6 f^SERIAL^ 1/3 STORY Ilangford Ij o / the L THREE L ! BARSS r [ KATE AND VIRGIL D. BOYLES I (Copyright by A. C. ilcCiurg & Co., 1307.) SYNOPSIS. Cattle thieves despoiling ranches of •vMith Dakota. George Williston, small ratehm&n. runs into rendezvous of rkievea on islam! in Missouri river. They toe stolen cattle from Three Bar ranch. lAn.irrord visits Williston and his daugh ter ami Wllllston reports what he has to Dnngford, who determines to rid snmiry of thieves. Jesse Black heads out- Saw?;. Langford falls in love with Willis ton's daughter, but does not tell her so. Louisi* Dale, court stenographer, and nteoe of Judge Dale, visits Kemah at re of county attorney, Gordon, to take C»»Umony in preliminary hearing. Gordon fxila in love with her. After preliminary •anamination Willlston's home is attackod defended by his daughter and him self. Outlaws fire building just as I.ang £ twit ami his cowboys arrive. Outlaws zirry off Williston but l.angford rescues daughter. Without Willistion evidence DCalriat Black is meager, and case seems t>» be Roing against the state. Gordon rjjkea a night ride and iinds Williston, ortu> has escaped from captors. The courthouse at Kemah burns at night. Wtfliston holds it tea party In his room following courthouse tire, and Mary Wil liston and I.ouise Dale attend. CHAPTER XVlll.—Continued. eur. A strange elation took possession of him She was here. He thought of £asi night and seemed to walk on air. If be won out maybe—but, fool that he was! what was there in this rough Cami for a girl like —Louise? "Oh, no, that will be too much trouble," gasped Louise, in some alarm .and. thinking of Aunt Helen. "Thanks, old man, we'll stay," spoke vjj> langford, cheerfully. "He makes -axceilent tea —really. I've tried it be fore. You will never regret staying." Silently he watched his friend in the Inner room bring out a battered tea kettle, fill it with a steady hand and jnit it on the stove in the office, com ing and going carelessly, seemingly Eonscioits of nothing in thte world but the comfort of his unexpected guests. True to her sex, Louise was curious ly Interested in the house keeping ar rangements of a genuine bachelor es tablishment. Woman-like, she saw many things in the short time she was there- —but nothing that diminished ix er respect for Richard Gordon. The bed in the inner chamber where iboth men slept was disarranged but ■rlean. Wearing apparel was strewn over the chairs and tables. There was a litter of magazines on the floor. She laid them up against Langford; she cJtd not think Gordon had the time or iaclina.tion to cultivate the magazine habit. She did not know to whose weakness to ascribe the tobacco pouch and brier-wood pipe placed Invitingly by the side of a pair of gay, elaborate ly bead-embroidered moccasins, cozily stowed away under the head of the bed; but she was rather inclined to lay these, too, to Langford's charge. The howling tempest outside only served to enhance the coziness ot the rumbling fire and the closely drawn blinds. But tea was never served In those bachelor rooms that night—neither that night nor ever again. It was a little dream that went up in flame with the walls that harbored it. Who first became conscious that the tang •of smoke was gradually filling their nostrils, it was hard to tell. They were not far behind each other in that •consciousness. It was Langford who discovered that the trouble was at flfce rear, where the wind would soon have the whole building fanned into 9ames. Gordon unlocked the door iimc-Uy. He said nothing. But Paul, springing in front of him, himself Ehrew it open. It was no new dodge, this burning a man out to shoot him as one would drown out a gopher for 6be killing. He need not have been afraid. The alarm had spread. The street in front was rapidly filling. One would hardly have dared to shoot —then—if one had meant to. And he »tid not know. He only knew that Seviltry had been in the air for Gor don that night. He had suspected aorc than ho had overheard, but it bad been in the air. Gordon saw the action and under stood it. He never forgot it. He said nothing, but gave his friend an aiaminaiing smile that Langford un derstood. Neither ever spoke of it, neither ever forgot it. How tightly ■aan quick impulses bind—forever. Outside, they encountered the judge £n search of his delinquent charges. Tm sorry, Dick," he said. "Dead loss any boy. This beastly wind is your **adolng." Tm not worrying. Judge," respond >ad Gordon, grimly. "I intend for some <oae else .to do that." "Hellity damn, Dick, helllty damn!" j«C9!oded Jim Munson in his ear. The swords came whistling through his lips, "wsught