A Letter to a Young Man Who Wants a Better Job

You ask me how you can get a better job.

My answer is that you can't.

All over the country are millions of young men who, in a vague sort of way, want a better job: and here and there among them are the worth-while few who want the better job.

And the millions wonder why the few move on, while they stand stationary year after year.

You must, first of all, pick out the better job — some particular job that is better than yours. Then train your guns on that and capture it.

You tell me that you are a bookkeeper and that you earn $15 a week.

I know certified public accountants who earn $10,000 a year and more.

If I were a bookkeeper earning $15 a week, I would go out for a public accountant's job. I might die on the road, but whoever found my body would notice that my face was toward the summit.

Second: You can never make anybody pay you more money until you have more to sell.

I can advertise in a newspaper to-morrow morning and have a hundred bright young men here at eight o'clock. Each one will have just as much to offer me as you have: the same two years of hight school; the same experience in keeping books; the same good record. Every one of them will be willing to work for $15, and some of them for $12.

The only way you can lift yourself out of that $15 class is by giving yourself an equipment that the rest of the fellows in that class don't have. In other words, by study — by education — by specialized training.

Third: When you have picked out the one particular better job that you want, when you have fitted yourself for it, then be careful of your letter of application.

If Judge Gary of Charles M. Schwab applied for a job by letter to-morrow, they would get it in almost any big business in this country, even if their applications were written in lead pencil on a sheet of butcher paper.

Their personalities and abilities are known. Yours are not. You letter is your representative. For heaven's sake, if you have in you any spark of originality that other men have not, make your letter a tiny bit different from the other letters that the other men will write.

Go downtown and pick out a shade of paper and a size of envelop that will be different. Make your letter stick out among the hundred letters that your prospective employer will receive, so that it will be the first letter he opens. When he does open it, be sure he finds it typewritten, even if you have to spend money you an ill afford to spend.

Fourth: I receive many letters of application. In one form or another, they usually say something like this: "I want a better job: I am thinking of getting married"; or, "I have a mother to support"; or, "I have been three years in this place without a raise and see no future."

All of which interests me not at all.

For when it comes to spending my employer's money I am fundamentally selfish.

Much as I should like to give jobs to all the young men who have mothers to support, of who see no future where they are, I can not do it.

The only letter that I read with interest is the letter of the young man who has studied my business and who points out to me how I can make more money for my employer by employing him.

One of the biggest business men I know said to me: "I have private secretaries to relieve me of many details; but one detail I never delegate:

"I make it a rule to see all applicants for positions."

Why did he have that rule?

Because his business, and every business in America, is built on youth, enthusiasm, and ideas, and any applicant may bring him an idea that would be worth thousands of dollars.

Ideas are the keys that unlock big men's doors.

When you have fitted yourself for the better job, let your letter of application contain and Idea.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

Our Ancestors Were Not So Meek

By William Hard

ON July 2, 1853, the American sloop-of-war St. Louis was lying in the harbor of Smyrna in Turkey. It was commanded by Duncan Nathaniel Ingraham. Ingraham had never heard that Americans who go to a foreign country get beyond the protection of the United States.

In Smyrna, on land, there was an American. Yet he was not quite an American. He was a Hungarian who had come to the United States and had here declared his "intention" of becoming an American. He was what one might call a near-American. His name was Martin Koszta. He was wanted by the Austro-Hungarian government for having taken part (before coming to the United States) in the patriotic Hungarian rebellion of 1848.

In the harbor of Smyrna there was also an Austrian war vessel. She was a brig, and her name was the Huszar.

Koszta was waylaid in Smyrna by hired thugs and thrown into the harbor, and there seized by sailors from the Huszar, who deposited him in the vessel's hold.

The next move in the diplomatic game was clearly Ingraham's.

Ingraham, like most of our naval officers before the Civil War, played the diplomatic game in foreign parts with great finesse. Ingraham sent a note to the commander of the Huszur. It was a soothing note. It said that, unless Koszta was put back on land by four o'clock, the St. Louis would go to the Huszar and get him.

At four o'clock the St. Louis ranged herself alongside the Huszur, with her guns loaded and aimed and her gunners stripped. The commander of the Huszar hauled Koszta out of the hold and put him back on land.

Koszta came back to the United States. Congress gave Ingraham a sword.

The other method would have been to let the Huszar take Koszta back to the Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste and there kill him, and then have a Joint High International Commission to tell his children—or his grandchildren—whether he was killed properly or not. Our alleged pacifist ancestors followed Ingraham's method with extraordinary frequency.

Three years after the incident related, on November 16, 1856, the American sloop-of-war Portsmouth was lying (peacefully) in the harbor of Canton in China. There were eight forts on shore. These were real forts, with walls eight feet thick and manned by 5000 Chinese troops. One of these forts fired a shot at the Portsmouth. The Portsmouth's commander, Andrew Hull Foote, was one of our meekest ancestors. He dumped his blue-jackets and marines out into shallow water, waded them ashore, marched around through the knee-deep mud of the rice-fields to the rear of the forts, attacked them, and six days later had captured them all and undermined them and blown them up. No Chinese seaside forts ever again bombarded unoffending American ships.

Some people now propose to exclude all such incidents—incidents of blood—from our history books. In other words, they propose to exclude the very incidents by which we brought bloodshed to a stop.

We used to pay tribute to the pirates of the Barbary Coast on the south side of the Mediterranean. Our history books often suppress that fact. But a fact it is: we paid tribute. Congress would make an appropriation, and an American vessel would take it, either in cash or in "naval stores," across the Atlantic and through the Straits of Gibraltar to the chieftains of the pirates who were shedding the blood of the sailors of the merchant ships of the world. Not liking the term "tribute," we called it "consular presents"—presents made to the chieftain when he was good enough to receive a consul from us to complain to him about the miseries of our sailors in his prisons.

Converting the Pasha of Tripoli

VIRTUALLY every nation of Europe was meek enough to keep on doing this. Our ancestors were not so meek.

In 1804 and 1805 they converted the Pasha of Tripoli to a better life by holding up before him a set of higher ideals. These ideals were two in number.

The first was a certain William Eaton, who went to Alexandria in Egypt and made his way up into the interior, and there collected an "army" of 4000 ruffians of all nationalities, picking up also an exiled male relative of the Pasha of Tripoli who thought he would like to be Pasha, and then started westward straight across the desert for the port of Tripoli, with the Pasha's male relative riding on a camel in the midst of a body-guard of ninety Arabians, while ten Americans herded the "army" and spurred it forward.

Our ancestors were also humorists. The second ideal was Commodore Barrow,—and afterward Commodore Rodgers,—who blockaded the port of Tripoli, and so, by preventing the Pasha from sending his pirates out to sea, cut off his pocket-money. In May of 1805 the Pasha capitulated. For the first time in the history of the piratical Barbary Coast, a Barbary government signed a treaty of peace on board a foreign war-ship, and one of the prime stipulations of that treaty was "no tribute."

We handed similar ideals to the Sultan of Morocco and to the Bey of Tunis, and finally—making the job complete—to the Dey of Algiers. This Dey was strong for diplomacy. Having killed or imprisoned a large number of peaceful American sailors, he wanted to talk things over in a reasonable way. Would Commodore Decatur give him a truce of a month or so? Commodore Decatur would not. A couple of weeks? No. Three hours? Let reason rule: three hours! "Not one minute," said Commodore Decatur. And the Dey signed a treaty which not only barred him from collecting any more tribute from us, but actually—to the astonishment of Europe—compelled him to compensate American sailors for the losses he had inflicted upon them.

So there was peace thereafter for us—a real peace, not a "peace" consisting of continuous burnings and sinkings and kidnappings—along the whole Barbary Coast; and the esteem and respect in which we were held may be judged by the following first paragraph of the letter which the Dey of Algiers proceeded to send to the President of the United States:

To His Majesty the Emperor of America and its adjacent and dependent provinces and coasts—our noble friend—the support of the kings of the nations of Jesus—the pillar of all Christian sovereigns—the most glorious among the Princes—elected among many Lords and Nobles—the happy, the great, the amiable JAMES MADISON.

An Extreme Case of Protection

THE most extreme case of the protection of Americans abroad came in 1861 under Abraham Lincoln. It was in Egypt. It was only eight years after the Koszta incident; and the Barbary Coast incidents were still actually remembered. No force was needed, only resoluteness.

There lived in Egypt a Syrian named Faris. He was a Christian and he distributed Bibles. He lived far away from the sea-coast, in Upper Egypt, at Osiut. The Mohammedan authorities of Osiut were displeased with him because of his activities on behalf of the Christian religion; and they tied him into a foot-rack and tortured him till he fainted in his blood, and then attached him to a prison-post with an iron chain.

Now, Faris was not an American—not even a near-American. He was only a native assistant to American missionaries. Our consul-general at Alexandria was W. S. Thayer. Thayer went to the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and said that Faris was not an American, but that this was a case "to be settled not by diplomatic technicalities but on its substantial merits and the principles of justice and common sense." Would the Minister of Foreign Affairs please act?

A few days later Thayer was notified that action had been taken. Certain of Faris's torturers had been "degraded" from their offices; and there would be an "investigation."

Thayer replied that no "investigation" was necessary, and that no amount of "degrading" would suffice. Let every one of Faris's torturers be sentenced to prison, and let a fine be collected from among them to go to Faris for compensation. Thayer would start for Osiut, and stay on the job till it was done.

It was done. All thirteen of the torturers were imprisoned for a year; and they were fined, and Faris got $5000. And Abraham Lincoln was so pleased that he wrote an autograph letter to Mohammed Said Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, complimenting him on his excellent international manners.

In 1861 the arm of the United States was long enough to reach into Upper Egypt to avenge—promptly and thoroughly—a non-American Syrian who was lucky enough to be associated with an American philanthropic enterprise.

People sometimes say that we put up with a great deal front England before we

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went to war with her in 1812. We did. We were a nation of infantile weakness, and England was the world's largest and richest and best organized empire. We put up with a great deal from England because we had to. Yet, even at that, we went to war with her in the end, anyhow, very anyhow—without the remotest chance of doing any real damage to an empire which Napoleon himself had not been able to hurt, but simply on the principle of the pugnacious kingbird, which plunges at the hawk to worry her and to scare her off.

Those historians are demonstrably right who say that our ancestors hated professional standing armies with a great hatred, but dearly loved to do a lot of amateur skirmishing around with their own personal rifles on their own more or less individual accounts. They were highly anti-"militaristic," but highly aggressive. They were at their happiest in both these qualities during their conquest of Spanish Florida in 1816-18, at a time when the United States was officially totally at peace with Spain.

Our Florida frontier then, like our Mexican frontier now, was tormented by disorders and raids. Florida Indians and Florida negroes would come across into Georgia and Alabama, and plunder and kill. The Spanish authorities of Florida were unable or unwilling to prevent these occurrences. We prevented them—in a manner that led Spain to hasten to "sell" Florida to us, and to get out of its Florida difficulties with as much dignity as possible, and a little cash.

In 1816 we went down on to Spanish soil in Florida, and totally destroyed an Indian and negro headquarters on the Appalachicola River.

Andrew Jackson's Own War

IN 1818 the War Department put Andrew Jackson in charge of the Florida frontier. He raised volunteers in Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia and Alabama. He had only 600 regulars. The rest of his little force of 2000 men came with their own guns and their own horses, full of an anti-militaristic enthusiasm for violating the "sovereignty" and the "territorial integrity" of Spain.

Jackson proceeded to Spanish soil and took the Spanish town of St. Mark's, and there found the ring-leaders of the Indians—a chief named Francis and a chief named Himolloinico. They were Spanish subjects. They were also murderers and torturers of the subjects of the United States. Jackson hanged them at once.

He then destroyed the chief remaining lair of border assassins—the camp of "Billy Bowlegs" on the Suwannee River. Here he captured Ambrister, an ex-officer of the British navy, an accomplice of the assassins. He had already captured Arbuthnot, another British subject, charged with the same offense. Arbuthnot he hanged. Ambrister he shot.

Having thus executed the four principal sources of our troubles in Florida, and having thoroughly pacified the country, Jackson prepared to return to the United States. At just that moment, however, the Spanish governor of Florida, at Pensacola, sent a note to Jackson saying: "If you do not retire, but persist in your aggressions, I shall repel force by force."

This obliged Jackson to stay in Florida a while longer. He turned indignantly west, and captured Pensacola and took possession of the person of the Spanish' governor. The virtual end of Spanish rule in Florida had come.

Spain, of course, complained. The government at Washington, of course, gave Pensacola back, but it did not hesitate to say that it was perfectly clear that Spain could not make Florida peaceful, and that therefore the United States would continue to make it peaceful whenever necessary. And Congress approved Jackson's rather personal and private war against Spain by a formal vote.

In 1819 Spain sold Florida to the United States. No more border raids. Peace.

When Jackson got back to Nashville, they gave him a banquet and he proposed a toast. It was:

"Our Country! Though forbearance is her maxim, she must show to foreign nations that her rights are not to be outraged!"

Our ancestors were forbearing—oh, very—but they were not so meek. Therefore they made the United States.

Still Waters

By Elmore Elliott Peake

Illustrations by Stockton Mulford

IN spite of a torridity which the withdrawal of the brazen sun had scarcely assuaged, the Black Hawk Opera House was packed to the last gallery seat. Not only was the admission free, but the supper-tables of Goshen had buzzed that evening with the rumor that the speaker might be escorted to the town's edge by a committee of citizens and introduced to a blacksnake whip.

Yet the speaker's name was unknown to the bulk of the audience until Mortimer Shivers—a thin, heavily spectacled, fidgety man with no hair north of his cranial Tropic of Cancer—shuffled out upon the stage and for a moment soundlessly moved his lower jaw, triturating the last of the peppermint lozenge which he was never without since he had quit tobacco.

"As president of the Civic Worthwhile Club," he began, batting his myopic eyes nervously under the bombardment of the footlights, "it is my duty to explain the purpose of this mass meeting. Our club, as most of you know, is one of a chain of several hundred, all organized by the parent society in St. Louis. We have been paying dues for several years to that society, with the understanding that when our apprenticeship, as it is called, was up we could borrow a certain sum of money—namely, five thousand dollars—for the purpose of opening and improving a civic park. Well, our apprenticeship was up six months ago, and we haven't seen the color of that money yet."

A GUFFAW dropped down from the gallery. Another gallery god bleated, "Buncoed!" whereupon an unpatriotic wave of laughter swept the audience.

"Buncoed seems to be the word!" cried the speaker with sudden heat, jerking aloft a thin hand. "We have been put off and put off. Even the demand for a return of our dues, which amount to about five hundred dollars, has been ignored.

"However, this morning I received a telegram from the Civic Society saying that Pat Shipley, one of their traveling secretaries, would be with us to-night and smooth everything out. 'Pat' is the word they used. It don't sound very promising to me, and I don't like the word 'smooth.' And I've got this to say: If Pat Shipley smooths things out here, he'll have to use a big iron and a hot one."

A broadside of applause greeted this bellicose note. When the smoke had cleared the speaker continued:

"The park we had planned to build was to be a community affair, and that is why this mass meeting was called. We want Pat Shipley to understand that he has to reckon not only with the Worthwhile Club, but also with the citizens of Goshen. I regret to announce that the Spring Valley train on which we expect Mr. Shipley is several hours late; but I am informed that the auto-bus is now on its way over. So we may look for him in a very few minutes."

He paused uncertainly.

"We've got no other program, but I see Dudley Sloane, our honorable Mayor, standing in the rear of the house; and I'll ask him to entertain us with a few remarks while we wait."

Hand-claps followed. They come easily to a man of thirty-five who is a bachelor, is known to everybody by his first name, owns the only opera-house, hotel, and ice-plant in town, and collects a rent-roll as long as the moral law. It was, moreover, a well set up young man, with a fresh skin and a clean-cut, symmetrical head, that passed down an aisle with a leisurely but assured tread.

"Stage! Stage!" called some one.

"This elevation is quite sufficient," he answered in his quick, incisive way. "Now, as you all know, I am not a Worthwhile. Repeating here what I have freely said in private, I am not a Worthwhile because I have always regarded the club as trying to get something for nothing—that is to say, a five thousand dollar loan on a credit basis of five hundred. I have never known any one, individually or collectively, to succeed in doing that; and you have just heard my friend, Mort Shivers, confess that the Worthwhiles are not likely to."

He smiled cheerfully at a cat-call.

"Some of you Worthwhiles are probably thinking that your parent society has done just that thing in absorbing your dues. It has the dues, unquestionably. Whether it gets them for nothing or not, remains to be seen. The penitentiaries are still doing business at their old stands. However, my advice—if you care for it—is for you to withhold judgment until you hear what Mr. Shipley has to say. Meanwhile, I'll step over to the hotel and make sure that he doesn't go astray between there and here—as he may be tempted to do when he discovers that it is not a parlor gathering which he has to face."

