Dewi itm.
Bellefonte, Pa., July 18, 1924.
EVERY INCH A MAN.
She sat on the porch in the sunshine
As I went down the street,
A woman whose hair was silver,
But whose face was a blossom sweet,
Making me think of a garden,
‘When, in spite of the frost and snow
Of bleak November weather,
Late fragrant lilies blow.
I beard a footstep behind me,
And the sound of a merry laugh;
And I knew the heart it came from
‘Would be like a comforting staff
In the time and the hour of trouble,
Hopeful and brave and strong—
One of the hearts to lean on,
When we think all things go wrong.
I turned at the click of the gate-latch,
And met his manly look—
A face like his gives me pleasure,
Like the page of a pleasant book—
It told of a steadfast purpose,
Of a brave and daring will;
A face with a promise in it,
That God grant the years fulfill!
He went up the pathway singing;
I saw the woman’s eyes
Grow bright with a wordless welcome,
As sunshine warms the skies:
“Back again; sweetheart mother,”
He cried, and bent to kiss
The loving face that was lifted
For what some mothers miss.
That boy will do to depend on;
I hold that this is true—
From lads in love with their mothers
Our bravest heroes grew;
Earth’s grandest hearts have been loving
hearts
Since time and earth began;
And the boy who kisses his mother
Is every inch a man.
—Christian Intelligencer.
THE TESTING OF HUGH KANE.
A Story of Two Men, a Long Trail
and a Girl.
No woman ever really knows a man until
she has camped with him. Equally, no
man really knows a woman until he has
seen her under similar circumstances.
Generally speaking, both sexes are at
their best or their worst on the trail.—
Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Long years ago, when John Nylan
was a young man, his eyes red-rim-
med and bloodshot from too much
looking at white-hot metal, the palms
of his hands like pale yellow leather
from an intimacy with slice bar and
crucible tongs, he had stumbled onto
a maxim which appealed to him so
strongly that he promptly applied it
to himself. It was something about
“While their companions slept.” The
John Nylan of those days was quite
an intense young person, else the eyes
would not have been so bloodshot nor
the palms of the hands so thick with
callus. Whatever he undertook he did
with a whole-hearted rush and drive.
He thought the same way he worked.
And he liked that maxim he had
picked up. He set out to live up to it.
He lived up to it in John Nylan’s way,
which was a way that took into the
reckoning neither physical nor mental
weariness. Living up to that maxim
soon became his chief aim in life. It
became a habit he never outgrew.
Thus it came about that in John Ny-
lan’s ark of a house, which the best
architects had designed and the best
interior decorators had furnished,
there was an ample yet rather bare
room high up under the eaves at the
very top of the house, where no com-
motion below would trouble him; a
room with an ordinary oak desk, three
plain chairs, a great many books on
the subject nearest to John Nylan’s
heart, and one picture on the bare
walls. It was a photograph of the
first small bridge the John Nylan
Company had built.
Almost any evening shortly before
nine lights might be expected to
spring up in that room under the
eaves, and the place became hazy with
the drifting smoke from an old briar
pipe, burned down lop-sided as to its
bowl. There would ensue rustlings of
paper, interspersed with short grunts
of approval or disapproval—being ex-
actly alike, no one could ever have
told from merely listening to them
which was which—sharp tappings, as
the sorry old pipe was cleared of a
burned-out charge against the edge of
the desk, and the crunch of tobacco
from a nearby jar of enormous pro-
portions as the pipe was crammed full
again.
