(Continued from last week). “When did you learn who Eaton was, Avery?” “Phe day after we got back here from the West I got word from La- tron; they didn’t tell me till they needed to use me.” Avery hesitated; then he went on: “You understand, sir, about Latron’s pretended death— a guide at the shooting lodge had been killed by a chance shot in the woods; purely accidental; some one of the party had fired at a deer, missed, and never knew he'd killed a man with the waste shot. When the guide didn’t come back to camp, they looked for him and found his bady. He was a man who never would be missed or inquired for and was very nearly Latron’s size; and that gave Latron the idea. “At first there was no idea of pre- tending he had been murdered; it was the coroner who first suggested that. Things looked ugly for a while, under the circumstances, as they were made public. Either the scheme might come out or someone else be charged as the murderer. That put it up to Overton. He'd actually been up there to see Latron and had had a scene with him which had been witnessed. That part—all but the evidence which showed that he shot Latron after ward—was perfectly true. He thought that Latron, as he was about to go to trial, might be willing to give him information which would let him save something from the fortune he’d lost through Latron’s manipulations. The circumstances, motive, everything was ready to convict Overton; it needed very little more to complete the case against him.” “So it was completed.” “But after Overton was convicted, he was not allowed to be punished, sir,” ' Santoine’s lips straightened in <on- tempt. “He was not allowed to be punished?” “Overton didn’t actually escape, you know, Mr. Santoine —that Is, he couldn’t have escaped without help; Latron was thoroughly frightened and he wanted it carried through and Overton executed; but some of the others rebelled against this and saw that Overton got away; but he never knew he'd been helped. I understand it was evidence of Latron’s insistence on the sentence being carried out that Warden found, after his first sus- picions had been aroused, and that put Warden in a position to have La- tron tried for his life, and made it necessary to kill Warden.” “Latron is dead, of course, Avery, or fatally wounded?” “He's dead. Over—Eaton, that Is, gir—hit him last night with three shots.” “As a housebreaker engaged in rifling my safe, Avery.” “Yes, sir, Latron was dying when they took him out of the car last night. They got him away, though; put him on the boat he'd come on. 1 saw them in the woods last night. They'll not destroy the body or make away with it, sir, at present.” “In other words, you instructed them not to do so until you found out whether Overton could be handed over for execution and the facts regarding Latron kept secret, or whether some other course was necessary.” The blind man did not wait for any answer to this: he straightened sud denly, gripping the arms of his chair, and got up. There was more he wished to ask; In the bitterness he felt at his blindness having been used to make him an unconscious’ agent in these things of which Avery spoke so calm- ly, he was resolved that no one who had shared knowingly in them should £o unpunished. But now he heard the noise made by approach of Eaton's captors. As Santoine stood listening, the sounds without became coherent to him. “They have taken Overton, Avery,” he commented. “Of course they have taken no one else. I shall tell those in charge of him he is not the one they are to hold prisoner but that I have another for them here.” The blind man heard no answer from Avery. Those having Overton in charge seemed to be coming into the house; the door opened and there were confused sounds. Then Santoine heard his daughter's voice in a half ery, half sob of hope- less appeal to him. Harriet ran to him; he felt her cold, trembling fingers clasping him and beseeching him. “Father! Father! They say—they say—they will—" He put his hands over hers, clasp- ing hers and patting it. “My dear,” he said, “I thought you would wait for me; I told you to wait.” He heard others coming into the house now; and he held his daughter beside him as he faced them. “Who is in charge here?’ he de- manded. The voice of one of those who had ~ just come in answered him. “I, sir— I am the chief of police.” “] wish to speak to you; I will not keep you long. May I ask you to have your prisoner taken to the room he occupied here in my house and given attention by a doctor? You can have my word that it is not necessary to guard him. Wait! Wait!” he direct- ed, as he heard exclamations and