and whirled backward by the atfay of the storm. The cold wa3 get ttass bitter, and a fine, cutting snow was at last driving before the wind. Gordon, with a set face, plunged inck Into the room—already fire-lick adU Langford and Munson followed. There sat. the little tea-service star inn at them with dumb pathos. The three succeeded in rolling the safe with <*' l its precious documents ar- j ranged within, out into the street.! Nothing else mattered much—to Gor don. Hut other things were saved, and Jim gallantly tossed out every thing he could lay his hands on before Gordon ordered everybody out for good and all. It was no longer safe to be within. Gordon was the last one out. He carried a battered little tea kettle in his hand. He looked at it in a whimsical surprise as if he had not known until then that he had it in his hand. Obeying a sudden impulse, he held it out to Louise. "Please take care of —my poor little dream," he whispered with a strange, intent look. Before she could comprehend the significance or give answer, the judge had faced about. He bore the girls \ Gordon Unlocked the Door Quietly. back to the hotel, scolding helplessly all the way as they scudded with the wind. But Louise held the little tin kettle firmly. Men knew of Richard Gordon that night that he was a marked man. The secret workings of a secret clan had him on their proscription list. Some one had at last found this unwearied and doggedly persistent young fellow in the way. In the way, he was a menace, a danger. He must be re moved from out the way. He could not be bought from it —he should be warned from It. So now his home — his work room and his rest room, the first by many hours daily the more in use, with all its furnishings of bache lor plainness and utility, that yet had held a curious charm for some men, friends and cronies like Langford— was burning that he might be warned. Could any one say, "Jesse Black has done this thing?" Would he not bring down proof of guilt by a retaliation struck too soon? it would seem as if he were anticipating an unfavorable verdict. So men reasoned. And even then they did not arise to stamp out the evil that had endured and hugged itself and spit out corruption in the cattle country. That was reserved for —another. They talked of a match thrown down at the court-house by a tramp, likely—when it was past midnight, when the fire broke out with the wind a piercing gale, and when no vagrant but had long since left such cold com fort and had slept these many weeks in sunnier climes. Some argued that the windows of the court-room might have been left open and the stove blown down by the wind tearing through, or the stove door might have blown open and remains of the fire been blown out, or the pipe might have fallen down. But it was a little odd that the same people said Dick Gordon's office likely caught fire from flying sparks. Dick's office was two blocks to westward of the court-house and it would have been a brave spark and a lively one that could have made headway against that northwester. CHAPTER XIX. The Escape. The little county seat awoke in the morning to a strange sight. The storm had not abated. The wind was still blowing at blizzard rate off the northwest hills, and fine, icy snow was swirling so thickly through the cold air that vision was obstructed. Build ing were distinguishable only as shad ows showing faintly through a heavy white veil. The thermometer had gone many degrees below the zero mark. It was steadily growing colder. The old er inhabitants said it would surely break the record the coming night. An immense fire had been built in the sitting-room.. Thither Mary and Louise repaired. Here they were joined by Dale, Langford and Gordon. "You should be out at the ranch looking after your poor cattle, Mr. Langford," said Mary, smilingly. She could be light-hearted now—since a lit tle secret had been whispered to her last night at a tea party where no tea had been drunk. Langford had gravitated toward her as naturally as steel to a magnet. He shrugged his big shoulders and laughed a little. "The Scribe will do everything that can bo done. Honest, now, did you think this trial could be pulled off without me!" "But there can be no trial to-day." "Why not?" "Did I dream the court-house barned last night?" "If you did, we are all dreamers alike." "Then how can you hold court?" "We have gone back to the time • when church and state were one and , inseparable, and court convenes at 10 i CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, JUNE n, 190?. o'clock a'uicv i" the meeting-house," he said. Louise was locking white and mi - j erable. "You are