Some Thoughts on Dropping a Second Liberty Bond into the Box Along-side the First

SOON after I bought my first Liberty Bond, the bonds were quoted on the New York Stock Exchange below par.

I had bought a few shares of stock in a certain big company a little while before, and the day after I bought them they began going down also, and continued down until they were worth $20 a share less than I paid for them.

It looked as if I were a poor picker. Yet neither the decline of the bonds nor the decline of the stock worried me for a minute.

I bought them, not with the idea of selling them at a profit to-morrow: but for the security behind them, and the value that they ought to have a year or five years or ten years from now.

The shares of stock have already recovered their loss and are selling above the figure that I paid for them.

And some day the Liberty Bonds will also sell above par.

Every other bond issue that the government has put out since the Civil War has been profitable to its buyers, as Theodore H. Price pointed out in a recent article in Commerce and Finance:

The 5s due in 1865 sold at 127 in 1863.

The 6s due in 1881 sold at 123⅛ in 1873, which was a panic year.

The 4s due in 1907 sold at 130 in 1889, and another 4 per cent issue due in 1925 sold at 139⅞ in 1901.

Even the 2s due in 1930 sold at 109⅝ in 1902, and the 4s due in 1925 are worth at the time of writing about 106, at which price they pay but little more than 3 per cent.

What has been true of previous bond issues will be true also of this one.

Among the other little pieces of green and yellow paper that represent the results of my hard work, the Liberty Bond need not hang its head. It is no orphan Annie—no poor relation. It is working right along every day, and some day it too will grow up and make some money for its poor old father. I love it just a little more because of that.

And I love it also because the money that went into it is money that I otherwise would not have saved.

Purely voluntary saving is, of ter all, a more or less willof-the-wisp matter.

My Liberty Bonds are being paid for by involuntary saving. I never see the money that goes into them. Sonic one downstairs in the wire cage takes it and keeps it before it ever gets to me.

It's a good system, worthy of being perpetuated, war or no war.

There will be a third Liberty Loan, and a fourth and a fifth: we have a long way to go before we shall have lent to our government in the same degree to which the French and English and Germans have lent to theirs.

The thing for you and me to do is to prepare now for these coming loans: to make up our minds, each of us, not that we will take a little of each loan as it comes along, but that we will put a certain percentage of our income at the government's disposal while the war lasts.

If your employers are not deducting something from your income before it reaches you, set up a Liberty Loan Bank in your own home and deduct your country's part yourself. Let it be the first amount paid out of your Income, not the last.

I have another reason for being grateful to my Liberty Bonds: They are a sort of certificate of good citizenship.

If this proves to be a long war, demanding many men, every one of us who can pass the doctors will want to see some service in it.

But in may not be a long war. In that case, those of us who have family and business responsibilities may never see France.

It will be a satisfaction to us some day when our children say: "Father, tell us about the great war: what did you do?"

It will be a satisfaction then to get out the old Liberty Bonds, and to feel, as we handle them, that they represent not merely a little voluntary saving but a real honest-togoodness sacrifice.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

The War's Best Pictures

WOUNDED men, broken machines, plundered villages, ruined orchards—these are the pictures that War paints. Yet not all of them. Out of the war have come some bits of photography rarely beautiful, of which the four pictures on this page are examples.

For its background the war has had the greatest scenery of the world: the Alps, with their snow-topped peaks on one hand, and the great glaring wastes of the deserts on the other. "There are no Alps," said Napoleon, and he proved it by pushing his armies across their peaks, falling upon the Austrians and conquering them; and a hundred years later the Italians are profiting by the lessons he taught.

The middle picture on this page shows the German supply trains making their way across the great stretches of Russia. Napoleon had no supply trains to speak of. His wars cost the French people very little in money. He levied heavy assessments on the peoples he conquered, to pay for equipment, and let his soldiers find their food as they went along.

Mountain peaks, deserts, disease and hunger—the hard hand of War has forced men to learn how to conquer them all. Out of the destruction and horror of these battles will come an actual increase in the sum total of human achievement and efficiency: a tiny recompense for all the terrible cost.

THE SHUTTLE

By ROBERT WELLES RITCHIE

Illustrations by George E. Giguère

FOR nearly three hours Trapper Bass had sprawled in ambush behind a mossy log, rifle laid barrel to bark and stock to shoulder.

His was the dull, unruffled patience of the game-stalker--a patience that was none the less prime requisite of strategy. For, by his moveless waiting; he Matched his wits of the hunter against the wits of the hunted; and his quarry was sly beyond the cunning of all wild things in the Broken Horns.

Sunlight, strained through the thick sieve of fir boughs overhead, laid a figured tapestry of russet and gold on the needle-strewn floor of the forest all about. A little away and to one side of where the trapper lay, the vivid scimitar of Hoot- Owl Lake spread the dazzle of cut gems through the nearer glades of heavy pine. Over yonder, where the woods thinned to timber line, the burned slag of a peak leaped skyward, trailing snow scarfs from its titan nakedness.

Here was wilderness,' here unmapped leagues of No Man's Land in the heart of Wyoming, careless of aught but the lash of tempest and the roar of the avalanche.

The eyes of the watcher never wavered from a single sunny glade where a marsh came up from the lake to meet higher ground. There a tiny patch of brown stirred and fretted restlessly, but never moved beyond a radius of a few inches. fhe patch of brown was a beaver, caught in one of the watcher's traps. Itself snared, the unfortunate animal now served as live bait for bigger gamethe game Trapper Bass was stalking with infinite patience. Its whimperings carried faintly to the man behind the log and stirred the hunter's lust in him.

AT last the long wait was broken. A twig snapped somewhere back in the forest depths behind the beaver. Trapper Bass's trigger finger crooked nervously. He settled whiskered cheek to gun-stock and sighted along the barrel.

An Indian with a rifle in the ready crook of his arm stepped into the sunlit glade, stooped, shot a searching glance across the lake, and then bent over the beaver to dispatch it. Bass downed him with a single shot.

There was something of elationthe pride of the hunter in a good shotin the eyes of the trapper as he looked down upon the crumpled body half covering the struggling beaver.

"You would, huh?" he addressed the dead Indian scornfully. "Rob my trap-lines, huh? Think you c'd lift my beavers an' my pine martings 'thout my landin' onto you!"

He killed the beaver, freed it from the trap, and started with it for his camp six miles away. The trapper felt satisfaction with the day's.hunt. That was allsatisfaction. Cougars and Indians were pesky critters; they robbed folks' trap lines.

True that for Trapper Bass, living alone in this wild dominion of the mountains, the shooting of a thieving Indian was a matter solely between himself and the red man. Responsibility ceased with the speeding of a bullet. It happened, however, that fate at this moment was fashioning strange webs down in the lowlands at the feet of the Broken Horns. This capricious genius—whom all men fear, however glibly they cozen her—needed just a single black thread from the skein of the mountains to weave into her larger pattern. So, a week after the soiling of the sunny glade by the lake, she sent Trapper Bass down to the lowlands.

He ceased forthwith to be a man; he became a shuttle trailing a black thread through a bewildering warp of red.

TRAPPER BASS was just parting the willows at the stream's edge to dip a pail of water when a voice came: "H'ist 'em—you!" The pail went bobbing down the current as Trapper Bass flipped his hands high above his tousled head. In the thin light of dawn he saw the rifle eye boring him through a copse across the streama round eye rimmed with dull metal, terribly impersonal in its stare.

"Keep 'em there an' come across."

The rifle itself seemed to be giving the command, for the shadows in the thicket cloaked everything behind its unwavering barrel.

The trapper waded the stream up to his middle, hands high, and came out dripping on the opposite bank. Then a man stepped from the bushes, dropped the rifle to the hollow of his arm, and approached. He grinned as he patted the trapper's flanks, under his coat, for weapons. With a satisfied grunt, he roughly swept the trapper's arms down to his side.

"Step along—pronto!" A poke of the rifle snout in the small of the trapper's back emphasized his captor's wish.

The prisoner walked at the other's direction down the stream-bed to where a dozen horses were tethered in a small meadow. Just beyond, on the crest of a low hill, he could see an equal number of men sprawling in attitudes of game-stalkers. The butts of their rifles were set ready against their shoulders. Their heads were held rigidly against the stocks.

"Set down, pa'dner. Have a smoke?"

THE trapper was glad to accept the invitation, for his legs trembled, and the cold of the stream water, still dripping from him, suddenly had leaped from his legs to his heart. He shook the tobacco from the creased paper, so violent was the trepidation of his hands. His captor grinned again, and rolled the cigarette for him. He fashioned his own, lighted it, and inhaled deeply before he spoke:

"Lucky for you, pa'dner, they picked you to go fetch the water. We saw it was a stranger comin' out of the cabin, an' knowed you didn't have no part in—in what's comin' off. They'll wonder, those wolf pups in the cabin will, what's taken you so long to fetch the water. Most likely one of 'em'll be moseyin' outside before long to find out, an' then—"

He finished with a wave of his cigarette toward the line of sprawling figures on the hill.

The trapper made no reply. His mind dwelt upon the two in the cabin over beyond the dim rise of ground where the stalkers lay. They had been his hosts for the night, sharing bacon and bunk space in the free-masonry of the Big Country. He had never seen either of them before that hour of the last sunset when he rode his horse up to the door and hailed supper and bed. He knew nothing about them, save that they were cowmen and that they were about to be killed. Something going on down here in the cattle-lands which he, of the mountains, knew nothing about. "Somethin' purty turrible," the words drilled through his mind in senseless iteration as minutes of intolerable silence passed.

Dawn brooded slowly in its mists. A red squirrel skittered up the trunk of a cottonwood, and the rattle of its barbed paws on the bark was startling. The hard-faced man who had captured the trapper

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roundly cursed the squirrel, as if the tiny beast's clatter somehow might convey warning to the quarry in the watched cabin over the hill-crest. Then a shot stung the silence. Others snapped and crackled all along the ridge; a thin smoke shredded away from the line of sprawling men. The trapper saw the abrupt movements of elbows driven back as fresh cartridges were pumped into breeches, the up-and-down swing of rifles as they were charged and fired.

"Somethin' purty turrible," he murmured, shivering on his boulder.

"Turrible—hell! That is what we come here for." The other had risen, and in the contagion of blood lust was pacing to and fro, jiggling the ejector of his rifle. "Turrible—hell, no! Ball's opened; listen to the music!"

It lasted until long after sun-up, this fusillade from the hill-crest and the occasional faint answering shots sounding from the beleaguered cabin. After the first hour men began to detach themselves from the line along the ridge, and to crawl to left and right through the heavy grass, Indian-wise, to disappear in cautious flanking. Once the firing was stilled for many minutes. Came a ragged cheer from the riflemen still remaining on the hill-crest, and the trapper saw a thick haze of blue smoke ascending beyond the spine of the hill.

"Burned 'em out!" The man guarding him cut a pigeon wing and grinned evilly. "All over but the shoutin'."

Three shots sounded almost as one, and the hill-crest sharp-shooters leaped to their feet, to disappear in a straggling line over the brow—hounds racing to be in at the kill. Temptation mastered the trapper's guard. He strode to the boulder where the trapper sat, and shook a corded fist under his nose.

"You set right where you are, you wall-eyed old hairy mink, while I go have a look. Mind you, I've got my eye on you all the time. Just you start to rise up or make a break, an' you'll get a forty-five-ninety slug into your shoulder-blades."

HE backed away, scowling fiercely and menacing the trapper with his rifle. As he ascended the hill he turned every three steps to make sure his prisoner was attempting no break.

As for the trapper, he had no intention of risking a rifle bullet. The cold and painstaking murders he had witnessed from the stage wings had numbed him with terror. But, as he dully watched the retreating figure, a thought came: Like as not, when this man with the rifle gained the top of the hill, he'd turn and send a bullet pinging down just for luck; the fellow was just dying to be in a killing proposition, anyway.

This notion smote the trapper's brain with the crash of revelation. It unloosed all bonds of caution, shot into his veins the courage of a panther caught in one of his own traps. He cautiously moved his head and measured the distance to the huddled group of tethered horses; then he looked back to the figure of his captor, perhaps fifty yards away and nearing the brow of the hill.

The man had faced about and was eyeing him, rifle at the ready. The instant he turned again to make the last few strides to a point of vantage over the scene of murder, the trapper was on his feet. Three wide bounds carried him into the huddle of horses. He put them between his body and the rifleman on the hill as he whipped out his dirk and cut the bridle tether of a big blue roan.

"Hey, you—"

The trapper threw himself into the saddle, stretched his body along the horse's neck, and beat it across the rump with his battered hat. Just as the roan leaped forward in an angry plunge, the rifle snarled behind him. The nearest tethered horse screamed and pitched on its head.

In and out through the tortuous aisles of cottonwood and willow threading the stream bottom, the fugitive guided his steed. Somewhere beyond the far horizon lay Two Moons.

The lank figure of the trapper bent low over a flying mane. His bearded face—the face of a gray old woodchuck, blunt-browed and shaggy—turned ever and again over a hunched shoulder to scan the back trail for the dust of pursuit. Even when no black blots speckled the hills behind him, the breathless rider did not dare pull rein.

THE big blue roan ran flowingly as a turbine. Little by little the rider's trepidation wore away, and a dull, formless rage succeeded. Those murdering hounds back there! Pick onto him, would they? Hold him up with a daw-gone old Long Tom and wing him through the hat! He took off his flopping head-piece and ruefully gazed at the gash piercing the crown.

What'd he done, for to be picked onto? Come down from Hoot-Owl Lake with a hundred dollars' worth of mink pelt and beaver in his pack—first time down from the mountains in seven months; stopped second night away from home with two boys named Nate Shooter and Nick Gray; went out first thing in the morning to fetch water—which was proper like and fitting for an over-nighter to do; and then—held up while Whitecaps killed the two boys; horse lost, pack of pelts lost; and a forty-five-ninety slug through his hat!

Trapper Bass rode into a Two Moons stirred beyond any comparable occasion in its vivid, border history. The length of its single street, from the First Chance saloon to the new brick court-house on the hill, was a rout of armed horsemen, of citizens rushing from the general store, arms filled with rifles, cartridge-belts, and ammunition-boxes, riderless cayuses bridle-dragging in panic through the crowd.

A man in shirt-sleeves who mounted guard across the end of Main Street with a carbine slung over his saddle halted the trapper peremptorily:

"Where you from, stranger?"