HE found the group of loungers on the spacious veranda of the Judd House speculating, behind their cigars, on the chances of Mr. Shipley showing up. The opinion predominated that he would not. And, sure enough, when the auto-bus that plied between Goshen and Spring Valley wheezed up to the curb, its only passenger was a young woman.

As she stepped into the rectangle of light from the office door, she revealed a slight but supple figure, clad in a glove-fitting tailored suit and a chic sailor hat. She ran the gauntlet of masculine eyes without a quiver, registered, and asked to be shown to her room at once—employing a staccato voice which convinced Bert Sheppard, the clerk, that she cherished convictions concerning the meaning of "at once."

When Bert returned from carrying her suit-case and bag upstairs, Dudley Sloane was inspecting the register with a quizzical face. The last entry on the page, in a bold, far-flung script, was "P. Shipley, St. Louis."

"I'm off, Dud!" announced Bert, slipping into a flannel coat and sweeping a handful of cigars from the case.

Sloane was still studying the register—and revolving his promise not to let Mr. Shipley get lost—when a bell snarled and a drop on the annunciator flashed No. 19, the new-comer's room. The Judd House boasted bells but no bell-boys, and Sleane stared at the number as if it were a hieroglyphic. But when the bell whirred again, fifteen seconds later, he laid aside his Panama hat and cigar and ascended the staircase.

"Come!" answered a voice, at his rap.

He opened the door.

MISS SHIPLEY could not have occupied her room, at the outside, more than six minutes. Yet her tailored skirt lay on the floor in a circle, just as it had slid from her hips. Toilet accessories and other odds and ends were showered about a black traveling-bag as if by an internal explosion. But what caught and held Dudley Sloane's eyes was the lady herself, faultlessly attired in an evening gown and stretched upon the bed. One shapely white arm, bare to the shoulder hung limply over the edge, one hand shaded her eyes, and every line of her girlish figure seemed relaxed.

"Can you tell me where the Worthwhile Club is assembled to-night?" she asked wearily, without looking up.

"At the opera-house," answered Sloane.

At the sound of his unbell-boy-like voice, she revealed a pair of tired eyes—very different from those that had run the gauntlet below.

"I am the landlord," he explained.

"At the opera-house!" she exclaimed. "That is very strange." But, as if too weary to seek an explanation, she veiled her eyes again for a moment. "Could you get a conveyance for me? I haven't eaten since this morning. I am very tired. I—I don't understand just what is the matter with me."

"It's only a block," Dudley informed her. "But if I'm a judge, madam, you are in no condition to make an address to-night. There is a big crowd assembled—and they are in a belligerent mood."

He noted the glossy bronze hair piled upon the pillow, and the hand, no larger than a ten-year-old boy's, that spanned her temples. Nor did he overlook the plain gold band on the third finger.

"Yes; I imagined they would be belligerent," she murmured musingly. "I am used to belligerent Worthwhiles. But I—I was not prepared for a mob."

There was something pathetic in her wavering, wandering voice. The man's mind, moreover, was struggling to substitute this Pat Shipley for the one that Mort Shivers' announcement had conjured up.

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"Then why not dodge it by going to bed, where assuredly you ought to be?" he asked. "I'll send you up a nice little supper, with a cup of hot coffee or a glass of iced tea; and I'll undertake personally to make your excuses to the club. You can address them to-morrow, you know, under more favorable conditions—in a house, with the mob eliminated."

"Oh, if I could only go to bed—and sleep!" she sighed.

Suddenly she raised herself to a sitting posture and swiftly pressed her tumbled hair into shape.

"But I must speak to-night," she continued. "I have to go on to-morrow for another engagement. And I can't go on unless I collect the membership dues that this club owes." Her pretty mouth hardened. "I can't even pay your bill, Mr. Landlord. For it is from dues in arrears that my house pays its traveling secretaries."

"May I ask if this ingenious system of your house had anything to do with your missing your dinner to-day?"

She eyed him steadily, as if to plumb his soul, as the woman whose quest for bread and butter shuttlecocks her from town to town, over the thrumming wheels, must learn to do with strange men.

"Why should I lie to you? I haven't a sou in my purse. I spent my last penny this morning for a postal-card to write my mother on. But I wasn't hungry—I haven't been hungry for a week—I feel as if I'd never be hungry again." Her lips quivered, but she angrily dashed the tears from her eyes. "Please don't think me a baby. I don't often cry—any more. It doesn't pay. And what doesn't pay I throw into the discard. That's the point I've reached."

He glanced at her slippered toe, nervously patting the floor.

"Then let me get you a sip of brandy—if you are bound to go."

"No brandy for me—thanks," she answered quickly. "Except for that demon stuff I'd be in my own little home to-night instead of in this strange hotel, nerving myself to hoodwink honorable men and women. It takes nerve. That's why I'm sick to-night, body and soul. When I took up this work a year ago, it promised not only an honest living but an opportunity for social service. The name Worthwhile captured my fancy. How I hate it now! But it's only the last month or so that I have suspected something crooked. I'm no adventuress. My father is a superannuated Methodist minister, and rather than see me step from the straight and narrow path he'd take his old palsied hands and wrap me in my shroud.

"But no hysterics, please! You're a man of the world. You understand that when a woman must have money—when her body and brain are the only buffers between her aged parents and the poorhouse—there's a worse way than this for her to get it. But to-night, come what may, is the last. This club owes about fifty dollars. I'll pluck that one bitter forbidden fruit, though it turns to ashes on my lips, and then no more."

She swayed slightly.

"Now hand me the wrap in my suitcase, please, so I may cloak the nakedness that the Civic Worthwhile Society prescribes as a uniform for its decoys. And if you are not ashamed to lend me your arm as far as the opera-house I shall be obliged. I am a trifle tottery."

"We'll go down the back stairs and up the alley to the stage entrance," said Sloane. "Not that I'm shy of Main Street, understand. But the club is expecting a man, and you don't wish, I fancy, to do anything that would swell the crowd."

THE stage door was locked, as he had expected. Placing his shoulder against it, he forced it open. Then, with his hand upon her arm, he guided her along the pitch-dark, smelly passages, and up a steep, narrow flight of stairs to where Mort Shivers sat in one of the wings.

Sloane returned to the hotel. To see a vacuum-pump applied to the exchequer of the Worthwhile Club would ordinarily have attracted him as a sporting event. But his session with the fair operator of the pump had stripped the performance of any element of sport for him; and, drawing an easy chair up to the railing of the now deserted veranda, he gave his sober thoughts free rein.

LIFE, as he had often dryly remarked, had been a feather-bed for him. No great grief had ever laid its chastening hand upon him. Both his parents were still living. He had never lost a brother or a sister. He had never sat, in the silent watches of the night, at the side of a crib and watched the fluttering respirations of a stricken child.

So complete, indeed, had been his immunity to the ills of humanity, that he had never known a quarter of an hour of pecuniary distress. And, like most people who live softly, he held the comfortable belief that the necks of the poor are providentially stiffened to the weight of their yoke.

But here had happened along a woman—her flesh still curiously warmed his palm—whose neck was sorely galled by this yoke; who, in her light for a livelihood, had been forced to her knees, with the cruel alternative of being counted out or striking below the belt. And she, while loathing the act, had chosen so to strike. It was a disturbing thought. "Do not be whirled about!" from Marcus Aurelius, was Sloane's favorite maxim. Yet now, to his surprise, he was being vigorously whirled about, with no hand-hold in sight.

HIS reflections were interrupted by the tinkle of the office telephone.

"You got a Miss Patricia Shipley there, Dud?" asked a voice which he recognized as the station agent's at Spring Valley.

"Yes; but she isn't in now."

"Well, here's a telegram for her. I'll send over a copy in the morning by the bus, but I thought she might be glad to have it 'phoned to-night. It sounds kind of urgent. All ready? `Canalport, Ohio, June 24. Did you send money? Not received. Your father some better.' It's signed 'Mother.' I guess the old lady needs the money, too, for the message come collect. Shall I charge it to the hotel, as usual?"

"Yes," answered Dudley, and hung up.

He stared at the memorandum.

"A nice little nightcap for Pat Shipley!" he muttered to himself. "I'd sooner throw ice-water on a sick kitten."

Quick steps outside diverted him—steps, as a rule, being very deliberate in Goshen during this torrid spell, when the very sparrows in the road breathed through open bills. The next moment Mort Shivers bolted through the door.

"That young lady has fainted," he announced breathlessly. "Doc Sprague says for you to get the coolest room in the house ready for her. That's your'n, ain't it?" he added, with nervous jocularity.

"It's mine, all right. Mrs. Murdock!" he bellowed up the stairs.

When the matron appeared at the landing, he said sharply:

"Change the linen in my room and get it ship-shape for a young woman who is sick—as quick as you can. How are they going to get her over here?" he demanded of Shivers.

"Doc thinks she can walk after a bit."

"What happened, anyway? They rough-house her?"

His hazel-brown eyes glazed over with an agate hardness.

"Oh, no. There wasn't a sound while she was explaining that the Society was lending its money first to those clubs that were building settlement-houses in the slums. I, for one, was feelin' pretty flat, after my bow-wow talk. Then she stopped all of a sudden, with a face as white as chalk, and says: 'My friends, this is what I was sent here to tell you, and it is the truth. What I wasn't sent to tell you, but which is also the truth, is that these settlement-houses are mere baits to lure more clubs into the league. I don't believe that this chub will ever get a loan or a dollar of its dues back, without a suit at law.' And then she kind of knelt down, kind of sat down, right on the floor, and closed her eyes. It was awful!"

Removing his spectacles, Shivers vigorously mopped his face and shining cranium. The glaze passed from Sloane's eyes.

"That girl mustn't try to walk, Shivers. You go back and have them wait till I can get my car to the stage door."

THE stage was filled with a buzzing, excited group, mostly women. Doc Sprague, herculean and hot, sat in the center, holding in his great hairy paw a glass still reeking with aromatic spirits of ammonia. Miss Shipley lay on a dingy red couch which had been the pièce de résistance of many a maiden's mock swoon in the past. Her hair clung in damp tendrils to her temples, and there was still a startled look in her eyes, as if she were wondering what all the ado was about. But at the sight of Sloane unceremoniously elbowing his way forward—and the incident made a juicy morsel for a number of breakfast-tables the next morning—she lifted a pair of appealing arms.

He gathered her up as if she were a child and bore her off—"just like a dog with a bone," acidly commented Mrs. Whitehead, the mother of three marriageable daughters.

After he had laid her upon the bed in his large, high-ceiled room, in Mrs. Murdock's care, Sloane retired to the hall. His heart was cutting didoes entirely out of

character with that steady organ. Doc Sprague, lumbering upstairs, puffed out: "You missed your callin', Dud, when you didn't join an ambulance corps in the Red Cross."

A WHILE later, while Mrs. Murdock was coddling an egg in the kitchen, Sloane reëntered the dark room on tip-toe, carrying an electric fan and a pitcher of ice-water.

"You may turn on the light—I'm not asleep," came a subdued voice from the ancient four-poster in a corner.

While attaching the fan Dudley was conscious, without looking, of a figure sheeted to the chin, a thick plait of hair falling over one shoulder, and a pair of shining, wistful eyes set in an oval face of alabaster hue. When finally he did look at her, he received a wan smile.

"I was thinking how odd it is that I don't even know your name yet," she murmured.

"Which shows that for the fundamental relations of life a name is not a necessity. However, for convenience, you may call me Sloane."

She made no answer, and he continued:

"Mrs. Murdock will sleep in the next room. She's an old nurse, and a tap on the wall will rouse her. In the morning my sister will come over to see you."

"Everybody has been so kind," she exclaimed tensely. Then, with a quick little intake of breath, she added: "Mr. Sloane, I didn't collect any dues to-night."

"So I heard. Accept my congratulations."

"I mean, you have a pauper on your hands."

He smiled. "In that connection I have a pleasant surprise for you. Your house has telegraphed you a neat little sum of money. The agent at Spring Valley 'phoned the message over an hour ago."

Her eyes grew round.

"Why, that can't be. There's some mistake. Our house never does such a thing."

"The message was straight enough—to Miss Patricia Shipley—directing her to call for the money at the Planters National Bank. That's our bank."

Her eyes still searched his—with no

---

trace of suspecting his fabrication, but wonderingly, incredulously.

"Did it say for how much?" she trembled out.

"A hundred-odd dollars, I think—the wire wasn't working well. Is that about what they owe you?"

"They owe me a hundred and sixty dollars. But—"

"Probably that was the amount, then. We'll know for certain in the morning. Now, Miss Shipley, I've told you this to-night, thinking you would sleep better for it—"

"Oh, dear God, how I'll sleep to-night!" she gasped, with a rush of tears.

"—and because, when I go over to the bank in the morning for your money, I thought possibly you might want me to attend to some business for you—buy a draft or something of that kind."

"You're a mind-reader!" she exclaimed, rising to one elbow. "I want a draft for—let me think!—for fifty dollars, payable to Mrs. Elijah Shipley. That's my mother. Oh, Mr. Sloane, if you ever lose faith in your heavenly Father, don't—don't—don't! Only an hour ago the way was so dark to me. I seemed to stand upon the brink of an abyss filled with horrid shapes, waiting for me to slip and fall. Then, in the midst of my lying harangue, I caught sight of an old man in the audience. His gray beard and the hand cupped behind his ear were just like my father's. I call him a man; but he sat in a shadowy corner, and I didn't know whether he was flesh or spirit. I don't know yet, for my father has been very, very sick, and—anyway, he saved me. Good night, dear friend."

PATRICIA did not get up the next morning, as Sprague had predicted, nor for a number of mornings thereafter.

"I'm just tired—I just want to rest—forever, I think," she would reply to Aline Sloane, who had taken the place of Mrs. Murdock. When they brought her food, she made a pretense of eating—to oblige them. She was not melancholy, but she was submerged in a listlessness, a meekness, that worried the doctor.

"There's no lesion, no germ," said he to Sloane. "Something evil has befallen her. We've got to get her mind off herself, and the job is up to you, Dud," he added, raising his bushy brows quizzically.

Other brows were raising quizzically, for Sloane's assiduity in entertaining the invalid was not even surpassed by that of Aline, who had instantly surrendered to Patricia's charm. He who had always scorned fiction now droned aloud from a novel for hours at a time in the sick-room, while tenants, with rent-money in their pockets, cooled their heels in his office.

One day, when he carried in an armful of Cherokee roses with the compliments of the Worthwhile Club, she cried out acutely:

"Mr. Sloane, this can't go on indefinitely—you and Aline practically dropping your affairs to take care of me! Isn't there a hospital here that I can go to?"

"No," he answered, placing one of the flowers in her hand. "If there was, of course Aline and I should be happy to immure you there and let you die of loneliness."

And, for some reason, her eyes wavered.

She sat up for the first time a week later. The following Sunday, Dudley took her and Aline for a short, slow ride in his automobile, under the old elms and maples that were Goshen's pride. By Wednesday she felt able to ride out to one of his farms.

They drove down a lane into a great field of wheat stubble, where the tenant was at work with a threshing crew. Patricia waited in the car, watching the animated scene—wagons journeying to and from the separator, into whose insatiable maw they fed their loads of sheaves; the sweating, discolored men toiling in an inferno of dust at the end of the stacker; the sackers around the grain-spout.

Last—but not least, as something within warned her—was Sloane himself, shaking hands with the men, passing cigars, inspecting samples of grain, and finally returning to the car, cheerful and efficient, with chaff upon his hat-brim.

And this, she reflected, was but one farm of six which he owned! Her mind leaped back to her father, whose salary had never been more than a thousand dollars a year. Under the comparison he shrank to insignificance. But on the heels of this bitter thought came the sweet and soothing recollection of the griefs he had assuaged, of the sin-sick he had healed, of the dying whose path to eternity he had paved with his prayers.

BEFORE returning to the main road, Sloane drove into a green pasture beyond the wheat-field, where a herd of white-faced Hereford cattle grazed. Stopping at a great, circular-walled spring, he dipped Patricia a drink in an iron cup red with rust.

"How did you earn all this, Mr. Sloane?" she asked wonderingly.

"I didn't," he laughed.

"Your father, then?"

"He didn't. It's an accretion. It began with my great-grandfather, who bought land for a dollar an acre that to-day is worth two hundred or more."

"And you don't deserve any credit for it?"

"Only as I have been faithful to my stewardship."

"Which consists of—breeding dollars?" she asked—and instantly rued the thrust.

"Yes—and maintaining an honest name, the respect of my neighbors, and the fealty of my tenants. Not always an easy task, believe me."

She felt duly rebuked. Silence followed. The heat danced above the land. The minute sounds of the invisible folk of the grass—little harvesters busy with their own crops and glorying in the heat that

wilted man—pricked the pastoral quiet.

