The best of 'em may judge a mine wrong."

"Perhaps," Matthew murmured.

The metallic voice came boldly, aggressively:

"Suppose you had made this report, Matt? Suppose you said, 'Yes, that's my report; I may have been mistaken about the mine, but that's the way it looked to me then.' Suppose you said that? What could they do about it? Why, nothing!"

Matthew's chin sunk to his breast.

"Yes—that had occurred to me," he murmured. Yet that he, who cherished his professional honor like a bride, should say he had written and signed that gross lie about a mine was almost too monstrous for thought. His face drew painfully. "I don't see how I can, Mark! I don't see how I can!" he pleaded.

"Yes, it would hurt your pride!" Mark shot back. "It would hurt your pride! You wouldn't give me a little of your pride—to save me from the penitentiary. You wouldn't give it to Rose and my children. You wouldn't get your hands muddy once for my boy Jackie. Listen, Matt! I saved your life. You know! Didn't I save your pride, too? Not a little of it, but all of it? Didn't you come to me a week later and tell me I'd saved your soul? Won't you pay something? What would it mean to you, Matt? Why, some fellows in your engineers' society might sneer at you behind your back for a couple of weeks. Some newspaper might give you a roast and forget about it next day. Thad and John Meyer and the old man might shrug their shoulders over it. But they know your work too well to let a thing like that change their opinion. It might put a little dent in your reputation; but your reputation's too solid for a thing like that to hurt it much. You could say you were careless about it and made a mistake, and that would be the end of it.

"They can't really touch you, Matt. You're too strong. You've got armor-plate all around you. I'm naked. They can bowl me over with a straw. You know what this thing means to me. The horses are running away. It's death the next jump—death to children too, for I've got children. A man can stand back

---

and consider whether he's going to get his clothes mussed up and his arm dislocated and maybe his neck broken. Or he can rush in. That's a fair comparison, Matt! Ain't it?"

The metallic voice seemed to batter against Matthew with a ponderable force. He shrank in his chair, one fist lying against his chest, the other hand clasped over it, and his chin sinking to the clasping hand.

"Yes," he said, very low; "it's a fair comparison."

IN the same bowed, shrunken attitude, he was silent a long time, as it seemed to Mark. It may have been a whole minute, or two minutes, while his fascinated mind explored the situation.

"Yes," he repeated, looking up at Mark; "it's a fair comparison. Yet I don't see how I can do it. It's the same situation over again—I'm afraid. The idea paralyzes me. You see, Mark, I've told them the report was a forgery. I've said I never made it. To father that report now—it simply appals me, Mark."

He was pleading with him. He pleaded yet more earnestly:

"I acknowledge my debt. I know I owe it to you. I owe you—anything that's mine to give. But I must try another way first. Let me try for a compromise," he begged. "It may work. I'll take it up with the inspector as soon as he comes back. He's coming soon, you know. I'll buy back every share of stock that's been sold. I'll replace every dollar that's been lost. If I haven't enough money of my own to do it, I can borrow it. John Meyer will lend me what I need. I'll pay back every dollar! Let me try that, Mark. It may work. I'll do it gladly!"

A dull flush of anger spread over Mark's face; his dark eyes burned. "Hell!" he cried scornfully. "You know well enough the government never compromises! When did they ever compromise a case like this? Never! You know they'll laugh at you. You can save me, Matt, or you can throw me over. Which is it going to be? You know what I did for you. You can look the inspector in the eye and say, 'I find I was mistaken. I did make this report. Maybe my judgment was bad, but I made it.' And that's the end of it for you. Or you can throw me over—and look my children in the eye when I'm in the penitentiary, if you can. You've got to decide, Matt! Which is it going to be?"

The tormented man at the other side of the desk had no chance to answer just then. The door at the right opened, and Miss Berg appeared there—tall and graceful, her lovely Jewess face quite composed, but her eyes at the moment as dark as her hair. She carried a double handful of papers, and at sight of Mark Stein murmured:

"Oh, pardon my coming in. Good morning, Mr. Stein."

Composedly she stepped over to the desk, upon which she deposited the papers, arranging them in a neat stack. The uppermost document consisted of several long sheets of typewriter paper with a sheet of heavier pink paper on the outside as a binder. An inscription, typewritten in black ink, appeared on the back of the pink sheet.

"I thought you might be wanting these papers," she explained apologetically to Matthew. "Inspector Maxwell has telephoned that he is on the way up here to get them. Would you mind looking over that letter to Denver now?"

He looked blankly up at her, amazed at so discourteous a request at that moment.

"It will take you only a couple of minutes," she pleaded in her low, rich voice. "I am very anxious to get away to-day as soon as possible. If you don't do it now, I shall have to wait until the inspector is through. It's lying on my desk—if you will give me only a couple of minutes."

Amazed at her, and rather helplessly, he got up.

"Will you excuse me a minute, Mark?" he asked, embarrassed.

"I'm sure Mr. Stein will," said Ruth.

Turning her head, she looked down into the face of the man on the other side of the desk with the faintest smile—an odd, meaning kind of smile. Her eyes, with the odd little smile in them, were upon his for a moment. Then she turned to Matthew with a more open smile, repeating, "Just a minute!" and, so to speak, fairly compelled him through the doorway into her room.

HE stood there, just over the threshold, while she picked up two typewritten letter sheets from her desk. He had got them in his hand when he heard a slight sound behind him, and turned in time to see Mark darting into the ante-room. For an instant he gaped; then his eye instinctively fell to the neat little stack of documents on his desk. He saw that the top one, bound in pink paper, was missing.

"Stop! Stop!" he cried, and ran through into the ante-room, which was echoing with the slam of the door to the corridor.

"Mark! It's not mine!" he shouted, and ran on into the corridor.

But Mark was not in sight. Whether he had dashed down the stairway or caught an elevator, Matthew did not know. He stared along the corridor; then slowly, in a daze, returned to his own office, went quite mechanically into Ruth's room, and dropped into a chair.

"Why, he's stolen the report, Ruth," he gasped, dumfounded. "He will destroy it! It isn't mine! Oh, he shouldn't have done it! What can I say to the inspector?"

Aghast, he drew his hand across his forehead.

SHE looked down at him with that subtle hovering shimmering in her deep eyes, touching her lips, and spoke low and softly as to a child:

"You've known him all your life, Matthew. You've always known him for a liar, haven't you?"

"Oh, yes," he replied, surprised at so useless a question. "Mark has always been a fearful liar."

She laughed a little.

"You've always known him for a fearful liar; but you didn't know he was lying to you in there."

He looked puzzled.

"Of course I listened," she said. "As for Mark, I could hear well enough without listening. All that stuff he told you about reforming—paying his debts, not drinking or gambling for ten months—was a lie. He said you could ask Thad Meyer if you didn't believe it. Well, I didn't believe it: I asked Thad Meyer—called him on the private telephone. Of course, every word of it was a great lie. He's been just as bad as ever. As for Rose and the children—" Her eyes sparkled and a dusky tinge of wrath went over her face.

"You mean," said Matthew, understanding with astonishment, "he just came up here to gull me."

"Certainly he did!" she replied promptly and with some sharpness. "He meant to climb out of his trouble over your back. What else would Mark Stein mean? Would anybody who knew him, except you, suppose he meant anything else?"

"I see—I've been gulled," he said dejectedly, sitting rather limply in the chair. "It's perfectly true, what they all say. They all say it—Emma and Sara and Gus, Thad Meyer, Uncle Emanuel—all of them. They say I need a guardian. It's perfectly true," he muttered humbly.

Ruth then glanced down at her desk—mournfully perhaps, and with a touch of humiliation.

"Yet I owe him a terrible debt," Matthew meditated aloud. "Nothing can alter that."

She made no reply, and for a moment the room was silent.

"Of course, I shall have to tell the inspector," he said to himself. "I was in honor bound not to let that report get away from me."

And at that he sprang up, startled.

"Oh, I should have telephoned! I should have given an alarm! I've been sitting still—as if I wanted him to get away! I look like an accomplice! Get me the inspector's office—quick, Ruth!"

"There is no need," she replied. "I knew Mark, if you didn't. I knew you too, Matt. I suspected what you might do. The inspector didn't telephone. I just stepped in there and interrupted—because I wanted to. Here is Mark's report. What he ran away with was only a dummy I made up. I thought he'd run with it."

From a drawer in her desk she drew a pink-bound document.

He seized it half incredulously, glancing at the superscription on the back.