"J C ranch on North Fork," the trapper answered gustily, matching with his own excitement the ferment up the street. "They've killed the two boys there—Nate Shooter and Nick Gray!"

"W-h-a-t!"

The trapper repeated his information.

"Come along with me!" commanded the sentinel.

The trapper followed down to where the crowd was thickest. His guide cleft a way for him through the press to a little hawk-nosed man sitting a great bay horse and whipping out orders.

"Sheriff, here's a man just come from J C—says the Whitecaps've done for Nate Shooter and Nick Gray."

Instantly keen blue eyes lanced into a tangle of whisker and eyebrows to find and hold the trapper's eyes. Horsemen who had caught the sentinel's shrilled report crowded in a close ring about him. A quick side glance told him he was the most important figure on the street.

Men came running from the sidewalks to hear what he might say. He tilted his tangle of whisker at a bumptious angle and gave Sheriff Bulldog Sinclair the story of the battle at J C ranch.

"You say you could identify one of these men who killed Shooter and Gray?" demanded the sheriff.

"One? Sheriff, you hear me: I could take my oath on every mangy ki'ote in the pack! One was a slue-footed fella' what walks on the edge of his boot. One has a cast—"

"So if you were called as a witness we could rely on you to hang these murders on the prisoners we may bring in? Remember," Sheriff Bulldog Sinclair quickly interjected a warning, "you may be the only witness we get. The killing on Crazy Squaw, which was all we knew about until you rode in, left no eye-witnesses—just results."

"I'm your man, sheriff," vaunted the trapper, more conscious than ever of the dizzy heights to which he had been boosted. Eyes of men all about him confirmed his pride.

"Stick around in town," was the sheriff's final injunction. "Eat off the county at the Bon Ton—I'll fix it with Cock-Eye Charley to board you. An' listen, Mister Man. Keep your mouth shut. Shut—you understand! Don't let anybody talk to you until I come back."

The trapper nodded solemnly, as if subscribing to a covenant.

The little sheriff shouted an order, and with him the vanguard of a hundred armed men galloped down Main Street and out to the chain of amber buttes beyond which fermented the yeast of civil war for Wyoming.

The hermit of Hoot-Owl Lake turned by instinct from the thinned crowd into the nearest saloon, thereby but pursuing unwritten social law in Two Moons. A latest prodigy, whether it be the man who broke the capital's bank in Cheyenne or who killed the biggest tufted-eared lynx in Clear Creek canon, goes to a bar to hold levee. Many followed him inside the swinging doors. Drinks were crowded upon him. As the legitimate sensation of Two Moons, Trapper Bass condescended to this and that purchaser with a wave of the glass and a bluff "Lookin' to'ards you!' Insensibly he warmed, grew expansive; by easy gradations advanced himself from the morning's status of a timorous witness, held in the cottonwoods under threat of death, to the more heroic and satisfying rôle of an active champion of the two beleaguered cattlemen.

"Here 'm I"—Trapper Bass, back against a mahogany rail and hairy paw sketching a map in the air, the hour approaching midnight"—an' here's that-there swivel-eyed big woolly I'm tellin' you about. He's got his ole Long Tom ready at the hip. Me with nothin' but my ole bear-skinner, blade up my sleeve an haft in my hand, ready for the quick thrung. 'Put 'em up,' says he. 'You go plumb to hell!' I comes back at him, an' I hauls off—"

It was Lawyer Beeston who put the trapper to bed at the Cowman's Rest—little Lawyer Beeston, unctuous, ingratiating, bald-headed, and with skin that came down over his protruding eyes like the fishy lids of an owl's eyes.

Lawyer Beeston, so Two Moons knew, had "big connections" down at Cheyenne. Lawyer Beeston was a great little guy to do work outside the court-room. He filed his finger-nails instead of cutting them with a jack-knife; he carried handkerchiefs with a deep purple stripe; he was, in fact, very much a city man. Yet he attached himself with almost brotherly tenderness to this hard-bitten old woodchuck down from the big timber, slapped his back, wagged his head wonderingly at each repetition of the tale of a morning's heroic striving—and put Trapper Bass to bed. In Two Moons this tender office usually is assumed only by a brother of the same lodge; it is intimate, fraternally sanctioned.

"Lawyer Beeston's went an' put that ole seven-year locus' to, bed," Timberline Bodie reported to the late stayers in the Silver Dollar.

"Lawyer Beeston, eh?" The bartender lifted pregnant eyebrows quizzically.

Once the trapper had been shot across the wide web of Fate's tapestry in the weaving—once back. A prisoner in the hands of the Whitecaps, seized by the law as a precious witness against his captors—these swift shuttlings in the space of a few hours. Now the hand of the weaver turned to work in other threads.

What is history now in Wyoming was, not so many years ago, an episode nearly approaching civil war, the like of which has visited other Western States in the making. Conflict between the interests of the original exploiters of vast resources, the cattle barons who were lords over tens of thousands of longhorns, and the settler, with his ally the cattle thief, brought the inevitable clash. Juries in county- seats like Two Moons turned accused cattle rustlers loose whenever the stockmen brought them to bar. The vested interests, which also controlled political wires between Cheyenne and Washington, were accused of subsidizing "killers"—lurking assassins who balanced with a bullet from ambush every failure of the courts to convict.

What the trapper had blundered into was a desperate coup of the cattlemen—an armed force of invasion, recruited from among desperate gunmen in Southern border States and suddenly launched into cattle-land on an avowed mission of extermination. The partizans of the towns, the small settlers, and—so the charge lay—the rustlers themselves, were whirled into Sheriff Sinclair's posse of defense. A hundred men rode through a wilderness of black silhouettes and star-shine to meet the invaders.

WITH difficulty Trapper Bass routed himself out of blankets near noon of the following day, and tacked unsteadily for the Bon Ton, where by grace of the sheriff: he was to "eat off the county." He had added to the county's overhead by a double portion of ham and eggs, and was discussing this bounty earnestly, when, by the merest chance, Lawyer Beeston dropped into the Bon Ton.

"Well, well; here's my old friend from Hoot-Owl Lake!" the lawyer hailed jovially, and took the opposite chair.

The trapper observed him blinkingly; his memory was none too clear.

"Beeston—Jimmy Beeston! Guess you don't remember who tucked the blankets under your chin last night?"

The trapper merely grunted.

"Heard the big news? No? Say, man, you must have just come up for air. Martial law! President's proclaimed martial law over the State and district of Wyoming. Cavalry from McKenna ordered to go and prevent a scrap between Sheriff Sinclair's men and the—ah—regulators who've trenched themselves to stand a siege down at the Turkeytrack ranch on Crazy Squaw. Big stuff!"

"Uh-huh!" The trapper indifferently swabbed bread in the grease of his platter. Fishy-white lids slowly dropped over Beeston's protruding eyes.

"Of course, you know what this means for you?" the query came in a purr.

"Who—me? This here martial law? Never heard nothin' about any kind of law 'cept the reg'lar kind—and not much of that. Me—say, mister, I don't go in for law, nohow; it's dangerous."

"But you're a witness,"—the other's plump chops crinkled in a teasing smile,—"only witness the State's got to the murders of Shooter and Gray.

"Ye-ah; sheriff says yesterday for me to stick round an' be a witness."

Recollection of his importance in the community flooded back to the trapper; pride stiffened his tone.

"'Stick round'—I guess yes!" The lawyer chuckled significantly. "Quite some time you'll 'stick round.'"

"How's that, Mister Man?" The daze was all out of the trapper's eyes now. He

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remembered the dead Indian at Hoot-Owl Lake. The law: he held it in dread and awe.

"Why, it's just this way, Bass: as long as there's martial law the courts of Wyoming are suspended. There can't be any trial until the President lifts martial law—and that may be six months from now. Even when he does, there'll be a motion before the county court here for a change of venue, and argument on that motion will take a long time. Then, if the court grants the motion and the trial is held in another jurisdiction—"

"Hold on there, mister; where do I come into all this business?

"Oh, you! Well, you 'stick round,' as the sheriff said. Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get back to Hoot-Owl Lake in eight or nine months. But if anything you say on the witness-stand should send any man to the gallows"—Lawyer Beeston leveled a forefinger at the whiskered visage opposite and brought the thumb smartly down upon it. "You know how some of the boys feel about a squealer."

The speaker tilted his chair back and hooked his thumbs in the arm-holes of an ornate waistcoat. Beneath lowered lids he watched the working of the leaven.

The trapper's eyes under their shaggy thatch gleamed palely; much of the whites was showing. One cracked and calloused paw came up to lose itself in the beard.

"Say, you got a squaw hitch on all this law business. Once the law gits a man, there's no tellin' what sort of shinanigan it'll dig up ag'in' him—no tellin' what that law'll make out to discover 'bout him. I don't take no fancy to this-here martial law business. What'll it do to me if—if I vamoose this camp?"

The lawyer leaned across the sugar-bowl and spoke tensely:

"Bass, not a dam'd thing! You can't be subpœnaed. They can't arrest you as a material witness. Down in New Mexico, say, you'd be safe. And—this is man to man, Bass—if a little stake would help you, I know parties who'd—"

He was interrupted by a great pounding of hods on the street. Across the field of the Bon Ton's front window passed figures of horsemen, Sheriff Bulldog Sinclair leading. Lawyer Beeston scrambled to his feet in a flurry of haste.

"Well, Bass, got to be moving on. Under your hat, mind you, this little talk together. Not a word to anybody! But remember: a ticket to New Mexico and—um—a thousand dollars: your Uncle Jimmy's the man to get that for you any time you feel the climate of Two Moons wearing down your health."

The man from Hoot-Owl Lake allowed a yearning glance to trail the pursy little figure to the door. When he pushed back his chair and rose to follow, he humped his shoulders as if against an impalpable weight inexorably pressing down upon him.

"Martial law. Now, I wonder—"

Down Main Street, that smoldered wrath and was primed for violence on any hair-trigger issue, Trapper Bass aimlessly strolled. Overnight the temper of the town had undergone a menacing transformation. The day previous, news of the sudden invasion of the Whitecaps coming up through a southern wilderness to slay whomsoever was under the ban of the great range-holders had whirled the town into a frenzy of defiance; there was but one assertive faction, and that composed of the hastily gathered posse which rode out to meet the hired killers. But now, with the return of Sinclair and his minutemen, cheated of their quarry by the wires that were pulled from Cheyenne, Two Moons found itself a divided camp, balancing on the drop of a six-shooter's hammer.

THE trapper had not progressed far from the Bon Ton eating-house when a swift incident carried to him realization of the peculiar position he occupied in the fevered body of the town. So engrossed was his muddled mind in an effort to construe hidden meaning lying behind the words so recently spoken by Lawyer Beeston that he did not notice the glances of passers-by—some sharp and meaningful, others respectfully curious. Nor was he immediately conscious of the presence of two men who had fallen into step with him, one at either shoulder. They spoke no word—merely walked with him so close that the pistol holster of one bobbed against the trapper's leg as he stepped. This awoke the trapper to perception. He made to pause and ask a question.

"Step right along, ole-timer—right along!" The order was spoken low, but with a chill incisiveness.

"Say! Who are you?" The convoyed one turned to peer under a wide hat-brim at a leering face.

"I'm the curly-haired king wolf of the wide prai-rie. Turn across the street here, gran'pa."

An insinuating shoulder edged him off the sidewalk; another flanked him. They started to cross Main Street toward the flaring door of the Fashion Stables. Then the chilling moment of terror for Trapper Bass.

Out from the shadow of the stable door suddenly stepped Bulldog Sinclair, and swiftly forward to meet the three in mid-street.

"You, Cassidy—Holder; what you makin' out to do with that man?" His words clinked like shattered icicles. Slowly one hand rose to an upper pocket of his vest—the sheriff was in his shirt sleeves, and withdrew by its string a tobacco bag and a wrinkled wad of brown papers. Without taking his eyes from those of the two he addressed, Bulldog Sinclair measured out a thin dribble of tobacco and rolled a cigarette. There was a stir and faint shuffle of boots on the sidewalk boards. Cassidy and Holder grinned without reply.

"Because, if you're figgerin' on runnin' this witness out of town," the sheriff droned, "you got a-hold the wrong end of the snake. Pass over those guns. "

"Just you make a reach for 'em," taunted Cassidy, raising his voice for all the street to hear.

Sinclair had both hands shielding the match he had lifted to his cigarette tip. He looked coldly over his knuckles.

"Cassidy, they's two Winchesters holdin' a bead on you an' Holder from back there in that stable. When I drop my hands you're dead men. Pass over those guns!"

For a long minute a battle of eyes; then, with an oath, the one called Cassidy surrendered his weapon; his companion did similarly.

"Now run an' tell Lawyer Beeston to buy the devil a hog," the Bulldog snapped; and, linking his arm in the trapper's, he started toward the court-house.

In five minutes all Two Moons babbled about the whizzer the sheriff had put over on Cassidy and Holder of the Star and Circle outfit. There were no riflemen in the Fashion Stables when the two bullies gave up their six-shooters. The Bulldog, unarmed and unaided, had tided the town over a bloody street battle between factions.

BUT for general considerations such as these Trapper Bass had no thought. He sat freezing with terror on a stool in Sinclair's office, while the latter's soothing speech purled over explanations of the law.

"No, sir; I kain't arrest you—though I liken to do it for your own good. Sheriff's got no power when martial law's workin'—leastwise, no power under the law. All I c'n do's advise you not to listen to this-here Lawyer Beeston's propositions for a getaway—oh, no use denyin'; I know Beeston's smooth work. You'll start from town with some of his men, an' some day somebody'll find you lookin' up a rope from some cottonwood branch. Murder costs less'n bribe money with Lawyer Beeston. Now, if you want to sleep in my office here, you'll have my protection until the trial, when you go on the stand—"

Continued on page 21

THE MELTING POT

In Which the New Books and Magazines are Boiled Down to Give You Fifteen Minutes of Health, Efficiency, Travel, Biography, and Adventure

SHE HAS COME UP FROM THE BOWERY

SEVEN years ago Charles Frohman brought Mimi Aguglia, a young Sicilian actress, to his New York Theater. She was there three months. Three years later Shubert sent her on a tour of the country, but as a general thing the tour was a failure. Now Mimi Aguglia is acting among her own Italian people, at the People's Theater on the Bowery, where tired, swarthy men come in their shirt-sleeves and women bring their babies.

