p=
I told Daddy what I had found.
The Girl a
Horse and
a Dog
—
A
By
FRANCIS LYNDE
; “Huh I" he said; “that old tarpaulin
that was out yonder in the ore shed.
Stannie?”
“It's hoisted on a framework of
some kind, and they did it while we
were rubbering and trying to find out
what all that noise was about.”
We were not kept very long in doubi
as to what the next enemy move was
to be. With the cessation of the tom-
tom clatter the collie had grown curi-
ously restless. We couldn't see him,
but we could hear him running from
post to pillar, sniffing at the cracks
growl. Presently he began to cough
and sneeze; then he came racing back
)
)
Boor
Copyright by Charles Scribner Eons
(Continued).
«There ain't no other place
could go and let him get back, as
might say, in the same day.”
“Say it all, Daddy,” I prompted.
“There ain't much to say. Staunie
boy, ’ceptin’ what 1 said afore,
maybe we'd been jumpin’ at things
sort o’ blind-like. Jeannie’s got a heap
o sense—if I do say it as shouldn’t—
and the whole gee-ripittin’ thing, «x we
been puttin’ it up, ain’t no more
her than winter's like dog-days.”
Having run the subject into a
ner we were both speechless for a lit-
tle time and I think it was almost with
a sense of relief that we sprang alert
when the dog, hitherto sleeping qu
at our feet, jumped up and ran to
his nose at the threshold of the
opening upon the dump head.
CHAPTER XVI
—
Burnt Matches.
Following the dog to the door,
could neither see nor hear anything
though Barney's
going on outside,
sniffings under the door and his
growl warned us that something
afoot, either on the dump head or in
cabin beyond.
the partly wrecked
>@ | to us, flattening himself to hold his
nose to the crack under the door and
taking long breaths as if he were half
stifled. 1 stooped to pat him and im-
they mediately imagined I was smelling
Sou burning sulphur matches.
“Get down here, Daddy, and smell
this dog!” 1 whispered. “Is it old-
fashioned matches, or what?”
thic. | | ceded.
“Gosh-to-gee-whiz—brimstone
1"
he
like ate 1?
There appeared to be little enough
time for any defensive move. The as-
phyxiating gas was coming stronger
every moment, and any search for its
source seemed utterly hopeless. Yet
we went at it, coughing and choking,
and stumbling over everything in the
darkness. as a matter of course.
After all it was Barney who (I honor
him with the human pronoun because
he certainly deserved it) it was Bar-
ney who showed us the devil’s door-
way. The red glow was now sending
enough light through cracks and crev-
ices and the bullet rippings overhead
to make our inner darkness a degree
or so less than Stygian. Missing the
dog for a moment at our common
breathing hole, we saw him circling a
particular spot in the floor and snarl-
Cor:
ietly
hold
door
we
low
was
How d'ye reckon they got it there, :
While we were still peeping and peer
ing, each at his auger-hole and each
ready to take an offhand shot at any-
thing that seemed suspicious, the si-
lence of the mountain night was ripped
and torn by the most hideous clamor
imaginable, arising, apparently, in the
cabin or perhaps from the groving of
trees just behind it. The racket was
deafening; comparable to nothing that
I'd ever heard; a magnified orchestra-
tion, so to speak, of the pandemoniuin
made by a crowd of country boys
serenading a newly married pair with
tin pans and such-like noise-making
implements.
“What in the name o Joab!” stut-
tered Daddy Hiram. “Reckon them
gosh-dummed pirateers 've gone plum’
got
Then:
and that the
he
ing at it as if it were something alive.
At that we both remembered that
the shafthouse floor was raised a foot
or so from the rocky ledge on the
down-mountain side,
space underneath was partly open.
Daddy pointed to the circling dog.
itr panted.
“They've run their chimney up under
“Where in Sam
Hill did you leave that ax?’
The ax was near at hand and I ran
for it. Holding my breath I began to
chop madly at the floor planking. By
this time the alr was so bad that it
1 oony 7”
“wait,” 1 qualified, and I had to
shout to make myself heard. “There'll
be more to tollow.
curtain-raiser.”