"You, Ruth?" he cried. "You knew? You knew me as well as him! You did this?"

She looked him steadily in the eye an instant, and flushed, saying low:

"Yes, Matt; I held the horses that time."

The words mysteriously agitated him, as if they had a meaning he could not quite make out.

"Of course you did!" he exclaimed. "Why, it's you, Ruth, who are always taking care of me! Yes, you're my guard—"

THE word was not finished. A meaning suddenly came to him. In the middle of the word something pierced the shell of abstraction, inattention, aloofness which his spirit had built around itself defensively from the shocks of the world, as a snail builds its tough sheath. Abruptly he saw quite anew this gracious figure beside him—always theretofore taken for granted, like the air and sunshine. He sat down without knowing exactly what he did, and stared at her.

"Why, Ruth, I couldn't get along without you," he said. "You mustn't expect me to. You can see I need you more than anybody else possibly can." He smiled faintly. "Somebody must hold the horses for me. It must be you."

She cut in quickly, her voice vibrant with emotion:

"It is beautiful of you to feel as you do toward him—to lay yourself down at that man's feet for a small fault that lasted only a moment. I have hardly known whether I would wish that changed. But I know now, Matthew. The thing isn't true. It isn't at all what you now say it is. Emma saw it from her window. She has told me about it. She was hardly at all frightened. The horses were perfectly tractable. They were not going fast. The danger was slight. You were startled and clutched the children. Afterward you built this other thing up in your mind—because that's you, Matt! You'd pay and pay and pay to the last shred if you owed anything at all. You do need a guardian! You will take no care of yourself."

He saw, with awe, that her eyes were bright with tears, and sprang up transported. But they heard the door to his own office open. The stenographer stood there.

"Inspector Maxwell on the wire to speak to you," she said to Matthew.

"Very well, I'll speak to him," said Matthew.

For a moment he stood ludicrously divided, as though he were trying to turn to her and the telephone at the same time; then he said breathlessly:

"Wait just here, Ruth. I must talk to you," and went in to the telephone on his desk, absently carrying the pink-bound document in his hand.

The Idea that Got Me My Raise

THE EDITOR.

Order Out of Chaos

I WAS employed as file clerk by a firm which, in its twenty-five years' existence, had accumulated a vast store of reference books and pamphlets that had never been indexed or catalogued. I told the general manager I thought I could put the books in some kind of order if I were given certain time each day from my regular work. He was glad to have me try. I began by going to the local public library and asking for books and information on the subject of cataloguing. Through the information thus received, and with the assistance of one of the engineers, who helped me discard the useless papers, the books, after several months' work, were indexed, and our library was put in fair working condition. I was congratulated by the firm on the working out of the idea, and, although they did not so state, I believe my last raise was due to the idea.

File Clerk.

She Jumped in and Sold Goods

I AM a stenographer in a silo office where five other girls are employed. Being the last one to enter, my salary was smaller than that of any of the rest. I had been doing the menial tasks, such as answering the telephone and interviewing callers when my employer was not in.

One day, while looking over some old letters belonging to the firm, I came across a booklet containing information about silos. I read this over, and decided to try to sell to the next person who called.

My employer had been out of the city for several days before my chance came. One day two men came in, and inquired for the "boss." I told them he was not in the city, and immediately asked them if they were in the market for a silo. The men exchanged glances, and finally one of them said they just wanted to look at them.

I offered to take them to see one installed a few miles from the office. I hurried for my hat and coat, found a price list, and led the way out.

On our way back to the office, one of the men startled me by saying he would take a silo if he could get it next month. Eager for the sale, I promised it would be delivered the following month. The other man wanted one also. I wrote out contracts, which they signed.

After my customers had closed the door behind them, I began to worry. I was not sure I could keep the promise to deliver in a month. But, without further delay, I sent a night letter to Mr. B. telling him of the sale.

The next two days were trying ones, and Monday morning found me the first one in the office. I hurriedly glanced through the mail, expecting to see a letter from my employer. Just as I had made up my mind to telephone to him, he walked in.

He called me over to his desk, and without looking up said, "I received your wire just as I was leaving C, and I was glad to hear the good news. We are able to get those orders right out."

I was too overjoyed to speak.

"What commission do you expect for selling those silos?" he asked.

"I do not want a commission," I replied; "I want a raise."

"Well," he said slowly, "you have earned one."

Silo Firm Stenographer.

Cross Files Plus the Personal Touch

AS an office girl in a real estate office, I took a personal interest in our customers, especially the mothers who were hunting houses. After a time I wrote the names of applicants in an address book, noted the grade of their children in school, church preference, and my own impressions of them, where they were located and when their lease expired. Sometimes I even gained a good idea of their hopes to purchase and ability to pay. When new houses were built or others came to us to rent, I would run over the list, and if there were any I thought would like the change, I would get into communication with them. I soon found that young mothers liked to be near a school, and older women near their church or friends.

It was not long before people began to ask for me and send their friends to consult with me. The firm had built a group of medium-priced cottages, thinking they would rent to better paid factory employees; but, while many looked at them, the cottages were not rented. I went out one Sunday and looked them over. A spur of the railroad curved dangerously back of the houses, making it unsafe for the children at play. The next day I proposed that the firm lease two vacant lots in the rear and fence them in. There was a big pile of sand and gravel already on the lots, and I suggested that we put in some teeters and swings, and advertise the playground feature. It succeeded. Some very trivial things that I proposed, such as clothes-poles and a screen in front of the back porch, were a help in obtaining tenants.

Some lots were to be put on the market with every reason for a quick advance. I went to four of my working-girl friends and made the proposition of a joint investment, I to be one of them, at fifty cents a week apiece. My firm approved, and within six months we had made something, with the result that not only these four but other girls were interested.

When I asked my employer why my salary had been so substantially raised, he laughed and said, "Because you have added brains to the business."

Real Estate Office Girl.

She Slew the Double Negative

IT was my first experience in the automobile field, having previously been connected with an insurance office, and I was given a position among the odds and ends stenographers, who merely took dictation in a general way from various members of the organization, transcribed their notes in a get-rid-of manner, and were off as soon as the dismissal bell rang.

I made up my mind that I would do better work than I had ever done before, and with this end in view I began the day, which was Friday. All day long I tapped away like a Trojan, putting every thought into the letters to be written. Here and there I would note a word or two in the wrong tense or number. Instead of letting these errors pass by unnoticed, I wrote my dictator a little note informing him of the correction I had made in his letter. Saturday we worked but a half day, at the end of which I received instructions from the head of the department to see the manager before I left.

I had a vague idea at first that perhaps a day and a half of my services were enough for the company, and with my heart in my mouth I waited for the verdict. Do you know what it was? To work for the foreign sales manager temporarily. I will tell you how I made good.

First of all, I armed myself with a pencil and a little pad, on which I wrote answers to the hundred and one questions I asked concerning my new work. I made up my mind not to ask the same question twice. I asked my employer to dictate slowly at first, explaining to him that I desired to write my letters accurately, and I soon was making great headway. I studied automobile catalogues and acquainted myself in a general way with the automobile business. When a telegram was dictated, whether it contained 52 or 72 words, I rearranged it so that there would be no excess of words, saving the company sometimes as much as two dollars in a day.

In two weeks my first pay check was due, and it was then I learned that my efforts had not been in vain; for I had been given an increase of $10 a month and had also been permanently transferred to the foreign department.

Automobile Stenographer.

Efficiency and Hygiene

AT the A.B.C. Company my duties were to handle the private switch-board, take down orders that came over the wire, and keep myself informed, as well as possible, of the whereabouts of the principal men of the firm, in order to relay important messages to them.

I sometimes had occasion to leave my board, and at such times would "plug in" on the office to which my errand took me, so that I could answer the ring from there.

As a number of the men occupying private offices were in the habit of smoking constantly, the odor of their transmitters was very unpleasant.

From a desire for cleanliness as well as for my health, I decided to go around early each morning and cleanse all the transmitters with a mild, odorless disinfectant.

One morning, while I was thus occupied, the manager arrived early and found me busied over the connection on his desk. He expressed his appreciation of the results, saying that he had noticed for several days that the instrument smelled sweet and clean.

At the end of the week I found a substantial "raise" in my envelop, while the cleaning of the transmitters had been assigned as a part of the regular routine of one of the office boys, who was to receive his instructions from me.

Telephone Operator.

She Got the Postage Right

ABOUT two and a half years ago I started business with a well known patent attorney in my town, as a stenographer.