"I think I shall go home to-morrow," observed the girl.

Dudley, in the act of lighting a fresh cigar, dropped the flaming match.

"You are surely not strong enough for such a journey," he demurred.

"I must get into the harness again—like yourself and the busy men back there."

He slowly relaxed his fingers, and the cigar followed the match.

"Patricia," he began,—and the name fell from his lips with the slightest tremor,—"is it presumptuous, after an acquaintance of twelve days, for me to ask you to work in double harness—with me—as my wife? I love you. I have loved you, I think, from the moment you stepped out of the bus in front of the hotel."

So it had come, as she had divined it was coming! And it had come as she, lying awake in the small hours of the night, had pictured it as coming—direct, straight from the shoulder. It was the way of strong men.

"READ this, please," said she quietly. She fumbled at her waist a moment, and drew forth a bit of paper—the familiar yellow Western Union envelop—and handed it to him. It was the message from her mother—the message he had never delivered. But he scanned it coolly enough.

"So this is the secret of that hospital talk of yours! How did you come by it?"

"Mrs. Murdock gave it to me the first day I was in bed. Mr. Sloane, did the agent at Spring Valley telephone you this message while I was at the opera-house?"

He admitted it, smiling faintly.

"Did he telephone you any other message—one from the house I worked for, sending me money?"

"No. Are you holding that little fib against me, Patricia?"

"Ah, no! But don't you see—can't you understand? Why, I'm nothing but a pensioner on your bounty!"

"What of it? I have done for you only what I would for a bird that had stunned itself against my window. You can pay every dollar of that loan back, if you want to. Will you marry me?"

"You can't marry a woman for pity, Mr. Sloane," she declared.

"I have pitied a good many women—you are the first I have loved. Believe me, I know my mind. I am no boy."

He was standing beside the car. He reached over the fore door and laid his hand upon both of hers, tightly clasped in her lap, and lowered his head a bit, with a roguish, tender smile, to peep beneath her lowered lashes. She vouchsafed him his glimpse; she even smiled back—half fearfully, half wistfully.

"You are used to having your own way—aren't you?"

"Not always."

"You are a big, strong man, the kind that conquers—aren't you?"

"I frequently suffer defeat. Only the other day, for instance, my life-long philosophy of single blessedness was knocked into a cocked hat."

"You're never afraid to take a chance, though—are you?"

"More so, often, than I make obvious."

The playful light died from her eyes.

"You are taking the greatest chance of your life this minute—and I can not let you."

"Be merciful!" he begged.

"I am," she retorted, with quickened breath. "A little pain inflicted now may save you—may save both of us a—"

"Does it pain you to say what you are saying now?" he interrupted.

"Can you doubt it—Dudley?"

"Then you do love me—a little?"

Her fingers twitched under his hand. Her violet eyes darkened with passion, but held his with a gaze that was now unwavering.

"Yes—more than a little."

An exquisite emotion that was almost pain—as if his heart were falling through space—filled him. Then, leaning nearer, he encircled her with his arm and swept her head to his breast.

"No, no!" she pleaded, as if to his hovering lips. "I did not mean that. I—I—give me till to-night to decide."

"Very well, my dear," he assented, with a light like waving banners in his eyes. "Until to-night we shall play that we are merely friends. But after to-night—" He spoke like a teasing boy.

"Yes; after to-night—" Her voice trailed off sadly.

HE had another errand two miles farther on, and the madness in his blood oozed into the throttle, so that three or four breathless minutes brought them to a little farm-house whose veranda was smothered under a gigantic crimson rambler rose, now a blood-red mass of bloom. A woman in a faded blue gingham dress stepped out into the yard to meet them.

"It'll be cooler for you to set on the porch and wait, lady," said she. Her eyes were red, her voice husky; and Patricia gathered, from the exchange that followed, that her husband had been bed-bound for a number of weeks from the kick of a horse.

Sloane and the woman entered the house. Patricia sat down outside in an unpainted, home-made rocker with a patchwork tidy and cushion. The sweet breath of the roses was tinged with the effluvium of some drug, and she discovered, from the sound of voices, that a window at the other end of the veranda opened on the sick-room.

"Well, Herman," she heard Dudley say, "I suppose you wanted to see me about your note."

"Yes, Mr. Sloane," answered a man's listless voice. I can't pay it—not even the interest. It iss a long ways for you to come to hear that, but it iss the truth. It iss nine veeks now since I got hurted. I have hired all my hay and wheat to be harvested, and have lost a horse besides, through the hands lettin' him drink too

Continued on page 23

The Triflers

By Frederick Orin Bartlett

Illustration by Frederick Orin Bartlett

MONTE was at the Hôtel d'Angleterre at nine. In response to his card he received a brief note.

Dear Monte [he read]: Please don't ask to see me this morning. I'm so mixed up I'm afraid I won't be at all good company. Yours, MARJORY.

Monte sent back this note in reply:

Dear Marjory: If you're mixed up, I'm just the one you ought to see. You've been thinking again. MONTE.

She came into the office looking like a hunted thing; but he stepped forward to meet her with a boyish good humor that reassured her in an instant. The firm grip of his hand alone was enough to steady her. Her tired eyes smiled gratitude.

"I never expected to be married and deserted—all in one week," he said lightly. "What's the trouble?"

He felt like a comedian trying to be funny with the heart gone out of him. But he knew she expected no less. He must remain just Monte or he would only frighten her the more. No matter if his heart pounded until he could not catch his breath, he must play the care-free chump of a companion de voyage. That was all she had married—all she wanted.

She glanced at his arm in its black sling.

"Who tied it for you this morning?" she asked.

"The valet."

"He didn't do it at all nicely. There's a little sun parlor on the next floor. Come with me and I'll do it over."

He followed her upstairs and into a room filled with flowers and wicker chairs. She stood before him and readjusted the handkerchief, so near that he thought he felt her breath. It was a test for a man, and he came through it nobly.

"There—that's better," she said. "Now take the big chair in the sun."

She drew it forward a little, though he protested at so much attention. She dropped into another seat a little away from him.

"Well?" he inquired. "Aren't you going to tell me about it?"

He was making it as easy as possible—easier than she had anticipated.

"Won't you please smoke?"

He lighted a cigarette.

"Now we're off," he encouraged her.

HE was leaning back with one leg crossed over the other—a big, wholesome boy. His blue eyes this morning were the color of the sky, and just as clean and just as untroubled. As she studied him the thought uppermost in her mind was that she must not hurt him. She must be very careful about that. She must give him nothing to worry over.

"Monte," she began, "I guess women have a lot of queer notions men don't know anything about. Can't we let it go at that?"

"If you wish," he nodded, "Only—are you going to stay here?"

"For a little while, anyway," she answered.

"You mean—a day or two?"

"Or a week or two."

"You'd rather not tell me why?"

"If you please—not," she answered quickly.

He thought for a moment, and then asked:

"It wasn't anything I did?"

"No, no," she assured him. "You've been so good, Monte."

He was so good with her now—so gentle and considerate. It made her heart ache. With her chin in hand, elbow upon the arm of her chair, she was apparently looking at him more or less indifferently, when what she would have liked to do was to smooth away the perplexed frown between his brows.

"Then," he asked, "your coming here hasn't anything to do with me?"

She could not answer that directly. With her cheeks burning and her lips dry, she tried to think just what to say. Above all things, she must not worry him!

"It has to do with you and myself and—Peter Noyes," she answered.

"Peter Noyes!"

He sat upright.

"He is at the Hôtel des Roses—with his sister," Marjory ran on hurriedly. "They are both old friends, and I met them quite by accident last night. Suddenly, Monte,—they made my position there impossible. They gave me a new point of view on myself—on you. I guess it was an American point of view. What had seemed right before did not seem right then."

"That is why you resumed your maiden name?"

"That is why. But sooner or later Peter will know, won't he?"

"How will he know?"

"The name you signed on the hotel register."

"That's so, too," Monte admitted. "But that says only 'Madame Covington.' Madame Covington might be any one."

He smiled, but his lips were tense.

"She may have been called home unexpectedly."

The girl hid her face in her hands. He rose and stepped to her side.

"There—there," Monte said gently. "Don't worry about that. There is no reason why they should ever associate you with her. If they make any inquiries of me about madame, I'll just say she has

---

gone away for a little while—perhaps for a week or two. Is that right?"

"I—I don't know."

"Nothing unusual about that. Wives are always going away. Even Chic's wife goes away every now and then. As for you, little woman, I think you did the only thing possible. I met that Peter Noyes this morning."

Startled, she raised her face from her hands.

"You met—Peter Noyes?"

"Quite by chance. He was on his way to walk, and I took him with me. He's a wonderful fellow, Marjory."

"You talked with him?"

He nodded.

"He takes life mighty seriously."

"Too seriously, Monte," she returned. "It's what made him blind; and yet—there's something worth while about a man who gets into the game that way. Hanged if he didn't leave me feeling uncomfortable."

She looked worried.

"How, Monte?"

"Oh, as though I ought to be doing something. Do you know I had a notion of studying law at one time?"

"But there was no need of it, was there, Monte?"

"Not in one way. Only, I suppose I could have made myself useful somewhere, even if I didn't have to earn a living. Maybe there's a use for every one—somewhere."

Monte had left her side, and was staring out the window toward the ocean. His mouth was drooping with such exaggerated melancholy that she felt something must be done at once. She began to laugh. He turned quickly.

"You look as if you had lost your last friend," she chided him. "If talking with Peter Noyes does that to you, I don't think you had better talk with him any more."

"He's worth more to-day, blind, than I with my two eyes."

"The trouble with Peter is that he can't smile," she answered. "After all, it would be a sad world if no one was left to smile."

The words brought back to him the phrase she had used at the Normandie: "I am depending on you to keep me normal."

"Where are you going to lunch to-day?" he asked.

"I don't know, Monte," she answered indifferently. "I told Peter he could come over at ten."

"I see. Want to lunch with him?"

"I don't want to lunch with any one."

"He'll probably expect you. I was going to look at some villas to-day; but I suppose that's all off."

Her cheeks turned scarlet. "Yes."

"Then I guess I'll walk to Monte Carlo and lunch there. How about dinner?"

"If they see us together—"

"Ask them too. You can tell them I'm an old friend. I am that, am I not?"

"One of the oldest and best," she answered earnestly.

"Then I'll call you up when I come back. Good luck."

With a nod and a smile, he left her.

BEATRICE brought Peter at ten, and, in spite of the mute appeal of Marjory's eyes, stole off on tiptoe and left her alone with him.

"Has Trix gone?" demanded Peter.

"Yes."

Marjory made him comfortable in the chair Monte had lately occupied, finding a cushion for his head.

"Please don't do those things," he objected. "You make me feel as if I were wearing a sign begging for pity."

"How can any one help pitying you, when they see you like this, Peter?" she asked gently.

"What right have they to do it?" he demanded.

"Right?"

She frowned at that word. So many things in her life seemed to have been decided without respect for right.

"I'm the only one to say whether I shall be pitied or not," he declared. "I've lost the use of my eyes temporarily by my own fault. I don't like it; but I refuse to be pitied."

Marjory was surprised to find him so aggressive. It was not what she expected after listening to Beatrice. It changed her whole attitude toward him instantly.

"Peter," she said, "I won't pity you any more. But if I'm sorry for you—awfully sorry—you won't mind that?"

"I'd rather you wouldn't think of my eyes at all," he answered unsteadily. "I can almost forget them myself—with you."

"Then," she said, "we'll forget them. Are you going to stay here long, Peter?"

"Are you?"

"My plans are uncertain. I don't think I shall ever make any more plans."

"You mustn't let yourself feel that way," Peter returned. "The thing to do, if one scheme fails, is to start another—right off."

"But nothing ever comes out as you expect."

"That gives you a chance to try again."

"What if you make mistakes, Peter?"

"It's the only way you learn," he answered. "There's a new note in your voice, Marjory. Have—you been learning?"

His meaning was clear. He leaned forward as if trying to pierce the darkness between them. His thin white hands were tight upon the chair arms.

"At least, I've been making mistakes," she answered uneasily.

SHE felt, for a second, as if she could pour out her troubles to him. It would be easier—she was ashamed of the thought, but it held true—because he could not see.

"There's such a beautiful woman in you!" he exclaimed passionately.

With her heart heating fast, she dropped back in her chair.

"I've always known that you'd learn some day all the fine things that are in you—all the fine things that lay ahead of you to do as a woman," he ran on. "You remember all the things I said to you—before you left?"

"Yes."

"I can't say them to you now. I must wait until I get my eyes back. Then I shall say them again, and perhaps—"

"Do you think I'd let you wait for your eyes?" she cried.

"You mean that now—"

"No, no, Peter," she interrupted, in a panic. "I didn't mean I could listen now. Only I didn't want you to think I was so selfish that if it were possible to share the light with you I—I wouldn't share the dark too."

"There wouldn't be any dark for me at all if you shared it," he answered gently.

Then she saw his lips tighten.

"We mustn't talk of that," he said. "We mustn't think of it."

Yet, of all the many things they discussed this morning, nothing left Marjory more to think about. It seemed that, so far, her freedom had done nothing but harm. She had intended no harm. She had desired only to lead her own life day by day, quite by herself. So she had fled from Peter—with this result; then she had fled from Teddy, who had lost his head completely; finally she had fled, not from Monte but with him, because that seemed quite the safest thing to do. It had proved the most dangerous of all! If she had driven Peter blind, Monte—if he only knew it—had brought him sweet revenge, because he had made her, not blind, but something that was worse, a thousand times worse!

Always she must see the light that had leaped to Monte's eyes, kindled from the fire in her own soul. Perhaps she must even see him going to other arms, that flame born of her breathed into fuller life by other lips.

Peter was telling her of his work; of what he had accomplished already and of what he hoped to accomplish. She heard him as from a distance, and answered mechanically his questions, while she pursued her own thoughts.

It seemed almost as if a woman was not allowed to remain negative; that she must accomplish either positive good or positive harm. So far, she had accomplished only harm; and now here was an opportunity that was almost an obligation to offset that to some degree. She must free Monte as soon as possible. That was necessary in any event. She owed it to him. It was a sacred obligation that she must pay to save even the frayed remnant of her pride.

So Monte would go on his way again, and she would be left—she and Peter. If, then, what Beatrice said was true—if it was within her power, at no matter what sacrifice, to give Peter back the sight she had taken—then so she might undo some of the wrong she had done. The bigger the sacrifice, the fiercer the fire might rage to burn her clean. Because she had thought to sacrifice nothing, she had been forced to sacrifice everything; if now she sacrificed everything, perhaps she could get back a little peace in return. She would give her life to Peter—give him everything that was left in her to give.

She saw Beatrice at the door, and rose to meet her.

"You're to lunch with me," she said. "Then, for dinner, Mr. Covington has asked us all to join him."

"Covington?" exclaimed Peter. "Isn't he the man who was so decent to me this morning?"

"He said he met you," said Marjory.

"I liked him," declared Peter. "I'll be mighty glad to see more of him."

"And I too," nodded Beatrice. "He looked so romantic with his injured arm."

"Monte romantic?" smiled Marjory. "That's the one thing in the world he isn't."

"Just who is he, anyway?" inquired Beatrice.

"He's just Monte," answered Marjory.

"And Madame Monte—where is she? I noticed by the register there is such a person."

"I—I think he said she had been called away—unexpectedly," Marjory gasped.

She turned aside with an uncomfortable feeling that Beatrice had noticed her confusion.

THE following week Monte devoted himself wholely to the entertainment of Marjory and her friends. He placed his car at their disposal, and planned for them daily trips with the thoroughness of a courier, though he generally found some excuse for not going himself. His object was simple: to keep Marjory's days so filled that she would have no time left in which to worry. He wanted to help her, as far as possible, to forget the preceding week, which had so disturbed her. To this end nothing could be better for her than Peter and Beatrice Noyes, who were so simply and honestly plain, every-day Americans.

The more he talked with Peter Noyes the better he liked him. At the end of the day—after seeing them started in the morning, Monte used to go out and walk his legs off till dinner-time—he enjoyed dropping into a chair by the side of Peter.

It was the man's enthusiasm that Monte admired. He seemed to be always alert—always keen. Yet, as near as he could find out, his life had been anything but adventuresome or varied. After leaving the law school he had settled down in a New York office and just plugged along. He confessed that this was the first vacation he had taken since he began practice.

"You can hardly call this a vacation!" exclaimed Monte.

"Man," answered Peter earnestly, "you don't know what these days mean to me."

"You sure are entitled to all the fun you can get out of them," returned Monte. "But I hate to think how I'd feel under the same circumstances."

"I don't believe there is much difference between men," answered Peter. "I imagine that about certain things we all feel a good deal alike."

"I wonder," mused Monte. "I can't imagine myself, for instance, living twelve months in the year in New York and being enthusiastic about it."

"What do you do when you're there?" inquired Peter.