This is only
But my guess appeared to be no
quite some little time we
prepared
to repel the assault which we natural-
good. For
crouched, guns at the ready,
ly supposed would be made u
cover of the distracting racket.
there was no assault, though the mean-
ingless clamor kept up without abate-
ment.
By the time we were beginnin
grow a trifle hardened to it the clamor
stopped as abruptly as it had begun
and the silence which succeeded
sven more deafening than the noise
had been. While I fancied I could see
dim figures stealing down the
.hat led to the bench below, Ih
Daddy say:
o' Jehoiachim—"
‘He had turned away from his peep-
hole and I could sense, rather than
“Now, what in the nume
the
” v HUST 7 A Ot
SHR | 3 ! Jj
nder
But
g to
was
road
eard
see.
that he was rubbing his eyes. Then 1 AL / / NS Bg
realized that upon me, also, a sudden oO ( / \\}
blindness had fallen; the interior of
the shafthouse had become as
as the inside of a pocket. The effect
was so stupefying that it took
of us a minute or so to unders
that some change as yet undefinable
had been wrought either in us or in
our surroundings during the noisy in-
terlude.
“Great Jehu!” exclaimed the
man—though he was within arm'’s-
reach I could make him out only
dim shadow—"‘Great Jehu! I—I b’lieve
I—I cant
I'm goin’ blind, Stannie!
see nothin’ a-talll”
“Don’t worry,” I hastened to
“Pm in the same boat.
those auger-holes.
ute.”
It'll pass in a
But it didn’t pass and presently the
voice of my old side partner came
again out of the darkness.
«praps it's cloudin’ up some,’
suggested in a half-whisper. “I can't
see no stars through them window!
At this I looked toward the window
openings, but the interior blackness
had blotted them out completely.
most instinctively I turned back fo the
door and put an eye to a loop
One glance was enough. The trouble,
whatever it might be, was with us
pot with the sky. The stars
shining as brightly as ever.
“Don’t move, Daddy,” I cautioned,
and then groped my way along the
wall and climbed to the top of our
earth-sack breastwork at a point which
1 guessed to be under the neare
the two windows.
When I drew myself up and tried to
thrust a hand through the opening
the mysterious darkness was
plained. The window embrasures
stopped up,
heavy canvas curtain,
determine.
in some way.
Making my way back to the
We've been
looking too long and steadily through
both of them, on the out-
side by something that felt like a
though how the
curtain was held in place I could not
But it was firmly braced
With all the purchase
1 could get—which wasn't much—I
couldn't dislodge it or push it aside.
BE NE ANY
I SATIN
dark J A
HH
both
tand Daddy Took His Cue Instantly.
was impossible to breathe it, and after
a few blows I had to drop the ax and
run to the breathing gap. Daddy took
his cue instantly, snatching up the ax
as I flung it down and hacking away
as long as he could hold his breath,
When he was forced to make a bolt
for the life-saving hole in the door, I
ran in again; thus got a couple of the
floor planks loose and pried them out.
In the space beneath the open-
cracked floor we found Bullerton’s
chimney end; an old discarded boiler
flue, it seemed to be, leading up from
the bench below. From unearthing
the deadly thing to muzzling it with
one of our wet blankets was the
old
as a
say;
min-
' he
two; and with the gas-main thus shut
off, the air in the shafthouse soon be-
came bearable again, the hole we had
chopped through the floor serving as
a ventilator through which the cool,
crisp night air came rushing in a re-
vivitying blast.
Our first care, after a prolonged
silence led us to believe that the raid-
ers had withdrawn to study up some
fresh scheme tor getting rid of us, was
to get a bar and pry our two doors
open so that the breeze might blow
through and air the place out a bit.
Closing and barring the doors after
the sulphur stench had been reduced
to a mere match-box odor, we estab-
lished our night-watch, Daddy Hiram
taking the first trick under a solemn
promise to call me at the end of a
couple of heurs. This time he behaved
better, rousing me a little before mid-
night. He reported everything quiet,
and pointed to the sleeping dog as evi-
dence that there were no intruders
within smelling distance.