In the New York Evening Mail John Reed describes her wonderful performance:

"She comes on the stage, a handsome, sullen girl. She is joked at and upbraided by her parents and the guests, laughed at by the audience; and then suddenly, at the end of the act, she is left alone, and bursts into a torrent of wrenching sobs, which is such a masterly exhibit of hopelessness and despair that with one gesture she wrecks the whole fabric of gayety and merriment, and tragedy stalks forth.

"In the second act she looks wasted, drawn. Her arms seem thinner. For she is one of those remarkable persons who can make herself seem tall and stately, young and wild, broken, thin, or old at will."

Since her arrival in America, Mimi Aguglia has learned English and studied singing.

This fall she will appear in opera, and will sing Carmen. It will be interesting to follow the progress of this young Italian woman who has failed on Broadway, only to reach that more difficult goal, the Metropolitan Opera House.

ARE WE ALL GROWING NEAR-SIGHTED?

SINCE public schools have drawn children to them for many hours in each day, near-sightedness and eye-strain have increased. In The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading (Macmillan Company) Dr. Edmund Burke Huey explains why reading is so hard on the eyes.

One reason for eye-fatigue is the excessive number of eye-movements that are necessary. A page that we read in a minute or two requires perhaps one hundred and fifty quick movements, while the eye in looking at objects ordinarily would make only a fraction of this number. Also, during each reading pause the muscles must maintain, with rifle-aim precision and steadiness, a "set" of the eye that will prevent blurring.

It is true that, whenever we go about, our eyes constantly move as we look at objects that are stationary or have a different movement than our own. But this movement is much slower in walking or riding than in reading, and it does not require such accuracy of fixation. It is much freer and more varied.

The most dangerous condition produced by reading is the great amount of near work. The eye was planned for looking at things at some distance. There is an almost entire absence of nearsightedness among uneducated people who read very little.

If artificial light must be used, the light should be shaded and not too near. A well shaded electric light is best.

One thing to remember is that eye-strain is closely related to nerve-strain, and we seldom have the former without the latter. Therefore, when a young child's eyes are weakened in the early school grades, his whole nervous system suffers, affecting his mental and physical steadiness.

WHAT PEACE WOULD MEAN TO BUSINESS

"TWO years ago, and even one year ago, peace talk simply sent cold shivers down the spines of finance and industry. We were getting the cream of the most profitable war business that had ever been distributed and the highest record prices for all food-stuffs." Now our manufacturers realize, according to the Financial World, that they must not demand enormous profits from our own government. "Our financiers have loaned huge amounts to the Allied governments; is it safe business to allow the debts to go on piling up?

"During this war we have had an opportunity to study foreign markets as never before. If peace shoud come this year our fleet of commerce carriers, now being constructed, could rapidly transport supplies to the many ports of Europe that have been closed for three years. Moreover, there probably would be no slump in security prices. So far, we are not burdened with a big war debt, and the United States has become the money center of the world. Prosperity followed the Civil War and the Spanish-American War for several years. To-day the prospects for 'peace business' would greatly compensate for the loss of all 'war business.'"

ROOM FOR 30,000,000 GOATS IN AMERICA

NOTWITHSTANDING his intellect, man is the most unreasonable of animals; else why does he misrepresent his fellow animals? He has made the eagle and the lion symbolizations of nobility and high purpose, when in truth the eagle is by no means a noble bird, and the lion is a sneak and a coward. On the other hand, the dog—the only disinterested friend among animals that man has ever had, the true type of nobility, courage, and kindliness—is used as a type of the mean and despicable. To be called an eagle or a lion is to set any public man preening his feathers; but to be called a dog, a puppy, a hound, is to make the same man fighting mad.

The sheep is the symbol of the good, the meek, the holy. The goat, the half-brother of the sheep, man makes the ideal type of all that is bold, bad, and salacious. Yet the moral character of the goat is every whit as good as that of the sheep, and he is much more intelligent and self-dependent.

The goat has always been treated as a joke. And the best goat joke of all on man is when he laughs at people for "not being able to tell a sheep from a goat."

When a sheep and a goat hang up beside each other in a butcher shop, no man can tell the difference. In fact, goat and kid meat is the very best kind of mutton and lamb. In the United States 300,000 goats are slaughtered annually.

The goat is not a joke. He is the most useful of domesticated animals. His use is fivefold: as producer of meat, milk, skins, and hair, and as the best assistant of the farmer in clearing new land for agricultural purposes.

The cow can live where the horse can not; the sheep where the cow can not; but the goat will live and grow fat where a sheep would starve. There are about three million goats in the United States, but there is room and need for ten times and maybe twenty times that many.

In clearing land, all farm animals will pick at a tender tree and bush shoots, but not often to the extent of killing the plant. The goat is the prize land-clearer. He eats everything around a stump and on top of the ground, so in one or two years of summer pasturing he has killed the plant and started the stumps and roots toward decaying. After this, getting at the dead root is an easy matter for the farmer.

Goatskin leather, what we know as morocco or kid, is the most valuable of all leathers because of the toughness and tightness of the grain and the beautiful finish it takes. On the other hand, sheep's leather is porous. It takes a good finish, but is suitable only where strength and wearing qualities are not considered.

Another thing that few Americans know is that the beautiful shawls of Kashmir, the finest Persian and Bokharan rugs, the carpets and hangings of India, are all made of goats' hair.

WHEN LINCOLN TREATED HIS CABINET LIKE SCHOOL-BOYS

LINCOLN was patient almost beyond human belief. Stanton, his Secretary of War, called him a "fool," and Lincoln continued Stanton in office. And Chase, his Secretary of the Treasury, used his place in the Cabinet to conduct a campaign for the Presidency that would have meant the defeat of his chief.

All this Lincoln stood, refusing to let personal considerations enter in where men were rendering service to the Union.

But he knew when to he firm also. Here (reproduced from Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln, by Helen Nicolay, published by the Century Company) is the facsimile of a memorandum that he read to his Cabinet when a fight was on between Chase and Seward, each trying to force the resignation of the other.

It sounds almost like a schoolteacher's admonition to his pupils—and the men to whom he read it, remember, were the great men of the nation, three of them at least greater, in his own opinion, than Lincoln himself.

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WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A FARMER

A STRONG physique; a high degree of native intelligence; some understanding of machinery; a good business head; and a natural pleasure in out-of-door things, in handling animals and in watching crops grow—these are the qualities a young man should have if he wants to become a successful farmer, says Franklin Stewart Harris in The Young Man and His Vocation (Richard G. Badger).

The man who measures up a little beneath his fellows in ability will find no refuge on the farm, declares Mr. Harris.

"The statement has been made that any one who can do nothing else may become a farmer. This may have been true at one time, but it certainly will not hold to-day. The problems that arise in connection with the management of a farm are so numerous and varied that the highest type of intelligence is required to solve

them. A person with less than average ability can find much better employment in a city working on the streets, or in a factory, where the tasks are simple and supervision close, than on a farm, where each man has to do various kinds of work without being watched."

The farmer of to-day must be almost as much a business man as a farmer.

"Since the income of a farm is made by selling its products, and since there are many business transactions necessary in purchasing supplies, hiring help, and doing other things, the farmer must have the ability to conduct business affairs. A man may have exceptional ability in raising crops and managing animals, but if he is unable to transact business he will be a failure as a farmer.

"Farming can be practised with little technical training: on the other hand, there are few vocations where proper training pays higher dividends. A study was made by Warren in New York State to see the effect of education on the profits made by farmers. Those who had attended only district school made, on the average, a labor income of $318 a year; those who had attended high school, a labor income of $622: while those who had attended more than high school secured a labor income of $847.

"When measured in actual money, the earnings of men engaged in agriculture are usually low in comparison with salaries sometimes paid in cities. The annual labor income of the average farmer in the United States is less than $1000. Notwithstanding this apparently low income, the farmer is probably more independent financially than the worker in any other field. His expenses are low, and he has a splendid opportunity to invest his savings where they will bring good returns. The farm furnishes much of the family living, and the demand for money is less than where everything has to be purchased from outside."

"DOWN WITH WHITE FLOUR," SAYS DR. WILEY

WE are confronted with a threat of universal famine, says Dr. Harvey W. Wiley in the New York Medical Journal; and adds that there is a grave danger of the world-wide adulteration of food-stuffs under the guise of lowering the high cost of living.

Ten years ago Mr. Wiley led a fight for the use of whole wheat cereals instead of the popular white flour, polished rice, etc.

If chickens are fed white flour or commercial corn meal, they will die of starvation in twenty or thirty days, says Dr. Wiley. If a Japanese eats polished rice and nothing else he will get beri-beri. The vital elements of wheat, corn, and other cereals are sacrificed that we may have white flour.

It is stated that whole wheat will not keep. That is not so. Nothing will keep better if the right kind of wheat and corn is ground. They take farmer's wheat and before it is ground they moisten it. They do that for two reasons: (1) It mills better, for the bran softens and is easily bolted out; (2) they get more flour, for it weighs more than before they wet it. But what is it that weighs? The water. If dry wheat and dry corn are ground, they will yield a product that will last six months; and that is as long as any flour should be kept.

"If this whole country to-day were put on whole wheat and whole corn meal flour," concludes Dr. Wiley, "there would be a great cessation in the activity of physicians."

HE WAS IN FOUR GERMAN PRISONS

TIME and misery hang so heavily on a prisoner's hands that a man must find something to interest himself in, or life becomes unbearable.

In Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons (Robert M. McBride & Company), Henry C. Mahoney tells how he made money in the prison camp at Ruhleben:

"I decided to start as a launderer, washing shirts at ten pfennigs, or one penny, apiece. A shirt dresser was certainly in request, because the majority of prisoners were compelled to wear one garment continuously for several weeks. But the shirts I found to be extremely soiled, and they demanded such hard and prolonged scrubbing that I found the enterprise to be absolutely unprofitable, while I received little else than a stiff, sore back.

"Then I undertook to wash up the table utensils, charging a party two pence per meal. But one day one member of a party genially suggested, 'We'll toss for it! Two pence or nothing!' I accepted the offer and—lost. The practice became general, and I had a wretched run of bad luck."

Then he decided to make souvenirs,—having had six years' experience as an engraver,—and borrowed about thirty-five dollars from his mates, and bought tools. Then he found a vacant kiosk in the camp, and adopted it as his shop. Several times he was thrown out by the prison officers, but he came back persistently until they let him stay.

"The souvenir idea caught on to such a degree as to compel me to take in two fellow prisoners as apprentices. My first week told me I had struck the correct money-making line at last. I found I had scooped in 200 marks (about $45).

"I fashioned souvenirs out of German coins. I erased the imperial head and in its place engraved a suitable inscription. When this was discovered there was a terrible uproar; but, as usual, I escaped the terrible punishment that was threatened.

"As things developed I became more ambitious, until at last I had articles ranging up to 30 pounds ($150) in price on my shelves, in the disposal of which I had very little difficulty."

THE MAN THE GREEKS ADMIRED

SIGH as we will for the golden age of the Greeks, there were a lot of things about their civilization we would feel contempt for. Women were only child-bearers and slaves. In the cities only a small social caste governed, and enjoyed the fruits of this wonderful culture, the work of which was done by thousands of slaves.

What kind of man did the Greeks admire?

"First, a full bodily development was felt to be admirable," writes C. De Lisle Burns in Greek Ideals (Bell). "The delight in gracefulness and bodily vigor was not an empty sentiment in Athens; for all citizens felt moved to make themselves agile. The Athenians valued gymnastics chiefly for grace. Health was not a conscious purpose for action, and the Athenians would have looked with smiling astonishment at so meager an ideal.

"Secondly, the man most admired was intelligent, but not an intellectualist. The Greeks preferred a quick, ready wit, and the average Athenian was suspicious of a professed 'intellectual.' The intelligence admired in Athens was not that of a specialist."

Next, a man was admired who was free and yet not unrestrained. He must be free, especially, from trivial cares, but he must not be careless of the graces and finenesses of life.

To the Greeks, the quintessence of barbarism was excess. They admired, above all, the man who could control his impulses. This does not mean that they were a cold, statuesque race. On the contrary, it was because the Greeks had such violent feelings—could be so easily excited and moved to extremes of action—that the man whom they regarded as their ideal was one who kept his head, and, "in whatever height of fortune kept his hold upon his ambitions, in whatever depth of despair remembered his manhood."

THE HIDDEN MONEY OF AMERICA

THE sale of the Liberty bonds brought to light much hidden money, says The Nation's Business.

The banks estimate that about $3,298,884 was dug out of hiding places for the purpose of buying bonds. There was money buried behind the woodshed, concealed in the rafters, or stowed away beneath a loose hearthstone. Foreigners who have not been in the country long practise this method of banking.

In France the peasants have been burying their coin for centuries. They dug it up to pay the indemnity of the Franco-Prussian war and they have been digging it up for the last three years.

In one village the town crier called all the peasants to a meeting at which he told them of the country's need for money. The immediate result was an embarrassing silence on the part of the assembled peasantry. Finally an aged man explained that the French wife is the custodian of the funds, and she is not accustomed to confiding the amount of her hoard to her husband. On the other hand, the husband is averse to disclosing to his wife how much he has held back.

So it was arranged that the peasants, one at a time, should bring their treasure and turn it over in private to the government's collector.

One old peasant brought a leather bag out of which he poured 3000 francs, several of the coins dated back to Napoleon I. As he was about to leave he asked:

"How much is the government going to want?"

"A great deal," said the officer.

"Will they ask twice more?"

"Undoubtedly," said the officer.

"Well, I can do it twice more," replied the peasant as he went away.

FIRST CLASS IN TELEGRAPHY, COME FORWARD

How to Handle a Crook

By JAMES H. COLLINS

FORTUNATELY, most people are honest. In business and life generally you can deal with them in confidence, on guard chiefly against their mistakes and misunderstandings.

But once in perhaps a thousand times you may find yourself dealing with a downright rascal—some fellow who was born crooked and never got straight. His purpose, from first to last, is to cheat. He is a real crook, who laid his plans skilfully in advance, and is now counting on your ignorance or fears to rob you.

Then you will want to know how other folks have handled crooks.

There are some definite principles which you may follow in this task. But, like all principles, they have to be worked out in methods to fit your case. You may need help in adapting them.