At that time I was fresh from school. There was quite a good deal of foreign mail forwarded to Europe, and to get the right postage for different countries was always a task. I knew that the reason for this was the carelessness of the girl having charge of the mail. And I knew that some time this lot would fall to me, and therefore, in my spare moments, I studied the postage rates and government rules of foreign countries.

Eventually I was given charge of the foreign mail, and saved not only postage, but time as well, in that the letters were not returned to our office for sufficient postage. As a result I received my first advance.

The work of a patent attorney involves many classes of work, and a general knowledge of practically all subjects is necessary to make one fit. I studied very thoroughly the rules of the United States Patent Office and also those of foreign countries. I read up in books (taken from the library) on mechanics, simple electricity, and engineering.

Now I am holding the position of private secretary.

Patent Attorney Secretary.

Putting Art in the Artichoke

I WORKED in a café at six dollars a week, typewriting bills of fare. One day an idea came to me. Why not illustrate my bills of fare? I was pretty good at drawing, and if I could interest the patrons I might also interest my employer. I asked his permission, and he said, "Go ahead."

The first picture I drew was of a very stout man and a slim man, and the stout man spoke to the slim man in this fashion: "I eat at the——Café; why don't you?"

It created a laugh, and my employer asked me to draw more. I have been drawing more pictures since last August. I have also been drawing more salary. My employer says the pictures give his patrons an appetite.

I always write something catchy, such as "A square meal for a round coin," etc. I paste one bill of fare on the window, and the picture attracts attention. Naturally, passers-by stop to look, and they will generally read the bill of fare.

The majority of them are always tempted by something, and when noontime comes they do too.

Restaurant Stenographer.

Style for the "General Store"

MY raise came when I was working in the "general store" in a small country town.

Our building was 22 by 70 feet, with shelving on both sides and counters in front of the shelving. The floor was worn and rough. The ceiling was dark and unpainted. We burned soft coal, because it was cheap and made a hot fire. Our oil-tank held one hundred gallons of oil, and we pumped it out with a little wabbly pump.

I began with the stove, buying a larger one and burning coke. This did away with a great amount of cleaning.

Then we mended the floor in the poorest places, filled in the depressions with two layers of paper felt, and put down linoleum over all, making it much easier to clean. The advantage of keeping stock clean was worth the price of the linoleum, which amounted to $37. Also its attractive appearance increased our linoleum sales 50 per cent.

Next we cleaned the entire store, painted the shelves, and varnished the counters and cases. We painted the ceiling white, and it then reflected light much better through the whole store, making display better and sales easier.

We handled a large number of cases of eggs and gave due bills in payment. The annoyance, dissatisfaction, and mistakes made with them after days or weeks of folding and figuring on them was great. I suggested egg money, and we now have brass duplicates, which are much easier to handle.

When spring came, our ice-box was a source of trouble. The pan was sure to run over or spill over when it was pulled out to be emptied. I made a zinc and rubber funnel, attached it to the drain-pipe, and made an opening through the wall so that the water runs out on the ground. The ice-box is near the oil-tank, and next I secured a neat new, firm pump that fills the gallon measure easily. Its cost was $2.50.

I made a curtain to draw in front of dry goods stock overnight and while the floor is swept. It is fastened with rings at the top, so that it can be pulled across easily any time.

We no longer handle lard or dairy butter in bulk. We buy all groceries possible in cartons, which saves time in weighing and wrapping.

Everything that I accomplished took time and slow persistency, as my employer was very conservative. While I give him all the glory for the improvements, I know by my substantial "raises" that he fully appreciates my help.

Store Clerk.

Please, Papa, May I Be a Actress?

Photographs by Byron

Good Morning, Landlord

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They Spend Other People's Money

The Girl Beyond the Trail

By James Oliver Curwood

Wladyslaw T. Benda

DAVID was roused from his revery by the sound of the cabin door being opened behind him. At the same time there came again the wolf-dog's howl out in the forest. It was quite near.

"The dog has followed us," said the missioner, who had come out and was standing behind David, looking up at the sky. "He smells us. He is waiting out there for you."

They listened for a moment.

"I will take him a fish," said David, then. "I am sure he will come to me."

Mukoki had hoisted the gunny-sack full of fish well up against the roof of the cabin, to keep it from chance marauders of the night, and Father Roland stood by while David lowered it and made a choice for Baree's supper. Then he reëntered the cabin.

It was not Baree that drew David slowly into the forest. He wanted to be alone, to think, to ask himself questions. He could not get Tavish out of his mind—Tavish, the haunted man; Tavish, the man who had fled from the Firepan Creek country at just about the time the girl in the picture had stood on that rock beside the pool; Tavish, terror-driven by a spirit of the dead!

He did not attempt to reason the matter, or bare the folly of his alarm. He did not ask himself about the improbability of it all, but accepted without equivocation a strong impression that had come to him—the conviction that the girl on the rock and the woman in the coach were in some way identified with the flight of Tavish, the man he had never seen, from that far valley in the northwest mountains.

HE had gone a hundred yards or more into the forest; and in a little open space, lighted up like a tiny amphitheater in the glow of the moon, he stopped. He had come to a decision. He would wait until they reached Tavish's. And then, in the presence of the missioner, he would suddenly show Tavish the picture. His heart throbbed uneasily as he anticipated the possible tragedy, the sudden betrayal, of that moment. For Father Roland had said that Tavish was haunted by a vision of the dead. The dead! Could it be that she, the girl in the picture—

He shook himself, set his lips tight, to get the thought away from him. And the woman—the woman in the coach, the woman who had left in her seat this picture that was growing in his heart like a living thing—who was she? Was her quest one of vengeance—of retribution? Was Tavish the man she was seeking? Up in that mountain valley, where the girl had stood on the rock, had his name been Michael O'Doone? He was trembling when he went on deeper into the forest. But of his determination there was no longer a doubt. He would say nothing to Father Roland until Tavish had seen the picture.

UNTIL now he had forgotten Baree. A movement of a body near him, so unexpected and alarmingly close that a cry broke from his lips as he leaped to one side, roused him with a sudden mental shock. The beast, whatever it was, had passed within six feet of him, and now, twice that distance away, stood like a statue hewn out of stone, leveling at him the fiery gleam of a solitary eye. Until he saw that one eye, and not two, David did not breathe. Then he gasped. The fish had fallen from his fingers. He stooped, picked it up, and called softly:

"Baree!"

The dog was waiting for his voice. His one eye shifted, slanting like a searchlight in the direction of the cabin, and turned swiftly back to David. He whined, and David spoke to him again, calling his name and holding out the fish. For several moments Baree did not move, but eyed him with the immobility of a half-blinded sphinx. Then, suddenly, he dropped on his belly and began crawling slowly toward David.

A spatter of moonlight fell upon them as David, crouching on his heels, gave Baree the fish, holding for a moment to the tail of it while the hungry beast seized its head between his powerful jaws with a grinding crunch. The power of those jaws sent a little shiver through the man so close to them. They were terrible—and splendid. A man's leg-bone would have cracked between them like a pipe-stem. And Baree, with that power of death in his jaws, had a second time crept to him on his belly—not fearingly in the shadow of a club, but like a thing tamed into slavery by a yearning adoration: It was a fact that seized upon David with a peculiar hold. It built up between them—between this down-and-out beast and a man fighting to find himself—a comaradeship which perhaps only the man and the beast could understand.

Even as he devoured the fish, Baree kept his one eye on David, as if fearing he might lose him again if he allowed his gaze to falter for an instant. The truculency and the menace of that eye were gone. It was still bloodshot, still burned with a reddish fire; and a great pity swept through David as he thought of the blows the club must have given.

He noticed, then, that Baree was making efforts to open the other eye. He saw the swollen lid flutter, the muscles twitch. Impulsively he put out a hand. It fell unflinchingly on Baree's head, and in an instant the crunching of the dog's jaws had ceased, and he lay as if dead. David bent nearer. With the thumb and forefinger of his other hand he gently lifted the swollen lid.

BAREE whined softly. His great body trembled. His ivory fangs clicked like the teeth of a man with the ague. To his wolfish soul, trembling in a body that had been condemned, beaten, clubbed almost to the door of death, that hurt caused by David's fingers was a caress. His instinct, in this miraculous moment, was greater than any reason: he understood.

His head dropped to the snow; a great gasping sigh ran through him, and his trembling ceased. His good eye closed slowly as David gently and persistently massaged the muscles of the other with his thumb and forefinger. When at last David rose to his feet and returned to the cabin, Baree followed him to the edge of the little clearing.