“Been that-away ever since you
turned in,” he said, meaning, as I took
it, that the dog had been resting easy.
“You can just keep an eye on Bea® ah
]."
Al-
hole.
and
were
st of
ex-
were
door
I anything goes to stirrin’, he'll know
it afore you will”
Nothing did stir; and after Daddy
had gone to wrap himself in his damp
| blankéts, 1 had my work cut out for
|
i
i
i
and occasionally giving a whining |
i
i
1
i
One sniff was all that the old man !
choked; “them devils are smokin’ us
out! That's why they stopped up them
window holes; so we couldn't get any
1
|
|
me keeping awake; in fact, I shouldn't
want to swear that I was fully awake
during all of the one hundred end
twenty minutes that my sentry-go last-
ed. No matter about that. Bullerton
didn’t spring any more surprises on us
during my watch; and when I turned
the fortress over to Daddy at two
o'clock I was able to pass the “all
quiet” report back to him and go to
the blankets with an easy conscience. |
I had just dropped asleep, as it
seemed to me—though in reality I had
slept like a log for more than two
hours—when Daddy Hiram came to
shake me awake.
«Somethin’ doim’.” he announced
quietly, and when I sat up I saw that
the collie was moving uneasily from
one door to the other, stopping now
and then to stand motfenless with his
ears cocked and his head on one side:
“Barney hears something,” I ven-
tured; and a moment later Daddy
broke in:
«Huh! it’s plain enough for my old
ears, now; it's a wagon comin’ across
the bench.”
Now the presence of a wagon on our
bench at this early hour in the morn-
ing might mean either one of two
diametrically opposite things: ‘Our
deliverance; or the upcoming of re-
inforcements for the raiders. We were
not left long in doubt. Shortly after
the rack-rack of the wagon wheels
stopped we heard footsteps. and the
hair stiffened on Barney's back. Next
we heard Bullerton’s voice, just out-
side and apparently under our window
openings.
“Broughton!” the voice called; ‘“‘can
you hear me?”
“So well that you'd better keep out
of range!” 1 snapped back.
“All right—listen. You've got to get
cut, Broughton—that's flat. I haven't
wanted to go to extremes. For per-
fectly obvious and commonplace rea-
sons I don’t want to have to kill you
to get rid of you. But we are not go-
ing to gentle you any more.
time we hit you, it'll be for a finish.”
“Yes,” said I. “You brought the
new club up in a wagon, didn’t you?”
He ignored this.
“We could starve you out if we
chose to take the time. I know pretty
well what you've got to eat—or rather !
what you haven't got. It’s your privi-
lege to take your life in your own
hands, Broughton; that's up to you.
But how about the old man?”
“The old man's a-plenty good and
able to speak for hisself!” yvapped
Daddy. “You do your durndest,
Charley Bullerton!”
“All right, once more. You'll hear
from us directly, now; and as I said
before, we've quit gentling you. That’s
my last word.” : :
For a time after this the silence,
and the darkness, since it was the hour
pefore dawn, were thick enough to be
cut with an ax.
more restless than ever, and we knew
that something we could neither see |
After a |
nor hear must be going on.
while I asked the question that had
been worrying me ever since I had
heard the wagon wheels.
“What did they bring up in that
wagon, Daddy—a Gatling?”
“The Lord only knows, Stannie—and
he won't tell,” was the old prospector’s
reply, made with no touch of irrever-
ence; and the words were scarcely out
of his mouth before a thunderbolt
struck the shafthouse.
CHAPTER XVI
Tit for Tat.
That word “thunderbolt” is hardly
\ a figure of speech. The thing that hit
us couldn't be compared to anything
milder than thunder and lightning.
There was a flash, a rending, ripping
roar as if the solid earth were split-
ting in two, and the air was filled with
flying fragments and splinters. Air, I
say, but the acrid, choking gas which
filled the shafthouse could scarcely be
called air.