First of all, don't be frightened. For fear is usually the solidest foundation that a crook can put under his crooked enterprise—if he can scare you, he'll probably land you.

Don't be hurried by the apparent urgency of the case; manœuver for time to investigate all its aspects, and rely on time to help in meeting the situation.

Don't be secret. Nine crooked schemes in ten are put together in the hope that the victim will be afraid of publicity.

And understand the great value of records. Go after information that will help the crook to catch himself. "Give a dog enough rope—"

A business man has a son fifteen years old, whom he is training in the ways of the world by practical business transactions. This training began when the boy got a chance to sell magazines after school hours, and came to his father for sales suggestions. He made money, and the question of investment came up. The father pointed out the solidity of local real estate; and the boy found a lot, bought it on part-payments, and, when he sold it at a profit later, bought a bond.

So the training went along, the boy following his own nose and methods, but coming to dad when he got into a difficulty.

Taking Pennies from Children

ONE day the boy saw an advertisement offering a bicycle for a little easy work near home. He wanted a bicycle; so he answered the advertisement, and received a bundle of cheap pictures, which he was to sell at a dollar each, getting the bicycle when he returned the money—fifty dollars. The oleomargarine works of art were unsalable, and the boy sent them back. The picture concern immediately took a high legal stand, denied having received the chromos, and threatened suit unless fifty dollars was sent to pay for them. This plunged the boy into hot water, of course, and he went to his father, who had not been consulted, but who knew of the deal and was quietly watching. The father gave the boy three days to find a way out—at the end of which time the son had been vividly impressed by the fact that there are crooked people in the business world. Then he showed him how to meet the situation with one letter.

This letter simply offered to give publicity to the facts. The boy held an express receipt for the returned chromos. If the picture concern felt that its rights had been abused, he said, he would submit the details to a metropolitan newspaper. Or, if this did not answer, then to the Post-Office Department, which is the first, last, and best court of appeal for many a crooked scheme. Nothing further was ever heard of the matter!

The value of exact records was shown in a case where a college professor, acting as administrator for the estate of a friend who had died, was served with notice in a suit. Three persons, alleging that the dead man had failed to fulfil a contract with them, demanded seventy thousand dollars damages. The administrator had never heard his friend speak of such a transaction, and could find no record of a contract, so he was in the position of fighting three opponents.

But he had reason to believe that the suit was dishonest, and kept his head while he went after some records.

These three plaintiffs were associated in business, but he learned that they happened to be in separate cities. That seemed important. He got on a train and went to talk with each of them before they could come together again.

"I have no information about this contract," he said to the first man. "But if it's a just claim it ought to be settled. Will you tell me what you remember about it?"

Their Stories Didn't Agree

THE first plaintiff gave his version, which the administrator carefully wrote down. Then he visited the others, and wrote out their statements. All three dealt with matters of fact—when and where the contract was made and its terms. And all three versions differed widely!

The next move was made by the plaintiffs' attorney, a brow-beating old fellow, influential in politics, who called several days before the suit was to come up in court, and offered to settle for fifty thousand dollars. He stormed grandly, explaining the strength of his case. The administrator exhibited typewritten copies of the conflicting statements made by his clients, and the lawyer stormed harder than ever—but cut his demand in half. But the search for records had unearthed something more—a receipt for every claim under the alleged contract, given to the dead man, and found among his papers. When the lawyer saw that, he stormed no more; for it meant a basis for prosecuting him for criminal conspiracy.

The crook often organizes his scheme of blackmail in one of the law-proof forms that have become common in our business world.

A contractor landed a building job. His bid had been ample enough to allow a fine profit, and the structure was to be erected for a large corporation, so that he counted on a certain prestige as well. Half way through the job, the president of this corporation made such radical demands for extra work without compensation that the profit would be wiped out if they were granted. Moreover, there were vague clauses in the contract, put there for this very purpose.

"Unless you do as I ask," said the corporation man calmly, "I'll use my reputation and that of the company to kill you in business."

Something had happened before that, however. In the first work on the building, the contractor had caught the president in a lie. He had made a statement of fact so foreign to a man of his standing that the contractor thought there must have been some mistake. But investigation showed that it was really a lie for business advantage, and that put him on his guard. From the day he realized that he was dealing with a crook, scrupulous pains were taken to keep the records of the contract in careful detail. The whole scheme was laid bare when the corporation man made his demands.

The contractor left town, and carried on negotiations by mail, asking for further particulars, and giving the impression that he was frightened and submissive. That threw the other off his guard, and proved his undoing.

"Any time now that you are ready to kill me in a business way, you can go ahead," announced the contractor, a few weeks later. "For your correspondence, backed by my records, is court proof of blackmail."

A similar case was that of a manufacturer who bought a patent from a patent attorney. The sale was no sooner made than the latter filed a claim for an improvement on the original patent which practically destroyed its commercial value. This improvement he offered to sell. The manufacturer was a man of little education, but he was wise enough to have good legal counsel. On the advice of his lawyer, negotiations were carried on for the purchase of the patent, the lawyer dictating letters which the manufacturer wrote in long-hand. This made them look entirely innocent, and the patent attorney made the error of entering into elaborate explanations of why the improvement was necessary to the working of the original patent.

This Tartar dropped out of sight, taking his patent with him, and glad of the chance, when the manufacturer's attorney stepped into the correspondence with a single brisk typewritten letter threatening prosecution for blackmail, and also outlining proofs that the schemer had furnished himself.

How He Met "Trust" Crooks

CROOKS bob up frequently in competition, and have to be met with shrewdness and vigor.

In the Middle West, some years ago, there was a manufacturer of farm implements who made, as a by-product, a certain hardware staple. His output being small, he sold it in two or three States near home, never extending the business, because his purpose was merely to use up material that would otherwise have been wasted.

There was a big corporation making this hardware staple. It sold hundreds of times the output all over the country. With such a vast business, it did not seem as if this local man's output would attract the "trust's" attention.

Yet it did. The "trust" got a new sales-manager, anxious for records, and one of his first steps was to enter that little man's territory with a very low price on the article he sold. The idea was to force him out of that article. Elsewhere the big corporation maintained normal prices.

But this manufacturer was a new type—one of the self-taught, jack-knife-trading executives who have sprung up so plentifully in the Corn Belt in the past ten years.

He met the "trust" and vanquished it with about a thousand postal cards. These were mailed to wholesalers all over the country, and carried a quotation below cost. This was war right into the corporation's territory. Within twenty-four hours the new sales-manager came to see the farm implement man in his own office.

"What does it mean?" he asked. "You can't make enough of that article to supply national demand. You'll run out of goods."

"Quite true," admitted the manufacturer. "I'll have to turn down orders when my capacity is exceeded. But you'll have to meet those prices. And I won't run out of postals or quotations!" he added significantly.

When the corporation man went back, there was peace, and the Corn Belt manufacturer still has his by-product trade.

One thing more to remember about the crook, if he ever comes to you in business or life: That is, never to yield to him permanently, or try to make a compromise with your honesty. For this will surely undermine your business. Far better, let him swindle or defeat you, but retain integrity and straight methods.

Some years ago a crooked chemist sold a formula to some investors, who organized a company to manufacture the preparation. They were no sooner prospering than the chemist disclosed a trick—he controlled one of the ingredients in this preparation, and raised the price. The investors compromised by giving him an interest in the business. For business, above all things, must go ahead, must have facility, even when checked by swindlers. This facility cost them dear, however, for as time went on the chemist's demands grew, and he became more and more dominant. In the end, he got complete possession of the enterprise.

SPOIL THE ROD AND SPARE THE CHILD

GOOD LOSERS

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SUFFRAGENTS

Youth Challenges

By CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

Illustration by Lucius W. Hitchcock

DAY after day and week after week the strike dragged on. Daily strength departed from it and entered into Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. The men had embarked upon it with enthusiasm, many of them with fanatic determination; but with the advent in their homes of privation and hunger, their zeal was transmuted into heavy determination and lifeless stubbornness. Idleness hung heavily on their hands, and small coins that should have passed over the baker's counter clinked upon mahogany bars.

Dulac labored, exhorted, prayed with them. It was his personality, his individual power over the minds and hearts of men, that kept the strike alive. The weight rested upon his shoulders entirely, but he did not bend under it. He would not admit the hopelessness of the contest—and he fought on. At the end of a month he was still able to fire his audiences: he could still play upon them and be certain of a response. At the end of two months he—even he—was forced to admit that they listened with stolidness, with apathy. They were falling away from him. But he fought on. He would not admit defeat—would not, even in his most secret thoughts, look forward to inevitable failure.

Every man that deserted was an added atom of strength to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Every hungry baby, every ailing wife, every empty dinner-table, fought for the company and against Dulac. Rioting ended. It requires more than hopeless apathy to create a riot: there must be fervor, determination, enthusiasm. Daily Dulac's ranks were thinned by men who slunk to the company's employment office and begged to be reinstated.

The back of the strike was broken.

Bonbright Foote saw how his company crushed the strike—how, ruthlessly, with machinelike certainty and lack of heart, it went ahead undeviatingly, careless of obstructions, indifferent to human beings in its path. There was something Prussian about it—something that recalled to him Bismarck and Moltke and 1870, with the exact, soulless, mechanical perfection of the systematic trampling of the France of Napoleon III. And, just as the Bonbright Foote tradition crunched the strike to pieces, so it was crunching and macerating his own individuality until it would be a formless mass ready for the mold.

He was not permitted to interest himself in the business in his own youthful, healthy way. He must see it through dead eyes. He must initiate nothing, criticize nothing, suggest nothing. He must follow the rule.

His father was not satisfied with him—that he realized; also, that he was under constant suspicion. He was unsatisfactory. His present mental form was not acceptable, and must undergo painful processes of alteration. His parents would have taken him back, as a bad bargain, and exchanged him for something else if they could; but, being unable, they must make him into something else.

He approached his desk in the morning with loathing, and left it at night without relief. Hopelessness was upon him, and he could not flee from it.

TRUE, he sought relief. Malcolm Lightener had become his fast friend—a sort of life-preserver for his soul. In spite of his youth and Lightener's maturity, there was real companionship between them. Lightener knew what was going on, and in his granite way he tried to help the boy. Bonbright was not interested in his own business, so Lightener awakened in him an interest in Lightener's business. He discussed his affairs with the boy. He talked of systems, of efficiency, of business methods. He taught Bonbright as he would have taught his own son, half realizing the futility of his teaching.

So Bonbright learned, not knowing that he learned, and in his own office he made comparisons. The methods of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, he compared with the methods of Malcolm Lightener. He saw where modern business would make changes and improvements—but, after the first few trampled-on suggestions, hlie remained silent and grew indifferent.

Once he suggested the purchase of dictating machines.

"Fol-de-rol," said his father brusquely—and the matter ended.

In Lightener's plant he saw lathes that roughed and finished in one process and one handling. In his own plant castings must pass from one machine to another, and through the hands of extra and unnecessary employees. It was economic waste. But he offered no suggestion. He saw time lost here, labor lavished there; but he was indifferent. He knew better—he knew how it should be done; but he did not care. The methods of Bonbright Foote I not only suited his father, but were the laws of his father's life.

Not only had Bonbright established sympathetic relations with Malcolm Lightener, but in Mrs. Lightener he found a woman whose wealth had compelled the so-called social leaders of the city to accept her, but whose personality, once she was accepted, had won her a firm, enduring position. He found her a woman whose sudden, almost magical change from obscurity and the lower fringe of salary-drawers to wealth had not made her dizzy. Indeed, it seemed not to have affected her at all. Her dominant note was motherliness. She was still the housewife. She continued to look after her husband and daughter just as she had looked after them in the days when she had lived in a tiny frame house and had cooked the meals and made the beds. She represented womanhood of a sort Bonbright had never been on terms of intimate friendship with.

And Hilda: Since their first meeting there had been no reference to the desire of their mothers for their marriage. For a while the knowledge of this had made it difficult for Bonbright to offer the girl his friendship and companionship. But when he saw that she was willing to accept him unaffectedly as a friend, a comrade, a chum, they got on delightfully.

Bonbright played with her. Somehow, she came to represent recreation in his life. She was a splendid sportswoman who could hold her own with him at golf or tennis, and who drove an automobile as he did not dare to drive.

She was not beautiful, but she was attractive; and the center of her attractiveness was her wholesomeness, her frankness, her simplicity. He could talk to her as he could not talk even to her father; yet he could not open his heart fully, even to her.

He was lonely. A lonely boy thrown into the companionship of an attractive girl is a fertile field for the sowing of love. But Bonbright was not in love with Hilda. The idea did not occur to him. There was an excellent reason, though he had not arrived at a realization of it. And this excellent reason was Ruth Frazer.

He had ventured to accept Ruth's impulsive invitation to come to see her—not frequently, not so frequently as his inclinations urged, but more frequently than was, perhaps, wise in his position. She represented a new experience. She was utterly outside his world, and wholly different from the girls of his world. It was an attractive difference. And her grin! When it glowed for him, he felt for the moment as if the world were really a pleasant place in which to spend one's life.

He learned from her. New ideas and comprehensions came to him as a result of her conversations with him. Through her eyes he was seeing the other side. Not all her theories, not even all her facts, could he accept; but no matter how radical, no matter how incendiary, her words, he delighted to hear her uttering them. In short, Bonbright Foote VII, prince of the Foote dynasty, was in danger of falling in love with the Beggar Maid.

AFTER one wretched day he called on Ruth. The next morning soft-footed Rangar moved shadowlike into his father's office, and presently his father summoned him.

"I am informed," said the gentleman who was devoting his literary talents to a philosophical biography of the Marquis Lafayette, the friend of liberty and equality, "that you have been going repeatedly to the house of that girl who formerly was your secretary—whose mother runs a boarding-house for anarchists."

The suddenness of this attack nonplussed Bonbright. He could only stand silent, stamped with the guilty look of youth.

"Is it true?" snapped his father.

"I have called on Miss Frazer," Bonbright said unsteadily.

Mr. Foote stood up. It was his habit to stand up in all crises, big or little.

"If you must have things like this in your life, for heaven's sake keep them covered up. Don't be infernally blatant about them. Do you want the whole city whispering like ghouls over the liaison of my son with—with a female anarchist who is—the daughter of a boarding-house keeper?"

"Liaison, sir! Liaison?" Bonbright repeated fumblingly.

"I can find a plainer term if you insist."