ejaculations to correct him. “I do not mean that you have mistaken who he fs. He is Hugh Overton, I know; it is because he is Hugh Overton that I say what I do.” Santoine abandoned effort to sepa- rate and comprehend or to try to an- swer the confusion of charge and questioning around him. He con- cerned himself, at the moment, only with his daughter; he drew her to him, held her and sald gently, “There, dear; there! Everything is right. I The Voice of One of Those Who Had Just Come in Answered Him. “I, sir —] Am the Chief of Police. have not been able to explain to you, and I cannot take time mow; but you, at least, will take my word that you have nothing to fear for him—noth- ing!” He heard her gasp with incredulity and surprise; then she drew back trom him, staring at him, she breathed deep with relief and clasped him, sob- bing. He still held her, as the hall was cleared and the footsteps of those carrying Overton went up the stairs; then, knowing that she wished to tol- low them, he released her. She drew away, then clasped his: hand and kissed it; as she did so, she suddenly stiffened and her hand tightened on his spasmodically. Someone else had come into the hall and he heard another voice—a wom- an’s, which he recognized as that of the stenographer, Miss Davis. The blind man straightened. holding his daughter to him; there was anxi- ety, horror, love in the voice he heard; Harriet’s perplexity was great as his own. “Is that you, Miss Davis?" he in quired. “Yes; yes,” the girl repeated. “Where is—Hugh, Mr. Santoine?” “You do not understand,” the voice of a young man broke in on them. “I'm afraid I don’t,” Santoine said quietly. “She is Hugh's sister, Mr. Santoine —she is Edith Overton.” “Edith Overton? And who are you?” “You do not know me. My name is Lawrence Hillward.” Santoine asked nothing more for the moment. His daughter had left his side. He stood an instant listening to the confusion of question and answer fu the hall: then he opened the door into the library and held it for the police chief to enter. CHAPTER XXIV “|1¢'s All Right, Hugh”—at Last. Eaton—he still, with the habit of five years of concealment, even thought of himself by that name— awoke to full consciousness at eight o'clock the next morning. He was In the room he had occupied before In Santoine’s house; the sunlight, re: flected from the lake, was playing on the ceiling. His wounds had been dressed; his body was comfortable and without fever, ] : He saw and recognized, against the lighted square of the window, a man standing looking out at the lake. “Lawrence,” he said. The man turned and came toward the bed. “Yes, Hugh.” Eaton raised himself excitedly upon his pillows. “Lawrence, that was he— last night—in the study. It was La- tron! I saw him! You'll believe me, Lawrence—you at least will. They got away on a boat—they must be fol- lowed—" With the first return of consciousness he had taken up again that battle against circumstances which had been: ‘his only thought for flve years. But suddenly he was aware that his sister was also in the room, sitting upon the opposite side of the bed. Her hand came forward and clasped his; she bent over him, holding him and fondling him. “It is all right, Hugh,” she whis- pered—*oh, Hugh! it is all right now, Mr. Santoine knows; he-—he was not what we thought him. He believed all the while that you were justly sentenced. Now he knows other wise—" “He—Santoine—believed that?” Ea- ton asked incredulously: d “Yes; he says his blindness was “Where is he? Hugh! Hugh! What have you done to him? Mr. Santoine! Mr. Sanutoine! Where is | he?” \ garding yourself,” he said. used by them to make him think so. So now he is very angry; he says no one who had anything to do with it shall escape. He figured it all out— most wonderfully—that it must have peen Latron in the study. He has been working all night—they have al- ready made several arrests and every port on the lake is being watched for the boat they got away on.” “Is that true, Edith? Lawrence, Is it true?” “Yes; quite true, Hugh!” choked and turned away. Eaton sank back against his pil- lows; his eyes—dry, bright and filled still with questioning for a time, as ne tried to appreciate what he just had heard and all that it meant to him—dampened suddenly as he real- ized that it was over now, that long struggle to clear his name from the charge of murder—the fight which had seemed so hopeless, He could not realize it to the full as yet; conceal- ment, fear, the sense of monstrous injustice done him had marked so deeply all his thoughts and feelings that he could not sense the fact that they were gone for