"Not much of anything," admitted Monte.

"Then you're no more in New York when you're there than in Jericho," answered Peter. "You've got to get into the game really to live in New York. You've got to work and be one of the million others before you can get the feel of the city. Best of all, a man ought to marry there. You're married, aren't you, Covington?"

"Eh?"

"Didn't Beatrice tell me you registered here with your wife?"

Monte moistened his lips.

"Yes—she was here for a day. She—she was called away."

"That's too bad. I hope we'll have an opportunity to meet her before we leave."

"Thanks."

"She ought to help you understand New York."

"Perhaps she would. We've never been there together."

"Been married long?"

"No."

"So you haven't any children."

"Hardly."

"Then," said Peter, "you have your whole life ahead of you. You haven't begun to live anywhere yet."

"And you?"

"It's the same with me," confessed Peter, with a quick breath. "Only—well, I haven't been able to make even the beginning you've made."

MONTE leaned forward with quickened interest.

"That's the thing you wanted so hard?" he asked.

"Yes."

"To marry and have children?"

Monte was silent a moment, and then he added:

"I know a man who did that."

"A man who doesn't isn't a man, is he?"

"I—I don't know," confessed Monte. "I've visited this friend once or twice. Did you ever see a kiddy with the croup?"

"No," admitted Peter.

"You're darned lucky. It's just as though—as though some one had the little devil by the throat, trying to strangle him."

"There are things you can do?"

"Things you can try to do. But mostly you stand around with your hands tied waiting to see what's going to happen."

"Well?" queried Peter, evidently puzzled.

"That's only one of a thousand things that can happen to 'em."

"Well?"

"When I think of Chic and his children I think of him pacing the hall with his forehead all sweaty with the ache inside of him. Nothing pleasant about that, is there?"

Peter did not answer for a moment, and then what he said seemed rather pointless.

"What of it?" he asked.

"Only this," answered Monte uneasily. "When you speak of a wife and children you have to remember those facts. You have to consider that you're going to be torn all to shoe-strings every so often. Maybe you open the gates of heaven, but you throw open the gates of hell too. There's no more jogging along in between on the good old earth."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Peter. "You consider such things?"

"I've always tried to stay normal," answered Monte uneasily.

"Yet you said you're married?"

"Even so, isn't it possible for a man to keep his head?" demanded Monte.

"I don't understand," replied Peter.

"Look here—I don't want to intrude in your affairs, but I don't suppose you are talking merely abstractedly. You have some one definite in mind?"

"Yes."

"Then you ought to understand; you've kept steady."

"I wouldn't be like this if I had," answered Peter.

"You mean your eyes."

"I tried to forget her because she wasn't ready to listen. I turned to my work, and put in twenty hours a day. It was fool thing to do. And yet—"

Monte held his breath.

"From the depths I saw the heights.

Continued on page 22

The Blizzard in Lone Valley

By Walter Ferris

Illustrations by Harry Townsend

THE gray wood was beginning to whisper. Slowly the white silence that had lain upon the world during ten days of intense cold was changing, becoming informed with imperceptible movement and sound. Gradually, too, the terrible brilliance that had reflected from tree and boulder and from the cruel snow, and had stabbed the eye as with a thousand darts of lightning, was beginning to pale. A gray veil was being drawn before the face of the sun, and its shadow was stealing with quiet pace among the trees.

Through the wood a figure was moving, slowly and with painful, dragging step. His movement was scarcely progress. For the past few hours it had required an intense effort to stand. Each forward step was a miracle needing the full concentration of his will for its accomplishment.

He had not observed the change that was coming over the sky, nor the faint motion of the air, nor the awakening of the trees as from a dream. The eyes that stared from the haggard face were set and filmed from seeing.

YESTERDAY, when he could still think of himself, and remember who he was and the meaning of this desperate flight, he had prayed through panting lips for the storm. Now he moved in a great void, knowing neither sound nor silence, nor space, nor the passage of time. Indeed, he pressed on hardly by conscious volition.

It was as if, somewhere in the darkness that lay upon those past days, a desperate need had set his body in motion, and now when sensation was gone the force of that impulse remained to compel his steps.

The afternoon was growing late, and the passing of the sun was adding a deeper shadow to the twilight of the woods. A moment later the fugitive stopped, staggered, and sank beside the trunk of a pine.

"God!" he was sobbing. "Give me a mile—a mile—and food."

The words were repeated in a broken monotone, without inflection, without passion. Their utterance was mechanical, as if they had been spoken for hours in the same unvarying tone. For a time he lay against the tree; then, and as a little strength came to him, he roused and became dimly aware of the change in the sky.

He stared a moment without comprehension; then a dull light came to his eyes.

"It's come," he muttered thickly. "Snow's coming. A mile, and I'm safe."

He closed his eyes; and then, as the first light flake of the approaching storm touched his face, he stirred.

"My God, I've got to go on! It'll come thick in an hour, and I can't fight a blizzard—now."

He got to his feet drunkenly.

"They'll have to camp three days," he was muttering. "Three days of food and sleep."

He stood unsteadily a moment, and then a wistful light grew on the wasted face.

"Janie," he whispered, "keep calling—loud—or I'll fail."

NOW began again that painful dragging progress. It seemed to him that he was running, so great was the effort put forth at every step. It was a race with the storm now—a cruel race, for he was in the last stages of exhaustion, and the snow was riding on the tireless horses of the wind.

The next day he could not remember the incidents of that journey, nor that he fell often, and yet always went on as if in response to some imperious command that would not let him sleep. He recalled that mile only as a long, searing pain held on him relentlessly by the torturer's iron.

In the end he won the cabin; but in the last two hundred yards he had all but gone under, for the blizzard had set upon him, choking, blinding, beating him to the ground with a thousand furious assaults.

It had been a bitter fight to win the doorway; and now, with his hand upon the latch, he faced defeat. Somewhere in his pockets there was a key, but he could not whip his brain to recall its place, nor could his fingers have held and inserted it into the lock.

His gun alone remained of the scanty kit that he had carried on his flight; the rest had gone in the last mile, flung as a wager in the teeth of death. He drew it from its holster with uncertain fingers, placed the muzzle against the lock, and fired.

The danger of the act he did not even sense. Everything now was a gamble against fearful odds.

The gun was blown clean from his hand. For an instant he did not know whether he had been shot, or whether the cabin had disappeared in a great convulsion. He groped for the door; it was open, and the storm was driving into the room.

Staggering across the threshold, he found that he could scarcely hold the door against the force of the wind; to close it seemed impossible. His breath was coming in great sobs, and blind curses at his weakness issued from between his bared teeth. But he won, inch by inch, dropped the heavy bar, and sank against the wall.

SOME time later partial consciousness returned. He knew that he was freezing, but that somewhere near there was succor. What was it? He struggled to focus his thought. Ah, brandy! Somewhere near there was brandy that would give him life.

It was impossible to rise, and he began to crawl away from the door, groping for the shelf upon which the brandy stood. Thought did not guide him, but there was a momentary revival of the instinct that had driven him these last hours. Presently he reached the bottle; but it was corked tightly, and there was no strength in him to draw the cork.

He sat staring stupidly upon it in the darkness. He could not remember what to do. Anger saved him. In a sudden frenzy he struck the bottle heavily against the shelf.

There was a spurt of liquid on his face. He drank; and life that was almost gone returned to him.

With the first hot flush his mind cleared and he knew his condition. He must not drink much; even now there was need of haste. In his present weakness the brandy would act quickly, and he would fall into a drunken stupor and freeze, unless he had food and fire. There were crackers on the shelf. He took two and crushed them into his mouth.

Now for the fire. The simple movements necessary to its preparation required a fearful effort, and the hand that held the match was nearly frozen. But at length there was a crackle, a bright upward thrust of flame, and the room filled with the brightness of promised warmth.

HIS sight was beginning to film again, and a great languor was coming upon his limbs. Again he reached for the crackers and brandy. There were sharp cramps growing in his stomach, but he did not heed them. One last act remained. He drew blankets before the fire, lay down, and fell immediately into the sleep that is nearest death.

Sometime in the night he awoke, struggling up to consciousness from a great sea of pain. He felt as if his body were on the rack and all the fiends of hell were at the screws. Yet he knew that he must wake. Sleep was the drug that he craved: it would stifle the pain until to-morrow. But food was necessary, in order that his strength might be renewed for the difficulties still to come. With an effort that drew low groans, he stirred, roused, and tried to gather his forces for the necessary tasks. These, though light enough, were almost beyond his ability.

When the water was hot he prepared soup—warm, life-giving, gulped with sobs of which each was a prayer of thanksgiving. Then bacon and beans, a little of each, eaten with a restraint that placed

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a further tax on the fibers of his will. When the meal was done he found tobacco, and with the first indrawing of smoke he could think.

He looked about the room. The fire was playing high, and the glow and warmth filled the place as with the beneficence of heaven. It had seemed incredible that he should reach the comfort of this place again, or that he should live to do justice to the girl whose image had flitted before him those first days of the flight, beckoning gaily with laughter on her lips, and, when his eyes had grown dim, calling imperiously, imploring him to greater effort.

Now that he had reached the cabin, he might yet win to her. But for the storm, he could not have stopped for rest. There would have been a quick replenishing of his pack, and the doubtful race for the border would have been renewed.

To-morrow he would plan for his flight, but now he would sleep. His torpor was returning. The pipe dropped from his hand, and with a last effort he reached his bunk and let the waves of sleep carry him again to the depths of the world.

TEN days before, Jim Sanderson had gone down Lone Valley, a light kit on his back and a singing heart beneath his warm mackinac coat. He traveled fast, knees bent, swinging his snowshoes forward in a long, loping stride. He did not sing aloud; it was too cold. But the very movement of that lithe, splendidly muscled body was essential music. It was a strong face that showed under the fur cap—a sunny, open face, but with a firm set to the jaw and a quiet light in the gray eyes.

He had been alone for four months, trapping about his cabin at the head of the valley. It was his first winter there, and he had isolated himself, not of necessity, but from choice. He loved the rugged austerities of that life. More than ever at that season, nature became personalized for him—a great white presence, that now lay brooding silently, and now leaped to sudden fury and beat at the hills with savage fingers.

But love of that wild life had not alone driven him to exile. He had taken with him the image of Jane Talbot, to reflect upon it, to search its eyes for the truth that he longed to find.

The winter before, his first in Riga, she had appeared, without apparent cause and offering no explanation, out of the obscurity of that other world from which the frontier town was cut off. It was characteristic of that rough society that no questions were asked of her. Indeed, few persons in Riga had a known past. They were derelicts, who, for causes that were never questioned, had drifted there, to be accepted casually at their apparent worth.

But Jane Talbot, to Sanderson's eye, bore the unmistakable mark of a different society. He had himself come out of that other world six years before, drawn by the love of a freer life; but he still retained its code. At once he felt that Jane Talbot could not be one of the derelicts. She accepted the conditions of that rude town not weakly nor with bravado, but with an effort that did not hide from him the bravery of its smile. The incongruity of her dress as waitress at the hotel did not escape him, nor her involuntary shrinking at the rough pleasantries offered in the dance-hall above Jake's place.

The strangeness of her situation alternately attracted and repelled him. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish her from the other girls of the place, so bravely did she play her part. But at other moments he caught glimpses of the tragedy behind that mask of gaiety, and the pathos of it bit deep into his heart.

But he was never permitted more than a glimpse. She gave him no confidences. At the suggestion of question she withdrew into herself, but with a silent dignity that put him firmly away. Without words she told him plainly that she must be accepted for what she appeared to be, or not at all.

Inevitably that mystery, and the courage which he alone understood, drew him. For weeks he fought against it. He preferred not to admit her attraction until he was certain of her. He craved the secret of that past, ready to worship her if it were honorable, wishing only to pity her if it were not.

By insensible degrees his sympathy broke down her resistance. At first she had resented his comprehension, but the part that she had chosen to play was difficult one. She must defend herself against the worst of that rough life while accepting its outward conditions. So she had at length turned to that strong man, with the quiet understanding eyes, until he could read the love which his heart longed to answer. But always that ultimate barrier remained. She must be taken without question or not at all.

At last Sanderson's problem grew too acute to be borne. That fall he went to her and said good-by until spring, and then left for his cabin in Lone Valley, hoping to drive her image from him, or in that silence to brood upon it until its worth should be made clear to him. He did not solve her mystery, but he discovered a truth that made it insignificant.

There in the late autumn he saw the world die, as if from the breath of some destroying angel. Then had come the snow to heal the scars and clothe the world in virgin purity. Thereafter, with the coming of March, he knew, the winter would die, her whiteness stained with the decaying frost. And then spring would come, and her flowers would hide that ugliness of death, and a new and lovelier vestal would reign.

Reflecting upon these things through the winter months, it seemed to Sanderson that he discovered an analogy. Nature renews her life, and forgets; and her beauty is not destroyed for long. And then he remembered Jane Talbot's eyes when he had said good-by. They had not been accusing, but wistful and brave, as always, wishing for the trust that he could not give—clear eyes, if he had ever seen any. And suddenly he answered his problem. It did not matter what lay behind. She had courage, honesty, pride—great virtues. She was a true woman now; and that should suffice.

ON the night he made that discovery he sat till dawn before his fire, and with the coming of the sun he knew that he had found the truth. Within an hour his pack was ready, and he was off for Riga, where she waited.

For the first two days he went blithely; but then the sense of some danger threatening her came upon him. He began to fear that he had waited too long. Perhaps her courage had broken down, or some accident had thrown her to the wolves of that place. He remembered Dusty Miller's boast that one day he would humble her pride. Under the urgence of that fear, he pressed on with little rest, lighted through two nights by the brilliance of a waxing moon.

It was nine o'clock when he reached the single street of the town, and he made straight for the hotel where Jane Talbot worked. She was not there—had not been there that day; and they knew nothing of her whereabouts. Dread seized on Sanderson's heart. The fear that he had come too late became certainty. He crossed the road, and turned the corner to Jake's place. From the gossip of that room he hoped to learn what had happened.

Outside the door he leaned his snowshoes against the wall, and, without unstrapping his pack, stopped in. As he did so he caught sight of Dusty Miller leaning against the bar, his great body relaxed with drink, addressing the group about the card tables at the end of the room. Sanderson's entrance had not been noticed, and with a sudden instinct of caution he stepped aside into the hall from which the stairs led to the upper floor. Immediately Miller's boasting tones came to his ears.

"I reckon that about ends her little game," he was saying. "I've called that royal flush she's bin holdin' in her little hand, and when I've had a few more drinks there's goin' to be a merry little show-down in a place I know."

His gross, half-drunken laughter filled the room.

Sanderson's heart tightened and his legs grew weak. He drew his gun from its holster and shoved the muzzle into his belt under his mackinac.

Dusty was speaking again:

"She's bin shyin' from my rope for about twelve moons now, but I reckon she's corralled this time. I tells her I ain't one for these long engagements." He giggled tipsily. "And she ups and says that she loves another, or words in that general direction. I tells her I knows a little trick for jumpin' such claims, and she laughs in my face.

"So this mornin' I lays for her, and when she goes by a place I know, I twines my arms into a true love knot and carries her aloft for a little meditation. I didn't touch her none, though she kicks and scratches like a locoed coyote." He touched a livid streak on his face with tentative fingers. "I just tells her to set and think lovin' thoughts about me till I come back to-night; and I expect she's gettin' right anxious for the sight of me about now."

Loud laughter greeted this speech, while the blood flamed in Sanderson's face. He took a quick step toward the door, when Dusty's voice again arrested him:

"The little spitfire tells me she'll kill herself or me; and that, anyways, Sandy'll get me in the spring. I didn't rightly savvy that other fellow till she said that. But I guess by spring she'll sort o' forget. Leastways, Sandy's gun'll be sort of unsteady after a peaceful winter among the jack-rabbits."

AGAIN laughter arose from the group, but it stilled suddenly to a dead silence. Dusty blinked in astonishment, then turned quickly in the direction of their gaze. Sanderson stood ten feet away. His face was white, and his eyes held the light of terrible anger.

"Dusty," he said in an even tone, "I'm going to send you to hell presently. I ought to shoot you like a snake, but I'm man enough to give even you a chance. Tell me where that girl is, and I'll kill you quickly. If you don't, you'll die of slow torture."

Miller's loose body had stiffened. The shock of Sandy's appearance had sobered him instantly; but he was not facing a gun, and on even terms he was afraid of no man.

"So the little trapper fella's come back to my nuptials," he said, with a sneer.

His words were laughing, but his eyes were alert. He knew that the faster man on the draw would go out of the room alive, and he watched for an opening.

Sanderson's voice did not rise above its low pitch:

"Where's the girl? It's your last chance."

Dusty's reply was cut short. From the group beyond a rough voice spoke:

"The room's against you, Sandy. You've got no call to rope in. When you hiked out, Dusty took up your claim. The girl's his."