“Dynamise—that’s what they fetched
in that wagon!” gurgled the old man
at my side, and I could have shouted
for joy at the mere sound of his voice,
since it was an assurance that he
hadn't been killed outright.
«It's only a question of a little time,
now, Daddy,” I prophesied. “What
you said yesterday—that Bullerton |
| would try to get possession without
|
i
|
|
|
destroying the property—no longer
| holds good. He has evidently decided
| that we've got to be ousted, even at
breathless work of only a minute or |
the expense of building a new shaft-
house and installing new machinery.
Why has he changed his mind, when
he knows that he could starve us out
in a few days?’
«] been thinkin’ about that, right
p'intedly, Stannle. Shouldn’t wonder
if somethin’s in the wind—somethin’
we don't know about.” :
«Then there's another thing,” I put
in. “Supposing, just for the sake of
argument, that our first guess was
right: that he did take Jeanie to
Angels three days ago and that they
were married there.
daughter, Daddy, and I know her, 8
little. Nobody but an idiot would sup-
pose that she'd live with Bullerton &s
his wife for a single minute if he
makes himself your murderer.”
«Jt sure does look that-away to &
man up & tree” admitted the stout
old fighter.
“I'm hanging on to the little hope
like a dog to a root, Daddy,” 1 con-
fessed. “If I can only keep on bellev-
ing that they're not married, I can put
up a better fight, or be snuffed out—if
I have to be—with a good few less
heart-burnings.”
But at this the old man, who, no
You've
already hurt four of my men, and two
of the four are criopled. The next
But the dog was '
You know your
longer ago than the yesterday, had
' seemed to lean definitely toward the
no-marriage hypothesis, suddenly
. changed front.
“Don’t you go to bankin' on any-
thing like that, Stannie, son,” he said
in a tone of deep discouragement.
“Charley Bullerton’s a liar, from the
place where they make liars for a
livin’, and ’tain’t goin’ to be no trick
a-taN for him to make Jeanie, and a
lot o other folks, blieve that we
blowed ourselves up with our own
dynamite. No, sir; don’t you go to
bankin’ on that.”
“Then you do believe that Jeanie
went with Bullerton?”
“Looks like there ain't nothing else
left to believe,” he asserted dolefully.
“Look at it for yourself, son: she’s
been gone three whole days. If she
hadn't gone with him—and the good
Lord only knows where else she could
have gone—don’t you reckon she'd 've
been back here long afore this? No,
Stannie; we been lettin’ the ‘wish it
was’ run away with the ‘had to be. 1
reckon we just got to grit our teeth.
son, and tough it out the best we can.” |
During this waiting interval, which |
seemed like hours and was probably |
only a few minutes, we were momen-
tarily expecting another crash. It did
not come; but in due course of time
we heard a stir outside and then
voices, and one of the voices, which
was not Bullerton’s said:
that ca’tridge smoked 'em out good un’
plenty, cap'n. Gimme th’ ax, Tom, til
we bu'st open the door an’ have a
squint at ’em.”
Just at that moment a submerging !
wave of depression surged over me
and shoved me down so deep that I |
think possibly if Bullerton had calied
! out and demanded our surrender i,
should have been tempted to tell him
that 1 was not so much of a hog us |
not to know when I had enough. But
| the old man squeezed in beside me un-
der the arched boiler plate was made
of better fiber; he was game to the
last hair in his beard. With a wiid- |
Indian yell, he hunched his Winchester
into position and fired once, twice, |
thrice, at the door, as rapidly as he
could pump the reloading lever.
to this, but the aim was bad and the
only result was to set the air of our
_ prison fortress to buzzing as if &
| swarm of angry bees had been turned
! loose on us. After this, the raiders
| withdrew, so we judged; at all events.
| the silence of the dark hour before
daybreak shut down upon us again,
| and once more we had space in which
to “gather eur minds,” as Daddy put
it,
It may be a dastardly confession oi
weakness to admit it, but I am free to
say that the prolonged struggle was
gradually undermining my nerve. If
Bullerton had made up his mind to
write off the loss of the mine buildings
and machinery, it was a battle lost for
us. It could be only a question of a
\ little time, and enough daylight to en-
able the bombers to throw straight,
until we should be buried in the wreck
_ of the shafthouse and hoist—and with-
out the privilege of dying in a good,
. old-fashioned, stand-up fight.