not contemp.'r'Vng running away, are you?" asked Goiuon. "This is unusual weather —really." She looked at him with a pitiful smile. "I should like to be strong and brave and enduring and capable—like Mary. You don't believe it, do you? It's true, though. But I can't. I'm weak and homesick and cold. I ought not to have come. I am not the kind. You said it. you know. I am going home just as soon as this court i 3 over. I mean it." There was no mistaking that. Gor don bowed his head. His face was white. It had come sooner than he had thought. All the records of the work yester day had been burned. There was noth ing to do but begin at the beginning again, it was discouraging, uninter esting. But it had to be done. Dale refused positively to adjourn. The jurymen were all here. So the little frame church was bargained for. If the fire-bugs had thought to postpone events —to gain time —by last night's work, they would find themselves very greatly mistaken. The church was long and narrow like a country school house, and rather roomy considering the size of the town. It had precise windows —also like a country school house —four 011 the west side, through which the line snow was drifting, four opposite. The storm kept few at home with the exception of the people from across the river. There wero enough staying in the town to fill the room to its utmost limits. Standing room was at a premium. The entry was crowded. Men not able to get in ploughed back through the cutting wind and snow only to return present ly to see 11' the situation had changed any during their brief absence. So all the work of yesterday was gone over again. So close was the pack of people that the fire roaring in the big stove in the middle of the room was allowed to sink in smouldering quiet. The heavy air had been unbearable else. The snow that had been brought in on tramping feet lay in little molted pools on the rough llooring. Men for got to eat peanuts and women forgot to chew their gum—except one or two extremely nervous ones whoso jaws moved the faster under the stimulus of hysteria. Jesse Black was telling his story. "Along toward the Ist of last July, I took a hike out into the Indian coun try to buy a few head o' cattle. I trade considerable with the half breeds around Crow creek and Lower Brule. They're always for sellin' and if it comes to a show-down never hag gle much about the lucre —it all goes for snake-juice anyway. Well, I landed at John Yellow Wolf's shanty along about noon and found there was oth ers ahead of me. Yellow Wolf always was a popular cuss. There was Char lie N'ightblrd, Pete Monroe, Jesse Ilig Cloud and two or three othors whose mugs I did not happen to be onto. After our feed, we ail strolled out to the corral. Yellow Wolf said ho had bought a likely little bunch from some English feller who was skipping the country—starved out and homesick —■ and hadn't put 'em on the range yet. He said J R was the English feller's brand. I didn't suspicion no under hand dealin's. Yellow Wolf's always treated me white before, so I bar gained for this here chap and three or four others and then pulled out for home driving the bunch. They fed at home for a spell and then I decided to put 'em on the range. On the way I fell in with Billy Brown here. He was dead set on havln' the lot to fill In the chinks of the two car loads he was shippin', so I up and lets him have 'em. I showed him this here blll-o'- sale from Yellow Wolf and made him out one from me, and that was all there was to It. He rode to Velpen and I turned on my trail." (To Be Continued.) GIRL LAWYER FREES HERSELF, Charged With Vagrancy, Wellesley Graduate Secures Quick Release. St. Louis.—Evelyn Dorothy Clark, graduate of Wellesley, who later stud ied law at Vassar and whom the police charged with vagrancy, so skillfully defended herself in court here that she won her discharge. It was charged she failed to pay her bill at the Plant ers' hotel. "What were you doing in St. Louis?" asked Assistant City Attorney King. "I refuse to answer on the ground that my answer might Incriminate me," she replied. "Objection sustained," pronounced the court. "Who is 'Ned,' the Harvard student who wrote that acquaintance with you was so expensive that he had to get a job as telephone operator to recuper ate his finances?" asked King. "I decline to answer on the ground that the question is incompetent, ir relevant and immaterial." "Objection sustained," ruled tha court. "Have you studied law?" "Have you?" she parried. "The prisoner is discharged," inter rupted Judge Tracy, who had listened to the legal duel with impatience. Cornered at Last! Scientists have