The man at the desk was small and
wiry, with a short bristle of gray mus-
tache and a thicker bristle of gray
hair. A small man, yet no one ever
thought of him as small. Somehow
he conveyed the impression of height,
width, and great strength. Perhaps
this was because of a certain radiat-
ing energy, or eyes that suggested
nothing could be hidden from them,
or a voice that boomed and rumbled
out of all proportions to his size when-
ever he spoke,
Blue-prints, specifications, columns
of figures, legal papers, correspon-
dence, he tore through, scowled over,
decided upon, and pushed away from
to the mind of the man at the shabby : help liking him. But John Nylan had
oak desk. {long ago begun to suspect Hugh was
She was young. She was eager. very little like his father. None of
She was anxious. An idol would have old Matt’s ruggedness and determina-
turned on its pedestal to look at her. | tion about the boy; none of old Matt's
Either she or her modiste was a con- | fighting qualities; none of his depend-
summate artist. The simple black | ableness in the pinches. :
gown with the glistening things upon | To Nylan, Hugh seemed too easily
it brought out the whiteness of her influenced, too susceptible to what
arms, the frail shapeliness of them, other people thought of him, too easy-
the perfect neck, the quaint poise of going, too prone to scatter his small
the head upon it. talents over too large a territory.
Through the door before she closed John Nylan’s idea of a man was a sort
it, fitting cue music for such an en- of lad who shut his teeth in tight
trance as hers, came the indistinct 'places and, like the Lacedaemonians,
hum of voices below stairs, laughter, did not ask how strong the enemy was
faint snatches of jazz. Planned by a but where he might be found.
master, her entrance could not have In the Kane Company, Contractors,
been better, even to the moment of Matt had left his son a splendid prop-
hesitation, inost unusual for her, as’ ition. He had trained Hugh for the
she stood with her hand on the knob
of the door she had just closed.
“Well, well,” said Nylan. “A little
minute for the old man, eh? How
goes the party 7”
“Absolutely perfect....the party,”
said she.
Hesitation over, she crossed the
room. She had brought him an ice: a
white rose, full petaled, with a pista-
chio humming-bird exploiting its
depths. :
He pretended to be wholly alive to
the significance of this attention of
hers. He became very stern. He
shook his head: “No, sir. Can't be
done. Busy, Peggy. I'm not going
down; no, sir. Not even for one little
minute; not even for one little fox-
trot with you. Look at these!” He
indicated the piled-up papers on his
desk.
“I don’t want you to come down,”
she told him. “I’m glad you're right
here. I want to talk to you up here.”
She hopped up onto the desk, sit-
ting there very close to him. She laid
a spoon beside the ice. Then she
looked at the ize and picked up the
spoon, poising it to emphasize her
question. :
“Floral or faunal?” she asked him.
“The bird is a nice color.”
She divided the hummingbird in two
and held out half of it on the spoon.
“Attended by an angel,” he rumbled.
“Just why, Peggy?”
“Because you’ve got heaps of mon-
“That the only reason?”
“It’s the only one to-night.”
“How much, you mercenary?”
“Nothing for me. Not a cent for
me.”
“As usual. Well, for whom or for
what, then, little Miss Softheart?”
“Father—"
“This must be serious,” he said
mockingly. “Most formally, I'm
‘Father’ to the girl!”
“It is serious. It’s dreadful....It’s
Hugh!”
“Hugh, eh 7”
“He’s in a fearful mess.”
“He told you this?”
“Don’t say that. I’ve worn myself
out worming the truth out of him.
I’ve known for weeks something was
wrong. But I couldn’t find out what
it was until to-night.”
“What sort of a mess is it, Peg?”
“Business.”
“He needs money?”
“An awful lot of it just now to pull
him through.”
“Well, how much?”
“I don’t know that. Thousands and
thousands. He’ll tell you.”
“He?” The single word cracked
like a rifle-shot.
“He’s coming up here to-night. I've
made him say he will. He’s coming
up here to tell you how much he
wants. He’s going to ask you for it.
I made him promise he would. That
was the hardest part of it all.”
“I see.”
“You're going to let him have it,
aren’t you?”
“I don’t knew.”
“Dad!”
“Well, at least that’s better than
‘Father.’ Not so formal. Not so om-
inous.”
“Dad, wasn’t Matt Kane, Hugh's
father, your best friend?”
“He was.”
“If Matt Kane were living and I
asked him to help me, don’t you im-
agine he’d do it?”
“You bet he would.”
“Won’t you help Matt Kane’s son?”