All of this I hastily pointed out to
Daddy Hiram, adding that, for Jeanie’s
sake, if for no better reason, he ought
to take his chance of staying upon
| earth, As long as I live I shall
always have a high respect for the
wrath of a mild-mannered man. The
old prospector was fairly Berserk,
mad, foaming at the mouth, and short
' of dragging him out by main strength
, there was no way of making him let
; &0.
| “No, sir; I done promised your
| gran’paw ‘at I'd stand by for him, and
| he paid me money for doin’ it. When
| them hellions get this here mine,
| they're goin’ to dig a hole somewheres
| and bury me afterward,” was all I
i
|
i
could get out of him.
We were not given very much more
time for discussion, or for anything
else. The first faint graying dawn was
coming, and with the partial lighten-
ing of the inner gloom, we craned our
necks—like a double-headed turtle
| peering out of its shell—and got a
glimpse of the damage done by the in-
itial thunderbolt. We saw it without
any trouble: a great hole torn in the
sheetiron roof directly over the hoist
and shaft mouth. Knowing the use
and effect of explosives pretty well,
Daddy said that the bomb had gone off
prematurely; had exploded before it
| had fairly lighted upon the roof.
«If it hadn’t—if it had been layin’
on the roof when it went off—we
| wouldn't be lookin’ up at that hole
i right now, Stannie, my son. We'd be
| moggin’ up the golden stair and a-won-
| derin’ how much farther it was to the
New Jerusalem, and what kind o’
harps they was goin’ to give us when
we got there. We sure would.”
We didn’t keep our heads out very
‘ong. While we were staring up at
the hole and at the patch of sky be-
yond it, a small dark object with a
smoke-blue comet's tail trailing be-
hind it crossed our Yne of sight, and
we ducked and held our breath—or at
east, I held mine. The crash came
almost immediately, and it was fol-
{ywed in swift succession by a second
and a third. Luckily, none of the
three hit the shaft-house, nor, indeed,
fell very near to it; and this uncer-
tainty of aim told us where the attack
was coming from. The bomb throw-
ers were posted somewhere on the
steep slope of the mountain above us;
the slope which I have described as
running up from the brink of the
abrupt cliff overlooking the mine
plant.
“They'll get the range, after a
while,” Daddy grunted. “And when
they do, I reckon it'll be good-by, fair
world, for a couple of us and one
mighty good dog. Tm a-tellin’ you,
Stannie, som, the shot that comes
down through that hole fixes us a-
i plenty.
A spattering fusillade was the reply
Sufferin’ Methusaleh! what-
“Ill bet |
| The Crash Came Almost Immediately.
1
i
1
| all is the folks down yonder at 'Tro-
pia a-dreamin’ about, to let: all this
| bangin’ and whangin’ go on up here
without comin’ up to find out what's
| makin’ it?”
i The Atropia that I remembered was
© so nearly moribund that I didn't won-
der it wasn’t making any stir in our
| behalf; so, when a few pattering rifle
shots which seemed to originate on
| the great bench below began to sift
' ijn among the bomb echoes, I took it
' that Bullerton had divided his force
and was trying to rattle us two ways
at once. As for that, however, the
bigger bombardment kept us from
speculating very curiously upon any-
, thing else. Two more of the giant
| crackers had fallen to the right of us,
one of them into the wreck of the
blacksmith shop, to send up a spout-
ing volcano of scrap which fell a sec-
ond or so later in a thunderous rain;
and then. oR
(Continued next week).
PR——— nd
MANY MILLIONS
SPENT ON TOYS.