been grubbing pa tiently, almost feverishly, for years in the hope of tracing the etiology or source of the growing scourge of can cer, and although no convincing data have yet been brought forward, it Is a general suspicion that the rapid prevalence 1b due to overlndulgenea in meats. —Detroit Newfh A lawsuit had been tried- on the veranda of the crossroads store, and when it had been settled Limuel Juck lin, who had watched the proceedings, took the home-made chair, vacated by the justice, leaned back against the wall and rermkaed: "Rather bad, this thing of goin' to law. And ain't it a peculiar state of society that educates men to stimulate quarrels? We may say that they ain't trained for that purpose, but unless there are misun derstanding the lawyer's work is cut off, and he's got a little too much of Old Adam in him not to look out for his own interest." "You take a wrong view of the mat ter," replied a young lawyer. "That Is just about what I expected you to say. But grantin' to the lawyer all he can claim for himself, it must after all be allowed that the bickerin's and shortsightedness of the human family give him the most of hi 3 excuse for livin'. A perfect state of civiliza tion would argue perfect honesty, and if such were the case the lawyers Would be powerful scarce. There is no denyin' of the fact that some of the greatest men have been lawyers and that the most of our presidents have practiced law. And so have some of the immortal geniuses been soldiers, but if man had been just and peace able there never would have been any need for the soldier." "According to your view, then," said the lawyer, "there is no real need for anybody that —" "That doesn't build up," Limuel broke in, winking at his former friends. "Every man ought to produce somethin*. If he don't he's livin' on somebody that does. The only real occupation is the one that makes the world better. Understand, now, I have notliin' against anybody's callin'. I'm just expreßsln' my opinion and it must be taken for what it i 3 worth. But the lawyer shows us one thing if nothin' more—how keen a man's mind may be whetted. I recollect once that a fellow sued me. We had swapped horses —" "And you had got the better of him, qh?" said the lawyer. "Well, that's the way It looked to him. The horse I let him have died that night. He asked me if the horse was sound and I said I never had heard any complaint, and I hadn't. He had never been under the care of a doctor so far as I knew. His appetite was good and he'd bat his eye when you motioned at him. I might have seen him fall down —have seen men fall, but I didn't think that they were goin' to die. I told him a child could drive him. A child did drive him out of the garden that day. Well, we swapped, and, as I say, his horse was taken sick in the night and died be fore day. He came back to me and swore that I had swopped him a horse that I know'd was goin' to die. I told r—p ONCE knew a millionaire who always carried his money around —O. with him in bills, < There were some one dollar bills, J L more ten-dollar bills, and many § hundred and thou sand dollar bills. He always car ried them in a suit case with an ordinary lock and Vf V7>" 1111/IIJ ey ' an< * he tolcl 'hm'jjj/f, me that he was 7,!!/ h a PP y ust l)e ' cause he had the » actual money. I His brother II hardly ever handled money at all. He was a millionaire, too, but he did all his business with checks, and seldom had more than S2O on his person, and he was miserable and dyspeptic. Now, of course, there are persons of imagination who go through life using checks and feeling rich, but it takes a good deal of Imagination to do so, and for me the pretty green ten dollar bill means ten times as much as the check for ten dollars. Of course, checks have their uses, and I use them myself. When a bill for some prosaic thing, like re pairs to the coal chute, comes in, I send out a check in payment, but if I am buying a book that I have long coveted, you may be sure that I hand out real money for It. The book rep resents something tangible, and I will not insult the book dealer by send ing him a cold, unfeeling check. If I wanted to bring happiness to a widow, whose husband had died leav ing her destitute, do you think that 1 would send her a check for a thou sand dollars? If you do, you don't know me. If I were going to do the thing at all I would goto her bouse with one thousand crisp dollar bills, and I would receive ber thanks for each one. But him that If he'd show me a horse that wa'n't goin' to die I'd give him my farm. I felt that he had the worst of it and I would have evened it up the best way I could, but