Sanderson knew what that meant. He had never been completely accepted in the town, and they would resent his interference. They would not meddle in the fight; but if he killed Dusty it would be a violation of their unwritten law, and the whole pack would set upon him. He opened his lips to reply, defying the room; and that second's uncertainty nearly cost him his life.

Miller's eye caught the wavering of Sandy's glance, saw the momentary distraction of mind, and his hand flashed toward his holster. Sandy's movements were as swift, but he was a fraction of a second behind. He knew it, and just as Dusty's gun spoke the lithe trapper leaped to one side, his own gun spitting flame. He fired twice, and then through the smoke he saw Miller's great body relax; saw a look of wonder grow in the dark eyes as they watched the gun slipping; heard a deep curse as Dusty fell and lay upon the sawdust on the floor.

Sanderson had killed his man; but his fight had only begun. While the smoke still eddied in the room, he jumped for the door, and stood with his back against it, his eyes shifting quickly about the place, his gun menacing. He spoke sharply:

"The first one that moves is a dead man."

They knew the accuracy of his aim, and for a moment nobody moved. But it was the quietness of latent movement, that would leap at his throat when some one dared to make the first move.

Again Sandy spoke quickly:

"I'm going through this door to get my shoes and hike. The first one after me drops."

A quick shifting of his gun covered a man who had stirred. With one hand behind him, he opened the door slowly.

"It'll be a good race, boys," he said, "and fair play out in the open. I'll be traveling fast for the border."

He would not be, of course: it was his intention to elude them, and come back for Jane.

JUST then the slow voice of Jim Larue came from the end of the room.

"Sandy," he drawled, "we're bound get you if we can; but before you go I'd sort of like to get square for the time you cured me o' snake-bite. Jane's all right. She's flew. Got out o' the winder and took the evening stage. Dusty didn't know it."

There was a moment's silence while Sandy waited for more.

"Jim," he pleaded, "is that all? I saved your life that time."

"Well," Larue drawled again, "she did say a little something about beating it across for Winston, and 'lowed I might tell you, if so be you came back and wanted to know."

Sandy had heard enough. He leaped through the door, slamming it behind him, stooped low to avoid the bullets that were already flying, seized his snow-shoes, and ran.

The men were making a rush for the door, shooting as they came; but he was around the corner and in the rear of the hotel before they caught sight of him. There were out-houses there around which to dodge, and in the rear of the stable the pines crowded close where the snow was deep and his pursuers could not follow.

With a deft movement, he slipped his toes beneath the straps of his shoes and raced into the thick covert of the pines.

HE had beaten them for a moment, but there were many long hours between him and the border. There would be no pursuit for an hour. Jake would have to pick his posse; packs must be provisioned for a long chase; and meantime he would have covered eight miles.

But now, with the familiar bite of the cold air on his face, his mind, which had been dazed by the suddenness of events, cleared, and he knew, even with that start, how uneven the conditions of the race were to be. No one in Riga could catch him on equal terms; but the little reserve of food that he had carried on the down trail was almost exhausted. Enough remained for perhaps two days, and it would take four at his best speed to reach the cabin where his pack might be replenished. And even if his food were sufficient, he knew that his strength was doubtful. He had slept little for five days, traveling fast, and his pursuers would be fresh.

It was a bitter hazard, but he had a mighty impulse to urge him. More than life depended on his speed and endurance. In these last days the tide of his love checked for so long, had risen strongly; and at Dusty's words even his doubt of her had vanished. He must live to undo the wrong he had done her, to justify her pride, to take the wistfulness from those brave eyes.

He shut his lips and breasted the cold

Continued on page 15

WHY THE GOOD STARS DIE YOUNG

HOW WE WONDER WHAT THEY ARE

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"IS THE SALAD ALL RIGHT, SIR?"

Continued from page 10

air with a lengthened stride, while before him the moon east a dark shadow that writhed in grotesque pantomime during the long leagues of that first night.

LATE in the morning he woke, and again there was a struggle to return to the flesh. The fire was out, the room bitterly cold, and the pain in his legs was still severe. Moments passed before he recognized his surroundings; then he remembered. Some one was pursuing him. Why? Slowly the details of those last days took form in his dulled brain. He started and listened in quick fear for the sound of the storm. It was still beating at the cabin, hurling its strength at the cliff above, raging down the valley.

As soon as he got on his feet he realized his condition. His body was fevered, and his legs trembled so that he could hardly stand. The rigors of his flight had left him but a poor ghost of that body that had gone singing down the valley ten days before.

After a careful meal, he assembled a new pack, and lifted it to his back to test its weight. It was slender enough, but he could not carry it ten feet.

He propped himself against a bench on the floor before the fire, lit his pipe, and considered. Unless the storm lasted for more than two days he could not go on; perhaps not then. He must have some plan in reserve. His weariness was so great that, had it been only his life that was at stake, he would have slept and left what might come to chance. That would not do now. The posse would be five to one, and he could not hope to win a straight fight except by a miracle. But he must live to tell Jane Talbot that he loved her and cure that hurt in her eyes.

He listened to the storm. There was a kind of beauty in that ominous sound. And where bank or boulder stood in the wind's path there would be great drifts sweeping to a splendid height, beautiful in their long, curving folds. In the morning sun these would show delicate lines of tracery; and at the edges there would be projections of irregular cornice and column—porticos where the fairy folk of the snow might walk and give their thousand jewels to the sun. Drifts! Suddenly his eye lighted. Perhaps the storm might be made to serve him further.

The cabin stood under a sheer cliff that rose two hundred feet above it. Between the rear wall and the rock was a space of forty feet, filled by a great drift that rose level with the roof. Much of this was old snow from a former storm, packed hard by a light thaw and the severe cold that had followed. Above this firm bank the wind was piling the brittle particles of the blizzard, pressing them down into a hard mass as the hours added weight.

AND now began a strange task that ran through a day and a night. Sanderson opened the rear door of the cabin, disclosing the closely packed drift. This he attacked with pail and shovel, carrying the snow through the room and emptying it before the cabin where the eddying wind had cleared a space. It was a slow and painful operation. He could work but a few minutes at a time, and then only by a driving effort. But by night a low tunnel had been made to the cliff, and then he rested.

After a short sleep he began again, hollowing out, by the light of candles, a larger space. When the cave had grown to sufficient size, he brought blankets and pieces of wood, and shored up the curving roof. Then he brought a single length of pipe which had served to carry water from a spring. This he drove upward, next to the face of the cliff, and worked out the snow with a stick until he could see light at the top. This would give him air.

Thereafter he brought food, furs, and the remaining blankets, which he spread on the floor. His rifle and cartridges were placed at the rear of the cabin, next to the door that led to his tunnel.

It was afternoon when he finished. During the final hours he had worked feverishly, driving himself by repeated doses of brandy. But, even with this stimulus, his legs had failed, and he had been forced to crawl painfully back and forth. The storm was falling. There was a perceptible lessening of the wind, and the snow was growing lighter. Jake and his men might reach the cabin in two hours or three. How much distance they had covered during his last staggering day he did not know, but he felt that they could not be far behind.

After a last meal he dropped on the floor before the fire. His exhaustion was complete. There could be no thought of flight now.

IT seemed but a few moments before he was wakened by a heavy knocking on the door, though it was in reality late twilight. Even now he roused with difficulty. The knocking had been several times repeated before he understood its meaning. Jake's voice was raised outside:

"Better come out quietly without your gun, Sandy. We're five to one. No use fightin'."

Sanderson moved to the door, standing a little to one side to avoid the shots that would follow.

"Jake," he said, "I know you've got me. But I won't go back. You'll bury me in the snow first."

Jake's voice was rough.

"You fool, it won't do you no good to fight. You come out o' there. We'll get you anyhow."

"You'll have to come and take me, then. Get back from the door.!"

He fired high, to start hostilities.

He was answered by a volley; and then he began shooting in earnest, lying on the floor at the rear of the cabin. He could keep them away from the door,—they would not dare to rush it,—and that was all he wished.

There followed an interval of silence, broken only by an occasional shot from outside. He knew what they were doing, and his heart beat fast. The test of his plan was coming quickly.

Presently he heard faint rustling sounds

beyond the door and a little to one side, where his shots could not penetrate the heavy logs. Then a wisp of smoke came drifting through a crack.

He smiled grimly. "Let her burn," he muttered; but his eyes were feverish with excitement.

Jake was calling again:

"Come out o' there, Sandy. You're all afire. Goin' with us is better'n cremation."

Sanderson's answer was a bullet aimed waist-high. He wanted to kill now. Here he was in a trap, fighting for his life, when, if there were any justice and decency in the world, he and Jane Talbot would now be laughing somewhere among the lights of Riga.

The room was filling with smoke. In front the cabin was well alight, and he could hear a sharp crackle as the flame licked the bark from the logs. The roof would catch soon, for the wind had kept it bare, driving the snow over and packing it between wall and cliff. A moment later, at the height of the front wall next the roof, a little jet of flame darted out, retreated, came again and again as if blown by an uncertain wind, and then remained, curling upward and fastening on the dry boards of the under roof.

THE crisis was coming quickly. Sanderson lay with his face to the floor, fighting for air from the bitter smoke that swirled and eddied about the room. The roof was blazing above and below; and a low, vibrant roar was becoming perceptible beneath the crisper sounds as the flame fastened on new surfaces. The door was burned through; but they would not try to rush it, thinking that at the last he must stagger out, blinded with smoke, and fall an easy prey.

To be certain that there would be no attempt, he kept pumping bullets through door and window, cursing in broken gasps as the breath came from his struggling lungs. Anger was blazing in him now with as fierce a flame as that which shot up the face of the cliff. Burn him out! Roast him alive for defending a woman from a skunk who had no right to live! Kill a man who loved life as they had never loved it, nor could!

They were shouting to him now, amazed and terrified at the desperate courage that could face such a death rather than surrender. Above the crescendo of the fire Sheriff Jake's voice came hoarsely:

"For God's sake, Sandy, come out!"

There was no breath in him for a reply, but he emptied the magazine of his rifle in the direction of the voice, praying for a hit.

The roof was beginning to sag. In a moment it would fall and make that interior a pit of fire. Outside the men stood, white-faced and staring. It was incredible! Those hard men who had faced bullets without fear could not believe that the madman would not come out. Die like that, crushed under a burning timber, while the flame bit through flesh and bone! He must come out, or end it with a bullet through his head.

ALL at once they began to curse wildly, begging him to come. And even as they called they saw that it was too late, for the roof was falling. Lower and lower it sagged; and then with a sudden rush of flame it fell, and a volcano of bursting sparks rushed up into the night.

And with that fall came a horrible sound. Scream after scream rose from within that molten place—livid screams that choked to a convulsive cry, and ceased, bringing silence, save for the deep monotone of the fire that filled the air with its sinister note of death. And by that mounting glow the upper face of the cliff was struck to a fearful beauty.

From the watchers there came no word. He had waited until too late for that final bullet. Even their curses had ceased upon the sound of those awful screams. For a moment they knew reverence, and awe sat upon their faces like a strange visitation of light. So they stood and watched while the flames lifted their serpentine heads in a writhing, fantastic dance, and the sparks raced to the summit of the cliff, and the echoes went murmuring down the hushed valley.

Presently the walls would fall, the reviving flames would renew their bright dance, then lessen, fail, and smolder on through the night. But the watchers had no heart for that sight. The funeral pyre had been the work of their hands, and they wished now that the match had never been set.

They turned and plodded wearily up the valley until they were forced to camp. And there until morning they sat by the fire, shivering and muttering whispered oaths that sounded like the voice of prayer.

BEHIND them, in that white-walled cave under the cliff, a figure lay on the blanketed floor, sobbing. His face was blackened and blistered from the heat of that destroying flame; and one hand, livid from the touch of the fire, moved ceaselessly back and forth, seeking respite from its pain. The swollen lips were whispering a woman's name. In his delirium it seemed that she was coming to him across the world, and that presently her cool hand would be on his forehead, and the pain would cease.

A week later the morning sun rose and looked down upon a valley that gave back its cold light in a myriad iridescent hues—a land of curving outlines, rounded surfaces, flowing lines traced by the fury of the wind that, by some strange paradox, had left beauty in its path.

Sanderson stepped from his snow hut and looked upon the world with unaccustomed eyes. The morning seemed to him very lovely. As he set his face to the border, he moved uncertainly, without vigor; but peace lay upon his heart as upon the hills. It seemed to him that the sun was higher in the heavens than it had been a week ago, that the light was softer, the air less chill. Spring's heralds were abroad, proclaiming her coming; and beyond the border the promise of another spring should greet him.

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WILL THERE BE NO MORE CHILDREN IN EUROPE AFTER THE WAR?

A FUTURE without children!

A defeminized race unable to bear them!

This is the sounding warning of Dr. William Lee Howard in the Boston Sunday Post:

"Ten thousand German women are doing the heaviest kind of labor in the Krupp works; 20,000 more have taken their husbands' jobs in Berlin; 117,000 English women are working in the engineering trade alone; and hundreds of thousands of French, Russian, and Italian women are doing men's work."

What kind of mothers will be made of these women? Will they bring forth children fit to cope with the world?

Dr. Howard answers:

"No! Not even the freedom of bifurcated garments [must be trousers] will keep the physiques of these women capable of having children."

It is harmful to disturb the natural instincts of men and women, the Doctor maintains. If a male is given any feminine labor to do, such as embroidery, it has a strange effect upon him, and (this makes us wonder about those hale old sea captains who took such pride in their knitting) he will become less manly.

So it is with the women war toilers. They develop muscles, "drawing directly upon those vital forces that are essential to womanhood." Working against nature, they become masculine.

"Contrast the woman who starts married life at eighteen; who has her house-work to do, her child to care for and her husband to consider. Let her live this domestic life for ten years, and see her physical condition. She will be plump, full-blooded, happy, and as useful in her functions as the day she married. The reason is simply that her womanly functions have gone their natural way.

"The same girl, working at things alien to a woman's mind, although married and the mother of a child, will be tired and defeminized."

What about the children to be born under the present conditions?

"There won't be any. The muscular war-women can't bear children. They are no longer women."

Then Dr. Howard shoots his first ray of optimism:

"The girls of ten and fifteen to-day are the ones who will save the situation. Learning a lesson from the sterility and unrest of modern women, their aim will be complete womanhood, and they will not injure themselves by stepping outside their sphere."

WHY BABIES HAVE TO BE HUGGED

THE baby not only may, but must, be hugged.

This dictate of a British physician is a victory for the grandmothers, who, as a class, have always opposed the brutal modern methods of raising the child by book. Now comes to their rescue a daring doctor who says the infant needs mothering. In a paper read before the Royal Academy of Physicians, Dr. M. S. Pembrey of London declares that "instinct is a safer guide than the smattering of science which teaches that the newly born child should be taken away from its mother in order that it may breathe purer air, not worry its mother, nor run the risk of being overlain."

Your body is like an apartment-house. The tenant, your nerves, says to the janitor, your brain, "My rooms are cold." The janitor speaks to the engineer and fireman, your glands and muscles, and they immediately stoke up. Or, if the tenant complains that the apartments are over-heated, the janitor makes the fireman and engineer close up the furnace.

But when this temperamental tenant, the nervous system, is exhausted or asleep, or drugged with alcohol, he makes no impression on the janitor. That is why weary travelers or drunkards who fall asleep, unprotected from the cold, are most easily frozen to death.

It is this power to regulate your own thermometer, according to Dr. Pembrey, which distinguishes warm-blooded animals from cold-blooded ones.

And are babies, then, cold-blooded animals? Not quite. But, though their lungs may be lusty enough to wake all the inhabitants in a real apartment-house, their nerve-centers are too feeble to stoke up for their own little private house.

So, says Dr. Pembrey, the mother is the best furnace, for the temperature of her skin is about 95º F.

SHALL WE SEE PURPLE COTTON FIELDS?

SOME day a syncopated song will run, "Meet me in the purple cotton fields, my Alexander"; or, it may be an orange or a Nile-green or an oyster-gray or a London-smoke cotton field. That will depend on the fashionable color of the season.

For several years A. W. Brabham has been making experiments with cotton on his plantation at Olar, South Carolina, says an account in the Boston Herald, and he has come to the conclusion that colored cotton can be grown in large crops. In the near future, he predicts, looms will be fed with cotton threads of a natural color that will not fade, and cloth manufacturers will do away with chemical dye processes that are not only expensive, but damaging to the fiber of cheaper grades of cotton cloth.

There are already fields of colored cotton in the world. In Peru, for instance, a red-tinted cotton is grown; in the same country and in Egypt and Hawaii there is brown cotton; India produces a gray cotton, and the Chinese fields are yellow with it. It is also said that Mexico has a jet-black cotton that will make the black sheep look like Mary's little lamb.