Over a hundred million dollars was
expended for toys by the people of the
United States even in the year of
economies, 1921. ‘The factory values
of toys manufactured in the United
States, says the Trade Record of the
National City bank of New York,
more than trebled when the war cut
us off trom that former chief source
of our toy imports, Germany, and the
value of the “toys and games” turned
out by our factories in 1919, the latest
census year, is officially stated at
$46,000,000 against $14,000,000 in the
preceding census year 1914. Mean-
time the imports of toys which fell
from $8,000,000 in the year prior to
the war to a little more than $1,000,-
000 in the year of its close, quickly
advanced to $6,000,000 in 1920, and
$10,000,000 in 1921, so that the im-
ports oi toys in the fiscal year 1921
were actually greater in value than
in any year preceding the war.
While this unexpectedly prompt in-
flow of toys from foreign countries
has somewhat reduced the out turn o
the toy factories of the United States
in the current year,
capital engaged in the industry ad-
vanced from over $10,000,000 in 1914
to probably $25,000,000 in 1919 in
which year the number of employees
exceeded 10,000, suggests that the out
turn of our own factories in 1920-21,
plus that of the doll factories which
are not included in the group enti-
tled “toys and games,” plus the im-
portation in 1921 of $10,000,000 worth
of dolls and toys from abroad, with
‘an aggregate factory valuation of
considerably over $50,000,000, must
have cost the “ultimate purchaser”
fully $100,000,000 in 1921, despite the
tendency toward economies which has
characterized trade conditions during
the year.
In one particular line of the toy in-
dustry and trade, the holiday season
finds a distinct shortage, namely that
of dolls. The number of doll facto-
ries in the United States greatly in-
creased following the opening of the
war, upon the assumption that the ab-
sence of the supply formerly drawn
from Germany would greatly inten-
sify the demands of the home market
but with the close of the war and the
prospect of big imports from Germa-
ny and other countries of Europe as
well as from Japan, which had devel-
oped a considerable toy trade during
the war, many of the doll factories in
the United States closed down, while
the expected increase in importation
of dolls did not materialize as rapidly
as had been anticipated, and as a con-
sequence the holiday trade found an
extreme shortage in this particular
class of goods, developing an actual
“famine” in dolls despite t
the children of the United States are
“crying for them.”
The happenings of the war period
above referred to, the shortage in toy
supplies turned out in Europe and the
big increase in those from our own
factories, has resulted in a large
growth in our toy exports meantime,
which advanced from three-quarters
of a million dollars in the year imme-
diately preceding the war to over $4,
000,000 in the calendar year 1920, and
today the children of over fifty coun-
tries and colonies of the world are
hugging American dolls, while the ex-
ports of other classes of American
toys in 1920 were distributed to near-
ly one hundred countries and colonies
as against approximately half that
number in the year preceding the
war.—Ex.
—————————————
— The goal we all seek in this
world is success. It is not handed to
us on a silver platter—we must work
to attain it.
ANIMALS SE
the fact that the W
e fact that ta,
NSE
WEATHER CHANGE.
Mere superstition, so the weather
authorities say, are many of the long-
distance weather predictions based on
the conduct of animals. No one, so
far as we know, has compiled a rec-
ord of these so-called omens, but their
number is multiple. They are based
on a belief that animals are able to
tell months in advance, for example,
the character of the coming winter.
If hunters bring in a story to the
effect that squirrels have made heavy
stores of nuts, it is taken to mean that
a severe winter impends. If early
caught fur-bearing animals have a
heavy, thick coat, that is another sign
of a severe winter, or a thin coat the
contrary. If bird migrations are de-
layed after the usual date of the
southward flight, a sign is seen of an
open winter. Numerous other beliefs
based on fancy ability of animals to
foresee weather conditions months
ahead, and base their preparations on
them, have wide currency. Sometimes
signs are taken from the vegetable
world, as for example the past fall in
the middle west. Corn husks, it was
related, were much heavier than usual
—that meant a hard winter.