before I got through havln' fun with him he got mad and went away and hired a law yer to prove that I was a liar and al together the worst man la the com munity. "I never got such a scorin' In my life. I felt sorry for my wife and chil dren. I didn't think that anybody would ever speak to me again, and I told the lawyer that I would make it a personal matter between me and him. I expected the justice to decide dead against me, but he didn't. He had been a horse trader himself. "Well, after the thing was over with I took the horse I got from the feller and went over to his house about ten miles away and turned the nag loose in his lot. I did it not because I was sorry for him, but because I was afraid of myself—afraid that I couldn't sleep, and I was workin' hard and needed rest. Well, sir, that night the nag that I'd turned into the lot ups and dies, and the feller swore that I had hauled him there after he was dead, and hanged if he didn't sue me again. He got the same lawyer and he made me out a worse man than I was before. Made it appear that I had poisoned the horse and dragged him over there. Then I swore that the whole county couldn't hold me back from takin' it out of his hide. "So the first chance I got I went to town to see the lawyer. I went over to the courthouse and he was makin' a speech, and I wish I may die dead if the feller he was a skinnin' this time wan't the very man that had sued me. I never hearn anything like It. Tip toed and called him all sorts of a scoundrel; said that he had defrauded me, as honest a man as lived in the state. I couldn't stand that, I walked on out and after a while he came along and held out his hand and called me 'Uncle Lim,' just as if I was his mother's brother. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and you could have heard him laugh more than a mile. He said he was a comin' out to go a fishin' with me. "Well, I let him ofT, and after we had got to be right good friends, 1 asked him how he happened to be en gaged against my enemy, and this is what he said: 'Oh, I wasn't. Some of the boys told me you were comin' into the house and I knew that you were troublesome when you set your head to it, so as court wasn't in ses sion I started into makin' a speech against the fellow so you could hear me,' and he clapped me on the shoul der and you could have hearn him laugh more than two miles this time. "Get a lawyer with fun in him and he's all right. Once I had some busi ness on hand —the settlement of my it is a queer thing about gratitude. Her thanks for the first bill would be heartfelt, but by the time I had reached the first hundred she would have grown tired of thanking me, and I verily believe that before I had hand ed in the last bill she would have asked me if I couldn't be a little more expedient. Thus usage dulls the senses. On the other hand, do you suppose that if I were sued for a thousand dol lars I would pay the complainant in good green money? No, a thousand times, no. I would purposely buy the smallest blank check that I could find, and in my most minute chirography, and with an autograph that was bare ly good, I would sign it, and thus I would feel that I was getting off cheap. In some things most of us are in tensely mean, and among the expendi tures that offend men's souls are those paid into a railroad company's grasp ing maw. I hold myself no better than the rest, and, if possible, I al ways travel in company with another, and before we start out I give him money to cover the expenses, and he buys the tickets and I feel that I have not spent so much. One objection I have to royalties is that they always come In the form of a check —when they come at all. One time, though, my publisher varied it; instead of sending a check he sent a bill. You ses, I had given at least ten copies of the book at Christmas tirae, and, of course, the balance was in his favor. Do you know, I really enjoyed the thing for a change. By the way, that receiving of royal ties, even if they are paid in check form, is a good game. You sell your stories for so much, and then, when they are all printed, you are induced to make a book of them. Weil, you have already been paid for them, so that you stand to gain, whatever hap pens. It may be only ten dollars that will come to you, but it may be SIO,OOO, and the joy of looking forward to royalty day is one that cannot be expressed In words. brother's estate—and I went to old Tom Cantwell and asked him how much he would charge me, and he al« mosttook my breath with the amount he named. I knew he was a man of a good deal of ability—liked fun, and IS says to him like this: 'Tell you what