For a moment Bonbright felt curiously calm, curiously cold, curiously detached from the scene. He regarded the other man. This man was his father—his father! The laws of life and of humanity demanded that he regard him with veneration. Yet, offhand, without investigation, this man could jump to a vile conclusion regarding him. Not only that, but he could accuse him, not of guilt, but of failing to conceal guilt.

His mind worked slowly. It was a full half minute before the thought bored through to him that he was not the sole or the greatest sufferer by this accusation.

---

It was not he who was insulted. It was not he who was outraged. It was she!

His father could think that of her—casually. The mere fact that she was poor, not of his station, a wage-earner, made it plain to the senior Foote that Ruth Frazer would welcome a squalid affair with his son.

Bonbright's calm gave place to turmoil, his chill to heat.

"That's not true," he said haltingly, using feeble words because stronger had not yet had time to surge up to the surface.

"Bosh!" said the father.

Then Bonbright blazed. Restraints crumbled. He stepped a pace closer to his father, so that his face was close to his father's face and his smoldering eyes were within inches of his father's scornful ones.

"It's a lie," he said huskily—"a damned, abominable, insulting lie!"

"Young man,"—his father stepped back,—"be careful."

"Careful! I don't know who carried this thing to you, but whoever did was a miserable, sneaking mucker. He lied, and he knew he lied. Yes, I have been to see her, and I'll tell you why: My first day in this place, she was the only human, pleasant thing I met. Her smile was the only life or brightness in the place. Everything else was dead men's bones. I've submitted to your humiliations, to having everything that's me stamped out, and stuff molded to the family pattern rammed back in its place. And I've been going to see her—just to see her smile and to get courage from it to start another day with you. That's what my life has been here, and you made it so, and you will keep on making it so. Probably you'll grind me into the family groove. Maybe I'm ground already; but that doesn't excuse what you've just said, and it doesn't make it any less an abominable lie, nor the man who reported it to you any less a muck-hearted sewer!"

He stopped, pale, panting, quivering.

"How dare you! How dare—"

"Dare!" Bonbright glared at his father. Then he felt a great, quivering emotion welling up within him, a something he was ashamed to have the eye of man look upon. His lips began to tremble. He swung on his heel and ran staggeringly toward the door. But there he stopped, clutched the door-frame, and cried chokingly:

"It's a lie—a lie—a slimy lie!"

MR. FOOTE stood motionless, staring after his son as he might have stared at some phenomenon that violated a law of nature—for instance, as he might have stared at the sun rising in the west, at a stream flowing uphill, at Newton's apple remaining suspended in air.

For most occurrences in his life Mr. Foote could find a family precedent. This matter had been handled thus, and that other matter had been handled so. But this thing—it had never been handled because it had never happened. He was left standing squarely on his own feet.

His one coherent thought was that something must be done about it. At such a moment some fathers would have considered the advisability of casting a son loose to shift for himself as a punishment for too much independence and for outraging the laws requiring unquestioning respect for father from son. This course did not occur to Mr. Foote. It was in the nature of things that it should not; for in his mind his son was a permanent structure—a sort of extension on the family house. He was there. Without him the family ended, the family business passed into the hands of strangers.

He pressed the buzzer that summoned Rangar, and presently that soft-footed individual appeared silently in the door—looking as Mr. Foote had never seen him look before. Rangar was breathing hard; he was flustered; his necktie was awry; and his face was ivory white. Also, though Mr. Foote did not take in this detail, his eyes smoldered with restrained malignancy.

"Why, Rangar," said Mr. Foote, "what's wrong?"

"Wrong, Mr. Foote! I—it was Mr. Bonbright."

"What about Mr. Bonbright?"

"A moment ago he came rushing out of his office in a rage, sir. He was; you could see it plain. I—I was in his way, sir, and I stepped aside. But he wouldn't have it. No, sir! he wouldn't. He reached out, Mr. Foote, and grabbed me—yes, sir, grabbed me right before the whole office. It was by the front of the shirt and the necktie. And he shook me. He's a strong young man. And he said, 'You're the sneak that's been running to father with lies,' and then he shook me again. 'I suppose,' he says in a second, 'that I've got to expect to be spied on. Go ahead; it's a job that fits you.' Yes, sir, that's exactly what he said in his own words. 'Fits you,' says he. And then he shook me again and threw me across the alleyway, so that I fell over on a desk. `Spy ahead,' he says, so that everybody in the office heard him and was snickering at me. 'But report what you see, after this—and see to it it's the truth. One more lie like this one—' he says. And then he stopped and rushed on out of the office. It was a threat, Mr. Foote, and he meant it. He means me harm."

"Nonsense," said Mr. Foote, holding himself resolutely in the character he had built for himself. "A fit of boyish temper."

Rangar's eyes glinted, but he made no rejoinder.

"He rather lost his temper with me," said Mr. Foote, "when I accused him of a liaison with that girl. He denied it, Rangar, or so I understood. He was very young and—tempestuous about it. Are you sure you were right?"

"What else would he be going there for, Mr. Foote?"

"My idea exactly."

"Unless, sir, he fancies he's in love with the girl. I once knew a young man in a position similar to Mr. Bonbright's who fell in love with a girl who sold cigars in a hotel. He fairly dogged her, sir. Wanted to marry her. You wouldn't believe it, but that's what he did, and his family had to buy her off and send her away, or he'd have done it, too. It might happen to any young man, Mr. Foote."

"Not to a member of my family, Rangar."

"I can't agree with you sir. Nobody's immune to it. You can't deny that Mr. Bonbright has been going to see her regularly. Five or six times he's been there, and stayed a long time every visit. It was one thing or the other he went for, and you can't deny that. If he says it wasn't what you accused him of, then it was the other.

"You mean that my son could fall in love with the daughter of a boarding-house keeper and a companion of anarchists?"

"I hate to say it to you, sir, but there isn't anything else to believe. He's young, Mr. Foote, and fiery. She isn't bad-looking, either, and she's clever. A clever girl can do a lot with a boy, no matter who he is, if she sets her heart on him. It wouldn't be a bad match for a girl like her if she was to entice Mr. Bonbright into a marriage."

"Impossible, Rangar. However, you have an eye kept on him. I want to be told every move he makes—where he goes, who he sees. I want to know everything about him, Rangar. Will you see to it?"

"Yes, sir," said Rangar, a gleam of malice again visible in his eyes.

"WHAT do you know about this girl? Have you had her looked up?" resumed Mr. Foote presently.

"Not fully, sir. But I've heard she was heart and soul with what these anarchists believe. Her father was one of them. Killed by the police or soldiers or somebody. The unions educated her. That's why Dulac went to live there—to help them out. And it's been reported to me, Mr. Foote, that Dulac was sweet on her himself."

"Yes. Yes. Well, we'll have to continue along the lines we've been following. They have been not unsuccessful."

"True enough. It's just a question of time now. It might do some good, Mr. Foote, to have the rumor get about that we wouldn't take back any men who did not apply for reinstatement before the end of next week. There's considerable discontent, due largely to insufficient nourishment—yes, we can lay it to that, I imagine. It's this man Dulac that holds the strike together. If only every laboring man had a dozen babies there'd be less strikes," Rangar finished, not exactly callously, but in a matter-of-fact way. If he had thought of it he might have added, "and a sick wife."

He would not have hesitated to provide each striker with the babies and the wife, purely as a strike-breaking measure, if he could have managed the matter.

"They're improvident," said Mr. Foote sagaciously. "If they must strike and cut off their earnings every so often, why don't they lay up savings to carry them through?"

"They seem to have the notion, sir, that they don't earn enough to save. That, while it isn't their main grievance, is an important one. But the idiots put nonsensical, immaterial grievances ahead of money matters, mostly. Rights! Rights to do this or not to do that—to organize, or to sit at board meetings. They're not practical, Mr. Foote. If it was just money they wanted, we might get on with them. It's men like this Dulac putting notions into their heads that they haven't brains enough to think of themselves. Social revolution, you know—that sort of thing."

"Do what you like about it. You might have notices tacked up outside the gates stating that we won't take back men who are not back by the date you named. And, Rangar, be sure Mr. Bonbright's name is signed to it. I want to rid the men thoroughly of any absurd ideas about him."

"You have, sir. If Dulac is a fair sample, you have. Why, he seems to hate Mr. Bonbright. Called him names, and that sort of thing. Maybe, though, there's something personal mixed up in it."

"That girl?"

"Very likely, sir."

"You know her, Rangar; she worked under you. What sort of girl is she? I mean would you consider it wise to approach her with a proposition—delicately put, of course—to—say, move to another city, or something of the sort?"

"My observation of her—while not close—is that it would be unwise and—er—futile. She seemed to have quite a will. Indeed, I may say she seemed stubborn. And no fool. If she's got a chance at Mr. Bonbright, she wouldn't give it up for a few dollars. Not her, sir."

"I don't recall her especially. Small, was she not? Not the—ah—ripe, rounded type to attract a boy? Eh?"

---

"Curves and color don't always do it, Mr. Foote, I've observed. I've known scrawny ones that had ten boys running after them to one running after the kind they have pictures of on calendars. I don't know if it's brains or what, but they've got something that attracts."

"Hum. Can't say I've had much experience. Probably you're right. Anyhow, we're faced by something definite in the way of a condition. If the thing is merely a liaison—we can break it up, I imagine, without difficulty. If my son is so blind to right and wrong, and to his position, as to want to marry the girl, we'll have to resort promptly to effective measures."

"Promptly," said Rangar. "And also quietly, Mr. Foote. If she got an idea there was trouble brewing, she might off with him and get married before we could wink."

"Heavens! Well, I leave it with you to keep an eye on Bonbright. Consult with me before acting. My son is in a strange humor. He'll take some handling, I'm afraid, before we bring him to see things as my son ought to see them. But I'll bring him there, Rangar. I should be doing my duty very indifferently indeed if I did not. Stay a moment, though. Hereafter bear in mind I do not care to be troubled with squalid details. If things have to be done, do them. If babies must be hungry—why, I suppose it is a condition that must exist from time to time. The fault of their fathers. However, I do not care to hear about them. I am engaged on an important literary work, as you know, and such things tend to distract me."

"Naturally, sir," said Rangar.

"But you will on no account relax your firmness with these strikers. They must be shown."

"They're being shown," said Rangar grimly, and walked out of the office.

In the corridor, his face, which had been expressionless or obsequious as he saw the need, changed swiftly. His look was that of a man thinking of an enemy. There was malice, vindictiveness, hatred, in that look, and it expressed with exactness his sentiments toward young Bonbright Foote.

As for Bonbright Foote VI, he was frightened. No other word can describe his sensations. The idea that his son might marry—actually marry—this girl was appalling. If the boy should actually take such an unthinkable step before he could be prevented, what a situation would arise!

"Of course it wouldn't last," he said to himself; "such marriages never do. But while it did last— And there might be a child—a son! A Bonbright Foote VIII come of such a mother! When he comes back we'll have this thing out."

But Bonbright did not come back that day; nor was he visible at home that night. The next day dragged by, and still he did not appear.

RUTH FRAZER had been working nearly two months for Malcolm Lightener, and she liked the place. It had been a revelation to her, following her experience with Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. It interested her, fascinated her. There was an atmosphere in the tremendous offices—a tension, an alertness, an efficiency, that made Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, seem an anachronism—as belonging in an earlier, more leisurely, less capable century.

There was a spirit among the workers totally lacking in her former place of employment; there was an attitude on the part of bosses, and most notably in Malcolm Lightener himself, which was so different from that of Mr. Foote that it seemed impossible. Foote held himself aloof from contact with his help and his business. Malcolm Lightener was everywhere—interested in everything, mixing into everything.

Her first encounter with him occurred a day or two after her arrival in the office. She was interrupted in the transcription of a letter by a stern voice behind her:

"You're young Foote's anarchist, aren't you?"

She looked up frightened into the unsmiling eyes of Malcolm Lightener.

"Mr. Foote—got me my place here," she said hesitatingly.

"Here—take this letter."

And, almost before she could snatch book and pencil, he was dictating, rapidly, dynamically. When Malcolm Lightener dictated a letter, he did it as if he were making a public speech, with emphasis and gesture.

"There," he said, when he had finished, "read it back to me."

She did, her voice unsteady.

"Spell isosceles," he demanded.

She managed the feat accurately.

"Uh. That usually gets 'em. Needn't transcribe that letter. Like it here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

She looked up at him, considering the matter. Why did she like it?

"Because," she said slowly, "it doesn't seem like just a—a—big, grinding machine, and the people working here like wheels and pulleys and little machines. It all feels alive, and—and—we feel like human beings."

"Huh, he grunted, and frowned down at her. "Brains," he said. "Mighty good thing to have. Took brains to be able to think that—and say it." He turned away; then asked suddenly, over his shoulder: "Got any bombs in your desk?"

"Bombs!"

"Because," he said, with no trace of a smile, "we don't allow little girls to bring bombs in here. If you see anything around that you think needs an infernal machine set off under it, why, you come and tell me. See? Tell me before you explode anything—not after."

Ruth looked after him in a sort of daze. Then she heard the girls about her laughing.

"You've passed your examination, Miss Frazer," said the girl at the next desk. "Everybody has to. You never can tell what he's going to do, but he's a dear. Don't let him scare you. If he thought he had he'd be tickled to death. And then he'd find some way to show you that you needn't be at all."

MORE than once Ruth saw Hilda Lightener in her father's office. Sometimes girls in an office entertain a grudge against the fortunate daughter of their employer. They suspect her of snubbing them, or of being a snob, or of liking to show off her feathers before them. This was notably absent in Hilda's case. She knew many of the girls by name, and often stopped to chat with them. She was pleasant, guiltless of pomp and circumstance in her comings and goings.

"They say she's going to marry young Foote. The Foote company makes axles for us," said Ruth's neighbor; and Ruth became interested in Hilda.

She liked Bonbright Foote, and was sorry for him. Admitting the unwisdom of his call upon her, she had not the heart to forbid him, especially because he had shown no signs of stepping beyond the boundary lines of simple friendship. She saw to it that he and Dulac did not meet.

As for Dulac—she had disciplined him for his outbreak, as was the duty of a self-respecting young woman, and had made him eat his piece of humble pie. It had not affected her veneration for his work, nor her admiration for the man and his sincerity and his ability. She had answered his question, and the answer had been yes; for she had come to believe that she loved him.