The reasoning, such as it is, in
many of these weather signs, is ap-
parent on the surface. In the case of
others it isn’t as with the most fa-
mous and well known of them all—
the ground-hog sign. If Mister
Woodchuck on Candlemas day—Feb-
ruary 2—sees his shadow, issuing ex-
perimentally from his den, then “win-
ter will have another flight.” Other-
wise an early spring impends.
: Observation over a part of a single
lifetime would demonstrate most of
these weather signs as unreliable, yet
they cling on, especially in country
districts. It is possible that they do
so, in part, because they shadow into
animal signs of a different class which
really are dependable. From the con-
duct of animals, accurate weather
predictions can, within certain limits,
be made.
This dependable class of animal
weather signs is uniformly short-dis-
tance as to prophecy—no longer than
the daily newspaper weather forecast.
They occur because animals are more
sensitive to atmospheric changes than
human beings, and sense an approach-
ing weather change hours before it
is apparent to man. In this capacity,
animals are really nothing more nor
less than barometers, registering as
accurately as the most delicately con-
stituted instrument in the metero-
logical observatory.
One animal barometer in this class
‘much observed east and west during
| the summer season is the swallow.
The swallow is insectivorous to the last
degree. Other than insects hardly
pass its bill from one season’s end to
another, and it captures this food on
the wing. Thus it happens that as a
weather forecaster the swallow on |
thousands of farms is always ready
with an answer.
Swallows flying high indicate fair
weather. Swallows flying low presage
a storm. The explanation of these
“signs” is simple. The relative level
at which swallows fly is determined
by the whereabouts of insects. The
lighter the atmosphere, as in the case
of fair weather or clearing weather,
the higher will insects be found, while
an oncoming storm, presaged by
growing density, forces them to lev-
els near the ground, where the swal-
lows will be noticed in pursuit of
them.
It has been observed by New Eng-
landers that ants, sensing an ap-
proaching rain, will close the entrance
to their small hills, and conversely, as
weather clears, will open them. To
this extent ants are found reliable
forecasters. Instinctively they react
¢ to changes in the atmosphere, and
close their hills for protection against
ater.
A late fall and winter weather sign
which many country boys using box
traps have learned the accuracy of is
furnished by the small coney rabbit,
in rare cases by the more wary jack
rabbit. These boy trappers note that
catches of rabbits are always better
just before a storm—the longer and
more severe that storm proves, the
more numerous the rabbits caught.
Here again a change in the atmos-
phere has warned the rabbit tribe that
a spell during which food will be hard
to obtain is at hand, and instinctively
to “fill up,” even to the point of en-
tering traps they formerly had avoid-
ed. Country boys of New England
know that if there is ever a time when
a rabbit will enter a box trap, it is
just before a snow storm.
Doubtless other instances in which
wild creatures function in the role of
genuine weather forecasters could be
advanced.—Scientific American.
eremer——————— eee
Enamel Peeling Off Tags.
The ceam colored enamel, which
forms the background for the 1922 au-
to license tags, is peeling off of a large
number of tags. A number of these
peeled tags can be seen and protests
have already been sent to the State
Highway Department at Harrisburg
by the owners of the defective tags.
: The tags were made in the Hunt-
ingdon reformatory and the officials
there state that the defect is due to
the composition entering into the light
colored enamel which has a tendency
to crack off the metal surface of the
gs.
As fast as the Highway Department
receives complaints duplicate tags are
issued from the reformatory. The po-
lice all over the State have received
orders not to arrest drivers of cars
the license numbers of which are ob-
scured by the enamel peeling off.
——— i ————————
Rules on Inheritance Taxes.
Harrisburg, Jan. 18.—The question
as to when the discount period for
nrompt payment of inheritance taxes
on estate of a person presumed to be
dead begins has been settled in an
opinion given to the Auditor Gener-
al by Deputy Attorney George Ross
Hull. It is held a 5 per cent. discount
shall be allowed if the payment be
made within three months from the
date of final confirmation of the de-
cree of the Orphans’ court wherein
the presumption of death was adju-
dicated.
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