arrangement to make, colonel. I've got a mighty fine chicken out at my house and if you can fetch out one to whip him I'll engage you and pay your price, but if my chicken whips yourn, why yoi. the work for nothin'.' He was a man of ability and he agreed. Ah, me, there ain't such lawyers about here these days. I recollect one* he—" "But did the fight come off?" some one inquired. "Oh, that fight? Yes, held tallow candles for it one night, and you'd have thought It was a snowin', the air was so full of feathers. My wife kept on a callin' out: 'Limuel, what are you a doin' there in the smoke house,' and I always answered: 'l'm diggin' up a rat. Goon to bed. I've most got him now.' "I don't know how long they fit—i other roosters were crowin' all arouni the neighborhood when they got through. But my chicken crowed last, and the colonel gave me his hand with feathers a stickin' to it, and says, says he: 'Lim, you've got me and.l'll take care of your business.' "Best settlement I ever made. Ha took care of the business right up ta the handle, and when he had got through he 'lowed, he did, that he could find a bird that could whip mine fotf the estate —said he'd put up his law books and his house and lot against itj but it looked too much like gamblin', so I backed down. Oh, he would hava done it. Ablest lawyer in the county. It's a pity all lawsuits couldn't be set tled somewhat in that way—as fairly, I mean. "I was just a thinkin'," he added aft er a few moments of silence, "how much trouble the old world has been put to tryln' to govern man. Every year or so the legislatures meet and make laws and unmake them, alwaya experimentin' with man. The troubla with him is he don't know what ha wants and don't know what to do with! it after he gets It. And the lawyer laj the outgrowth of his restlessness and his ignorance." "Think there will ever come a tima w'.ien there are no lawyers?" the young? advocate inquired, and the old man scratched his head. "Oh, yes, that time will come, but it will be the time when there isn't anything. The lawyer has come to stay as long as the rest of us do. He's s smart man and a good feller for tha most part, and is nearly always willin' to forgive you when he has done you a wrong, and I want to remark righf here that this argues the extremest C liberality." ('Copyright, by Oplf Read.) You do not hear much about t'» sale of your book; your friends nothing about it, but perhaps theyi are keeping its phenomenal success a secret from you. You live in tha country, and you never see the Book man, so you do not know what tha six best sellers are, but you hava your suspicions. At last the fate« ful day arrives, the familiar enveloj of your publisher comes to you ' mail, and as you open it a check flu. ters out. You remember the stories of du Maurier and "Trilby," and how his publishers sent him several thou sands over and above the contract, agreement. I To be sure, It is only a check, and not money, but, after all ; any ban£ wi'l fconvert a check into money if you are known, and your book has doubtless made you known through the wide jvorld. * You pick up the check and close your eyes until you are holding it right in front of them. ''.The Seconu National bank of New York. Pay to the order of yourself $17.50. Harp, Scrib. & Co." » It isn't quite what you thought It would be. The book is not one of the six—yet. Still, after the first appointment Is over, you reflect that it is all clear gain, and you goto the bank and have it converted into new dollar bills, and then you go down town to the bookstore and you buy thirty odd books that you have wanted for years. No, you don't. You know very well you don't, for the same mall that brought the check brought Its antith esis in the form of a bill from the gentleman who raised the price - of beef on you, and the other gentleman who charged you eight dollars a tooi for coal, and like a good little man, you sit down and you write out two' checks which take up 42 of the dollars. But take my advice and get the bet ter of fortune by taking the five-fiftyi that is left —and your wife —and going into town for a small jamboree. Re member that a jamboree, small though it be, remains in the memory long, after the memory of a paid bill has left you. Pay the bills, but save enough out, of the cost of your clothes for a littlaj jamboree. Clothes warm the body,, but jamborees warm the cockles of! the heart, and a man who neglects thai cockles of the heart to put Jaeger 1 underwear on his lusty limbs has failed in his duty toward himself—l and his better half. (ConyrUht. by Jaous Pott
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