As for those blue cotton shirts which are worn and faded in every harvest field and freight yard in America—they won't have to be fished out of dye vats much longer, because C. H. Clarke of Boston has one stalk of blue cotton in his laboratory already.

THE JOB OF GETTING OUT A CITY DIRECTORY

MAYBE you think the City Directory with a new date on it is the same old book it was last year. No such beer and skittles for the canvassers! In a big city only one person in every three stays put for a year. If a man's residence hasn't changed, likely his job has; and women's last names are terribly unstable.

Each year the city has to be carefully combed by half a dozen canvassers—those men who go from office to office, from front door to back door, saying, "I'm the census man. Name, please." In the Boston Herald a canvasser tells his experiences.

One annoying kind of person in the world is the woman who expects the canvasser to remember her from last year. Having a vague memory of him when he takes out his book and pencil, she recalls that he is the census man. "What is your name, ma'am?" "Same as last year," says she.

"Going up to a house one day," narrates a canvasser, "the door was opened by an angry woman with a rolling-pin in her hand.

"'Well, what do you want?' she said.

"I answered that I wanted to see the head of the house.

"'We haven't settled that yet,' said the woman, slamming the door in my face. The next time I went there her husband was in the hospital, and she gave me the information I needed."

It's hard for the new men to get the names of the Polish and Italian residents—from their women especially, for they fear that the names are being secured for the armies of the old country.

"Me no spik—me no spik," is the only response. Then the investigator has to go to the chief man of the neighborhood, or the parish priest, to get a note in their language, before these people will show how intelligent they really are. After showing his note the canvasser is almost lionized—especially by the Italians. They make him taste their wine, and they gather in their children, who interpret and rattle off the spelling of the names in the best fourth-grade style.

"One interesting thing is to see how each year brings an advance in the social scale of foreigners. First they are laborers, then mechanics, then contractors, and so on."

While a man's full name is taken at his home, his occupation is taken at his place of business: because it has been found by experience that a wife is always tempted to add a little to her husband's titles.

One woman said that her husband was a "collector"—a collector of rare old garbage, it developed later.

The canvassers are a hard working, conscientious lot—there's a reason. As the new list of names is always checked up with last year's list, very often dummy names are inserted in the proof sheets he carries. If he returns to the company's offices with an O. K. after a dummy name—well, it's too bad for him, that's all.

THE BUG THAT EATS LEAD

A BUG that eats lead has been discovered by a Californian telephone company, says the Boston Herald. For several years the company had trouble with its wires. Some mysterious influence would cut the circuit every now and again. Finally several men were sent out to look for the trouble-maker, and they caught some of these bugs "in the act of drilling into the lead coating of the wires."

"They are slender black beetles, with hard wing-covers, about one quarter inch long and of innocent demeanor"; so, to make sure the bugs they found really ate lead, they were put in lead boxes with glass covers. The bugs began with relish to eat their way to freedom.

Scientists can't figure out why the bug should bore holes in lead, saying "it seems well-nigh impossible that it could derive a high degree of nourishment from the lead, even if it did not become sick." Their favorite theory is that the bug wants to deposit its eggs.

---

NO MORE COOKING UTENSILS IN POLAND

DAY after day, long lines of men and women carrying bundles, packages, and pieces of metal-ware of all descriptions, stand in the government offices of Poland, awaiting their turn. They are surrendering their domestic utensils—bath-room fixtures, kitchen ware, pots, pans, kettles, door-knobs, lamp-hangers, anything having the slightest bit of metal about it. The Austrian-Hungarian government has posted notices throughout war-ridden Poland, requisitioning all household metals for military purposes. Nothing escapes. No one is exempt.

"Housewives," says Anthony Czarnecki in the Chicago Daily News, "often make several trips to the government offices before they clean out their kitchens and pantries.

"By complete confiscation and severe fines dealt out to a few persons who were endeavoring to save some utensils which had been family heirlooms, the authorities have forcibly taught the rest of the people the lesson to hold nothing back. Wedding gifts, family heirlooms, and rare, costly imported pieces of metal-ware are treated upon the same basis as pots and kettles. Candlesticks and other metal articles used in connection with religious exercises are all doomed.

"'The distress and worry caused among the people by the compulsory surrender of everything containing metal is greater than those who have not experienced it can realize,' said a prominent woman of Przemysl, whose home had been stripped. 'This territory of Poland is the battle ground. We are not responsible for the world struggle, and the Polish people were neither consulted before it began, nor are they now asked when it shall end.'

"The disease epidemics and orders of physicians to keep the bodies and dwelling places clean helped to delay the turning in of the bath-tubs. The military announced they would see that suitable substitutes were provided before the metal ones are removed."

SHOULD WE HAVE OUR JAWS X-RAYED?

HAVE you an unexplainable acne in your body? Are your joints creaking with rheumatism? Or are you melancholy? Then go to the dentist (for a change) and have your jaws X-rayed.

Rheumatism, paralysis, Bright's disease, heart failure, and even insanity may be caused by a subtle blood poisoning from decayed teeth. All this, says the Chicago American, was announced and explained at the last National Dental Convention.

"Pus, the poison of decay, no matter where it forms, works through the muscles and bones until it finds a passage to the outside air, or is absorbed by the blood. Each tooth is supplied with tiny blood vessels, and the walls of these blood vessels absorb the pus around them just as a blotter soaks up ink.

"When the body absorbs more of this poison than it can take care of, Bright's disease is often the result, and in much the same way the germs of rheumatism are carried into the circulation. If people kept their mouths free from decay poisons, ninety per cent. of the rheumatism would disappear."

As for mental diseases, paralysis, melancholia, etc.,—when a hidden abscess presses on a nerve, the pain and decay is carried to the brain, which lies only a fraction of an inch above the roof of the mouth.

"Therefore," says the new school of dentists, "have an X-ray photograph of your jaws taken every year."

TEMPTING MENUS FOR THE ANTARCTIC

THOSE tender mortals who simply must have three regular meals a day, and can not keep up their strength without their morning snack of fruit, cereal, ham and eggs, coffee and toast,—with a savory finish of griddle cakes,—need not apply for passage on a polar expedition. Griffith Taylor, in his book, With Scott (Dodd, Mead & Co.), gives graphic glimpses of the list of delicacies that pass muster at meal-time ten thousand miles from Piccadilly and Broadway.

"We thankfully ate seal hoosh out of tin mugs, helped down by unlimited supplies of captain's biscuits nearly ten years old. Next day the cooks prepared a breakfast of seal meat and curry, with a cup of cocoa." The menus of other meals, whose savory remembrance almost brings tears to the writer's eyes, follow:

Lunch: Seal liver seasoned with a box of dried peas left over from the 1902 expedition (this was in 1911).

Dinner: Seal hoosh, flavored with beef essence, and toasted wholemeal biscuits (left from the Shackleton 1908 expedition).

Breakfast: Porridge biscuit stew, "with a few bits of seal in for luck."

Lunch : "Chupatties," which were a kind of unleavened currant scone made of flour and biscuit-dust and corn flour; about four of these to a man.

Dinner: Boiled penguin.

Breakfast: "Whales on toast," which were biscuits fried in butter and crowned by two sardines, eked out with biscuits au naturel.

Mr. Taylor, with half a dozen others, left the party after a year to return to their duties at Cambridge. Scott and the rest went on and reached the South Pole, finding there a tent and flag left thirty days before by the Norwegian, Amundsen.

Amundsen had started eleven days before the Englishmen, and was eighty miles nearer. But Captain Scott had accomplished his task, and in the time he had allotted to do it.

The world knows the story of the difficult return journey, and of the war waged against all the forces of nature, and finally lost through the illness of several members of the party. They never again reached Discovery Hut, the scene of those sumptuous polar repasts.

A FAMILY OF TRAGIC MEN

WHEN news cane to the tragedian Forrest that President Lincoln had been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, "I believe it," he said. "All those —— Booths are crazy!" Yet Forrest knew the elder Booth and his sons, and loved them.

William Winter, in Vagrant Memories, writes of this family of strange, tragic men. Junius Brutus Booth, the father of John Wilkes and Edwin, was also a genius.

"He was a spare, muscular man, with a symmetrical Greek head, a pale countenance, a voice of wonderful compass and thrilling tone, dark hair and blue eyes." As for his acting: "Though I was only a youth," writes Winter, "when I saw him, I can never forget. He could seem the incarnation of hellish rapacity. His malice seemed to buoy him above the ground. He floated rather than walked. His glance was deadly."

Drinking was in those days "a curse which beset public performers when fatigue or dejection made them dubious of their powers to 'rise to the occasion.' It seemed really once to have been thought that an actor who did not make a maniac of himself with drink could not be possessed by the divine fire." And the elder Booth was among the cursed. "When his appetite for liquor was approaching, he would make use of a peculiar gesture, sawing the air with his right hand. Then Edwin would try to separate him from his boon companions. Old Booth, making his ominous gesture, would say, 'Go away, young man. Go away. By God, sir, I'll put you aboard a man-o'-war, sir!"

There was a sculptor and writer named Gould who admired the elder Booth, but admired him so much and so constantly that old Booth was wearied.

"One day," said Edwin, "my father dashed into the bedroom breathless with haste, and dove under the bed, saying: 'Gould—coming! Say I'm out.' Mr. Gould came up, surprised not to find my father. After we had talked for several minutes, my father, becoming impatient, thrust his head out from under the bed, inquiring as he did so: 'Is that damned bore gone?'"

Old Booth began his career as a seaman. He painted a little, and learned the printer's trade. After that he went on the London stage; but, finding so many enemies there, he came to America in 1821, bought a farm, married, and had ten children. Henceforth he was an actor until he died in 1852, loving his friends too much and hating his enemies too fiercely ever to be serene and happy.

WHY LIVE IN A HOUSE?

THE architect and builder of the modern flat provides every essential to a perfect home life except a happy family. Building Age sets forth the following inducements to beguile the happy family into the perfect flat:

AS GERMANY SEES ENGLAND

WHAT SCIENCE IS DOING

To Roll This Old World Along

WHEN ALADDIN CAME TO OKLAHOMA

THIS is not a passage from a history of the gold rush of '49.

The first hotel of the boom town was a paying investment the first night. Mrs. Ora Crews, a Kansas City woman, rode in, seated on a pile of machinery. She put up sixteen beds and charged the guests $2 apiece, putting two men in a bed. The floors were so littered with sleepers that she could hardly walk between them. It cost $1 to sleep on the floor. The only light in the house was a stable lantern, borrowed from the livery-man next door.

That is a single episode in the unwritten history of Oilton, Oklahoma, which sprang from cotton fields to a city of 5000 in a few weeks. Here is another sample:

Games of chance are reaping a whirlwind harvest. The gambling fraternity has never known a more lucrative field than that supplied by the men employed in this golden oil district. The profits in some of the larger establishments have been so large that small steel forts have been erected inside the rooms to guard the treasury. Quick-triggered men with high-power rifles stand guard in these forts.

Aladdin's wonder lamp never brought more fruitful response than the magic wand that prosperity has waved over the Oklahoma-Kansas oil fields, better known as the Mid-Continent field. Oklahoma oil is doing more than "war-brides" in the way of producing swollen fortunes. The Mid-Continent field literally is swimming in oil. Where one derrick stood a few years ago, there now are clusters. Rivers are not too deep, sands too treacherous, nor mountains too steep to prevent the stampede of the reckless ones to the newly discovered oil pools.

Men who two years ago did not enjoy even the privilege of an adverse rating in a commercial agency report are millionaires. It requires a stout heart to play the oil game. Many show a disposition to retire after their first lucky strike. Yet there is the case of the Oklahoman who has lost three of the four fortunes he has won in Oklahoma oil.

A comparison of prices shows clearly how millionaires have been made in a day. A little more than one year ago Oklahoma oil commanded 40 cents a barrel. Within six months the price had climbed to $1.30. In the winter of 1915-1916 the price rose to $2.10. The chief beneficiaries have been the producers and holders. When prices were low they

began storing away huge quantities of oil, and on February 1 of this year there were more than 115,000,000 barrels of oil in storage. The bulk of this supply was bought when oil was selling at 40 cents. When the price advanced to $2 the value of the investment was increased by $185,000,000. On February 1 the Standard Oil Company owned 65,000,000 of the 115,000,000 barrels in storage on tank farms in the State. Their share of the melon must have amounted approximately to $105,000,000.

One of the most interesting places in the Cushing field, where oil history has been in the making in the past year, is the town that oil built—Oilton. On January 1, 1915, there was no such town, and even to-day it can not be found on the map.

Within a radius of a few miles more than 10,000 workmen were engaged in oil-field work at one time. Less than a year ago more than 4000 men were employed as teamsters in this district.

In the mad rush following the great strikes in the Cushing territory, hundreds of wells were sunk. At one time fifty wells were being drilled in the bed of the Cimarron River alone. The surface of the stream is covered with a black scum which destroys the agricultural value of the adjoining land.

In the month of May, Oklahoma oil wells produced a daily average of 301,500 barrels, netting more than $400,000 to the prosperity of the State each day.

HELPING EUROPE

WE salaried men over here in the domestic trenches seem to be bearing the economic brunt of Europe's war. We are making so much money from the fellows on the other side that a dollar has lost its value.

After the war Europe is going to do everything in her power to get back some of her recklessly spent money. For example, Europeans have been inventing very few peaceful appliances lately. We have. Lawrence Langner, an international patent expert, said recently in the New York Times that Germany, Russia, England, France, and Italy will promptly absorb our recent patents for their own industrial good as soon as peace comes. Severe steps will be taken by our government to protect our inventors. In all probability, to protect their patents, our inventors will be compelled to establish manufacturing branches in many European countries.

A SKYSCRAPER'S LIFE

HOW long will a skyscraper live? Does the steel decay rapidly? Is it only a question of a few years when such buildings as the Woolworth, Metropolitan, and Equitable must be torn down? When the first steel-frame buildings were constructed, about a quarter of a century ago, people asked these questions.

Engineers have made tests recently, according to Straus's Investors' Magazine, which prove that properly constructed high steel-frame buildings—skyscrapers—should last hundreds of years.

When the fifteen-story Champlain Building in Chicago was torn down recently, after a life of twenty-three years, it was found, under the microscope, that the greatest depth to which the rusting extended was less than .009 of an inch. Even if the rust had progressed rapidly, more than one century would pass before the steel framework would become unsafe.

THE STEEL ARTERIES OF ITALY

AFTER reading about the terrible condition of European railroads, prepare yourself for the shock that greets you in sunny Italy. He who is lucky enough to secure a passport to the Italian front travels de luxe. With the roar of the Austrian Skodas removed only a few miles from him, he props his morning newspaper before him in the dining-car and nibbles delicately at his strawberries and cream with as little concern as if he were traveling in the United States.

The perfect system of Italy's war-time railroads is interestingly illustrated by the unique experience of the Italian representative of the Railway Age Gazelle.

"Two men, civilians," he writes, "boarded a train one night at Brescia, at the foot of the Alps, on a bee-line south from the Swiss frontier, and rode across country as far as Mestre. There they got off to change ears, the train going on three miles further to war-clad Venice. The next day one of the men said to the other: 'By golly, I've lost my camera and field glasses.' A hunt high and low in the baggage and recollection of the two men was fruitless. The camera and field glasses had disappeared somewhere, but where neither could recall.

"Weeks after, when one man had gone to France and the other to Rome, the second received an official note inquiring if he or his companion had not lost a camera and a pair of field glasses. The photograph developed from one of the films in the camera showed him that the objects were those lost by his friend. In due time the camera and field glasses reached their owner, but minus the films, these doubtless being regarded as military in their nature.

"The explanation is that a system has been established that can't break down. The lost objects were picked up in the passenger train, duly turned in to the rail-road's lost property room at Venice, and then, as they seemed of a military character, were turned over to the local military authorities, who in turn forwarded them to the headquarters of the army, where the films were examined and the face of one of the owners recognized.

"This is not a press-agent story. The owner of the camera and glasses was Will Irwin, the magazine writer. His companion was myself."

EVERY MAN HIS OWN SUBMARINE

WHY waste energy rowing a boat when you go fishing? Why sit for hours in the sweltering sun on the end of an uncomfortable pier? Why, indeed? echoes the gentleman with the hooked fish who posed especially for this photograph. He enjoys all the comforts of a bedroom with a fireplace, basking luxuriously in chilly water forty feet deep, even smoking cigars.

Jim Scarlett, of Seattle, Washington, is the basker, the smoker, and the fisherman. Incidentally, he is the inventor of the Scarlett waterproof suit. Used for fishing or for saving one's life, it has advantages all of its own. The water-proofed khaki—specially treated—makes a comfortable lounging place for the fisherman who desires to get just as close to the fish as possible. As a life-saver the suit has unique advantages. If you should jump into the sea from the deck of a sinking ship and the suction should drag you under for ten minutes, while your submarine experience might not he exactly pleasant, you would at least have all of the air necessary. The suit has a hood, also water-tight; and, with the air in the suit as well as that contained in the hood, a submarine voyage of ten minutes is possible.