good. So what came to him most strongly now was only realization that he had been set right with Santoine—Santoine, whom he himself had misjudged and mis- trusted. And Harriet? He had not needed to be set right with her; she had believed and trusted him from the first, in spite of all that had seemed against him. Gratitude warmed him as he thought of her—and that other feeling, deeper, stronger far than gratitude, or than anything else he aver had felt toward anyone but her, gurged up in him and set his pulses wildly beating, as his thought strained toward the future. “Where fis—Miss asked. His sister answered. “She has been belping her father. They left word they were to be sent for as soon as you woke up, and I've just sent for them.” Eaton lay silent till he heard them coming. The blind man was unfa- millar with. this room; his daughter jed him in. Her eyes were very bright, her cheeks, which had been pale, flushed as she met Eaton's look, put she did not look.away. He kept nis gaze upon her. : Santoine, under her guidance, took the chair Hillward set beside the bed for him. The blind man was very gulet; he felt for and found Eaton's nand and pressed it. Eaton choked, as he returned the pressure. Then Santoine released him, “Who else is here?’ the blind man asked his daughter. “Miss Overton and Mr. Hillward,” sbe answered. Santoine found with his blind eyes their positions in the room and ac- knowledged their presence; afterward he turned back to Eaton. “I understand, I think, everything now, except some few particulars re- “Will ygu Hillward Santoine?’ he tell me those?” “You mean—" Eaton spoke to San- toine, but he looked at Harriet. “Oh, I understand, 1 think. When I— escaped, Mr. Santoine, of course my picture had appeared in all the news- papers and I was not safe from rec- ognition anywhere in this country. 1 got into Canada and, om Vancouver, went to China. We had very little money left, Mr. Santoine. What had not been—lost through Latron had been spent in my defense. I got a position in a mercantile house over there. It was a good country for me; people over there don't ask questions for fear someone will ask questions about them. We had no near rela- tives for Edith to go to and she had to take up stenography to support her- gelf and—and change her name, Mr. Santoine, because of me.” “Go on,” said Santoine. “You thought I knew who Latron’s mur- derer was and morally, though not technically, perjured myself at your trial to convict you im his place. “What next?” : . “That was it,” Eaton assented. “We thought you knew that some of those sround you who served as your eyes must knew It, too.” Harriet gasped. Eaton, looking at her, knew that she understood now what had come between them when “she had told him that she herself had served as her father’s eyes all through the Latron trial. He felt himself flushing a8 he looked at her; he could not understand now how he could have believed that she had aided in concealing an Injustice against him, no matter what influence had been ex- erted upon her. She was all good; all true. “At first,” Eaton went on, “Edith did not find out anything. Then, this year, she learned that there was to be a reorganization of some of the Latron properties. We hoped that, during that, something would come out which might help us. I had been away almost five years; my face was forgotten, and we thought I could take the charfce of coming back to be near at hand so I could act if anything did come out. Lawrence met me at Vancouver. We were about to start east when I received a message from Mr. Warden. I did not know Warden and I don’t know now how he knew who I was or where he could reach me. His message merely said he knew I needed help and he was prepared to give it’ and made an appointment for me to see him at his house. You know what happened when I tried to keep the appointment. “Then you came to Seattle and took charge of Warden's affairs. I felt cer- tain that if there was any evidence among Warden's effects as to who had killed Latron, you would take it back with you with the other matters re- lating to the Latron reorganization, You could not recognize me from your having been at my trial because you _—— were blind ; I decided to take the train with you and try to get possession of the draft of the reorganization agree- ment and the other documents with it which Warden had been working on. 1 had suspected *hat I was being watched by agents of the men protect- ing Latron’s murderer while I was in Seattle. ! had changed my lodgings there because of that, but Lawrence had remained at the old lodgings to find out for me. He