Mukoki and the missioner had made their beds of balsam boughs, two on the floor and one in the bunk, and the Cree had already rolled himself in his blanket when David entered the shack. Father Roland was wiping David's gun.

"We'll give you a little practice with this to-morrow," he promised. "Do you suppose you can hit a moose?"

"I have my doubts, mon père."

Father Roland gave vent to his curious chuckle.

"I have promised to make a marksman of you in exchange for your trouble in teaching me how to use the gloves," he said, polishing furiously.

There was a twinkle in his eyes, as if a moment before he had been laughing to himself. The gloves were on the table. He had been examining them again, and David found himself smiling at the childlike and eager interest he took in them.

SUDDENLY Father Roland rubbed still a little faster, and said:

"If you can't hit a moose with a bullet, you surely can hit me with these gloves—eh?"

"Yes, quite positively. But I shall be merciful if you, in turn, show some charity in teaching me how to shoot."

The little missioner finished his polishing, set the rifle against the wall, and took the gloves in his hands.

"It is bright—almost like day outside," he said a little yearningly. "Are you—tired? "

His hint was obvious, even to Mukoki, who stared at him from under his blanket. And David was not tired. If his afternoon's work had fatigued him, his exhaustion was forgotten in the mental excitement that had followed the missioner's story of Tavish. He took a pair of the gloves in his hands, and nodded toward the door.

Mukoki rolled from his blanket, a grin on his leathery face. He tied the wrist-laces for them, and followed them out into the moonlit night, a copper-colored gargoyle, illuminated by that fixed and joyous grin.

David saw the look in his face, and he wondered if it would change when he sent the little missioner bowling over in the snow, which he was quite sure to do, even if he was careful. He was a splendid boxer. In the days of his practice he had struck a terrific blow, for his weight. At

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the Athletic Club he had been noted for a subtle strategy and a cleverness of defense that were unusual for an amateur. He had invented half a dozen little tricks of his own. But he felt that he had grown rusty during the past year and a half.

This thought was in his mind when he tapped the missioner on the end of his ruddy nose. They had squared away in the moonlight, eight inches deep in the snow, and there was a joyous and eager light in Father Roland's eyes. The tap on his nose did not dim it. His teeth gleamed, even as David's gloves went plunk, plunk against his nose again. Mukoki, still grinning like a carved thing, chuckled audibly. David pranced carelessly about the little missioner, poking him beautifully as he offered suggestions and criticism.

"You should protect your nose, mon père"—plunk! "And the pit of your stomach"—plunk! "And also your ears"—plunk, plunk! "But especially your nose, mon père"—plunk, plunk, plunk!

"And sometimes the tip of your jaw, David," gurgled Father Roland—and for a few moments night closed in darkly about David.

When he came fully to his senses again, he was sitting in the snow, with the little missioner bending over him anxiously, and Mukoki grinning down at him like a fiend.

"Dear heaven, forgive me!" he heard Father Roland saying. "I didn't mean it so hard, David—I didn't! But oh, man, it was such a chance—such a beautiful chance! And now I've spoiled it. I've spoiled our fun."

"Not unless you're—tired," said David, getting up on his feet. "You took me at a disadvantage, mon père. I thought you were green."

"And you were pulverizing my nose," apologized Father Roland.

WHEN they went at it again, David spared none of his caution and offered no advice, and the missioner no longer posed, but became suddenly as elusive and as agile as a cat. David was amazed, but he wasted no breath to demand an explanation. Father Roland was parrying his straight blows like an adept. Three times in as many minutes he felt the sting of the missioner's glove in his face. In straight-away boxing he was soon convinced that the forest man was almost his match.

Little by little he began to exert the cleverness of his training. At the end of ten minutes Father Roland was sitting in the snow, and the grin had gone from Mukoki's face. He had succumbed to a trick—a swift side-step, a feint that had held in it an ambush, and the seat of the little missioner's reasoning faculties had rocked. But he was gurgling joyously when he rose to his feet, and with one arm he hugged David as they returned to the cabin.

"Only one other man has given me a jolt like that in many a year," he boasted, a bit proudly. "And that was Tavish. He must have lived long among fighting men. Perhaps that is why I think so kindly of him. I love a fighting man, if he fights honorably either with brain or brawn, even more than I despise a coward."

"And yet, this Tavish, you say, is pursued by a great fear. Can he be so much of a fighting man, in the way you mean, and still live in terror of—"

"What?"

That single word broke in from the missioner like the charp crack of a whip between them.

"Of what is he afraid?" he repeated. "Can you tell me? Can you guess more than I have guessed? Is one a coward because he fears whispers that tremble in the air and sees a face in the darkness of night that is neither living nor dead? Is he?"

For a long time after he had gone to bed, David lay wide awake in the darkness. He could hear the steady breathing of Father Roland and Mukoki. His own eyes he could close only in forced efforts to bring upon himself the unconsciousness of rest. Tavish filled his mind, Tavish and the girl—and along with them the mysterious woman in the coach. He fell asleep at last, and his slumber was filled with fleeting visions. When he awoke the cabin was filled with the glow of the lantern. Father Roland and Mukoki were up, and a fire was crackling in the stove.

THE four days that followed broke the last link in the chain that held David Raine to the life from which he was fleeing when the forest missioner met him on the Transcontinental. They were four wonderful days in which they traveled steadily northward: days of splendid sunshine, of intense cold, of brilliant stars and a full moon at night.

The first of these four days David traveled fifteen miles on his showshoes, and that night he slept in a balsam shelter

close to the face of a great rock which they heated with a fire of logs, so that all through the cold hours between darkness and gray dawn the boulder was like a huge warming-stone.

The second day marked also the second great stride in his education in the life of the wild. Fang and hoof and padded claw were at large again in the forests after the blizzard, and Father Roland stopped at each broken path that crossed their trail, pointing out to him the stories that were written in the snow. He showed him where a fox had followed silently after a snowshoe rabbit; where a band of wolves had plowed through the snow on the trail of a deer that was doomed; and in a dense run of timber where both moose and caribou had sought refuge from the storm he explained carefully the slight difference between the hoof-prints of the two.

That night Baree came into camp while they were sleeping, and in the morning they found where he had burrowed his round bed in the snow not a dozen yards from their shelter.

The third morning David shot his moose. And that night he lured Baree almost to the side of their camp-fire, and tossed him chunks of raw flesh.

DAVID was changed. Three days on the trail and three nights in camp under the stars had begun their promised miracle- working. His face was darkened by a stubble of beard; his ears and cheekbones were reddened by exposure to cold and wind; he felt that in those three days and nights his muscles had hardened and his weakness had left him. "It was in your mind—your sickness," Father Roland had told him, and he believed it now. He began to find a pleasure in that physical achievement which he had wondered at in Mukoki and the missioner.

Each noon, when they stopped to boil their tea and cook their dinner, and each night when they made camp, he had chopped down a tree. To-night it had been an eight-inch jack-pine, tough with pitch. The exertion had sent the blood pounding through him furiously. He was still breathing deeply as he sat near the fire, tossing bits of meat out to Baree. They were sixty miles from Thoreau's cabin, straight north, and for the twentieth time Father Roland was telling him how well he had done.

"And to-morrow," he added, "we will reach Tavish's."

IT had grown upon David that to see Tavish had become his one great mission in the north. What adventure lay beyond that meeting he did not surmise. All his thoughts had centered in the single desire to let Tavish look upon the picture. To-night, after the missioner had joined Mukoki in the silk tent buried warmly under a mass of cut balsam, he sat a little longer beside the fire and asked himself questions he had not thought of before.

He would see Tavish. He would show him the picture. And—what then? Would that be the end of it? He felt, for a moment, uncomfortable. Beyond Tavish there was a disturbing and unanswerable problem. The girl, if she still lived, was a thousand miles from where he was sitting at this moment: to reach her, with that distance of mountain and forest between them, would be like traveling to the end of the world. It was the first time there had risen in his mind a definite thought of going to her—if she were alive. It startled him. It was like a shock. Go to her? Why? He drew forth the picture from his coat pocket and stared at the wonder-face of the girl in the light of the blazing logs. Why? His heart trembled.

"She knows. She understands. She comforts me." He whispered the words. They were like a breath rising out of his soul. He replaced the picture in his pocket, and for a moment held it close against his breast.