Jim Scarlett, by the way, is a spectacular press agent. Every once in a while he dives off the top deck of the West Seattle ferry and horrifies the passengers.

BETRAYING THE DRONES

Where are you going, my little bee?"
"To the clover, sir," she buzzes;
"Unless our hive is filled, you see,
Our master, sir, will cuss us."

IF the bees of a certain fancier in Barren County, Kentucky, don't come home to roost with all the honey he thinks they should, he does not punish them, for spanking a bee would be a strenuous task. What he does is give them more to eat. He encourages them. He sugars them along, as it were. But it is not his kind-heartedness that gives him a claim to this valuable space: it is his inventive ingenuity. He cheeks up the honey production of his swarm by actual measurement at the end of every day.

Athwart the trunk of a tree he has pivoted a long wooden pole. Dangling from one end is the hive. Suspended from the other is a pail with weights inside. At the end of each day he balances the increased honey in the hive with more weights. If the bees have been loafing on the job, he assumes that his honey gatherers are underfed, and he sets out a nice large platter of—well, whatever the honey bee waxes fattest on.

Auntie Takes a Night Off

By Sewell Ford

Illustrations by Hazel Roberts

IT looked like a case of watchin' out for the stick to come down. Uh-huh! The good yacht Agnes had been tied her anchor less than half a day when this grand treasure-huntin' expedition of ours showed symptoms of collapse. It was weak in the knees, groggy in its motions, and had fur on its tongue. If there'd ever been any stock issued by the Ellins-Hemmingway Exploration & Development Company, I'll bet you could have bought in a controllin' interest for two stacks of cigarette coupons and a handful of assorted campaign buttons.

You see, Old Hickory and Auntie had hung all their bright hopes on this Captain Rupert Killam. They'd listened to his tale about a secret mangrove island with a gold and jewel stuffed mound in the middle, and they'd taken it right off the fork. His mysterious and romantic motions had them completely buffaloed—at first.

But on the way down here Rupert's reputation as a bold, bad adventurer had gradually been oozin' away, like a slow air leak from a tire. His last play of hidin' his head when the Agnes had been held up by a gun-boat had got most everybody aboard lookin' squint-eyed at him. Even Mrs. Mumford had crossed him off her hero list.

Just what his final fluke was I'm only givin' a guess at, but I judge that when Mr. Ellins called on him to point out the pirate hoard, now we were right on the ground, Rupert begun stallin' him off. Anyway, I saw 'em havin' a little private session 'way up in the bow soon after we got the hook down. By the set of Old Hickory's jaw I knew he was puttin' something straight up to Rupert. And the Cap, he points first one way, then the other, endin' by diggin' up a chart and gazin' at it vague.

"Huh!" grunts Old Hickory.

I COULD hear that clear back by the bridge, where Vee and I were leanin' over the rail watchin' for flyin'-fish. Also we are within ear-stretchin' distance when he makes his report to Auntie.

"Somewhere around here—he thinks," says Mr. Ellins. "Says he needs a day or so to get his bearings. Meanwhile he wants us to go fishing."

"Fish!" sniffs Auntie. "I shall certainly do nothing of the sort. I want to tell you right here, too, that I am not going to humor that absurd person any more."

"Isn't he just as wise as he was when you lured him away from the hotel where I'd put him?" asks Old Hickory sarcastic.

"I supposed you had a little sense then yourself, Matthew Ellins," Auntie raps back at him.

"You flatter me," says Old Hickory, bowin' stiff and marchin' off huffy.

After which they both registers glum, injured looks. A close-up of either of 'em would have soured a can of condensed milk, especially whenever Captain Rupert Killam took a chance on showin' himself. And Rupert, he was wise to the situation. He couldn't help being. He takes it hard, too. All his chesty, important airs are gone. He skulks around like a stray pup that's dodgin' the dog-catcher.

You see, when he'd worked off that buried treasure bunk in New York it had listened sort of convincin'. He'd got away with it, there being nobody qualified to drop the flag on him. But down here on the west coast of Florida, right where he'd located the scene, it was his cue to ditch the prospectus gag and produce something real. And he couldn't. That is, he hadn't up to date. Old Hickory ain't the one to put up with any pussyfootin'. Nor Auntie, either. When they ain't satisfied with things they have a habit of lettin' folks know just how they feel.

Hence this area of low pressure that seems to center around the Agnes. Old Hickory is off in one end of the boat, puffin' at his cigar savage; Auntie's at the other, glarin' into a book she's pretendin' to read; Mrs. Mumford is crochetin' silent; Professor Leonidas Barr is riggin' up some kind of a scientific dip-net; J. Dudley Simms is down in the main saloon playin' solitaire; and Rupert sticks to the upper deck, where he's out of the way.

VEE and me? Oh, we got hold of a map, and was tryin' to locate just where we were.

"See, that must be Sanibel Island—the long green streak off there," says she, tracin' it out with a pink forefinger. "And that is Pine Island Sound, with the Caloos—Caloosa—"

"Now sneeze and you'll get the rest of it," says I.

"Caloosahatchee. There!" says she. "What a name to give a river! But isn't it wonderful down here, Torchy?"

"Perfectly swell, so far as the scenery goes," says I.

Course, it's a good deal like this 79-cent pastel art stuff you see in the Sixth Avenue department stores. The water looks like it had been laid on by Bohemian glass blowers who didn't care how many colors they used. The little islands near by, with clumps of feather-duster palms stickin' up from 'em, was a bit stagey and artificial. The far-off shores was too vivid a green to be true, and the high white clouds was the impossible kind that Maxfield Parrish puts on magazine covers. And, with that dazzlin' sun blazin' overhead, it all made your eyes blink.

Even the birds don't seem real. Not far from us was a row of these here pelicans—foolish things with bills a yard long and so heavy they have to rest 'em on

their necks. They're all strung out along the edge of the channel, havin' a fish gorge. And, believe me, when a pelican goes fishin' he don't make any false moves. He'll sit there squintin' solemn at the water as if he was sayin' his prayers, then all of a sudden he'll make a jab with that face extension of his, and when he pulls it out and tosses it up you can bet your last jitney he's added something substantial to the larder. One gulp and it's all over. I watched one old bird tuck away about ten fish in as many minutes.

"Gee!" says I. "Every day is Friday with him. Or maybe he's got a contract to supply Fulton Market."

The entertainin' part of the performance, though, was when the bunch took it into their heads to move on, and started to fly. They've got little short legs and wide feet that they flop back and forth foolish, like they was tryin' to kick themselves out of the water. They make a getaway about as graceful as a cow tryin' the fox trot. But say, once they get goin', with them big wings planed against the breeze, they can do the soar act something grand. And dive! One of 'em doin' a hundred-foot straight down plunge has got Annette lookin' like a plumber fallin' off a roof backwards.

No, there wasn't any gloom around our side of the yacht, though I'll admit it don't take much of a program to keep me amused while Vee has the next orchestra chair to mine. We took no notice of anybody's grouch, and whether or not there was any pirate gold in the neighborhood was a question we didn't waste thought on. We knew there wouldn't be anything in it for us, even if there was.

WHEN the word was passed around that anybody that wanted to might get out and fish, we was the first to volunteer. Seems this had been the scheme right along—that our party was to do more or less fishin', so as to give any natives that might be hangin' around the proper idea of why we was there.

Professor Barr is right on hand too; and Dudley tries it just to kill time. We did have more or less luck, and got quite excited. Vee pulls in something all striped up like a hat-band, and one that I hooked blew himself up into a reg'lar football after I landed him in the bottom of the boat. The Professor had jawbreakin' names for everything we caught, but he couldn't say whether they was good to eat or not. The yacht cook wouldn't take a chance on any of them. It was good sport, though, and we all collected a fresh coat of sunburn. And say, with them new tints in her cheeks, maybe Vee ain't some ornamental. But then, she's easy to look at anyway.

It was this same evenin', the second we'd been anchored quiet in behind this lengthy island, that the big three of our expedition gets together again. First I knew, I saw 'em grouped along the side where the companionway stairs was swung—Auntie, Old Hickory, and Captain Killam. Rupert seems to be explainin' something. Then in a minute or two the men begin easin' Auntie down into one of the launches tied to the boatboom, and the next, I see them go chuggin' off into the moonlight. I hunts up Vee and passes her the word.

"WHAT do you know about that?" says I. "Pikin' off for a joy ride all by their threesomes!"

"I suppose Captain Killam has found where his treasure island is," says Vee, "and is going to put it on exhibition. You know, he was out by himself ever so long to-day."

"He ought to be able to pick out something likely from among all of these," says I. "Islands is what this country seems to be long on. And they got a spiffy night for it, ain't they?"

"I think Auntie might have taken us along," says Vee, a bit pouty.

"We're no treasure-hunters," I reminds her. "We're just to help out the pleasure-cruisin' bluff. Who there is to put it over on I don't quite catch, though. Ain't there any population in this part of the map?"

Vee thinks she can see a light 'way up the shore on Sanibel and another off towards the mainland; but the fact remains that here's a whole lot of perfectly good moonlight goin' to waste.

"If one of the iron steamboats could only wander down here with a Coney Island mob aboard," says I, "wouldn't they just eat this up? Think of 'em dancin' on the decks and— Say, what's the matter with our startin' a little something like that?"

"Let's!" says Vee.

So we had a deck steward lug the music machine up out of the cabin, set J. Dudley to work puttin' on dance records, and, with Mrs. Mumford and the Professor and half the crew for a gallery, we gave an exhibition spiel for an hour or so. I hope they got as much fun out of it as we did. Anyway, it tapped the long, long ago for Mrs. Mumford. I heard her turnin' on the sob spigot for the Professor.

"Poor, dear Mr. Mumford!" she sighs. "How he did love dancing with me. And how wonderfully he could polka!"

"She's off again!" I whispers to Vee.

So we drifts forward as far away from this monologue about the dear departed as we could get. Not that we didn't appreciate hearin' intimate details about the late Mr. Mumford. We did—the first two or three times. After that it was more entertainin' to look at the moon.

For my part, I could have stood a few more hours of that; but about ten o'clock Mrs. Mumford's voice gives out, or she gets to the end of a chapter. Anyway, she informs us cheerful that it's time young folks was gettin' in their beauty sleep; so Vee goes off to her state-room, and after I've helped J. Dudley Simms burn up a couple of his special cork-tipped Russians, I turns in myself.

DIDN'T seem like I'd been poundin' my ear more'n half an hour, and I was dreamin' something lovely about doin' one of them pelican dives off a pink cotton cloud, when I feels some one shakin' me by the shoulder. I pries my eyes open, and finds one of the crew standin' over me, urgin' me to get up.

"Wrong number, Jack," asys I. "I ain't on the night shift."

"It's the young lady, sir," says he. "You're to dress and come on deck."

"Eh?" says I. "Have we been U-boated

---

or Zepped? All right; I'll be there in two minutes."

And I finds Vee costumed businesslike in a middy blouse and khaki skirt, stowin' things away in a picnic hamper.

"What's the plot of the piece?" I asks, yawny.

"Auntie and Mr. Ellins haven't come back yet," says she. "It's after three o'clock. Something must have happened."

"But Captain Killam is with 'em," says I.

"What use is he, I'd like to know? Torchy, we must go and find them."

"But I don't know any more about runnin' a motor-boat than I do about playin' a trombone," I protests.

"I do," says Vee. "I learned in Bermuda one winter. I have coffee and sandwiches here. They'll be hungry."

"Better put in some cigars for Mr. Ellins," says I. "If he's run out of smokes I'd rather not find him."

"Get cigars, then," says she. "I have the small launch all ready."

"How about taking one of the crew?" I suggests.

"Bother!" says Vee. "Besides, they've seen sharks and are all frightened. I'm not afraid of sharks."

You bet she wasn't; nor of being out at night, nor of startin' a strange engine. You should have seen her spin that wheel and juggle the tiller-ropes. Some girl!

"Got any clue as to where they are?" I asks.

"Only the general direction they took," says she. "But something must be done. Think of Auntie being out at this hour! When we get past those little islands we'll begin blowing the horn."

IT was sort of weird, take it from me, moseyin' off that way at night into a tangle of islands without any signs up to tell you which way you was goin', or anybody in sight to ask directions of. The moon was still doin' business, but it was droppin' lower every minute. We just stands there calm, though, rollin' the wheel scientific, pickin' out the deep water by the difference in color, and lettin' the Agnes fade away behind us as careless as if we had a return ticket.

"Excuse me for remarkin'," says I; "but, while I wouldn't be strong for this sort of excursion as a general thing, with just you and me on the passenger list I don't care if—"

"Blow the horn," cuts in Vee.

Yep, I blew. Over miles and miles of glassy water I blew it, listenin' every now and then for an answer. All I raised, though, was a bird squawk or so; and once we scared up a flock of white herons that sailed off like so many ghosts. Another time some big black things rolled out of the way almost alongside.

"What's them—whales?" I gasps. "Porpoises," says Vee. "Keep on blowing."

"I'll be qualified as captain of a fish-wagon before I'm through," says I. "Looks like that explorin' trio had gone and lost themselves for fair, don't it?"

"They must be somewhere among these islands," says Vee. "They couldn't have gone out on the Gulf, could they?"

We asked each other a lot of questions that neither one of us knew the answer to. It sort of helped pass the time. And we certainly did do a thorough job of paging, for we cruised in and out of every little cove, and around every point we came to; and I kept the horn goin' until I was as shy on breath as a fat lady comin' out of the subway.

It was while I was restin' a bit that I got to explorin' one of the boat lockers, and dug up this Roman-candle affair that Vee said I might touch off. And it hadn't burned half way down before I spots an answerin' glow way off to the left.

"We've raised some one, anyway," says I.

"We'll know who it is soon," says Vee, turnin' the wheel.

FIVE minutes later and we got a reply to our horn—four long blasts.

"That means distress," says Vee. "Answer with three short ones."

A mile or so further on, as we swings wide around the end of an island where a shoal sticks out, we comes in sight of this big motor-boat lyin' quiet a couple of hundred feet offshore, with three people in it.

"There they are, thank goodness!" says Vee, shuttin' off the engine and lettin' the boat drift in towards 'em slow.

"Hello, there!" I calls out.

"That you, Torchy?" asks Old Hickory, anxious.

"Yep!" says I. "Me and Vee."

"Bully for you youngsters!" says he. "I might have known it would be you two who would find us."

"Verona, I am astonished," gasps Auntie.

"Yes, I thought you would be," says Vee. "What's the matter?"

"Matter!" snaps Auntie. "We're stuck in the mud, and have been for hours. Look out or you'll run aground, too."

But our boat wasn't half the size of theirs, and by polin' careful we got alongside.

My first move is to reach a handful of cigars to the boss.

"Heaven be praised!" says he, lightin' one up eager.

Meanwhile Vee is pourin' out some hot coffee from the picnic bottles. That and the sandwiches seemed to sort of soothe things all around, and we got a sketch of their troubles.

Just as Vee had suspected, Rupert had started out to show 'em the island where the treasure was. Oh, he was sure he could take 'em right to it.

"And we went blithering and blundering around for half the night," says Old Hickory, "until this marvel of marine intelligence ran us hard and fast aground here, where we've been ever since."

"I—I got turned around," protests Rupert.

"We admit that," says Old Hickory. "I will even concede that you are swivel-brained and couldn't help it. But that fails to explain why you should invent for our benefit any such colossal whopper as that treasure-island fiction."

"No fiction about it," grumbles Rupert, his voice a bit husky, either from indignation or chicken sandwich, we couldn't tell which. "And I'll find it yet," he adds.

"You will have ample opportunity," says Old Hickory, "for when we leave here you will be left also. You may make a life job of it, if you wish."

"We ought to be getting back," says Auntie. "Will that little boat hold us all?"

"Why, this one is afloat now," announces Vee. "The tide must have come in."

"And here we've been sitting, like so many cabbage heads on a bench, waiting for some one to come and tell us about it!" snorts Old Hickory. "Excellent! Killam, do you think you can pilot us back without trying to cut new channels through the State of Florida?"

Rupert don't make any promises, but he gets busy; and pretty soon we're under way. It's about then that I springs this hunch of mine.

"Say, Mr. Ellins," says I, "was this island you were lookin' for a little one with a hump in the middle?"

"That tallies with Captain Killam's description," says he. "Why?"

"Well," I goes on, "a little while before we located you we passed one like that. Don't you remember, Vee?"

"That's so," says Vee; "we did. I know right where it is, too."

"We might take a glance at it," says Old Hickory. "Killam, give Miss Verona the wheel."

I couldn't have said exactly which way to go, but Vee never hesitates a second. She steers straight back on the course we'd come, and inside of fifteen minutes we shoots past a point and opens up a whole clump of islands, with one tiny one tucked away in the middle.