found there was a man following me who disappeared after I had taken the train, and Law- rence, after questioning the gateman at Seattle decided the man had taken the same train I did. He wired me in the cipher we had sometimes used in communicating with each other, but not knowing what name 1 was using oti the train, he addressed it to him- self, confident that if a telegram reached the train addressed to ‘Law- rence Hillward’ I would understand and claim it. “Of course, I could not follow his instructions and leave the train; we were snowed in. imagine how anybody couid have fol- lowed me onto the train, as I had taken pains to preveut that very thing by beiniz the last passenger to get aboard It.” “The man whom the gateman saw did not follow you; he merely watched you get on the train and notified two others. who took the train at Spo- kane. ‘They had planned to get rid of you after you left Seattle s0 as to run less risk of your death being con- nected with that of Warden. It was my presence which made it necessary for them to make the desperate at- tempt to kill you on the train.” “Then I understand. The other tel- egram was sent me, of course, by Edith from Chicago, when she learned here that you were using the name of Dorne on your way home. [I learned from her when I got here that the doc- uments relating to the Latron prop- erties, which I had decided you did not have with you, were being sent you through Warden's office. Through Edith I learned that they had reached you and had been put in the safe. I managed to communicate with Hill- ward at the country club, and that night he brought me the means of forcing the safe. Eaton felt himself flushing again, as he looked at Harriet. Did she resent Eaton Felt Himself Flushing Again, as He Looked at Harriet. his having used her in that way? He saw only sympathy in her face. “My daughter told me that she helped you to that extent,” Santoine offered, “and I understood later what must have been your reason for ask- ing her to take you out that night.” “When 1 reached the study,” Eaton continued, “I found others already there. The light of an electric torch flashed on the face of one of them and I recognized the man as Latron— the man for whose murder I had been convicted and sentenced! Edith tells me that you know the rest.” There was silence in the room for several minutes. Santoine again felt for Eaton’s hand and pressed it. “We've tired you out,” he said. “You must rest.” “You must sleep, Hugh, if you can,” Edith urged. Eaton obediently closed his eyes, but opened them at once to look for Harriet. She bad moved out of his line of vision. Santoine rose: he stood an Instant waiting for his daughter, then sud- denly he comprehended that she was no longer in the room, “Mr. Hillward, 1 must ask your help,” he said, and he went out with Hillward guiding him. Eaton, turning anxiously on his pil- low and looking about the room, saw no one but his sister. He had known when Harriet moved away from be- side the bed; but he had not suspected that she was leaving the room. Now suddenly a great fear filled him. “Why did Miss Santoine go away? Why did she go, Edith?’ he ques- tioned. “You must sleep, Hugh,” his sister answered only. Harriet, when she slipped out of the room, had gone downstairs. She could not have forced herself to leave be- fore she had heard Hugh’s story, and she could not define even to herself what the feeling had been that had made her leave as soon as he had finished; but she sensed the reason vaguely, Hugh had told her two days before, “I will come back to you as you have never known me yet"—and it had proved true. She had known him as a man in fear, constrained, carefully guarding himself against others and against betrayal by him- self; a man to whom .all the world seemed opposed; sa that her sympa- thy—and afterward: something more Besides, 1 could not | than her sympathy—had gone out to him. To that repressed and threat- ened man, she had told all she felt toward him, revealing her feelings with a frankness that would have been impossible except that she want- ed him to know that she was ready to stand against the world with him. Now the world was no longer against him; he had friends, a place in life was ready to receive him; he would be sought after, and his name would be among those of the people of his own sort. She had no shame that she had let him—and others— know all that she felt toward him, she gloried still in it; only now—now, if he wished her, he must make thai plain; she could not, of herself, return to him, Sc unrest possessed her and the suspense of something hoped for but