“Any time I can.”
“Then it’s all right. You'll let
Hugh have the money, won’t you?
What's a little ready money, anyway.”
“A little ready money is—well, it’s
money.”
“What’s money compared to my
happiness 7”
“I’ve been answering that question
for twenty-four years.”
“Well, if he can’t get the money
somehow the Kane Company will go
under, and we can’t be married for a
long time, Hugh and I.
little money compared to that?”
He did not answer at once. The
ice finished, spoonful by spoonful as
she fed it to him, he reached for the
lopsided effigy of a pipe. She got it
before him and filled it at the over-
grown jar.
“Got to have you happy, of course,
Peggyskins. That’s what I live for.
Only excuse for my otherwise useless
existence. Sure, got to have little old
Peg happy!”
Shiny spangled things roughened
his face as her arms went about him.
“I knew it! I was sure of it! You
never fail anybody.” She was off the
desk and at the door again. “I'm
going to send Hugh right straight up
H
him. To-night he was immersed in |here
the detailed prints and figures of a
great cantilever bridge which was to
span one of the busiest waterways in
the world. He shot a quick glance at
the single picture on the wall of that
room, and grinned. The materials in
that little old bridge of his wouldn’t
be sufficient for half a section of the
cantilever. A long way he had trav-
eled since the building of that first
bridge. “While their companions
slept!” He was glad he had stumbled
upon that maxim and tucked it away
under his hat.
The door opened. He knew as soon
as the knob turned whom he might
expect. No one but the person turn-
ing that knob ever ventured into this
room in the evening. He put down
the print he had been running over.
With the opening and closing of
that door the room changed. Its
bareness vanished. It was aglow with
warmth and life. Spring banishing
winter; dawn making an end of night;
music breaking black silence; a flash
of sunlight through murky clouds.
A score of such comparisons leaped
“Do,” he said, with a grin at her.
The door closed. He lighted the
pipe. He contrived a regular smoke
screen for himself. The blue-prints
lost all their interest for him, tem-
porarily at least. Cantilever bridges,
a world full of them, were of small
moment compared with anything
which might affect the happiness of
this motherless daughter of his.
If she was sure Hugh Kane was the
one man in the world, all very well
and good. She seemed sure of it. But
Peggy was very young, young even
for oy years. His fault, no doubt.
He had fostered certain childish quali-
ties in her. She was impressionable,
too, and impulsive, like her dead moth-
er. He didn’t care a punched nickel
whether the man Peggy married was
millionaire or ditch digger, as long as
Peggy was satisfied with him and he
was the man she deserved.
.In his own mind he had not been
quite sure about Hugh Kane for some
little time. He liked Hugh. Who
didn’t like the boy? You couldnt
What's a |
. job. John Nylan had watched the boy
‘after old Matt’s death. At first with
only the interest of a man of his type
i for the son of a lifelong friend; but
| afterward with greater interest yet
| because of Peggy’s estimate of Hugh.
| There were many things that troubled
him about Hugh: His propensity for
leaving too much to subordinates, and
putting blind faith in such subordi-
nates; the way he went after big con-
tracts, and accepted unquestioningly
other men’s figures on them; a tend-
ency, growing with time, to neglect
his business for many diversions—
Peggy, all too often one of these. He
open hints. Hugh passed them up,
rather coldly,
now.
And at last, it seemed, the foreseen
had happened * * * * Money was all
right. There were times when almost
any man might need ready money
badly; when it might tide him over a
{ period of stress and bring him out
| with the determination not to find
himself in a similar box in the future.
, Then there were times when feeding
| 2 man money only got him in deeper.
| Hugh had let things get away from
‘him and landed in a mess. He won-
i dered how much fight the boy had in
him. Money, plus a determination to
fight, would probably put Hugh on his
feet; money without that spirit might
easily prove his eternal undoing. And
if Hugh was not the right sort, it was
far better Peggy should discover it
| now than te tide him over at present
and have Peggy discover the manner
| of man he was when it was too late.
There was a tap on the door. Ny-
'lan got up and opened it. Hugh Kane
| came in with evident reluctance. He
looked every inch the man who was
' coming for financial assistance to the
father of the girl he was to marry.
John Nylan could find nothing of old
| Matt about the boy at that moment.
; He couldn’t imagine old Matt in a sit-
| uation of that kind, anyway. Yet
those were old Matt’s broad shoulders;
old Matt’s bony yet rather handsome
‘features; old Matt’s tall, muscular
frame; old Matt’s small and shapely
ears. Hugh was always good to look
at. Evening clothes made him no less
Ss
o.
Nylan pulled a chair beside the desk
ang motioned the younger man to take
it.
“How much is it, Hugh, in round
figures?” he asked, without useless
preliminaries. The heavy voice could
be very soothing and sympatheic on
occasion,
I “Fifty thousand,” said young Kane.
{ “Things as black as you think 7”
| “Blacker. Don’t dare think too
much about ’em.”
“No other way out of it?”
| “None that I can see. I've got to
have fifty thousand to see me
through.”
| “You've been worryng your heart
out, haven’t you?” The deep, rumb-
ling voice was fairly purring in its
, sympathy now.
| “A little,” Hugh admitted.
I “cA little, he says! You've grown
thin. You look pinched.”
| Hugh mumbled, “Part of the game,
'I presume.”
“Boy, you're shot to pieces. You've
! been doing altogether too much brood-
ing lately.”
“I must be pretty far gone, that’s a
fact. If I wasn’t I shouldn’t be here
| asking Peggy Nylan’s father for fifty
thousand dollars.”
“You haven’t asked me for it yet.”
| “Peg has. Same thing.”
“What you ought to do is to get
~away from everything for a while.
i Tell you what we’ll do: I'm going up
i to the Still River shack tomorrow for
a week’s shooting. Come along with
,me. The woods clear up your head in
no time. I found that out years ago.
We’ll talk things over up there—in
the woods. We'll get you out of this
mess somehow, no fear.”
“I was a fool to let her get the truth
out of me in the first place,” said
Hugh, beginning to redden.
“Don’t be so sure of that. We've
got to see Peggy is happy, haven’t
we?”
“I’ve done a lot in that direction re-
cently, it seems.”
“Forget that, and come along with
me in the morning.”
“It sure looks good to me just now,”
said Hugh with a sigh.
Later Peggy slipped into the up-
stairs room again.
“Hugh says he’s going up to the
Still River camp with you to-morrow,”
she said.
“That’s the latest arrangement.”
“I didn’t know wou had any inten-
tion of going up to Still River just
now.”
“I hadn’t intended to until to-night,
pt until after I had talked with Hugh
a bit.
“You’re an understanding old dear,
even if you don’t look it. You saw he
ought to rest and not worry for a
little while, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.”
‘And the other matter, the money
for Hugh? Will that be all right?”
“Women like you, Peg, in gowns
like that one you’re wearing to-night,
make men change history and wreck
banks. Besides, I’m your dad.”
She seemed to find this answer
wholly to her liking. Anyway, she
kissed him.
Joe Queal built a house on a sandy
little knoll at that point where Still
River joins the Big Otter. Or, at
least, he started to build a house. It
was a pretentious affair for a little
clearing in the woods at the end of a
‘rough road that was little more than
a woods path branching off the main
thoroughfare from Gray's Station to
Tousalac, and meandering aimlessly
through ~ thickets of hemlock and
spruce and tamarack until finally it
reached Joe’s knoll.
The frame up, Joe’s funds and am-
bition gave out at the same time. But
he did manage to roof over part of the
monstrosity and to finish four rooms.
That unfinished skeleton of the
larger part of the house loomed stark
and gaunt against a September sky,
cloudless, sharp with stars that hinted
of an early frost. It was nearing
midnight. Joe Queal, lean, lank, for-
ty-eight, and one-quarter Indian,
leaned against a corner of the partly
finished house. He was staring down
the rough road that led to his clearing.
All four rooms were ablaze with
light, and in the kitchen Mrs. Joe, the
antithesis of her lord in every respect,
dumpy of figure, garrulous, Kerry-
born and proud of it, busied herself :
at the range. The aroma of coffee |
and bacon 2nd baking corn bread
drifted out to Joe in the September
midnight.
No one knew the Still River country
like Joe Queal, and the through ex-
press stopped at Gray’s Station at
eleven. Midnight activities of this
variety were not uncommon at the
house of Queal.
Down the winding path Joe caught
the first gleam of moving lights. So
did a dog beside him, which promptly
set up a doleful baying. In a tumble-
| Jown Shed ot the rear of ie Place
A : I four more dogs joined in. Joe pushe
had tried to drop Hugh some fairly |p 5 front aon and stuck En his
Dy ‘head to announce to his wife in the
as he remembered it
kitchen, “Comin’!” |
A car bumped into the clearing.
Song Nylan and Hugh Kane got out
of it.
“I get your message,” said Joe.
“I get the things for the camp. All
ready; packed in motor-boat over
there.” He jerked his thumb in the
general direction of the stream.
“Yeh, I got motor-boat now. Buy
him off feller last month. Light draft
little motor-boat. Crawl right over
shallows. Get us up to camps quick.
Fine! Beat canoe all hollow. Stay
here tonight, and start up stream at
daylight. Hungry? Mis’ Queal she
cook supper. All ready now. We go
in and eat.” i
At daylight Joe routed them out.
The motor-boat proved all he had
claimed for it in the matter of scrap- |
ted Still River. By noon they reached |
Nylan’s camp—a big shack and a!
smaller one at a picturesque spot
where a bend of the river made a long
point with high banks, ;
They unloaded the boat and carted |
the stuff up the steep bank. John Ny- !
lan might have been twenty instead of
three times that age. Up and down
the slope they went at a pace that had
both Hugh and Joe Queal puffing for
breath, but grimly holding the pace
the older man set for them. And in |
this work Nylan discovered he had
left behind one of his gun cases. In
it was a pump-gun he particularly
wanted to try out. :
“I go back and get him; right off,
now,” Joe suggested. :
“Let’s get the camp open first,” said
Nylan. “Better wait ’til tomorrow,
' Joe.”
So they went on with the rest of the
unloading. Nylan weighted himself
down like a packhorse. “Race you up
the bank,” he challenged Hugh. i
“You're on!” Hugh shouldered an
equal load.
Hugh did his best, but it was a dead
heat. |
“This won’t do. You ought to beat
me without half trying. You’re soft,”
Nylan taunted him.
“I’ve let myself go lately more than !
I realized,” said Hugh between puffs. |
“This shows me up. No wind.” i
They proceeded to help Joe get the !
shutters off and the shack aired out
and the bunks made up and firewood |
cut. John Nylan seemed tireless. The |
sun went down behind the trees. The |
first stars were dimmed by haze. After
supper all the stars had disappeared. |
|
A late thunderstorm flickered on the !
clouds to the east. |
In the morning it was cloudy. Rain |
threatened momentarily but none |
came. Joe, off in the motor-boat at |
daybreak, had left a fire in the stove, |
a pot of coffee simmering, and a pan
of corn bread ready for the oven.
“Afraid of getting wet, Hugh?”
Nylan inquired after breakfast. i
“Not I. Why?” |
“Let’s go over to Burnt Swamp to-
day and have a crack at the part-
ridges.”
“That sounds good to me.” i
“It’s a long way. We'll take the ca- |
noe and paddle up to the Forks. Then
it’s three miles or so through under-
brush, and pretty tough going to the
edge of the swamp.”
“Tough going won’t trouble me if
there’s some good shooting at the oth-
er end of it.”
“Show you partridges what is, over
in that swamp, Hugh.”
They got a canoe out of the smaller
shack. It proved a long paddle to the
point where Still River divided into
the North and South Forks. Nylan
poked hither and yon in the under-
brush. It was the thickest under-
brush Hugh had ever encountered.
“There’s an old trail leading over to
the edge of the swamp.” Nylan ex-
plained. “It’s not much of a trail, not
very well defined. But it’s by far the
easiest way through this amateur
jungle. Where the dickens is it, any-
way?”
More thrashing about. “Here we
are! This must be it. This way,
Hugh!”
He struck off to the west. Hugh
stumbled after him. What it was
that marked the trail they were sup-
posed to be following Hugh could not
discover. It seemed to him they were
plowing through underbrush that
rew thicker the farther they went.
But Nylan seemed sure of his route.
He went straight ahead for an hour
gra a half, and another hour on top of
that.
“Ought to be hitting the swemp by
this time, sure” Nylan said a‘ last.
“Where is the blamed thing, anyway?"
Who has moved it?”
“You can’t lay it to me,” said Hugh.
“This is my first appearance here, so
I didn’t touch it.”
They came to a small open space in
the underbrush.
“This is a good place to have lunch,”
the older man suggested.
“Lord knows we've waited long
enough for it,” said Hugh.
Hugh was hungry. He went at
that lunch as if he had not known a
I
square meal for a week. Nylan, how- across from him was the framework
' ever, ate sparingly. He did not seem ' of an unfinished house and five dogs
| at all hungry. What suprised Hugh | barking like mad. And Joe Queal,
{ was to see him carefully wrap up all ' tumbling over the dogs as he slid
that was left of the meal and tuck it | down the opposite bank to a motor-
into his pocket. boat, scrambled into it, turned over
“What's the idea?” he asked Nylan. { the engine and headed across the
“We'll be late getting back. This stream. S
‘snack might come in handy,” was the | Three minutes later Joe was lifting
reply. { Nylan into the boat, and Hugh Kane
“We'll be late all right if we don’t | was dragging himself wearily aboard.
hit your wonderful swamp mighty | ‘What's happened? For the love
' soon,” said Hugh. {of heaven, what’s happened?” Joe
| “We won't hit it to-day at all. It’s! was sputering. “Mist’ Nylan say to
nearly two o’clock now. We wouldn’t me, says he, ‘Joe, if we happen to be
i have time for any shooting after we away from camp two days, t’ree days,
got there. We'll try it again to-mor- | don’t you worry, Joe,’ he says. It’s
i row, perhaps. It’s a long paddle back ; all right, Joe. You wait, and don’t
to camp and it’s some little jaunt to | you worry.” So I don’t worry for two
‘the place at the Forks where we left | days nor for tree days; but four days,
, underbrush.
the canoe. We'll hit the trail back.”
Hugh looked at him closely for a
moment. But he made no comment.
Presently they were fighting a way
through the underbrush again. And
then 2ll at once they were out of the
Before them was a
stretch of much easier traveling.
They had crossed no such stretch of
open going on their way in. Soon
after they came onto a pond with
sandy shores. They had seen no such
pond before that day. Hugh noticed
his guide seemed a bit nonplused.
“This isn’t the way we came from
the river,” he said.
“We've swung a little to the south,
I imagine.”
“Off the trail 7”
“Little to the south of it, as I say.”
“It doesn’t seem to me we're headed
for the Forks at all.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Seems to me we're headed in the
opposite direction just at present.”
“Leave it to me, Hugh. Your sense
of direction is all off.”
They skirted the little pond. Then
they tramped miles through thick
underbrush. It began to grow dusky.
And then it rained a little. Hugh
took a look at his watch. If it had
taken them two hours and a half to |
reach the little clearing where they
had eaten lunch, they should have
reached the Forks an hour ago.
Nylan plunged on, breaking a trail
through the underbrush. It began to
grow dark rapidly.
“Might just as well stop right here
we?” Hugh said at last.
. Nylan turned sharply. He grinned
in sheepish fashion.
“No sense trying to keep up the
bluff any longer, I see,” he admitted.
“How long have you known it?”
“Ever since I saw the expression on
your face when that pond popped up
in front of us.”
“You're right, Hugh. I've got all
balled up somehow. We're lost.”
It was beginning to rain hard.
They built a fairly tight shelter
under a big fir. They started a fire
with dead stuff close at hand and by
its light collected a goodly pile of
more dead limbs. Their evening meal
was an insufficient taste apiece of the
scanty remains of lunch.
“I should have left word at the
camp where we were going,” Nylan
lamented. “Then Joe would have
followed us and found us and got us
out. Now he won’t have the slightest
idea where we have gone.”
“You ought to be pretty familiar
with the general lay of this country
up here,” said Hugh.
“Today’s experiences proves just
about how trustworthy I am.”
“Well, what general direction
should we travel 7”
“Bast.”
They slept snugly enough that
night in the shelter they had built
under the fir. They slept soundly,
too, for they were both worn out with |
the long tramp. The first gray day-
light found Nylan awake and arous-
ing Hugh. Breakfast was half a ba-
con sandwich apiece.
They examined the bark on the
trees. If it was thicker on the north
| side, then north was a variable direc-
tion; for, to them, on one tree the
bark would seem thicker on one side
and on another tree it would seem
thicker on the opposite side. They
finally struck out in the direction Ny-
lan felt surest was east.
Just before noon they got two part-
ridges in a cedar swamp they were
wallowing across. They had one
plucked and spitted over a fire before
it was cold.
It rained all day. Soaked to the
skin, cold, tired, they pushed on.
again they built a shelter at dusk, and
a great fire, close to which they man-
aged to get themselves fairly dry.
Morning came clear and frosty
after the rain. They knew by the sun
i they must have been traveling west
for the past two days. Now they set
out in an easterly course.
A course due east would bring
them to Still River, Nylan maintained.
The rest was simple. They would
follow either upstream to the camp
or downstream to Joe Queal’s place,
whichever they should decide would
be nearer when they came out on the
stream.
But Still River did not put in an
appearance in accord to this reckon-
ing. All that day it eluded them, and
for the next three days also.
On that last day Nylan went down,
and refused to get up again.
“Go on!” he mumbled. “Go on
I can’t take another step.”
Hugn stooped. He was pretty far
gone himself, but he managed to get
the other man across his shoulders.
“Don’t be a fool,” Nylan grunted.
“You can’t make it with me on your
back. Alone maybe you can. Then
you can send ‘em out to find me.
Lemme rest. Put me down. Do you
hear?”
“Be quiet!” Hugh snarled.
He lurched on with his burden.
Still River surely must be just ahead; '
maybe just beyond that clump of hem-
locks; well, then surely behind those
dead cedar stumps with the bark peel-
ing off them. He felt light-headed
and overpoweringly drowsy by turns.
Then he was sure he couldn’t go an-
other ten paces. He had no idea how
long he plodded on like this nor how
ar
And then all at once he was aware
Fe was listening to a dog barking.
There was a shimmer of water
through the trees. Hugh Kane
shouted. He tried to run, stumbled,
struck his shoulder against a tree
trunk, gave the burden on his back a
hitch and a hoist, and went on.
He was out of the woods, on the
gravelly bank of a river. Directly
five days, that’s all different. I go
| up-stream and find cance on the bank
iat the Forks. And I find footprints
in the mud. I go way in. I holler.
iI yell. I go in further toward Burnt
{ Swamp. But I don’t hear no one
{ answer. Then I lose trail. Come
| back here quick to get dogs to pick
| him up again. I’m just ready to start
{back with dogs when someone yells.
! And I look across Big Otter and I see
you—"
The voice seemed to recede. Hugh
Kane toppled sideways into the bot-
tom of the motor-boat.
| He awakened in one of Joe Queal’s
four rooms. He had no memory of
getting into that bed. It seemed to
i be early afternoon. Savory odors
drifted in from the kitchen. He got
up and dressed, and as he was dress-
ing Joe Queal’s words spoken to the
accompaniment of the motor-boat’s
chugging engine came back to him.
| . At the sight of him in the kitchen
doorway, a ministering angel, dumpy
in shape, Kerry-born and proud of it,
began wisking things off the stove.
Joe presently came poking in from
| outside. Hugh Kane beckoned to him,
‘and as he stowed away the things Mrs.
| Queal whisked from the stove he
| asked Joe many questions, and Joe
‘ stolidly answered them. Thus he ver-
ified those words of Joe’s that had
come back to him as he dressed.
Jd ohn Nylan, it seemed, was up be-
fore him, fed ‘to repletion and smok-
ing a meditative cigar on the front
steps. Thither Hugh betook himself
ing over the shallow bars which dot- 8 anywhere for the night, hadn't | When at last Mrs. Queal’s viands be-
gan to pall.
“How are we?” said Hugh.
“Fine. Little stiff, but nothing
‘serious. And outside that stiffness,
immense. And you?”
“Same here!”
“Cigar, Hugh?”
Hugh took it, lighted a match, and
scorched his fingers with the flame of
it by staring overlong at John Nylan
on the steps.
“So you knew where we were all
the time, did you?” said Hugh.
John Nylan started.
“I did not,” said he. “What put
that idea into your head ?”
“Something Joe Queal said.”
“You're on the wrong tack. Most
decidedly I did not know where we
were after that cussed little pond
showed up.”
“Let’s put it another way, then.
You weren’t surprised when we found
we were lost.”
“On the contrary, I was; and scar-
ed stiff as well.”
“Look here, didn’t you intend to
get lost?”
“Not so darned much in earnest.
You see, I overdid it. The imitation
became the real thing.”
Hugh Kane’s narrowed eves and
the slight tightening of his lips de-
manded full explanation.
“If you're going to lend a man fifty
thousand dollars, Hugh, it's a good
idea to know what kind of a man he
iis. Sometimes fifty thousand might
make a man; and another time it
might prove the worst thing in the
world for him. Besides, there was
Peggy.”
“I see.”
“You get the fifty thousand, all
right, boy.”
Hugh Kane blew a great fog of
smoke from the cigar.
“Keep your fifty thousand!” he
said.
“Huh 2
“Don’t want it.”
“What ?”
‘Wouldn’t take it under any consid-
eration. If I can get us out of a
scrape like this one you got us into, I
think I can pull myself out of a
measly little business difficulty with-
out anybody’s help.”
John Nylan became absorbed in a
flock of crows, low-winging it south-
ward just above the tree tops.
. “Hanged if I haven’t done a better
job than I meant to,” he mused, ap-
parently addressing the crows. With
his eyes still upon them he reached
out to pat the nearest knee of the
young man beside him.
‘Atta boy, Hugh!” the rumbling
voice purred its softest. ‘’Atta boy!”
—By Barker Shelton, in American
Magazine.
New Pneumonia Serum May Cut.
Deaths One-Half.
Boston—Discovery of a new treat-
ment for pneumonia in the form of an
improved serum which it is thought
may reduce the death rate from this
disease by 25 or possibly 50 per cent.,
was described by Dr. Lloyd D. Felton,
assistant professor of preventive med-
icine at the Harvard medical school,
in an address at the New England
Health institute.
The treatment consisted, he said, of
a method of precipitating and concen-
trating the antidotes in anti-pneumo-
coccus serum. The original serum,
which has been known for some time,
was weak, he added, and its value was
diminished by the fact that it produc-
ed violent reactions in the form of
chills, serum sickness and rashes.
Doctor Felton said he had been able
to eliminate the harmful substances
from the serum.
Asr——————— A ————
Judged by His Hat.
Bishop Kinsolving, of Virginia, had
two sons who were bishops. One of
them, George Kinsolving, was the
bishop of Texas. With his clerical at-
tire, the Texas bishop affected the
large sombrero hat.
A small boy meeting him on the
street one day in Richmond, stopped
him eagerly, inquiring:
“Are you Buffalo Bill 7”
“No, sonny,” replied the bishop,
“I'm Texas George.”