"That's it!" shouts Rupert, jumpin' up and down: "That's Nunca Secos Key!"

"Maybe," says Old Hickory. "There does seem to be something of an elevation in the center. Let's run in as close as we can, Verona."

By this time we were all grouped in the bow, stretchin' our necks and gazin' interested.

"The mound!" suddenly sings out Rupert, pointin' excited. "The treasure mound! I told you I'd find it."

"Huh!" says Old Hickory. "You forgot to mention, however, that you would need Miss Verona and Torchy to do the finding for you."

WELL, no need goin' into details, but that's how Vee and me happened to get counted in as reg'lar treasure-hunters,

to share and share alike. We was elected right on the spot."

"And now," says Old hickory, grabbin' up a spade from the bottom of the boat, "now we—"

"Now we will go back to the yacht and get some sleep," announces Auntie. "I've had treasure-hunting enough for one night. So have you, Matthew Ellins, if you only knew it."

Old Hickory shrugs his shoulders. He drops the spade. Then he lets go of a yawn.

"Oh, well!" says he. "If that's the way you feel about it."

"What!" says Vee. "Go another whole day without knowing whether—"

"Certainly," cuts in Auntie. "I'm so sleepy I couldn't tell a doubloon from a doughnut. Ho-ho-hum! Let's be getting back."

It wasn't much after six when we made the yacht, but the whole crew seems to be up and stirrin' around. As we collies alongside they sort of groups themselves into a gawp committee forward, and I caught them passin' the smile and nudge to each other. The two sailors that mans the landin' stairs are on the broad grin. It's well for them that neither Auntie nor Old Hickory seems to notice. I did, though, and trails behind the others gettin' out.

"What's all the comedy for?" I demands.

"Nothing at all, sir," says one.

Then the other breaks in with, "Any luck, sir?"

"Sure!" says I. "We saw a swell sunrise."

I'm wonderin', though, why all them hired hands should be givin' us the merry face.

That Aching Head

By Edwin F. Bowers, M.D.
Author of "Side-Stepping Ill Health," "Alcohol—Its Influence on Mind and Body," etc.

THE next time you have a headache, instead of attempting to paralyze the nerves of sensation with an opiate or coal-tar "pain-deadener," push the headache out through the top of the head. It's surprisingly easy.

It merely requires that you press your thumb—or, better still, some smooth broad metal surface like the end of a knife-handle—firmly against the roof of the mouth (the hard palate), as nearly as possible under the ache, and hold it there for from three to five minutes by the watch. It may be necessary, if the ache is extensive, to shift the position of the thumb or metal "applicator" so as to "cover" completely the area that aches.

Headaches and neuralgias of purely nervous origin—that is, not due to poison in the system, or alcoholism, tumors, eye-strain, or some specific organic cause—usually subside under this pressure within a few minutes.

Many patients cure their own or their friends' and relatives' headaches or neuralgic attacks in this manner. In their own headaches they use the thumb. In treating others, they use the first and second fingers.

The "points of attack" may extend from the roots of the front teeth (for a frontal headache) to the junction of the hard and soft palate (for a pain in the back of the head). Or from the roots of the right upper molars to those of the upper left molars, if the pain be in the region of the temples or the side of the head.

In headaches excited by dental operations, relief can almost invariably be secured. Dr. Thomas Ryan of New York and others familiar with zone therapy (the science of relieving pain and curing disease by pressure in the various "zones" affected by pain or disease) almost uniformly cure headaches in this manner.

In medical practice the results are even more miraculous.

Stopping a Three-Year-Old Headache

ONE of the worst cases treated by zone therapy was that of a lady who had suffered from persistent headache for more than three years. She had consulted many prominent nerve specialists. Her heart was in a very dangerous condition, owing to the amount of antipyrin and other headache powders she had taken.

Her pain was located most generally in the forehead, and in the height of the attacks extended to the top of the head.

It was not relieved by sleep—indeed, it was worse, if anything, after such poor and inadequate sleep as she was able to get. This fact eliminated eye-strain as a cause.

Every organ in the body had received a thorough overhauling, and still the headaches persisted. So the diagnosis settled down into "pain habit."

The afternoon Dr. FitzGerald first saw this patient she was almost in hysteria, her pain was so acute. For when telephoning for her appointment she had been told not to take any opiates, as they might "mask the symptoms" and confuse the diagnosis.

Without stopping to question her, Dr. FitzGerald washed his hands in an antiseptic solution, placed the tips of the first and second fingers of ins right hand close against the roots of her front teeth, held her head rigidly with the left hand, and pressed firmly for two minutes. He then moved his finger-tips an inch farther back on the hard palate, and repeated the pressure for another two minutes.

As a result, for the first time in three years, except when under the influence of an opiate, this woman was absolutely free from pain.

Dr. FitzGerald instructed her husband, who accompanied her, just where to make the proper pressures when the pain returned, and within a week had a report from him that there were now no further attacks of the neuralgic headaches. This relief has persisted for more than a year.

Headaches frequently respond to pressure exerted over the joints on the thumb or fingers. Here is a case, reported by Dr. George Starr White of Los Angeles:

A woman suffered from a very severe headache on the top of her head, which had persisted for more than three weeks. She had consulted several doctors, with only temporary relief.

Dr. FitzGerald told her nothing of what was contemplated, but took hold of her hands and began firmly pressing on the first, second, and third fingers of each hand, at the same time engaging her in conversation concerning her condition.

After about three minutes he asked her if she would locate with her hand just where the pain was. She hesitated, looked up, and asked, "Do you use mental therapy?" Then, after blinking perplexedly for half a minute, she added: "For the first time in three weeks, except when I've been under the influence of narcotics, the pain is entirely gone."

Dr. FitzGerald told her to have some one repeat these finger pressures, at the same time emphasizing that if she failed to get relief from this method to come back. He has not seen her since.

The Method of Zone Therapy

BUT the same condition in the same patient may not be cleared up from the same point every time. For instance, if the pain is in the second zone of the forehead, at one time we may stop it by "attacking" the forefinger. The next time, however, pressure upon that finger might not have the slightest effect, and we would have to go to the tongue or the roof of the mouth to get results. Another time we might be successful only from the nose—or by pressing the teeth of an aluminum comb on the skull, above or below the seat of pain—and so on.

The next time you have a headache, give zone therapy a chance. Remember the fundamentals of the theory as indicated in the chart.

The body, as pointed out in my first article on zone therapy, is divided into ten zones, five on either side of the median line. These zone divisions divide the head, the tongue, the palate, the trunk, the arms, and the legs, and terminate in the fingers and toes. Dr. FitzGerald has discovered that pressure on any part of one of these zones creates a nervous reaction that tends to relieve pain and many disease processes in any other part of the same zone.

For instance, if your headache is over the right ear, you may obtain relief by exerting pressure—with rubber bands, or with the teeth of an aluminum comb—on the little finger and the ring finger of the right hand. Or if it is directly on the top of the head, the metal handle of a table knife pressed firmly on the center of the hard palate, and held for three or four minutes, will generally "cure" the ache.

It should be borne in mind that, if the pressures are made on the roof of the mouth, the closer they come to the seat of disturbance the quicker the trouble will subside. In other words, press as nearly as possible directly under the ache center.

Remember also that if the fingers are "attacked" for the purpose of relieving headache or neuralgia, they must be the appropriate or proper zone fingers—on the side in which the pain is located. And also—if pressures are made over the joints, these pressures must be made on the front or on the sides—according as to whether the headache be located in the front or back or on the sides of the head.

The Triflers

Continued from page 8

I saw the wonderful beauty of the peaks."

"And still see them?"

"Clearer than ever now."

"Then you aren't sorry she came into your life?"

"Sorry?" exclaimed Peter. "Even at this price—even if there were no hope ahead, I'd still have my visions."

"But there is hope?"

"I have one chance in a thousand. It's more than anything I've had up to now."

"One in a thousand is a fighting chance," Monte returned.

"You speak as if that were more than you had."

"It was."

"Yet you won out."

"How?" demanded Monte.

"She married you."

"Yes," answered Monte, "that's true. I say, old man—it's getting a bit cool here. Perhaps we'd better go in."

MONTE had planned for them a drive to Cannes the day Beatrice sent word to Marjory that she would be unable to go.

"But you two will go, won't you?" she concluded her note. "Peter will be terribly disappointed if you don't."

So they went, leaving at ten o'clock. At ten-fifteen Beatrice came downstairs, and ran into Monte.

"You're feeling better?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I—I'm afraid I told a fib."

"You mean you stayed because you didn't want to go."

"Yes. But I didn't say I had a headache."

"I know how you feel about that," he returned. "Leaving people to guess wrong lets you out in one way, and in another it doesn't."

"It was for Peter's sake, anyhow," she tried to justify her position. "But don't let me delay you, please. I know you're off for your morning walk."

That was true. But he was interested in that statement she had just made, that it was for Peter's sake she had remained behind. It revealed an amazingly dense ignorance of both her brother's position and Marjory's.

"Won't you come along a little way?" he asked. "We can turn back at any time."

She hesitated a moment—but only a moment.

"Thanks."

She fell into step at his side as he sought the quay.

"You've been very good to Peter," she said. "I've wanted to tell you so."

"You didn't remain behind for that, I hope," he smiled.

"No," she admitted; "but I do appreciate your kindness. Peter has had such a terrible time of it."

"And yet," mused Monte aloud, "he doesn't seem to feel that way himself."

"He has confided in you?"

"A little. He told me he regretted nothing."

"He has such fine courage!" she exclaimed.

"Not that alone. He has had some beautiful dreams."

"That's because of his courage."

"It takes courage, then, to dream?"

"Don't you think it does—with your eyes gone?"

"With or without eyes," he admitted.

"You don't know what he's been through," she frowned. "Even he doesn't know. When I came to him, there was so little of him left. I'll never forget the first sight I had of him in the hospital."

He looked at the frail young woman by his side. She must have had fine courage too. There was something of Peter in her.

"And you nursed him back."

She blushed at the praise.

"Perhaps I helped a little; but, after all, it was the dreams he had that counted most. All I did was to listen and try to make them real to him. I tried to make him hope."

"That was fine."

"He loved so hard, with all there was in him, as he does everything," she said.

"I suppose that was the trouble."

She turned quickly. It was as if he said that was the mistake.

"After all, that's just love, isn't it? There can't be any half way about it, can there?"

"I wonder."

"You—you wonder, Mr. Covington?"

He was stupid at first. He did not get the connection. Then, as she turned her dark eyes full upon him, the blood leaped to his cheeks. He was married—that was what she was trying to tell him. He had a wife, and so presumably knew what love was.

"Perhaps we'd better turn back," she said uneasily.

He felt like a cad. He turned instantly.

"I'm afraid I didn't make myself very clear," he faltered. "We aren't all of us like Peter. You shouldn't blame me too much."

"It is not for me to criticize you at all," she returned somewhat stiffly.

"But you did."

"How?"

"When you suggested turning back. It was as if you had determined I was not quite a proper person to walk with."

"Mr. Covington!" she protested.

"We may as well be frank. It seems to be a misfortune of mine lately to get things mixed up. Peter is helping me to see straight. That's why I like to talk with him."

"He sees so straight himself."

"That's it."

"If only now he recovers his eyes." "He says there's hope."

"It all depends upon her," she said.

"Upon this woman?"

"Upon this one woman."

"If she realized it—"

"She does," broke in Beatrice. "I made her realize it. I went to her and told her."

"You did that?"

She raised her head in swift challenge.

"Even though Peter commanded me not to—even though I knew he would never forgive me if he learned."

"You women are so wonderful," breathed Monte.

"With Peter's future—with his life at stake—what else could I do?"

"And she, knowing that, refused to come to him?"

"Fate brought us to her."

"Then," exclaimed Monte, "what are you doing here?"

SHE stopped and faced him. It was evident that he was sincere.

"You men—all men are so stupid at times!" she cried, with a little laugh.

He shook his head slowly.

"I'll have to admit it."

"Why, he's with her now," she laughed. "That's why I stayed at home to-day."

Monte held his breath a second. Then he said:

"You mean, the woman Peter loves is—is Marjory Stockton?"

"No other. I thought he must have told you. If not, I thought you must have guessed it from her."

"Why, no," he admitted; "I didn't."

"Then you've had your eyes closed."

"That's it," he nodded; "I've had my eyes closed. Why, that explains a lot of things."

Impulsively the girl placed her hand on Monte's arm.

"As an old friend of hers, you'll use your influence to help Peter?"

"I'll do what I can."

"Then I'm so glad I told you."

"Yes," agreed Monte. "I suppose it was just as well for me to know."

To be continued next week

Still Waters

Continued from page 6

much vater when he vas hot. But you have nutting to do with that. I can not ask you to renew the note again when you have alreadty renewed it twice. You can take my yearling steers, I guess they will be goodt for the amount, though beef iss low."

"Of course it's low," answered Sloane cheerfully. "You don't want to sell any steers now, especially yearlings. We'll just let that note run, Herman, and if you need any ready money you can have it."

There was a silence. Then came the man's voice, now vibrant with a note of hope:

"Well, Freda, what you think now about God turnin; his face avay from us? She hass been cryin' for a veek, Mr. Zloane. Of course, myselluf, I do not cry; but it iss not because I do not feel like it. So I do not blame Freda. She iss all tired out, nursin' me and doin' the housevork, besides milkin' ten cows so Coony, our boy, can have more time in the corn. You cryin' again, Freda? Myselluf, I was just thinkin' I would like to let oudt a great shoudt of choy."

The girl outside arose and stepped softly to the far end of the veranca, out of ear-shot, and gazed upon the shummering landscape through a gap in the flowery tapestry.

"Keeping faith with his stewardship?" she murmured.

But all that Sloane said, when they were humming along the pike again, was:

"Sachs is an honest old Dutchman who has been playing in hard luck."

"Something like myself?"

"Yes. But it's a mighty ill wind, you know, that blows nobody good," he answered, with shining eyes.

He let her out at his parent's home — a big house of the edge of town, set in a five-acre grove of trees — where she was to be a guest for supper. Here he left her with his sister, returning later, wearing flannels and white shoes.

The two girls were sitting in a lawn swing.

"Brother dolls up that way about twice a summer," laughed Aline. "Consider the honor aimed at you, my dear."

"As a God-speed, perhaps," answered Patricia. "I am going home to-morrow."

Aline abruptly kissed her. Then, with a directness cast in the same mold as Dudley's, she asked: "Does brother know?"

"I told him this afternoon."

In spite of herself, Patricia felt the blood scaling her cheeks.

"I'm surprised, then, that he isn't in sackcloth and askes instead of flannels. I really suspect, my dear, that you have scorched a buckler that we regarded as fireproof."

She pinched her companion's cheek.

"It's a rather delicate matter, Patricia, but if you need a little money temporarily, you know I can let you have it."

Patricia felt a throb of gratitude that Dudley should not have told even his sister of his clever but medacious way of filling a stranger's purse while sparing her pride. Then she told Aline herself.

"That was just like brother!" exclaimed Aline warmly. "You will never know his chagrin at your finding him out."

At ten-thirty, after Dudley had snapped his watch-lid a third time, Aline was reminded of a freezer of lemon ice in the kitchen, and vanished thitherward. About the same time the senior Sloane recalled his promise, in return for Patricia's songs, to play "The Last Rose of Summer," and wandered into the library to hunt up his violin — a task that seemingly required the assistance of his silver-haired spouse.

Thus Dudley and Patricia found themselves alone. The French windows were invitingly open, and, laying his hand upon her arm, Dudley led her out into the summer gloom of the porch. Katydids were rasping overhead; the night was vibrant with the mulitudinous fiddling of snowy tree crickets; the blooming locust trees along the driveway drenched the air with fragrance.

"Your time is up," said he.

"Yes," she acknowledged.

"If you doubt that I love instead of pitying you, you are the only one present to-night who does. Aline's eyes glint with an impish knowingness every time she looks at me. Dad has got off his 'au revoir but not good-by' every time your going was mentioned. Even mother — God bless her soul! — innocently reached over and took my hand when you began to sing. Her cross is the fact that I have never married. With her, family is an institution — a bachelor, a drone in the hive. Dear one, let me take you to her now and present you as her new daughter."

She yielded her hand to him, but stood for an interval, peering out into the hot, palpitating dark.

"Tell me about it, sweetheart!" he prompted softly.

"Did you gather, from my wild talk the night we met, that I am a divorcée?" she asked falteringly.

"Certainly. Is that the stumbling block?"

She did not say. But, turning, she folded her arms about his neck and laid her lips to his as lightly as a bee embraces a flower, and held them there for a moment, motionless, breathless, like one absorbed by a solemn rite.

"For better or for worse, my beloved!" she whispered. "Now take me in to — mother."