ungudfilled. She went from room to room, trying to absorb herself in her daily duties; but the house—her fa- ther’'s hovse-—spoke to her now only i of Hugh vu4 le could think of noth- ing but h sa, ‘Was he awake? Was i he sleepin ¢= Was he thinking of her? ‘Or, now Hd: the danger was over through v Lich she had served him, | were his thoughts of someone else? | Her heart halted at each recur ! rence of that thought; and again and i again she repeated his words to her "at parting from her the night before. “TI will come back to you as you haev "never known me yet! To her he "would come back, he said; to her, not ito anyone else. But his danger was not over then; in his great extremity and in his need of her, he might have felt what he did not feel now. If he i wanted her, why did he not send for | her? She stood trembling as she saw Edith Overton in the hall. “Hugh has been asking for you con- tinually, Miss Santeoine. If you can find time, please go in and see him.” Harriet did mot know what answer she made. She went upstairs: she ran, as soon as she was out of sight of Hugh's sister; then, at Hugh's door, she had to halt to catch her bireath and compose herself before she opened the door and looked in upon him, He was alone and seemed ‘asleep; at least his eyes were closed. Harriet stood an instant gazing at him. His face was peaceful now but worn, and his paleness was more evi- dent than when he had been talking to. her father. As she stood watchs ing him, she felt her. blood coursing through her as never before and warming her face and her fingertips; and fear—fear of him or of herself, fear of anything at all in the world— fled from her; and love—love which she knew that she need no longer try to deny—possessed her. “Harriet!” She heard her name from his lips and she saw, as he opened his eyes and turned to her, there was no surprise in his look; if he had been sleeping, he had been dreaming she was there; if awake, he had ‘been thinking of her. 7 “What is it, Hugh?” She was be- side him and he was looking up into her eyes, “You meant it, then? All you said { and—and all you did when we-—you and I—were alonz against them all! It's so, Harriet! You wean it!” “And you did too! Dear, it was only to me that you could comme back— only to me?” “Only to you!” He closed his eyes in his exultetion. “Ch, my dear, I never dreamed—Harriet in all the days and nights I've had to plan and won- der what might be for me If every- thing could come all right, I've never dreamed I could win a reward like this.” “Like this?” He opened his eyes agaln and drew her down toward him, “Like you!” She bent until her cheek touched his and his arms were about her. felt her tears upon his face. thata ; not that—you musta’t cry, dear,” he begged. “Qh, Harriet, aren't you happy now?’ “That's why. Happy! I didn’t know before there could be anything like this.” “Nor L No, it's a! right, Harriet; everything is all right now?” “All right? Ob, it's all right now, if I can make it so for yeu,” she answered. {THE END! Mass Athletics Prove Success at Penn State. With more than two-thirds of the men students at Penn State engaged in some sort of winter sport, the slo- gan of “everybody playing” is being carried out most successfully under the mass athletic system introduced by athletic director Hugo Bezdek. During the winter, first and second year students have their choice of sport, including basket ball, boxing, wrestling, track and gymnastics. The former is- by far the most popular, with boxing second. Including the varsity, class, fraternity and unit teams in all of these sports, it is esti- mated that more than 2,000 of the 2,800 men are in some healthy athlet- ic sport during the winter. A Tax on Impudence. An English actress spent the sum- mer in a small village in Vermont and one day engaged a local farmer to drive her about. Anxious to entertain her, the driver chatted about local matters, whereat she was much bored. Finally she said sharply: “I engaged you to drive me, not to talk to me.” The farmer collapsed. Subsequent- ly he sent his bill, one item of which puzzled the actress. “What's this?” she asked. “Thet?” the man returned. “Oh, thet’s sass. I don’t often take it, but when I do, I charge.” The actress paid. news while it is news. He “Noto ——The “Watchman” gives all the "THOSE FOOL LITTLE GRUDGES }M One Only Would Pause to Consider the Question, Are They Really Worth While? The first time I crossed the Atlantic I had t e good fortune to find myselt in good company. The passenger list was comparatively small and the weather was mild. So, by the time the ship approached Liverpool, the