She noticed how tired he was looking. She knew the discouragements that weighed on him, and saw, as he refused to see, that the strike was a failure in spite of his efforts. The strike had failed, and she felt that nothing was to be gained by sustaining the ebbing remnants of it—by making men and women and children suffer futilely. She would have ended it, and begun straightway to prepare for a strike that would not fail.

But she did not tell him this. He had to fight. She knew that. She knew, too, that it was not in him to admit defeat or to surrender. It would be necessary to crush him first.

And then, at five o'clock, when she came out of the office, she found Bonbright

---

Foote waiting for her in his car. It was the first time.

"I—I came for you," he said awkwardly, yet with something of tenseness in his voice.

"You shouldn't," she said, not unkindly.

"I had to," he said. "I—all day I've done nothing but wait to see you. I've got to talk to you. Please, now that I'm here, won't you get in?"

SOMETHING was wrong. She glanced at his set face as she stepped into the car, and felt a wave of sympathy for him.

"I want you to—to have something to eat with me—out in the country. I want to get away from town. Let me send a messenger to your mother. I know you don't want to and—and all that. But you'll come, won't you?"

So they stopped at a telegraph office and Bonbright wrote a message to Mrs. Frazer:

I'm taking your daughter to Apple Lake to dinner. I hope you won't mind. And I promise to have her home safe and early.

Then they drove out the avenue, with the evening sun in their faces, toward beautiful Apple Lake. Bonbright drove in silence, his eyes on the road. Ruth was alone in her appreciation of the loveliness of the waning day.

The messenger carrying Bonbright's telegram left the office on his bicycle; but he had not gone farther than around the first corner when a man drew up beside him in an automobile.

"Hey, kid, I want to speak to you," said Mr. Rangar.

The boy stopped, and the car stopped.

"You've got a message there that I'm interested in," said Rangar. "It isn't sealed; I want a look at it."

He displayed a dollar bill. The boy pocketed the bill and handed over the message, which Rangar read and returned to him. Then Rangar drove to the office from which the boy had come, and despatched a message of his own—one not covered by his instructions from Mr. Foote. It was a private matter with him, inspired by an incident of the morning having to do with a rumpled necktie and a ruffled dignity.

Rangar's message was to Dulac:

Your girl's just gone to Apple Lake with young Foote in his car.

That was all, but it seemed ample to Rangar.

BONBRIGHT was not a reckless driver, but he drove rapidly this evening, with a sort of driven eagerness. From time to time Ruth turned and glanced at his face, and wondered what could have happened. She had never seen him like this before, even in his darkest moments. Discouragement, apathy, she had seen, and bitterness; but never until now set determination, smoldering embers of rage. What, she wondered, could the boy's father have done to him now?

Soon, they were beyond the rim of industry that banded the city, leaving behind them towering chimneys, smokeless for the night, clouds of released workingmen waiting their turns to crowd into overloaded street cars. They passed through mushroom suburban villages—villages that had not been there the year before, that would be indistinguishable from the city a year later.

And then came the country, guiltless of the odors of gregarious humanity, of gases, of smokes, of mankind itself. Farms spread about them; barns and farmhouses were dropped down at intervals. Everywhere was green quiet, softened, made to glow enticingly by the sun's red disk about to dip behind the little hills. Ruth loved it. It altered her mood, softened her, made her more pliable.

Presently they entered upon a road that ran beside the lake itself, with tiny ripples lapping almost at the tire marks in the sand. Ruth breathed deeply. If she could only live in such a spot!

The club-house was deserted save by the few servants. Bonbright gave directions that they should be served on the veranda. It was almost the first word he had uttered since leaving the city. He led the way to a table from which they could sit and look out on the water.

"It's lovely," Ruth said.

"I come here a good deal," he said without explanation, but she understood.

"If I were you I'd live here. Every day I would have the knowledge that I was coming home to this in the evening. You could. Why don't you, I wonder?"

"I don't know. I can't remember a Foote who has ever lived in such a place. If it hasn't been done in my family, of course I couldn't do it."

She pressed her lips together at the bitter note in his voice. It was out of tune.

"Have the ancestors been after you?" she asked.

"The whole lot have been riding me hard. And I'm a well trained nag. I never buck or balk. I never did till to-day."

"To-day?"

"I bucked them off in a heap," he said, with no trace of humor. He was deadly serious. "I didn't know I could do it; but all of a sudden I was plunging and rearing—and snorting, I expect. And they were off."

"To stay?"

He dropped his eyes and fell silent.

"Anyhow," he said presently, "it's a relief to be running free, even for an hour."

"When they go to climb back, why don't you buck some more? Now that they're off—keep them off."

"It's not so easy. You see, I've been trained all my life to carry them. You can't break off a thing like that in an instant. A priest doesn't turn atheist in a night. And this family tradition business is like a religion. It gets into your bones. You respect it. You feel it demanding things of you, and you can't refuse. I suppose there is a duty."

"To yourself," she said quickly.

"To them—and to the—the future. But I bucked them off once. Maybe they'll never ride so hard again—and maybe they'll try to break me by riding harder. Until to-day I never had a notion of fighting back—but I'm going to give them a job of it now. There are things I will do. They sha'n't always have their way. Right now, Miss Frazer, I've broken with the whole thing. They may be able to fetch me back; I don't know. Sometime I'll have to go. When father's through I'd have to go anyhow—to head the business."

"Your father ought to change the name of the business to Family Ghosts, Incorporated," Ruth said, with an attempt to lighten his seriousness.

"I'll be general manager responsible to a board of directors from across the Styx," he said, with an approach to a smile. "Here's our waiter. I telephoned our order; hope I've chosen to please you."

"Indeed you have," she replied. "I ought not to do this sort of thing. But I'm glad to do it once. I abhor the rich," she said, laughing, "but some of the things they do and have are mighty pleasant."

After a while she said:

"If I were a rich man's wife I'd be something more than a society gadabout. I'd insist on knowing my husband's business, and I'd make him do a lot of things for his workmen. Think of being a woman and able to do so much for thousands of—of my class!" she finished.

"Your class!" he said sharply.

"I belong to the laboring class, First, because I was born into it; and, second, because my heart is with it."

"Class doesn't touch you. It doesn't concern you. You're yourself."

For the first time in her acquaintance with him, he made her uneasy. His eyes and his manner disturbed her.

"Nonsense," she said.

NEITHER spoke for some time. It was growing dark now, and lights were glowing on the veranda.

"When we're through," Bonbright said, "let's walk down by the lake. There's a bully walk, and a place to sit. I asked you to come because I wanted to take you there—miles away from everybody."

She was distinctly startled now, but helpless. She read storm signals, but no harbor was at hand.

"We must be getting back," she said lamely.

"It's not eight. We can go back in an hour. Shall we walk down now? I can't wait, Ruth, to say what I've got to say."

It was impossible to hold back, futile to attempt escape. She knew now why he had brought her and what he wanted to say, but she could not prevent it. If he must have his say, let it be where he desired. Very grave now, unhappy, her joy marred, she walked down the steps by his side and along the shore of the lake.

"Here," he said presently, drawing her into a nook occupied by a bench.

She sat down obediently.

Was it fortunate or unfortunate that she did not know an automobile was just turning into the lake road, a hired automobile occupied by her fiancé Dulac? Rangar's note had reached his hands, and he had acted as Rangar had hoped.

To be continued next week

A Carry-On for Clara

By SEWELL FORD

Illustrations by Arthur William Brown

"NOW turn around," says Vee. "Oh, Torchy! Why, you look perfectly—"

"Do I?" I cuts in. "Well, you don't think I'm goin' to the office like this, do you?"

She does. Insists that Mr. Ellins will expect it.

"Besides," says she, "it is in the army regulations that you must. If you don't—well, I'm not sure whether it is treason or mutiny."

"Hal-lup!" says I. "I surrender."

So I starts for town lookin' as warlike as if I'd just come from a front trench, and feelin' like a masquerader who'd lost his way to the ball-room.

In the office, Old Hickory gives me the thorough up-and-down. It s a genial, fatherly sort of inspection, and he ends it with a satisfied grunt.

"Good morning, Lieutenant," says he. "I see you have—er—got 'em on. And, allow me to mention, rather a good fit, sir."

I gasps. Sirred by Old Hickory! Do you wonder I got fussed? But he only chuckles easy, waves me to take a chair, and goes on with:

"What's the word from the Syracuse sector?"

At that, I gets my breath back.

"Fairly good deal up there, sir," says I. "They're workin' in a carload or so of wormy ash for the shovel handles, and some of the steel runs below test; but most of their stuff grades well. I'll have my notes typed off right away."

After I've filed my report I should have ducked. But this habit of stickin' around the shop is hard to break. And that's how I happen to be on hand when the lady in gray drifts in for her chatty confab with Mr. Ellins.

Seems she held quite a block of our preferred, for when Vincent lugs in her card Old Hickory spots the name right away as being on our widow-and-orphan list that we wave at investigatin' committees.

"Ah, yes!" says he. "Mrs. Parker Smith. Show her in, boy."

SUCH a quiet, gentle, dignified party she is, her costume tonin' in with her gray hair, and an easy way of speakin' and all, that my first guess' is she might be the head of an old ladies' home.

"Mr. Ellins," says she, "I am looking for my niece."

"Are you?" says Mr. Ellins. "Humph! Hardly think we could be of service in such a case."

"Oh!" says she. "I—I am so sorry."

"Lost, is she?" suggests Mr. Ellins, weakenin'.

"She is somewhere in New York," goes on Mrs. Parker Smith. "Of course, I know it is an imposition to trouble you with such a matter. But I thought you might have some one in your office who—who—"

"We have," says he. "Torchy,—er—I mean, Lieutenant,—Mrs. Parker Smith. Here, madam, is a young man who will find your niece for you at once. In private life he is my secretary; and as it happens that just now he is on special detail, his services are entirely at your disposal."

She looks a little doubtful about bein' shunted like that, but she follows me into the next room, where I produces a

---

pencil and pad and calls for details businesslike.

"Let's see," says I. "What's the full description? Age?"

"Why," says she, hesitatin', "Claire is about twenty-two."

"Oh!" says I. "Got beyond the flapper stage, then. Height—tall or short?"

Mrs. Parker Smith shakes her head.

"I'm sure I don't know," says she. "You see, Claire is not an own niece. She—well, she is a daughter of my first husband's second wife's step-sister."

"Wha-a-at?" says I, gawpin' at her. "Daughter of your— Oh, say, let's not go into it as deep as that. I'm dizzy already. Suppose we call her an in-law once removed and let it go at that?"

"Thank you," says Mrs. Parker Smith, givin' me a quizzin' smile. "Perhaps it is enough to say that I have never seen her."

She does go on to explain, though, that when Claire's step-uncle, or whatever he was, found his heart trouble gettin' worse, he wrote to Mrs. Parker Smith, askin' her to forget the past and look after the orphan girl that he's been tryin' to bring up. It's just as clear to me as the average movie plot, but I nods my head.

"So for three years," says she, "while

Claire was in boarding-school, I acted as her guardian; but since she has come of age I have been merely the executor of her small estate."

"Oh, yes!" says I. "And now she's come to New York, and forgot to send you her address?"

IT was something like that. Claire had gone in for art. Looked like she'd splurged heavy on it, too; for the drain on her income had been something fierce. Meanwhile, Mrs. Parker Smith had doped out an entirely different future for Claire. The funds that had been tied up in a Vermont barrel-stave fact'ry, that was makin' less and less barrel staves every year, Auntie had pulled out and invested in a model dairy farm out near Rockford, Illinois. She'd made the capital turn over from fifteen to twenty per cent., too, by livin' right on the job and cashin' in the cream tickets herself.

"You have!" says I. "Not a reg'lar cow farm?"

She nods.

"It did seem rather odd, at first," says she. "But I wanted to get away from—from everything. But now— Well, I want Claire. I suppose I am a little lonesome. Besides, I want her to try taking charge. Recently, when she had drawn her income for half a year in advance and still asked for more, I was obliged to refuse."

"And then?" says I.

Mrs. Parker Smith shrugs her shoulders.

"The foolish girl chose to quarrel with me," says she. "About ten days ago she sent me a curt note. I could keep her money; she was tired of being dictated to. I needn't write any more, for she had moved to another address, had changed her name."

"Huh!" says I. "That does make it complicated. You don't know what she looks like, or what name she flags under, and I'm to find her in little New York?"

BUT I finds myself tacklin' this hopeless puzzle from every angle I could think of. I tried 'phonin' to Claire's old street number. Nothing doin'. They didn't know anything about any Miss Hunt.

"What brand of art was she monkeyin' with?" I asks.

Mrs. Parker Smith couldn't say. Claire hadn't been very chatty in her letters. Chiefly she had demanded checks.

"But in one she did mention," says the lady in gray, "that— Now, what was it! Oh, yes! Something about 'landing a cover.' What could that mean?"

"Cover?" says I. "Why, for a magazine, maybe. That's it. And if we only knew what name she'd sign, we might— Would she stick to the Claire part? I'll bet she would. Wait. I'll get a bunch of back numbers from the arcade news-stand and we'll go through 'em."

We'd hunted through an armful, though, before we runs across this freaky sketch of a purple nymph, with bright yellow hair, bouncin' across a stretch of dark blue lawn.

"Claire Lamar!" says I. "Would that be— Eh? What's wrong?"

Mrs. Parker Smith seems to be gettin' a jolt of some kind, but she steadies herself and almost gets back her smile.

"I—I am sure it would," says she. "It's very odd, though."

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Listens kind of arty—Claire Lamar. Lemme see. This snappy fifteen-center has editorial offices on Fourth Avenue and— Well, well! Whitey Weeks, ad. manager! Say, if I can get him on the wire—"

Just by luck, I did. Would he pry some facts for me out of the art editor, facts about a certain party? Sure he would. And inside of ten minutes, without leavin' the Corrugated General offices, I had a full description of Claire, includin' where she hung out.

"Huh!" says I. "Greenwich Village, eh? You might know."

"My dear Lieutenant," says Mrs. Parker Smith, "I think you are perfectly wonderful!"

"Swell thought!" says I. "But you

---

needn't let on to Mr. Ellins how simple it was. And now, all you got to do is—"

"I know," she cuts in. "And I really ought not to trouble you another moment. But, since Mr. Ellins has been so kind—well, I am going to ask you to help me just a trifle more."

"Shoot," says I, unsuspicious.

It ain't much, she says. But she's afraid, if she trails Claire to her rooms, the young lady might send down words she was out, or make a quick exit.

"But if you would go," she suggests, "with a note from me asking her to join us somewhere at dinner—"

I holds up both hands.

"Sorry," says I, "but I got to duck. That's taking too many chances."

Then I explains how, although I may look like a singleton, I'm really the other half of a very interestin' domestic sketch, and that Vee's expectin' me home to dinner.

"Why, all the better!" says Mrs. Parker Smith. "Have her come in and join us. I'll tell you: we will have our little party down at the old Napoleon, where they have such delicious French cooking. Now, please!"

As I've hinted before, she is some persuader. I ain't mesmerized so strong, though, but what I got sense enough to play it safe by callin' up Vee first. I don't think she was strong for joinin' the reunion until I points out that I might be some shy at wanderin' down into the art-student colony and collectin' a strange young lady illustrator all by myself.

"Course, I could do it alone if I had to," I throws in.

"H-m-m-m!" says Vee. "If that bashfulness of yours is likely to be as bad as all that, perhaps I'd better come."

So by six o'clock Vee and I are in the dinky reception-room of one of them

Belasco boardin'-houses, tryin' to convince a young female in a paint-splashed smock and a floppy boudoir cap that we ain't tryin' to kidnap or otherwise annoy her.

"What's the big idea?" says she. "I don't get you at all."

"Maybe if you'd read the note it would help," I suggests.

"Oh!" says she, and takes it over by the window.

SHE'S a long-waisted, rangy young party, who walks with a Theda Bara slouch and tries to talk out of one side of her mouth. "Hello!" she goes on. "The Parker Smith person. That's enough. It's all off."

"Just as you say," says I. "But, if you ask me, I wouldn't pass up an aunt like her without takin' a look."

"Aunt!" says Claire Lamar, alias Hunt. "Listen: she's about as much an aunt to me as I am to either of you. And I've never shed any tears over the fact, either. The only aunt that I'd ever own was one that my family would never tell me much about. I had to find out about her for myself. Take it from me, though, she was some aunt."

"Tastes in aunts differ, I expect," says I. "And Mrs. Parker Smith don't claim to be a reg'lar aunt, anyway. She seems harmless, too. All she wants is a chance to give you a rosy prospectus of life on a cow farm and blow you to a dinner at the Napoleon."

"Think of that!" says Claire. "And I've been living for weeks on window-sill meals, with now and then a ptomaine-defying gorge at the Pink Poodle's sixty-cent table d'hôte. Oh, I'll come, I'll come! But I warn you: the Parker Smith person will understand before the evening is over that I was born to no cow farm in Illinois."

With that she glides off to do a dinner change.

"I believe it is going to be quite an interesting party, don't you?" says Vee.

"The signs point that way," says I. "But the old girl really ought to wear shock-absorbers if she wants to last through the evenin'. S-s-s-sh! Claire is comin' back."

THIS time she's draped herself in a pale yellow kimono with blue triangles stenciled all over it.

"Speaking of perfectly good aunts," says she, "there!" And she displays a silver-framed photo. It's an old-timer done in faded brown, and shows a dashin' young party wearin' funny sleeves, a ringlet cascade on one side of her head, and a saucy little pancake lid over one ear.

"That," explains Claire, "was my aunt Clara Lamar; not my real aunt, you know, but near enough for me to claim her. This was taken in '72, I believe."

"Really!" says Vee. "She must have been quite pretty."

"That doesn't half tell it," says Claire. "She was a charmer, simply fascinating. Not beautiful, you know, but she had a way with her. She was brilliant, daring, one of the kind that men raved over. At twenty she married a Congressman, fat and forty. She hadn't lived in Washington six months before her receptions were crushes. She flirted industriously. A young French aide and an army officer fought a duel over her. And, while the capital was buzzing with that, she eloped with another diplomat, a Russian. For a year or two they lived in Paris. She had her salon. Then the Russian got himself killed in some way, and she soon married again—another American, quite wealthy. He brought her back to New York, and they lived in one of those old brownstone mansions on lower Fifth Avenue. Her dinner parties were the talk of the town—champagne with the fish, vodka with the coffee, cigarettes for the women, cut-up stunts afterwards. I forget just who No. 3 was, but he succumbed. Couldn't stand the pace, I suppose. And then— Well, Aunt Clara disappeared. But, say, she was a regular person. I wish I could find out what ever became of her."

"Maybe Mrs. Parker Smith could give you a line," I suggests.

"Her!" says Claire. "Fat chance! But I must finish dressing. Sorry to keep you waiting."

We did get a bit restless durin' the next half hour, but the wait was worth while. For, believe me, when Claire comes down again she's some dolled.

I don't mean she was any home-destroyer. That face of hers is too long and heavy for the front row of a song review. But she has plenty of zip to her get-up. After one glance I calls a taxi.

The way I'd left it with Mrs. Parker Smith, we was to land Claire at the hotel first; then call her up, and proceed to order dinner. So we had another little stage wait, with only the three of us at the table.

"I hope you don't mind if I have a puff or two," says Claire. "It goes here, you know."

"Anything to make the evenin' a success," says I, signalin' a garçon. "My khaki lets me out of followin' you."

So, when the head waiter finally tows in Mrs. Parker Smith, costumed in the same gray dress and lookin' meeker and gentler than ever, she is greeted with a sporty tableau. But she don't faint or anything. She just springs that twisty smile of hers and comes right on.

"The missing one!" says I, wavin' at Claire.

"Ah!" says Mrs. Parker Smith, beamin' on her. "So good of you to come!"

"Wasn't it?" says Claire, removin' the cork tip languid.

WELL, as a get-together I must admit that the outlook was kind of frosty. Claire showed plenty of enthusiasm for the hors d'œuvres and the low-tide soup and so on, but mighty little for this volunteer auntie, who starts to describe the subtle joys of the butter business.

"Perhaps you have never seen a herd of registered Guernseys," says Mrs. Parker Smith, "when they are munching contentedly at milking time, with their big, dreamy eyes—"

"Excuse me!" says Claire. "I don't have to. I spent a whole month's vacation on a Vermont farm."

Mrs. Parker Smith only smiles indulgent.

"We use electric milkers, you know, says she, "and most of our young men come from the agricultural colleges."

"That listens alluring—some," admits Claire: "But I can't see myself planted ten miles out on an R. F. D. route, even with college-bred help. Pardon me if I light another dope-stick."

I could get her idea easy enough, by then. Claire wasn't half so sporty as she hoped she was. It was just her way of doing the carry-on for Aunt Clara Lamar. But, at the same time, we couldn't help feelin' kind of sorry for Mrs. Parker Smith. She was tryin' to be so nice and friendly, and she wasn't gettin' anywhere.

IT was by way of switchin' the line of table chat, I expect, that Vee breaks in with that remark about the only piece of jewelry the old girl is wearin'.

"What a duck of a bracelet!" says Vee. "An heirloom, is it?"

"Almost," says Mrs. Parker Smith. "It was given to me on my twenty-second birthday, in Florence."

She slips it off and passes it over for inspection. The part that goes around the wrist is all of fine chain-work, silver and gold, woven almost like cloth, and on top is a cameo, 'most as big as a clam.

"How stunning! Look, Torchy. "O-o-oh!" says Vee, gaspin' a little.

In handling the thing she must have pressed a catch somewhere, for the cameo springs back, revealin' a locket effect underneath with a picture in it. Course, we couldn't help seein'.

"Why—why—" says Vee, gazin' from the picture to Mrs. Parker Smith. "Isn't this a portrait of—of—"

"Of a very silly young woman," cuts in Auntie. "We waited in Florence a week to have that finished."

"Then—then it is you?" asks Vee.

The lady in gray nods. Vee asks if she may show it to Claire.

"Why not?" says Mrs. Parker Smith, smilin'.

We didn't stop to explain. I passes it on to Claire, and then we both watches her face. For the dinky little picture under the cameo is a dead ringer for the one Claire had shown us in the silver frame. So it was Claire's turn to catch a short breath.

"Don't tell me," says she, "that—that you are Clara Lamar?"

Which was when Auntie got her big jolt. For a second the pink fades out of her cheeks, and the salad fork she'd been holdin' rattles into her plate. She makes a quick recovery, though.

"I was—once," says she. "I had hoped, though, that the name had been forgotten. Tell me, how—how do you happen to—"

"Why," says Claire, "uncle had the scrap-book habit. Anyway, I found this one in an old desk, and it was all about you. Your picture was in it, too. And say, Auntie, you were the real thing, weren't you?"

AFTER that it was a reg'lar reunion. For Claire had dug up her heroine. And, no matter how strong Auntie protests that she ain't that sort of a party now, and hasn't been for years and years, Claire keeps right on. She's a consistent admirer, even if she is a little late.

"If I had only known it was you!" says she.

"Then—then you'll come to Meadowbrae with me?" asks Mrs. Parker Smith.

"You bet!" says Claire. "Between you and me, this art career of mine has rather fizzled out. Besides, keeping it up has got to be rather a bore. Honest, a spaghetti and cigarette life is a lot more romantic to read about than it is to follow. Whether I could learn to run a dairy farm or not, I don't know; but, with an aunt like you to coach me along, I'm blessed if I don't give it a try. When do we start?"

"But," says Vee to me, later, "I can't imagine her on a farm."

"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Didn't you notice she couldn't smoke without gettin' it up her nose?"

The Shuttle—

Continued from page 7

"Thar you go!" The harried mountain man bounded to his feet, his hands flinging out to brush asunder invisible webs. "Thar you go, daw-gone you, a-ringin' in this witness business ag'in! First thing, the Pres'dunt of the U-nited States he juggles the law to snag me; then you fix it so's I can't gnaw loose from the trap. What've I done to the law, to be hounder'd an' pestered away from my trap lines up round Hoot-Owl? Me—I'm goin' tie loose from all this-here law proposition. I'm goin' to git outa the country!"

"Trapper,"—the Bulldog snubbed the tip of a newly rolled cigarette with meticulous pains,—"you're plannin' to deal yourself a lot of misery if you do that. Right now you're the most important man in the State of Wyoming. You'd be a heap sight importanter to Lawyer Beeston's friends dead than alive. These Whitecaps Colonel Van Dorn's holdin' out to Fort McKenna now, they got to line up before a court some day. It's their lives against yours. An' what's your life count with a bunch like that? Just one thin white chip in a stack of blues."

The mountain man flung a wild glance about the bare office, then huddled back in his chair.

DAY followed day, and the tension in Two Moons hardly abated. The trapper spent all his waking hours in the sheriff's office, only dodging across the street to the Bon Ton for his meals. The bold attempt to kidnap him, coupled with Sinclair's grim exposition of the possibilities entailed by any play into Beeston's hands, filled him with a fear of venturing abroad. Yet—to remain under the sheriff's thumb!

Every time he looked through the rear window of the office his eyes dwelt on the white chimney of Cloud's Peak—that sentinel standing guard over Hoot-Owl Lake. Sentinel, too, over that thing which lay amid the ferns by the lake's secret shore! How long before somebody prowling through the piny woods up there would see a buzzard lift lazily up from something sprawling in the ferns, and then find what it was that interested the buzzard? How long before the sheriff would stand before him and say, "Bass, what do you know about an Indian—?"

And this martial law—supposing this new-fangled law had already begun to work on him! Cutting in behind his back to pin him to a dead Indian while Bulldog Sinclair had him roped and tied in Two Moons!

"It's time to pull stakes!" The mountain man spoke his decision in a voice that quavered. That was near sundown, the sixth night of his voluntary internment.

Trapper Bass stepped out of the Bon Ton in the early dark of evening; but, instead of walking back to the courthouse, he turned down an alley and into a feed lot where wagons stood. A pudgy little figure dodged out from behind a wagon-box and waited the trapper's approach.

"All ready, Bass. Horses and two good men are waiting for you down beyond the bridge. You can make the midnight train at Wild Horse by steady riding."

"But, Mister Beeston, these men who're goin' with me—they'll do for me in some dark draw. I know; I'm importanter dead than alive to your crowd."

"Pshaw, Bass! I'm not that kind. Here, take this with you, if you're afraid." A heavy revolver was slipped into the trapper's hand. "And remember, a man will board your train at Edgemont tomorrow morning and slip you a ticket to Silver City, New Mexico, and a thousand dollars. Now, this way through the back lots to the river bridge—and hurry!"

The trapper, bending double, loped Indian fashion through the standing shadows of wood-yard and cottonwood thicket until lie had come to the bridge on the outskirts of town. There he crouched in a tangle of blackberry bushes. The ghostly cry of a hoot-owl sounded and was answered near at hand. Bass clambered through the thicket to the road. Two horsemen, leading a saddled mount, rode out of the alders by the stream edge.

"Up you go, grandpa!" It was the voice of Cassidy, of the Star and Circle. Holder, his companion in the Main Street incident of a week before, rode with him. Reckless devils, both. The trapper went cold as he recognized his guards.

"Now we split th' wind for Wild Horse," signaled Cassidy; and the three horses stretched low in a velvety gallop.

That thirty-mile ride through the night to the railroad was a long agony for the trapper. Once Cassidy drew rein when light from a distant cabin popped over the top of a divide; he suggested a detour through a pitchy dark valley opening to their right. The trapper jerked the revolver out of his pocket and pressed its muzzle against Cassidy's ribs.

"No; you don't make to git off the road," he chattered. "An', what's more, you two ride ahead the rest of the way."

"Why, what a reg'lar ole hyena grandpa is!" Cassidy laughed shortly. "Misrepresentin' of his friends thataway."

But the two punchers of Star and Circle rode a few paces ahead of their convoy until blue and white signal lights showed dimly over the box-car station at Wild Horse. The trapper stood apart from them on the station platform, the revolver tightly gripped and folded under one arm, until the train arrived. Without a word of farewell, he clambered up the steps into the smoker.

Crammed into one of the dingy plush seats, his long legs jack-knifed against the seat-back in front of him and his head pillowed on a window-sill, Trapper Bass dared to hope that he was out of the trap of that lurking, unseen law which had snared him. Still, that martial law—which cut in behind a man when he wasn't looking and discovered something hidden from all eyes—could he—ever—get away?

A HAND on his shoulder wrenched the trapper back to the half-consciousness that is the penumbra of sleep. It was dawn. The train had stopped.

"Are you Trapper Bass!" A big man with a red mustache who stood over him put the question gruffly.

Trapper Bass, floundering from the morass of sleep, struggled to his feet, one arm flung out before him defensively. The fear that had ridden him and roweled him these many days instantly engulfed his fogged understanding.

"I knowed—I knowed that-there martial law'd git me!" he shrilled hysterically. "Yes, I shot him. A thievin' Indian what robbed my trap-lines—shot him in—"

"Sh-h-h! You poor goat!" The man with the red mustache gripped the trapper's arm fiercely as he hissed a warning. don't want you. I'm the man you're expectin' to get on the train an' slip you a ticket to Silver City. I—"

He checked himself abruptly, for a little man with quiet eyes had risen from the seat behind the trapper, and was leaning over to lay a hand on his shoulder.

"Tell me all about shooting that Indian," the interpellator purred. "I'm United States marshal for the district of South Dakota."

Lawyer Beeston's agent, with the ticket to New Mexico and freedom, faded swiftly out the door of the car.

Trapper Bass moved slowly out into the aisle and back to a seat by the marshal. He vented a long sigh of relief.

"Well, sir, they ain't much to tell; but I'll begin at the beginnin'—"

Starting Over Again at Fifty

Losing My Grip and Finding It

I FIND it difficult to tell how I came to take a fresh start in life at middle age without retracing hastily the road I had traveled to reach the fiftieth milestone on life's highway.

I was born on a rocky little farm in the New England hills. My twin brother and I came in the middle of a family of eight.

When we were fifteen years old our mother died. Our father sold the farm and moved to the village. The older boys went to work, the younger children to school, while the older sister tried to fill our mother's place in the home.

My brother and I ran away from home together and secured a place for both in a small factory in a busy manufacturing town. We stayed in that factory for thirty years. The business grew, and we grew with it.

We both married, and on the outskirts of the town we built for ourselves a pretty double cottage. Just a few more years of health and ability to work till the children should become self-supporting, and we promised ourselves an old age of ease and comfort.

And then, between two days, everything was changed.

It was a busy time at the factory, and and we were working over-time. There came a night when, having finally given the order to shut down, I took the elevator and went up to my brother's room. As I stepped from the car I saw him at the farther end of the long room, directing the efforts of a workman who was attempting to adjust a belt that had slipped from an overhead pulley.

He saw me, and waved his hand in greeting. Then, taking the belt from the workman, he started to adjust it himself.

The belt parted, and, horrified, I saw the long loose end wind itself serpent-like about my brother's body and draw him up over the steel shafting. He died before we could get him home.

Who can explain the mysterious tie that exists between twins? It seemed an actual part of my physical self that we laid in the grave that April day. For a year and more I was a nervous wreck.

I looked about in a discouraged sort of way, and finally bought out a small market and provision store. As I look back now I can see that that venture was foredoomed to failure. My own misfortunes had made me pitiful of the hardships of others, and I allowed long accounts to run up that I could never collect.

The inevitable time came when I realized that if I would escape bankruptcy proceedings I must close out the place at once. The night that I came to that decision, I sat at my desk going over my accounts.

I had neglected to lock the door, and presently I heard footsteps coming down the empty store. I looked up to meet the cheery glance of a young traveling salesman whom I had often dealt with.

"Nothing for you to-night, Mac," I said.

"Not so fast, man; I'm not looking for orders. Just stopped to say good-by," he replied, and went on to explain that he was about to be married and was quitting the road for an indoor job.

"Mac," I said, obeying a sudden impulse, "I want your job."

For a moment he stared at me in amazement. Then, as I went on to unfold my circumstances, the puzzled frown between his merry eyes smoothed itself out.

"Why not?" he said finally. "Come down with me to-morrow and see the G. S. M."

To this day I do not know why that sales manager accepted me. Of salesmanship I knew practically nothing, but the line was the article I had helped to manufacture in the little factory where I had spent thirty of the best years of my life. I knew the product from start to finish. Perhaps that helped.

At any rate, two weeks later I started out on my first trip. I had a mileage book, a grip full of carefully arranged samples, and above all I had an honest enthusiasm. I have never lost that enthusiasm, and to it I attribute my success. For all this was more than ten years ago, and I have succeeded.

I find life increasingly interesting. My wife and I do not set such store by material possessions as we once did. We have never cared to own another house; and our bank balance, which is comfortable, we have never tried to push to large figures. We are living each day as it comes, happy in our possession of each other—missing my brother's companionship, to be sure, but yet finding a great content in the fact that life promises to be sweet to us clear up to the very end.

F. A.

What Can We Say to This Minister?

I HAVE read many good letters in EVERY WEEK giving encouragement and cheer to men of every walk in life but the ministry. For him is there no place after fifty?

A clergyman of wide experience and eminent success in his chosen work finds himself laid aside by nervous prostration due to overwork. The church that he was serving accepted his resignation "with reluctance and deep regret." It expressed for him and his family great sympathy. But a long over-due salary was not paid, even though the circumstances made money imperative.

For several years he was forced to hold small pastorates with smaller salaries, in the hope that he could not only keep the wolf from the door, but do some good. These years carried him beyond fifty, which is recognized in the ministry, arbitrarily, as the "dead line," when, in reality, it is the "head" line: for the minister is just beginning to possess the experience and knowledge that make for real efficiency in the legitimate work of a preacher and pastor.

But the churches, influenced by the desire to reach the young people and solicitous of the seminaries, want young men. Consequently this man was not even permitted to show that he was young, strong, capable, and unusually strong and efficient as a pulpiteer, and unusally competent as a man of affairs.

He has not the training that would admit him to the usual business opportunities for which training and experience are conditions. He can not "try something else." The present need presses close.

The war conditions unsettle confidence and discourage ventures among business men with inexperienced help.

He is not muscularly strong enough to take up the work of a laboring man, as the term is used. This he would gladly do. He is not lazy. He is not slow. He is not stupid.

What can you say to this man—myself? What shall I do?

W. H. H.

The Story of Mr. Marbek

WHEN I came to work for my firm, Mr. Marbek was here at his desk, the busiest man in the office. He was considered a faithful, honest, and reliable man. Mr. Marbek was at that time forty-seven years old, just in the prime of life. I have no doubt that he had planned a glorious future for himself with this business. He had then the title of office manager. The fact was that this man was in a rut, and did not know it. He had a big family to support, and his small salary did not go very far. With the help of his grown-up children, however, his family managed to get along nicely.

Other men, younger than Mr. Marbek, started with the firm, in one capacity or another, at small salaries ranging from eight to fifteen dollars weekly. Mr. Marbek received the munificent sum of eighteen dollars per, and in those days it was not considered so very small.

Slowly but surely these younger men advanced from one position to another. I remember one young fellow in particular who was a clerk in the office when I came here thirteen years ago. I think his salary was then eight dollars a week. He is to-day twenty-nine years old, has developed into an expert salesman, and earns an average of six thousand dollars a year. And there are others doing pretty nearly as well.

But little advancement came to Mr. Marbek. Two years ago he was still at his desk, still the office manager, bookkeeper, and everything else in name only. There were others doing the real work, learning the business. Mr. Marbek could not keep stride; and when, one day, the business changed hands, the unexpected blow fell. Mr. Marbek's salary was cut in half. Luckily, his children were all married and he had saved up a few hundred dollars.

At the age of sixty he showed the people about him the stuff that was in him. The news was flashed in the office that "the old man had thrown up the job." His pride would not permit him to take a cut in his salary without a protest.

With his head up, he walked into the office of the president and told him that, although he had resigned from the position he had held for more than fifteen years, and although the firm considered him fit for the scrap-heap, it was his earnest desire that he be allowed to remain with the firm. He wanted no salary. What he would earn now would depend entirely on his own capabilities. He would start at the bottom as a salesman; he felt that he could get new business for the firm. Such was this man's loyalty!

The boss wished him luck and told him to go the limit.

Well, he certainly did go the limit. He showed the younger men a thing or two on how to go after and get new accounts.

For the first few months it was a pretty hard struggle for the old man; but when, one day, he succeeded in securing a customer that all the younger men had failed to get, his standing with the firm was assured.

To tell in detail the methods employed by Mr. Marbek to get new business would disclose the nature of the business he is engaged in, and this I do not care to do. Suffice it to say that Mr. Marbek is now one of the best salesmen in the business, and earns an average of eighty dollars a week in commissions. He has prospects of doubling that sum within another year or two.

Sassy Jane

EVER hear of Sassy Jane? Probably not, if you live far outside her bailiwick; for she is only a little over a year old and only lately become type-size.

In March of 1916 she began business with no visible assets, no capital, no credit, no business training or experience, and no one to coach her. All she had to begin it on was a little knack and a big need of money. And before March of 1917 she was running a factory with nineteen machines and thirty girls, was turning down thousands of dollars' worth of orders because she hadn't machines and girls enough, and could promise no delivery under three months. One department-store alone was buying goods at the rate of $500 worth a week. Before the end of that March she had added another ten-power machine and moved into larger quarters, into an office with mahogany furniture, and velvet carpet on the floor.

It came about because she wanted to go to China. She thought she had to go to China. She knew she must earn the money if she went.

It happened that some women in the apartment-house in which she lived chanced to admire the little aprons and house frocks she wore as she helped her mother with the work; and one day—bingo!—came the idea. If other women liked these things she made for herself, perhaps they'd buy them if they could. She went to a little shop in Hollywood, and came home with an order for a dozen fudge aprons. She sold them to the shop- keeper for fifty cents, and he got seventy-five. Presently she was making four or five dozen a day.

That whetted her appetite and her nerve. She put on a sassy little frock of plaid gingham with sassy pockets and a sassy white collar and belt, and, with a sassy look in her brown eyes, she went to the most exclusive dry-goods store in Los Angeles and—they ordered ten dozen plaid frocks.

It took Sassy Jane a month to fill the order, and when she had paid all her bills she had just seventy cents for her month's work. But she got an order for another ten dozen at an increased price, and some orders from other stores; and, on the strength of these, she hired two women, rented two sewing-machines, and was off.

Every month since then she has added more machines and more women, until she is now running a full-fledged factory.

Of course it's the goods and not the girl whose name is Sassy Jane. That is the name you see on her office door, on the bill-heads, and on the mail lying on the desk.

Of course, she missed China. She had set her heart on going last July, but when July came, China had moved to the farthest edge of the map, with mountains of unmade gingham and unfilled orders between it and Los Angeles. But she is going to China some day—you know it.

P. S. Sassy Jane's real name is June Rand.

Bertha H. Smith.

A Dog that Saves Men from Drink

MANY heroic dogs have performed feats of bravery and wisdom, saving men and women from fire or water or from death on the battle-field. Don saves men from drink. Eight times a week, in a New York musical comedy, Don staggers from a saloon, dressed as you see him in this picture, and lurches and rolls along the stage, giving a perfect imitation of a drunken man. His master and trainer, Russell Vokes, dressed as a policeman, attempts to brace Don up, but Don is too drunk to be saved, and finally is arrested.

"Don has saved thousands from the drunkard's grave," Vokes declares. "He disgusts drinking men by showing them what they look like when drunk." He saved me from drink when he disappeared one day in a small Western town. I searched for him for weeks, but could not find him. Then, one day, I saw him in a saloon, giving this imitation of a drunken man. It got to me somehow. I swore then that I would never touch another drop as long as I lived: and I never have."

Don gets $250 a week for his services, which is considerably more than many Prohibition speakers receive. When asked if he likes stage work, he grins and says "Wow."

Has the Car-Builder a Bad Memory?

By JEROME T. SHAW

YOU know the man who puts his newly purchased car through grueling paces, tinkers with every part that he can conveniently reach, and drives up to the dealer's service station to demand that the car be restored to efficient running condition without cost to him. Then, there is the other motorist, who skids into a ditch and subsequently condemns the dealer because the latter refuses to straighten a bent axle as a part of his free service offer. The man who abuses his car, the motorist who is regularly meeting with accidents, and the tinkerer are the chief sources of worry to the service man. While the dealer is anxious to obtain and keep a satisfied customer, it is beyond all fairness to expect him to give these classes of owners material and labor under the guise of free service. His profits would not warrant it.

Ask any automobile dealer what he considers to be the biggest problem in his business. In nine cases out of ten his answer will be, "Service"; and rarely is service looked upon in the same light by any two dealers. Service becomes a problem to the dealer, not because of his inability or hesitancy to live up to any agreement he may have made with the motorist to keep his car in first-class running condition, but principally because both have failed to agree on an interpretation of the vague phrase.

In this respect the car-builder and his representatives are not suffering from loss of memory, but are striving to overcome a condition that developed with the industry. Service is a fine-sounding word that can mean almost anything; and there are as many ideas about what it ought to be as there are varieties of motorists and dealers.

At present there is no standardized service policy; that is, the arrangements made by the manufacturers for the gratuitous care of their cars after sale are not uniform. An effort has been made to have such a policy adopted, but just how successful it will be remains to be seen. This plan provides that cars brought to service stations maintained by the factory, branch, or dealer will be inspected and all necessary adjustments made without charge during the first month after delivery of a new car to the purchaser, provided the car has not been tampered with or injured by accident or neglect.

All work not included in inspection—which means examination and report of the condition of the car—and adjustment—which means only such work as inspection has found necessary to put the car in good operating condition—or installation of replacements under the manufacturer's warranty, will be charged for at regular rates. The warranty covers the replacement of parts that have proved defective in material or workmanship within ninety days after the delivery of a new car. There are many service policies that are more generous than this one, but it presents a fair idea of what the car-builder has in mind when he mentions service.

The main idea back of service is to have the owner take such care of his car as will assure a maximum of usefulness, a corresponding low upkeep, and reduced running costs. This is emphasized by the desire of the manufacturer and dealer to have the new owner turn his car in for inspection and adjustment at regular intervals. Regular visits to the service station for minor adjustments such as tightening spring clips and shackles, adjustment of brakes and electric system, carburetors, etc., and a thorough lubricating go far toward extending the life of the car.

More motorists should get the service-station habit, praticularly owners of new cars; for more cars are ruined through neglect during the first two months than by anything that may normally happen later on. When it comes to a question of memory, at is the motorist—not the manufacturer—who is deficient. He forgets that a continuation of the periodic inspections and adjustments—the usual free service features—eliminates much of that later service which must be paid for.