NEXT day, as the swift-thickening gloom of northern night was descending about them again, the missioner halted his team on the crest of a boulder-strewn ridge, and, pointing down into the murky plain at their feet, he said, with the satisfaction of one who has come to a journey's end:

"There is Tavish's."

They went down into the plain. David strained his eyes, but he could see nothing where Father Roland had pointed except the purplish sea of forest growing black in the fading twilight. Ahead of the team Mukoki picked his way slowly and cautiously among the snow-hidden rocks; and, with the missioner, David flung his weight backward on the sledge to keep it from running upon the dogs. It was a thick, wild place, and it struck him that Tavish could not have chosen a spot of more sinister aspect in which to hide himself and his secret, even on nights when the stars were out and the moon shone. It must be oppressive even then. A terribly lonely place, and still as death as they went down into it. They heard not even the howl of a dog, and surely Tavish had dogs.

David was on the point of speaking—of asking the missioner why Tavish, haunted by fear, should bury himself in a place like this—when the lead-dog suddenly stopped, and a low, lingering whine drifted back to them. David had never heard anything like that whine. It swept through the line of dogs, from throat to throat, and the beasts stood stiff-legged and stark in their traces, staring with eight pairs of restlessly blazing eyes into the wall of darkness ahead. The Cree had turned, but the sharp command on his lips had frozen there. David saw him standing ahead of the team, as silent and as motionless as rock. From him he looked into the missioner's face. Father Roland was staring. There was a strange suspense in his breathing. And then, suddenly, the lead-dog sat back on his haunches and, turning his gray muzzle up to the sky, emitted a long and mournful howl. There was something about it that made David shiver. Mukoki came staggering back through the snow like a sick man.

"Nipoo-win ooyoo!" he said, his eyes shining like points of flame. A shiver seemed to be running through him.

For a moment the missioner did not seem to hear him. Then he cried:

"Give them the whip! Drive them on!"

The Cree turned, unwinding his long lash.

"What did he say?" asked David.

In the gloom the missioner made a gesture of protest with his two hands. David could no longer see his face.

"He is superstitious," he growled. "He says that old Beaver has given the death howl. Bah!"

They went on for another hundred yards. With a low word Mukoki stopped the team. The dogs were whining softly,

Continued on page 17

Roughneck Percy

By A. de Ford Pitney

Illustrations by Lucile Patterson

WHEN Mr. Chaunt was assigned a part in the Elks' minstrel show, he naturally determined immediately that he would do something refined. The invitation was a compliment. Mr. Chaunt accepted the implied responsibility, and determined to give them something high class—something really refined and uplifting.

His first thought was to recite "The Psalm of Life" for an encore and to make his main effort a slightly more dramatic poem.

Mr. Chaunt was invited to cast a blight over the Elks' show because it would boost along the project for a new clubhouse to have some one from the Commercial Trust Company on the program.

"It's only for a few minutes, fellows," said the head of the amusement committee. "We can stand him a few minutes. All the rest of the show will be good."

Mr. Chaunt went over his list of standard poems, and finally took the bold step of branching out with a new one. He made up his mind to spring "Herve Riel," by the well known English poet, Robert Browning. It was dramatic, and at the same time a piece of verse that no gentleman need blush to repeat in the presence of ladies. So he went down on the program as "HARVEY RILEY—recitation, by Percy Chaunt." The printer knew how to spell, if Perce Chaunt didn't. Proof was not submitted to Mr. Chaunt. Of course, he was eager to see a copy of the program with his name in print, and he made a fuss when he saw the spelling.

"Aw, what's the dif, Perce?" asked the amusement committee impatiently. "Who gives a whoop? The crowd will think it's spelled all right. What's the dif? Just stand for it. Nobody will notice it."

PERCE stood for the spelling because there was nothing else to do: the programs were all printed. A thing that hurt him in a different way and in a deeper place, and that shook him all the way to his foundation, was a comment he heard from Vinella Ecker. Vinella was an instructor in the Normal School, very pretty, and that intellectuality which gave pause to the joviality of the town boys was the cap-sheaf of her charms for Percy. Concerning Vinella Perce said:

"I certainly shall not do anything to risk lowering myself in Vinella's opinion. It has taken me four years to get to where I stand with Vinella Ecker."

The comment Percy heard from Vinella's own lips was dropped at the Elks' rooms on ladies' afternoon. Vinella and a girl friend were sitting in one side of a big double settee with a high back.

"Mr. Chaunt is going to recite a poem at the show," said the girl friend.

"My goodness, I couldn't imagine any-thing more dismally out of place," said Vinella. "Why doesn't he do something original? I would, if it killed me, on an occasion like that."

Vinella and her friend moved away. Percy Chaunt lifted a tragic face for one instant above the high back of the settee. He drank a glass of full strength, clear, strong lemonade a few minutes later, and left the rooms.

"It has taken me four years to get to where I stand with Vinella Ecker," murmured Percy as he reeled toward home. "What can I do at the show that won't risk my place in her thoughts?"

Rehearsals of the individual acts in the olio of the minstrel show were carried on in strictest privacy. The performers were keeping their stuff under cover. Mr. Chaunt in vain tried to get a line on the sort of entertainment the other people on the program expected to hand out. He tried to think up something original. He read several of Shakespeare's plays, trying to find some idea to utilize,

but none of it seemed to fit his needs. He even speculated on an acrobatic turn. He racked his brains.

PERCY lived in as good a residence as there was on Pine Street, and his two elderly maiden sisters kept house for him. His sisters saw him evenings, seated under the reading-lamp, his pale, gentlemanly features lined with care as he scowled at nothing and muttered to himself.

"What is it, brother?"

"I am thinking about my act at the show. It is to be original."

"Brother is composing an original piece," whispered Miss Capitola to Miss Evaleen.

"I understand you are getting up something original for the minstrels," said Miss Vinella, the next time she saw Percy. "I'm so glad. Capitola said you were working hard at it."

Inwardly Percy performed whatever may be the gentlemanly equivalent of cursing his sister's loquaciousness.

"Yes," he said. "I have decided not to recite a poem. That was my first thought," he added bitterly. "But refinement seems to be not what is wanted. My piece will be of an intellectual nature, naturally," he concluded hastily.

It was not his cue to be bitter with Vinella. He spoke in his usual semi-courting manner. The ordinary rough character—in love, as Percy was, with Vinella—would immediately have pushed further into the sacred realm of the affections, if Vinella had stood for the semi-courting manner, as she did. But it had taken Percy four years to get to where he stood with Vinella, and his feet got cold at the mere thought of taking any chances.

"I don't suppose I dare to ask you what the act is to be?" hinted Vinella.

"I'd be pleased to explain it to you, but—in fact, it's so—so strikingly unlike—I mean different—I mean to say it is such a radical departure, that I—I hesitate—I mean to say I should merely spoil it for you by trying to describe it," floundered Percy.

In truth, Percy had not thought of anything. The show was only four days distant, and Percy's mind still was virgin of dramatic ideas.

THE idea came to Percy in the middle of the night. He sat straight up in bed when he got the thought. In the morning he was on the eight o'clock train on the way to the city. As soon as the train arrived in the terminus, he went to a telephone booth and consulted the business directory. "Meyer & Rubens, Vaudeville Agency," struck him as about as likely a name as any; he hurried to their offices.

Meyer & Rubens were on the third floor of a building that had a theater at the street level, quite sumptuous with marble tiles in the foyer, brass grill for the ticket-office, and a display of big photographs on easels. The hall that gave entrance to the office floors was wooden and shabby, and smelt. The second floor was shabbier than the first, and the third almost dilapidated.

LOUD voices and laughter came from the offices of Meyer & Rubens. The outer room of the agency was so small that the half dozen men lounging in it with their hats on were jammed shoulder to shoulder. A stout man with curly black hair and a green plush hat looked around at Percy. "Want to see somebody?"

"I'd like to talk to one of the firm," said Percy.

"I'm Mr. Meyer," said the other in a deep, oily voice. "What can I do?"

"I want to engage an actor." Percy was somewhat diffident.

"You'd better come into my office."

The inner office was an apartment about as big as the ice-box in a six-room flat. Two men were in it, playing cards.

"Will you gentlemen excuse us?" asked Mr. Meyer.

The two gentlemen evaporated, and Mr. Meyer inserted himself behind a sick-looking roll-top desk. Percy sat down on a kitchen chair.

"What kind of an actor do you want?" asked Mr. Meyer.

"I want a man that can play a clever little piece all by himself. He's got to look like me enough to pass for me when he's made up for the stage."

"What kind of a show is it?"

"It's to be at an Elks' minstrel show. I want him to take my place. Of course, it is a secret."

Mr. Meyer broke into a smile.

"Do you know," he said, "as you come in I says to myself, 'There's a dead ringer for Al Katz.' Honest, I tell you without the slightest exaggeration, I thought for a minute you was Al. Does the actor you want have to furnish his own script, or have you got something written for him?"

"No; I haven't got anything ready. The fact is," Percy stammered, "I—I—promised to do something, and it is inconvenient—I can't spare the time to work it up—I mean I want to get somebody to appear for me, but I want my friends to think I am doing it myself. Understand?"

"Sure, I get you. Now, Al Katz could do you a monologue, humorous, and tell a few jokes, and sing a couple of songs. He ain't got no regular voice, you understand; he just talks 'em, if the orchester will play him a little stop. He will do an eccentric dance for a wind-up. Believe me, mister, Al is a good lad. His work is high-class. You won't make no mistake if you engage Al."

"Does he look like me?"

"Mister, I told you he might be your twin brother. The same eyes, hair, everything."

"Where can I see him?"

"Let me see. The team's in Apollo two days, and then Al has three days open. Could you go to Apollo if I was to make a date for you by wire?"

Percy took the first train to Apollo—about two hours' run from his home town. He had hard work finding anybody at the theater at that hour of the day, but he had no trouble in picking out the billing of his man. The team name was "Katz and Carey, the Bughouse Bums." Percy shuddered. Only the fact that there remained but three days before the Elks' show prevented him from going home.

AL KATZ did have a vague, general resemblance to Perce. If the police had been looking for Perce on a murder charge, they probably would have picked up Al on description. They were the same height. Both had gray eyes and medium shoulders, straight noses and brown hair. There was something like Perce in Al's expression, but that was hard to define. It must have been rather strong to make itself noticed at all, the two men were so different in dress and bearing. Perce wore a gray mixed business suit, blue kersey overcoat, a black derby hat, and rubbers. Al wore a mustard-colored check suit, a spotted fawn Newmarket overcoat with near-white velvet collar and cuffs, yellow shoes with white tops, a black-and-white check golf cap, and had been drinking.

Al willingly gave ear to Perce's proposition.

"It's a pipe, kid," he said. The interview took place at one end of a frowsy bar-room, to which Perce had been directed from Al's boarding-house. "We can slip that acrost all right. I'll sneak into your house to-morrow night late, and you can keep me under cover until the show. You don't need to be afraid the folks in your town will ever see me there with my act, because the time I play in don't book that town. What'll you have? Mike, give my friend a beer."

"No, thanks," said Perce nervously. "What is your act like, Mr. Katz?"

"Kid, if I do say it myself, it's a knockout. It knocks 'em stiff. It's the best stuff I ever had. All clean comedy and new gags. There ain't a canned wheeze in the whole mess. I write my own stuff. It's high-class."

"That's what I wanted to know. Is it refined?"

"Refined? Say, guy, if you know a refined act when you see one, why, you oughta see mine; that's all. It's the highest class, strictly refined comedy that ever was pulled on this circuit. Say, Mike, ain't that act of mine refined?"

"You bet. That's high-grade stuff and no mistake, Al."

"There you are. What'll you have? Give us two beers, Mike."

"No, thanks. You're sure it's quiet and gentlemanly? That's all I want to be certain of."

"Do I look like the kind of a rummy that would have a low act? This act is the swellest and highest class and most refined you ever lamped, guy. Have a drink. Two beers, Mike."

"No, thanks. I wish I could see it."

"Stop until tonight and have an ear-full. You'll fall for it, guy."

"I can't, very well. But I tell you

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what I'll do. I'll try to run over this evening."

"That's the eye. Have a beer. Two, Mike."

"No, thanks. I must go. Here are ten dollars in advance, and you may consider the engagement made, Mr. Katz."

PERCY couldn't go over to see Al in the evening, because Vinella came to call on the Chaunt sisters and Perce stayed home. It had taken him four years to get to where he stood with Vinella, and he had done most of it by being one of a party in which she was included. But he went over to Apollo late the next afternoon in his automobile. He drove the car himself. It was his intention to see Katz and Carey work, and after the show to bring Al secretly to the Chaunt home, and keep him there until just in time to make up for the Elks' show.

All the way over to Apollo, Percy clung to Katz's assurance in the bar-room that his act was refined. Mike's corroboration also came to mind. And yet, Percy felt troubled. He put the car in a garage and went for a bite of dinner before the cheap vaudeville show in which Katz and Carey were a feature.

The act was ten times worse, a hundred times worse, than Percy's worst fears. It was as bad as it possibly could be. Percy turned pale and cold at the thought of being represented in that guise before his towns-people—before Vinella. A swell, refined, high-class act! Percy saw himself driven out of decent society, an outcast, if he should he insane enough to let Katz appear in the show.

"It can't be," groaned Percy. "I'll have to break a leg. I'll take some poison that will almost kill me, so there will be no doubt about my being really sick. Oh, dear—oh, dear!"

Percy weakly walked to the garage and got his car. Al came along in a few minutes, carrying a paper suitcase that was held together by one hinge and a piece of cord.

"I guess that's a hot sketch, hey, kid?" he said. "Let's beer up before we start. Run her to Mike's place."

"No, thanks," said Percy. "Man alive, haven't you got any other piece besides that one you played to-night?"

"Shucks, this is twice as good as it was last year," protested Al. "Last year I had the guy with the hives. This year he tells how he slept in a dog's kennel and got full of fleas. Didncha hear me lines? Ain't that swell comedy where he gets down on his hands and knees and tries to scratch his back against the corner of the table, and knocks it over and breaks all the dishes? That's big-time stuff, kid."

"Oh, dear, what shall I do?" Percy took a hand from the steering-wheel to mop his forehead. "Man, those things you say about married people are awful—awful!" Percy thought of their effect on Vinella—coming from him after he had spent four years working up a standing with her. "The people will be simply shocked."

"Aw, bunk!" sneered Al. "Let'm be shocked; it'll do 'em good."

MISS CAPITOLA and Miss Evaleen had been a little disappointed when brother told them, before starting for Apollo, how his act was going to be put on. But that was a house where anything that brother did was right, and "the girls" soon thought it was very interesting. It was after one 'o'clock when Percy drove into the yard, but the girls were up and watching for him. Al was something of a surprise to them. Miss Evaleen asked him if he wouldn't like a little stimulant after his cold ride. Al immediately said yes, he would, ma'am, and Miss Evaleen brought him a glass of hot milk. Miss Capitola and Miss Evaleen looked at each other with round eyes in their bedroom after all had retired for the night. Whispers:

He seemed like a very coarse young man, sister."

"Did you notice the odor?"

"He had been tasting liquor."

"I am sure of it."

"And cigarettes."

"Brother told us that he was a talented young actor with a Shakespearian repertoire."

Brother had said this in order to prepare the sisters with a favorable advance opinion of Al; but it was not true, and Percy knew that it was not true. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we study to deceive. And yet, even while the sisters looked at each other round-eyed and exchanged horror-struck whispers about Al Katz,—who was then smoking in bed,—they knew in their hearts that there was something strangely attractive about that human atrocity.

Percy got up in the morning, having taken a resolution in the still hours of the night. The only reason he didn't pay Al after breakfast and chuck up the whole business was that Al was sound asleep and never came down. The kindly sisters had let him sleep. Percy carried a pallid face to the trust company office. He intended to get rid of Al at lunch-time.

IT happened that the Elks' amusement committee had formed a plan to facilitate Perce's withdrawal. The idea of having Perce stand up there and hurl a chill into the whole affair was too much for them. Two of the committee dropped into the Commercial Trust Company's office about eleven o'clock.

"Say, Perce," began the spokesman, a bit awkwardly, "we've got an awful long program, you know."

"Yes?"

"It's so long, we thought maybe—there are so many numbers in the thing, you know, especially in the olio—"

"Yes?"

"Well, we thought maybe—your turn is nothing but reciting a poem, you know," continued the spokesman in a rush—"we thought maybe-it-wouldn't make-much difference-to-you if-you-dropped-out."

"Huh. Why don't you drop out

yourself?" snapped Percy briskly. "If you think the show's too long, why don't you cut out your own act? What do you mean by asking me to take part, and then coming and asking me to drop out?"

"Well, Perce, don't drop out, then. Don't get mad. Just don't drop out; that's all."

"You bet I won't!"