passengers were fairly well acquaint- ed and the atmosphere was decidedly genial. What interested me most about the trip was the sadness: re- flected here and there during the last two days, John D. Barry writes In the Minneapolis Tribune. “Well, we'll never be together again,” said one passenger, and an- other said, “I hate to leave all these pleasant people.” Since that time, after voyages of a week or more, even of ships where the passengers have been rather de- tached, I've noticed a somewhat sim- flar feeling. Among college students it's well known that during the last year of college there's a pretty general soft- ening up. In the men’s college it's very marked. I suppose it's just as marked in the women’s colleges, per- haps more So. Men who had cherished grudges acainst each other for months or vears and hadn't spoken would begin to speak again and would perhaps become friends. Acquaintances that had passed with a slight nod would grow more agreeable. Somehow ani- mosity, chilliness, all unpleasant be- havior began to seem foolish.” Tt be- came clear that in this association there was something worth. while, something that hadn't been fully ap- preciated before and that the thing to do was to make the most of It while it lasted. BUFFALO HERDS HAVE GROWN Animals in Canadian Government Pre- serves Must Be Killed to Prevent Evil of Overcrowding. Twenty-five years.ago the Canadian government purchased a small herd of buffalo and placed it in a national park at Banff. For several years the herd was regarded merely as an ob- ject of curiosity. Then a game pre serve was decided upon, and the herd, together with other buffalo acquired from a United States rancher, was turned into the inclosure. The pre serve is located at Wainwright, Alta., and extends over 162 square miles of sandy prairie which was considered unsuitable for agriculture. The buf- falo, 709 In number, thrived from the start, and last spring the caretakers counted 6,146 of the animals. Al- though the 1922 “crop” cannot be counted until the hison are herded into their winter quarters, it is esti- mated that there will be an addition’ of at least 1,000 calves. Besides this herd at Wainwright, there are other buffalo in Canada in sufficient zum- hers to bring the total up to approxi: mately 9,000 head, and the govern- ment is preparing to kill about 1,000 of them every year to prevent the preserves from becoming overcrowd- ed.—Popular Mechanics Magazine. Frank Is Frank, One afternoon I was invited to # bridge party. The woman who usually takes care of my son was ill. I told him that he would have to go to the party with me. This displeased him, because he had planned to play all afternoon. Knowing how much he likes angel-food cake, I told him Mrs. Blank was going to serve ice cream and angel-food cake, He at once changed his mind about playing. All went well until my son rambled out into ‘the kitchen, where he saw Mrs. Blank taking two cakes out of the oven. She said, “Frank, I'll bet you can’t guess what kind of cakes these are.” My son replied: “They're angel- food cakes, because that's what we came for."—Chicago Tribune, Teeth as Well as Finger Prints. The unhappy criminal son is likely to have no chance to escape the penal ty of his misdeeds. Nor is anybody likely to have a chance to hide his identity for innocuous reasons, since, in addition to the plan for the univer- sal finger-printing, the rogues’ gal leries of the country are now adding minute descriptions of teeth. Recently a prisoner on Welfare is- land who had been sent up under an assumed name was discovered to be a state prisoner who had broken parole and sent back to Sing Sing to serve out the remainder of a two-year sen tence. His teeth revealed his identity. et A Foreign Entanglement. “My boy writes me that he has joined a Greek letter society at col- lege,” remarked the self-made man. “It's the Alpha, Gamma, Lamma or something like that. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind.” “What for?” “I don’t want any boy of mine join- ing one of those foreign organizations, And, besides, everybody knows Greece is in a bad way."—Birmingham Age- Herald. ees me Mercury Cleans Rie Barrels. it has been fouad that mercury can be used very effectively to clean rifle barrels. The end of the barrel is tightly corked, and about one-hall fluid ounce of mercury is poured in "hen, after the other end is corked the barrel is slowly upped from enc to end a number of times. The mer cury amalgamates with the lead ad: hering to the inside of the rifle bar rel.—Popular Mechanics Magazine,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers