WHY PAY-DAY WAS LATE —— By IRVING WILLIAMS iCopyright, by Shortstory l'ub. Co.) "I was a" fool to try it,"the man ranuttered as he dragged himself to !his foet, glanced over his dripping •clothes, and then grimly at the whirl ing torrent from which he had es caped . Suddenly, with nervous fingers, he fumbled about his waist. An expres sion of relief followed the inspection, and he began to walk rapidly down the stream, keeping as close as pos sible to the banks which confined the ■yellow turmoil, and pushing his way 'through the brush and undergrowth -with a sturdy disregard for scratches. Tho man stationed himself at the •spot where the landing would be made, and soon his companion in peril, a strong bay mare, splashed wearily ashore and joined her master with a kittle "whicker" of recognition and sym pathy. Wet and mud-stained, the pair made their way through the undergrowth •until they reached more open ground, Vhen the man vaulted into the saddle and a brisk canter brought them to the road by which they had been trav eling until they reached the flood-swol len creek and their overthrow. Accepting the impracticability of con tinuing his journey, the man turned his horse's head on the back track. Although darkness closed in rapid ly the horse jogged along with the surety of a thorough knowledge of the •way. The man sat easily in the sad dle. Miles had passed without change fin the nature of the surroundings nor a. word of command to the horse when, "without warning, the animal gave a fierce snort of fright and sprang far tto the aide of the road. The man, al imost unseated, recovered his balance Immediately and without further ado threw himself flat against the horse's The Animal Gave a Fierce Snort and Sprang Far to the Side of the Road. neck and dug in the spurs. At a bound the steed regained the road and took the course at full speed. Two riders emerged from the forest •into the road. Each carried a rifle and as they came into the half-light of the path's clearing one threw his piece to his shoulder, aiming at the Cast disappearing rider. "Don't shoot, you fool!" growled the other. "It may be someone else." "What's the difference?" snapped the man, with his cheek to the gun atock, but he lowered the weapon as he spoke. After a brief conference they turned their horses to follow the single rider at a leisurely pace. At a late hour a hatless and be -draggled horseman guided a winded mount as quietly as possible through the muddy streets of a straggling Ar kansas railroad village. There was caution in his every movement. When he reached a certain stable door he opened it slowly to keep the hinges from complaining. When he emerged a. few moments later, having cared for his horse, he was as regardful of the hinges. He tiptoed as noiselessly as heavy, water-soaked boots would permit, across th« back porch of the house that occupied the same lot with the barn. With the same caution he unlocked the door and let himself into the house. He passed through the rooms, peering about intently, seem ingly to make sure that he was the only person under that roof. Completing his careful inspection, he set his lamp on a little cupboard washstand in the only bedroom the house afforded and began to prepare Hor bed. "I'd give a pretty penny to know for •aure what it was Dolly shied at. Must have been a hog," he soliloquized. "If it had been any of the Reed gang they'd 'a' sure shot." "Just so nobody knows I was driv en back I'm safe enough here for the night, but I'd hate to be caught in this corner without a gun." He put 'his hand mechanically to his hip pocket as he had done a hundred times since his escape from the •tream; but the "gun" was gone b«- jcoud all chance of doubt. His preparations for bed were brief, consisting of throwing off his coat and pulling off his boots, socks and trous ers. Setting the lamp, with flame turned iow, so that the light would not show on the window curtains, he turned in without removing his under clothing, though it was still wet. Be fore retiring, however, he again fum bled about his waist with the same nervous anxiety he had exhibited on the brink of the flood and readjusted some bulky object that showed its out line under his shirt, completely en circling his body. He had slept for some time when, his senses alert to every suspicious sound, he was wide awake and listen ing. Unmistakably the creaTi of cautious footsteps could be heard in the room below. He listened, tense and staring. His caller made slow progress. Cer tain progress, though, it was, and toward the stairway leading to the hall into which his room opened. Fol lowing any unusually insistent com plaint on the part of the flooring, all sound would cease for a minute or more. Then, reassured, it would begin again. The man, half sitting in the bed, stared wildly before him, but without seeing. His whole sense was hearing. Perspiration stood beaded on his face and hands. He was filled with fear natural to the defenseless and cor nered quarry. But waiting was not to be tolerated by a man of his disposition to action. He cautiously crawled from the bed and stood looking about the dlmiy lighted room, selecting the most prom ising weapon of defense. There was not much to choose from —a light, cane-seated chair, a water pitcher and wash bowl, the washstand and his boots, besides the lamp. These ap peared to be all that was available — not very effective against firearms. Wait! Besides these there was one more object, but so insignificant—a small bottle of red ink. This last, however, caught his eye and, with al most a trace of amusement in expres sion, he quickly pulled a fat money belt from about his waist beneath his shirt, rumpled up the bed clothing and thrust the belt under the mattress. He next made his way carefully and quietly to the stand and secured the ink bottle, on the way noiselessly turning the chair on its side and pull ing the curtain back as he passed the window, exposing the half-open sash. A broken pane of glass luckily added to the general appearance of disarray he plainly desired to produce. After placing the wash bowl upturned on the floor, taking the pitcher from the stand, disarranging the towel that had been spread neatly across it, he took one further satisfied glance about the room. Carefully then he stretched himself in the middle of the floor, opened the bottle of ink and poured some of its crimson contents on his breast and throat and across his forehead just below the hair. The rest he poured on the floor near his head and neck and then tucked the bottle under his shirt where it would not be seen. He rumpled his underclothing to make it appear to have been pulled aside by the tearing away of the money belt, and finally lay with head thrown back and eyes fixed on the celling, and wait ed. It was a bold bit of acting. Would it work? He did not have long to wait, for, although he had made his preparations as rapidly as possible, consistent with silence, he had hardly completed the tableau setting before he heard muf fled whispers at the door. There was, then, more than one caller. They were deciding on the mode of entrance. The door was a light one, offering but slight obstruction to a strong man. Though aware of this they apparently hesitated before taking so noisy a method. Carefully the knob was turned, but only to confirm what they must have expected—that the door was locked. Another interval of silence and then, yielding to a quick pressure from a broad shoulder, the lock snapped with a sharp report and a man sprang into the room, holding a revolver. He did not stop until his feet almost touched the prostrate body on the floor. In the dim light he made it out and shrank back to the door with an oath. "What is it, Al?' came in a whisper from the dark of the hall. "Someone has been here before us," was the answer, as another man joined him in tho doorway. For a moment the two stood staring in disappointed rage at the red-splotched object on the floor. They took in the signs of strug gle and the open window through which a murderer and robber might have entered and made his escape. "Ain't that hell?" and the other as sented that it was. "We've got no business hanging around here, and the quicker we cut out the better. The other fellow got the ton thousand, but we stand a good chance to get the rope." This was sound reasoning, and a few moments later the callers were riding away more hurriedly than they had come. And that is how pay-day with Land ers' Milling Company happened to bo one day late in the mouth of March, 1903. FASCINA TI ATTRACTIONS OF THIS "QUEEN ISLAND OF THE ORIENT." Place Where Big Game Abounds and Where Noble Architecture and Ancient Arts Can Be Seen ir< Profusion. foreign visitors to Java are far from numerous, and yet it is one of the most interesting anrl attractive places J in the world for the tourist. In fact, J the resources of this queen island of the Orient as regards objects of inter- • est s.nd means of recreation are too j great to be exhausted in a few weeks, I indeed months. There is something , here for every taste. The sportsman ! will find excellent big game shooting ■ in the southern province of Preanger. I The admirer of noble architecture and j the student of ancient art and ancient i civilizations will delight in exploring ! ihe ruined Hindoo temples of Pramba- ! nan and Boro Boedoer. Those curious j about social conditions and the cus- ; toms of primitive peoples will find an inexhaustible mine in the native quar- ! ters, or Kampongs, in the Javanese villages, the Malay communities, the Chinese settlements. Those interested in the political problems that result ! from colonial possessions can study here in full operation one of the most successful systems ihat human in genuity has yet devised, the Dutch residents governing a subject race ! through the instrumentality of native regents. The geologist will grow en thusiastic over the majestic chain of volcanoes, active or quiescent, that ex tends like a monstrous backbone through the center of the island from east to west and provides an unrivaled series of craters for the investigation j of the scientist. At Buitenzorg, an hour's journey from Batavia, the bot- j anist has at his disposition the biggest j and most famous botanical garden in j the world, containing specimens of j some 10,000 species of trees and , plants. And to close this incomplete list of ! Java's advantages, it is singularly ac- j commodating as regards climate, j Thanks to the mountainous character • of its physical conformation and the j different altitudes of its towns and i hill stations, the visitor can select the I climate best suited for his constitution, j In a few hours he may change from ! the tropics to the temperate zone, may j migrate from Batavia to Sindanglaja, j 3,-183 feet above the sea level, or from i Soerabaja to Tosari, at an altitude of i 5,776 feet, and famous for its bracing i air. The visitor to western Java disem barks at Tanjong-Priok. Batavia is situated some six or seven miles in land. The road to it lies through a . richly fertile country, intersected, in I true Dutch fashion, by canals. There | GORGEOUS FISHES FANTASTIC SE\ MARVELS FOR NEW YORK AQUARIUM. Annual Shipment* of Beautiful and Odd Creatures of the Deep Now Being Received for American Public. The summer time at the New York aquarium is a busy and interesting one because of the annual shipments One of the Cans in Which the Fish T rave'. of beautiful and odd specimens of deep sea life from the Bermuda is lands. This the display seems finer than ever because arrangements have been made lo supply the tanks of the aquarium where these delicate visitors are to be kept with pure salt water brought direct from their ocean home The water is shipped from Bermuda in tanks and stored at the aquarium in a reservoir. It will be pumped continually into their quar ters, then pumped out, filtered and sent back to the reservoir, to be re turned again to the tanks. Thus housed in their glass homes filled with the water they are accustomed to In their coral haunts on the Ber muda reefs, it is thought they will live and thrive longer than heretofore. Few of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who annually view the great array of tishes at the New York aqunrlum appreciate the difficulty of keeping up the supply. Of all the in habitants quartered there the most generally admired are the gorgeous tropical fishes from Bermuda, but is something touching in their pres ence here, embanked and bordered with trees as in Holland. Batavia itself is divided very sharp ly into two cities, one Asiatic, the other European; the first, animated, lirty, picturesque; the second quiet; clean, commonplace. The first is where the visitor will find interest; the second where he will find com fort.. The "old town," In fact, is a kaleido scope that presents an inexhaustible variety of interesting scenes to the gaze of the idle visitor. The new town, or "Weltevreden," as it is called, would be insipid were it not so miracu lously clean, so neat, sc comfortable, so "well fed" in appearance. Long avenues shaded by nol>l« trees are ( JB|| \ Beautiful Javanese Lady. formed by big white villas, each one standing in a beautifully kept garden, each one fronted by a cool-looking veranda, which is apparently a favor ite room, for it is always furnished j with rocking chairs and lounges and ■ decorated with pictures, china orna j ments and flowering plants. It speaks i volumes for the honesty of the natives ! —or the awe they l'eel for the Dutch j —that, such easily transportable arti ; cles can be left with perfect safety in I the open road. It is in Weltevreden that the Dutch i and European population reside. One i is compelled to admit that life in such j surroundings must be singularly agree able in spite of the heat. And it is easy to believe the assertion that the Dutch officials at the end of their term of service return regretfully to Hoi ( land, and that the Dutch merchants j never leave Java except for a short I visit "home." ! they are also very delicate. Every j spring a fresh supply has to be | brought north to take the place ol i those which have died during the I winter. Most of these fantastic sea dwellers are captured by the colored fishermen of Bermuda. Their sailboats are of about the size of the New England catboats and are made of cedar grow ing on the island, about the only wood found there. The main feature of the boats is the deep well In the center for holding the fish. The most important equipment of the fisherman is the trap or pot. Every specimen sent to the aquarium is first lured inside one of these. The traps are built up commonly of small cedar limbs and wire netting, securely lashed, and they resemble the ordinary crockery crate, one end being cut V shaped. Here there is a funnel-shaped opening where the fish enter. The traps are about five feet deep. When baited heavily it takes all the strength of the brawny fisher man to lift and heave It into the sea. Among the pictures is one showing a Bermuda fisherman and one of the traps. Out to selected points on the reefs the fishermen satt early in the morn ing, Their boats are of shallow draught, drawing oniy two feet of wa ter, so as to clear the tops of the sunken reefs over which they have to pass. Every boat is manned by two men. The haunts of the various