Percy walked up and down his private office with his hands clinched behind his back. It was one thing for him to make up his mind to stay out, but quite another for these fellows to band together to kick him out. Percy went out and bought an extra large assortment of crockery, plates and pitchers, for the act—twice as many as Al used regularly. Probably to-morrow he wouldn't have a respectable friend left, but, by ginger, if they tried to kick him off the program he'd simply break up their confounded show, that's all.

Percy was so hot with indignation that it was not until quite a while later the thought came to him that Vinella Ecker would be among the friends he would lose forever. It had taken him four years to get to where he stood with Vinella, and now he was about to throw it away in one night. Percy walked and walked his floor.

Percy did not go home to lunch. He was afraid that if he saw Al and heard him talk he would not have the courage to send him out before the public. Late in the afternoon Percy wrote a note to Vinella. In all the four years he had been working up his standing with her, it was the first occasion he had had to write to her. He tore up sheet after sheet, and finally sent a scrawl that seemed to him next door to being meaningless.

THERE was no trouble at all about introducing Al into the theater unnoticed. Everybody was busy and all the performers were frightened. Those who could find time were in the wings, listening to the personal jabs in the minstrel colloquies. Among these was Vinella. She had a small extra part in the olio. There was a lot of laughing and much good-natured applause after the solos and quartette selections.

Percy arrived late. He told the stage-manager to have his table full of dishes set right center out before the front drop when his time came, and to call him from his dressing-room. Percy was chill, brief, and gloomy; but so was every other performer. Vinella was looking at Percy from the wings, but Percy fled. He could not face her. This is the note that Percy wrote to Vinella.

Dearest [so Percy wrote in the madness of despair] It has taken me four years—but never mind that now—it will be all over tonight—I am going to disgrace myself—you will see—it is the most hideous, outrageous—I shall be hooted out of town—after the horrible affair is over no one will speak to me. Try to understand and be lenient. Don't look at it. Don't listen to it.

"Don't look at it. Don't listen to it." There wasn't much chance Vinella wouldn't watch that act and see what on earth it was that Percy was making all this fuss about.

In his dressing-room Percy found Al all made up. He looked so much worse close at hand than he did seen from in front that Percy almost called the thing off at the last moment. But the voice of one of the committee outside opportunely braced his resolution.

"The next thing is the Percy junk," said the committee person, unaware how well his voice carried over the partition.

"Gee, I hope it's short," said another.

Percy gritted his teeth.

"Give them the hottest line of stuff you've got," he snarled at Al. "If you can think of anything rottener than the stuff you speak regularly, let them have it."

"Leave it to me, kid," said Al.

Just then the call-boy knocked.

"Come on, Perce. You're next."

Percy hid behind the door and latched it after Al. Immediate cries of pleasure and astonishment greeted Al's appearance:

"Look at Perce's make-up!"

"Wow! that's swell."

The genuine Percy stood alone in the dressing-room, his fists clinched and his jaw set. His social life in the town and the respect of his friends were dear to him. It was all the life he had. He cursed the day he had consented to take part in the show. Farewell to his carefully nourished reputation. Farewell to Vinella. He listened with all his soul in his ears.

A GREAT yell shattered the stillness of expectancy. From the audience on the other side of the footlights came a huge, spontaneous outbreak like nothing that had been heard before that night. The yell was followed by a deep silence.

"They've ordered him off the stage. It's over," said Percy behind his teeth.

Suddenly burst another yell. Al was handing out his line of jokes.

"They'll stand about three of those," Percy muttered.

There was a third yell, preceded by a scattering volley of single shouts:

"O you Perce!"

"Go to it, Perce! Whay-y-y! Wow!"

"Oh-h, Percy! Ain't you the awful thing!"

Percy crept to the door and pressed his ear against a crack. Could it be? Could it be possible they were applaud ing that villainous, blackguardly, unspeakable monologue? They were! In a moment the orchestra struck up an accompaniment, and Al began to sing, in a croaking, dry, tuneless clatter, a topical song into which the capable devil had worked a few local allusions taken from the town paper. The applause was terrific. The climax of delirium was reached, however, in the reception the house gave the itching tramp stunt.

Percy was stupefied with amazement. He sat on an old couch in the dressing-room and listened like a visitor from another world. For the first time, he felt, he was being made acquainted with the true souls of his fellow citizens.

"And I intended to recite them 'The Psalm of Life,'" he murmured. "Never again as long as I live will I waste any refinement on the public."

The crash of the table crockery, with the upset of which the scene ended, apparently brought on an earthquake. From the hysterical silences and hysterical renewals of the outbreaks, it seemed that Al was taking a few bows. Performers who had been listening in the wings, and who were weak from laughing, passed outside the dressing-room partition.

"Oh, gee! That was the greatest stuff I ever saw at one of these shows."

"My soul and body, who would ever have thought he had it in him?"

"I've got respect for him I never had before." A girl's voice, shaky from excitement, made itself heard. Percy

---

hardly could recognize Vinella's accents. "Has he come up yet?"

"He'll be up in a second, Miss Ecker. Would you like to step in the dressing-room out of the way? I've got the master key." Vinella giggled a protest; but the lock turned, and Percy got under the couch just in time. Vinella's pumps were within six inches of his nose as she stood waiting for the spurious Percy. The triumphal approach of the spurious Percy was heard. Al threw open the door and stepped into the dressing-room.

"Oh, Percy!" cried Vinella. "It was simply awful, but it was the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. Oh, just imagine you doing anything like that! I'm so p-r-o-u-d of you, Percy!"

AL KATZ did not make an eloquent, proper, becoming speech in response. He took Vinella in his arms and gave her a large, swell kiss, and she kissed him back.

Percy's head came out from under the couch and he saw the proceeding. It had taken him four years to get to where he stood with Vinella, he thought. Four years and fifteen seconds. Four years of gentlemanly approach by him, Percy—and fifteen seconds' rough work by an expert.

"I must go. I mustn't stay here," whispered Vinella. "I'll wait for you behind the scenes. Hurry, dear."

Percy writhed from under the couch.

"Who the devil told you to kiss my girl?" demanded Perce, advancing on Al, who backed away. "You get that stuff off and get out of here as quick as greased lightning," continued Percy. "Here are fifty dollars for that costume. I need it for evidence. You climb out of this window to the fire-escape and beat it. Fly!"

Al established a new record in getting out of his make-up, and faded from the scene.

Percy gummed a little of Al's grease-paint in his own-eyebrows, and left the tramp outfit carelessly scattered around the room. Then he issued forth. Everybody in the corridor began to clap as soon as he showed himself.

"Here comes Percy, the tough guy. Percy, where did you learn all that rough talk?"

"I couldn't stand the strain of being refined all the time," declared Percy. "I'm a rough-stuff guy by nature. Where's Vi? Say, fellows, Vi and I are going to walk down the center aisle. Ain't that so, Vi?"

"Percy, you certainly are a case," snickered Vi, slipping her arm through his. "I didn't know you could act so."

"In this world you've got to be all things to all men," remarked Percy thoughtfully. "And most guys are more or less roughnecks. I've found that out."

The Girl Beyond the Trail

Continued from page 14

staring straight ahead, when David and the missioner joined the Cree.

Father Roland pointed to a dark blot in the night fifty paces beyond them. He spoke to David:

"There is Tavish's cabin. Come; we will see."

MUKOKI remained with the team. They could hear the dogs whining as they advanced. The cabin took shape in their faces, grotesque, dark, lifeless. It was a foreboding thing, that cabin. David remembered in a flash all that the missioner had told him about Tavish. Father Roland's voice startled him.

"Tavish! Tavish!" it called.

They stood close to the door, and heard no answer. Father Roland stamped with his foot, and scraped with his toe on the ground.

"See, the snow has been cleaned away recently," he said. "Mukoki is a fool. He made me, for an instant—afraid."

There was a vast relief in his voice. The cabin door was unbolted, and he flung it open confidently. It was pitch dark inside, but a flood of warm air struck their faces. The missioner laughed.

"Tavish, are you asleep?" he called.

There was no answer. Father Roland entered.

"He has been here recently. There is a fire in the stove. We will make ourselves at home."

He fumbled in his clothes and found a match. A moment later he struck it and lighted a tin lamp that hung from the ceiling.

"Strange, very strange," he was saying, as if to himself. And then: "Preposterous! I will go back and tell Mukoki. He is shivering; he is afraid. He believes that Tavish is in league with the devil. He says that the dogs know, and that they have warned him.

He went out. David stood where he was, looking about him in the blurred light of the lamp over his head. He almost expected Tavish to creep out from some dark corner; he half expected to see him move from under the disheveled blankets in the bunk at the far end of the room.

It was a big room, twenty feet from end to end, and almost as wide; and after a moment or two he knew that he was the only living thing in it—except a small gray mouse that came fearlessly quite close to his feet. And then he saw a second mouse, and a third, and heard a scurrying of many tiny feet.

When Father Roland came again into the cabin, he pointed to the floor.

"The place is alive with them!" he protested.

"Tavish's pets," chuckled the missioner. "He says they're company. Queer—queer."

Suddenly he lifted a lid from the stove.

"He put fuel in here less than an hour ago," he said. "Wonder where he can be mooshing at this time of day. The dogs are gone." He scanned the table. "No supper. Pans clean. He'll be back soon. But we won't wait; I'm famished."

He spoke swiftly, and filled the stove with wood. Mukoki began bringing in the dunnage. The uneasy gleam was still in his eyes. His gaze was shifting. David saw that he was afraid of the mice. One of them ran up his sleeve as they were eating supper, and he flung it from him with a strange, quick breath, his eyes blazing.

"Muche munito!" he shuddered.

He swallowed the rest of his meat hurriedly, and after that took his blankets and, with a few words in Cree to the missioner, left the cabin.

"He says they are little devils—the mice," said Father Roland, looking after him reflectively. "He will sleep near the dogs. I wonder how far his intuition goes? He believes that Tavish harbors bad spirits in this cabin, and that they have taken the form of mice. Pooh! They're cunning little vermin. Tavish has taught them tricks. Watch this one feed out of my hand!"

When the missioner had finished his last cup of coffee he crumbled a thick chunk of bannock and placed it on the floor back of the stove. The mice gathered round it in a silent, hungry, nibbling horde. David tried to count them. There must have been twenty.

The creatures became quieter after their gorge on bannock crumbs. Most of them disappeared.

FOR a long time David and the missioner sat smoking their pipes, waiting for Tavish. Father Roland was puzzled, and yet he was assured. He was puzzled because Tavish's showshoes hung on their wooden peg in one of the cross-logs and his rifle was in its rack over the bunk.

"I didn't know he had another pair of snowshoes," he said. "Still, it is quite a time since I have seen him—a number of weeks. I came down in the early

---

November snow. He is not far away or he would have taken his rifle. Probably setting a few fresh poison-baits after the storm."

They heard the sweep of a low wind. Something thumped gently against the outside of the cabin—a low, peculiarly heavy and soft sound, like a padded object.

"Tavish hangs his meat out there," the missioner explained, observing the sudden direction of David's eyes. "A haunch of moose, or, if he has been lucky, of caribou. I had forgotten Tavish's cache or we might have saved our meat."

He ran a hand through his thick grayish hair until it stood up about his head like a brush.

DAVID tried not to reveal his restlessness as they waited. At each new sound he hoped that what he had heard was Tavish's footsteps. He noticed that the chimney of the lamp was sooty and discolored, and, somewhat to the missioner's amusement, he took it off and cleaned it. The light was much more satisfactory then.

He wandered about the cabin, scrutinizing, as if out of curiosity, Tavish's belongings. There was not much to discover.

Close to the bunk there was a small, battered chest with riveted steel ribs. He wondered if it was unlocked, and what it contained. As he stood over it he could hear plainly the thud, thud, thud of the thing outside—the haunch of meat—as if some one were tapping fragments of the Morse code in a careless and broken sort of way.

Father Roland was also listening to the slow, pendulum-like thud, thud, thud against the logs of the cabin.

"Tavish has hung his meat low," he said concernedly. "Quite careless of him, unless it is a very large quarter."

He began slowly to undress.

"We might as well turn in," he suggested. "When Tavish shows up the dogs will raise bedlam and wake us. Throw out Tavish's blankets and put your own in his bunk. I prefer the floor. Always did. Nothing like a good, smooth floor—"

He was interrupted by the opening of the cabin door. The Cree thrust in his head and shoulders—he came no farther. His eyes were afire with the smoldering gleam of garnets. He spoke rapidly in his native tongue to the missioner, gesturing with one lean, brown hand as he talked.

Father Roland's face became heavy, furrowed, perplexed. He broke in suddenly in Cree, and when he ceased speaking Mukoki withdrew slowly. The last David saw of the Indian was his shifting, garnet-like eyes, disappearing like beads of blackish flame.

"Pest!" cried the little missioner, shrugging his shoulders in disgust. "The dogs are uneasy. Mukoki says they smell death. They sit on their haunches, he says, staring—staring at nothing, and whining like puppies. He is going back with them to the other side of the ridge. If it will ease his soul, let him go!"

"I have heard of dogs doing that," said David.

"Of course they will do it," shot back Father Roland unhesitatingly. "Northern dogs always do it, and especially mine. They are accustomed to death. Twenty times in a winter, and sometimes more, I care for the dead. They always go with me, and they can smell death in the wind. But here—why, it is absurd!"

He shook himself, grumbling under his breath at Mukoki's folly. And then:

"The dogs have always acted queer when Tavish was near," he added in a lower voice. "I can't explain why; they simply do. Instinct, possibly. His presence makes them uneasy. An unusual man, this Tavish. I wish he would come. I am anxious for you to meet him."

That his mind was quite easy on the score of Tavish's physical well-being he emphasized by falling asleep very shortly after rolling himself up in his blankets on the floor. During their three nights in camp David had marveled at and envied the ease with which Father Roland could drop off into profound and satisfactory slumber, this being, as his new friend had explained to him, the great and underlying virtue of a good stomach. To-night, however, the missioner's deep and regular breathing as he lay on the floor was a matter of vexation to him. He wanted him awake. He wanted him up and alive, thoroughly alive, when Tavish came.

Afterward he was to learn that sleep in the northland was not always a necessity of tired limbs and exhausted body. A gift of the gods, he came in time to call it. To-night he was nervously alert, especially when he no longer had Father Roland's company. He filled his pipe for the third or fourth time, and sat down on the edge of the bunk, listening for Tavish.

He was certain, from all that had been said, that Tavish would come. All he had to do was wait. There had been growing in him, a bit unconsciously at first, a feeling of animosity toward Tavish, an emotion that burned in him with a gathering fierceness as he sat alone in the dim light of the cabin, grinding out in his mental restlessness visions of what Tavish might have done.

His eyes blazed and his hands were clenched as he looked down at Father Roland. After a moment, without taking his eyes from the missioner's inanimate form, he reached to the pocket of his coat, which he had flung on the bunk, and drew out the picture of the girl. He looked at her a long time, his heart growing warm.

"It can't be," he whispered. "She is alive!"

AS if the wind had heard him and was answering, there came more distinctly the sound close behind him:

Thud—thud—thud!

There was a silence, in which David closed his fingers tightly about the picture. And then, more insistently:

Thud! Thud! Thud!

He put the picture back into his pocket, and rose to his feet. Mechanically he slipped on the coat. He went to the door, opened it softly, and passed out into the night. The moon was above him, like a great white disk. The sky burned with stars. He could see now to the foot of the ridge over which Mukoki had gone, and the clearing about the cabin lay in a cold and luminous glory. Tavish, if he had been caught in the twilight darkness and had waited for the moon to rise, would surely be showing up soon.

He walked to the side of the cabin and looked back. Quite distinctly he could see Tavish's meat, suspended from a stout sapling that projected straight out from under the edge of the roof. It hung there darkly, a little in shadow, swinging gently in the wind that had risen, and tap-tap-tapping against the logs.

David moved toward it, gazing at the edge of the forest, in which he thought he had heard a sound that was like the creak of a sledge-runner. He hoped it was Tavish returning. For several moments he listened, with his back to the cabin. Then he turned. He was very close to the thing hanging from the sapling. It was swinging slightly. The moon shone on it, and then— Great God! A face—a human face! A face bearded, with bulging, staring eyes, gaping mouth—a grin of agony frozen in it! And it was tapping, tapping, tapping—

He staggered back with a dreadful cry. He swayed to the door, groped blindly for the latch, stumbled in clumsily, like a drunken man. The horror of that lifeless, grinning face was in his voice. He had wakened the missioner. He was sitting up, staring at him.

"Tavish—" cried David chokingly—"Tavish—is dead!" And he pointed to the end of the cabin, where they could hear again that tap-tap-tapping against the log wall.

To be continued next week

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