species of fish are all pretty well known to the fishermen. To bag a colony of the dainty and many colored angel fish, the queen trigger, with its long stream ers, and other similar beauties which are valuable for exhibition purposes, the fishermen place special bait, in their traps, such as muscles, tiny minnows, fine strips of the moray, lob ster meat, etc. Most astonishing to the white visitor is the manner in which the fishermen are able to keep track of their traps without using buoys or other anchor markings. They will drop 50 or more traps to a depth of 50 or 75 feet, scat tering them over the ocean bottom for a distance of several miles perhaps, leaving no sign to mark their where abouts on the surface. Yet they are able to pick up the traps again with certainty. The catch is quickly deposited in the well of the boat. After being rebaited the trap is again dropped into the sea. Watching the bringing up of these traps, every one with a different col lection of marine specimens, is a r» maskable and exciting sight. LARUE ENGLISH LOCOMOTIVE The huge engine J'i«t installed in service on the Great Western railway of England is by far the largest iti size and weight of any in that coun try. It is of the Pacific type and is called "The Great Bear." I n like loco motives in this country it is gaudily TALES OF THE RAIL GOOD WORK OF MEN WHO RIDE IN CAB AND CAR. Engineer Leaves Post to Rescue Drowning Boy—Brakernan Loses Life in Saving Passenger Train from Wreck. Fond du Lac. —Bringing his fast, ex press train to a sudden stop to leap from his cab and plunge inio the wa ters of Mud creek, Engineer J. A. Tynan, by a quick swim and dive, achieved a thrilling rescue of a drown ing boy. Tynan is a passenger engineer on the Wisconsin Central. When ap proaching Mud creek, near Hilbert junction, on his run from Manitowoc to Neenah, lie caught sight of the lad seated on the bridge fishing, wholly oblivious to the approaching danger. There was an Instant closing of the throttle and an application of ihe air. but before the train could be stopped the bridge had been passed. The boy In his fright either jumped into the water or was swept off by the train. When Tynan leaped from his engine the little fellow was struggling in the stream below, absolutely helpless. The engine driver plunged down the bank into the water, wading, swim ming, and finally diving to reach the boy, and emerging a few moments later with his victim almost exhausted. The boy, whose identity could not be learned, was placed on the train and taken to Collins and turned over to the care of a physician, while Tynan, alter finishing his run at Pond du Lac, reported the affair in a perfunctory way to li 1 , superintendent. Freight Train Runs Wild. Buffalo, N. Y.—Lehigh Valley engine 703, hauling a string of freight cars, ran wild through the yards at North Tonawanda with the engineer. Henry Mutter, unconscious in the cab. As the train entered the yards a mis creant threw a stone through the cab window and knocked Mutter senseless to the floor. The engineer regained consciousness just as the train was leaving the yard. He lost much blood, but stuck to his engine, directing the fireman how to run it, until he finished the run to Suspension Bridge. Then he went to bed. He will recover. Saves Train; Loses Own Life. Paris, 111. —Lawrence Friend, a brakeman, was mangled beneath the wheels of the Knickerbocker special after he had saved scores of lives by preventing the fast Big Four passen ger train from crashing head-on into a row of freight cars. Friend turned the switch just in time to swing the passenger onto a side-track, but not quickly enough to get out of the way of the engine. He was decapitated and his body dragged several hundred yards before 'j\* -figineer was able to stop his train. Kindly Turn Kills Him. Norristown, Pa. —Doing a brake man's turn shifiing cars loaded with pig-iron in the yard at the Heckscher furnace at Swedeland, John Megilli gan, the yardmaster, aged 35 years, was instantly killed. "I'll take this car to the other end of the yard," said Megilligan to the regular trainman as he jumped on the car. He had not ridden far when he slipped off and four wheels passetl over his body, cutting him in halves. Relic Is for Sale. Who wants an old locomotive? The "Pioneer," the flrst steam en gine to come puffing into Chicago and the forerunner of the pres?nt great railroad traffic of the city, is in the scrap heap of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad's yards at Martinsburg, Va., where it was abandoned after being exhibited at the Jamestown fair. Officials of the Field museum are looking for some historical society that, wants the relic. The locomotive was formerly in the Field museum, but. was sent to the St.. Louis fair and from there to Jamestown. The Field museum has changed its system and now has nothing but natural hlstofry exhibits, so the "Pioneer" is not wanted there. —Chicago American. Caterpillars Stop Trains. Telegrams from Kiev state that there is a plague of caterpillars in many paits of southwestern Russia. In some places the railway tracks are covered by swarni3 of the insects and traffic is being hindered owing to the state of the rails. States Railroad History. Rai'iroad transportation in the United States was substantially 75 years old in 1907. There were »>nlv 32 miles of railroad in operation in 1832, and in the 75 years to 1907 there were constructed 228,128 miles of Operated railroad. : tid, the body, tender and wheels be.ng green, and the bumpers red. Its name is carried over the center driv ing-wheels in gilt letters. The tender carries 3,500 gallons of water and six tons of coal, according to Popular Me chanics. HELD POSITION WITH RIFLES. Early Day Incident of Construction Isn't Likely to Occur Again. Probably there will never again take place such a tremendous railroad bat tle as that which occurred during the late '7os between the Denver & Rio Grande under Gen. Palmer and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, says Ap pleton's. That was a war typical of the early western methods —a battle royal for the state of Colorado. Force and subterfuge counted for more than the mandates of the court. At that time an engineer of one line ongoing to occupy a pass through the moun tains found it already held by a rep resentative of the rival line, backed by a hundred men armed with Winches ters. "By what authority do you occupy this pass?" was the question. "By the authority of these rifles and the supreme court,"was the reply, sig nificant in that the rifles came first. And it was typical of the times. The tale of the struggle for the now £a mous Royale gorge between these two lines, which later spread into a fight throughout the state, is in itself a most amazing story. Then it was that Gen. Palmer, fighting fire with fire, looped the telegraph lines into his house and sat all night listening to hi 3 enemy's plans. Then it was, too, that a since famous westerner in the employ of the Santa Fe held a fort against the Rio Grande claims. But though famous as a killer, the "bad man"was also anxious for money, and eventually the Rio Grande crowd, wiio could not dislodge him by' force, accomplished this end with gold. Romance of this sort is indeed gone, and happily so. But a new romance has succeeded the old. Railroads still differ, but their battles are battles of brains, not of force. The fight is fought with the skill, cunning and sci ence of the engineer and traffic expert, shown in the wise selection of the right route at the very start, and se curing advantages in construction and strategic position which shall be abid ing for all time. Amerigan Locomotives in Europe. Iu the details of locomotive con struction the practice of Europe fol lows later, but surely, the results of experience obtained in the United States —which are the pioneers in the ptoduction of forms suited to large units. In the adoption of the pilot truck, outside cylinders, large boilers, flanged smokebox tube plates, wide fireboxes, sloped front water legs, sloped boiler heads, vertual gussets and diagonal rods for staying the lat ter, American wheel arrangements and the reintroduction of bar frames, Eu rope has learned the fitness of Amer ican arrangements. But not until faced with urgent necessity have the trans-Atlantic forms been adopted, for —and it would be foolish to conceal the fact —European experience of American materials, American work manship and American design of cylin ders, and all that belongs to the mo tion, has been such as to prejudice the mind greatly against American types. The most progressive designers and makers have reasoned that the Amer ican system was good, but that the construction materials or details in the form were susceptible of improve ment. —Engineering Magazine. Locomotive Nesting Place 3. The sparrow which was discovered a few days ago sitting on a nest among the coal of a Great Eastern company's engine running between St. Margaret's and Buntingford has had several predecessors in her preference for a locomotive nesting place. A year or two ago a thrush's nest containing two eggs was found snugly ensconced on the Westinghouse brake pipe of a carriage on an express train which had just returned to York from a trip to Newcastle. The nest, we are told, was "quite warm and comfort able." About the same time a couple of robins built their nest on the axle of a colliery wagon which was standing idle for a few days at Seghill, North umberland. Six eggs were laid, and then the wagon was started on its journeys again. The parent birds fol lowed it all the way to the Tyne, and it was their excited hovering over the wagon which led to an Investigation and to the discovery of their strange nesting place.—Westminster Gazette. Russian Railroads. During the year 1907 the additions to the Russian railroad system amounted to 1,167 miles, an increase of three per cent., bringing up the total to 40, 438 miles. Of the whole mileage, 07 per cent, belongs to the state. At th ■ end of the year there were 1,600 mile.-* under construction, included in which is a branch of the Transcaspian lin* (Asiatic Midland), 118 miles, to th» Persian border.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers