Sl R THE CENTRE REPOR E& oh i PANY’S PROPERTY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE Synopsis.—J. Montague cuser, of dishonesty by Watrous his evidence of superior intelli- About this time Jaldwin, daughter of Col. Dexter Be CHAPTER VI—Continued. “I was born here in Timanyoni, and you haven't been here three weeks: do you think I'd be afraid to go any- where that you'll go?” matching the laugh; and with that he let the clutch take hold, sent the car rolling gently up to the level of the railroad embankment and across the rails of the main track, and pulled it around until it was headed fairly for the upper switch. motor in the reverse back the car on the and began to siding, the inside of one rail. who had sald she was not afraid. “Wait,” he temporized; a minute and get ready Hke grim death. on that trestle.” He fully expected her to shriek and grab for the steering wheel. That, he told himself, was what the normal young woman would do. rona disappointed him. “You'll put us both into the and smash Colonel-daddy’'s ear, but I guess the Baldwin family can stand it If you can,” she remarked quite calmly. Smith kept on backing until the car had passed the switch from which the spur branched off to cross to the mate- rial yard on the opposite side of the river. A skillful bit of juggling put the roadster over on the ties spur-track. Then he turned to his fel- low risk. “Sit low and hang hands,” he directed. opened the throttle, The trestle was not much above two hundred feet long, and, happily, the cross-ties were closely spaced. 80 a hair, the big cur went across, and in his innermost Smith was saying to his to with both on “Now!” and he recesses “You swab! when you could do a thing like this up in a bunch of ribbon, didn't you?” If Miss Baldwin were she did not show it. Smith jerked the roadster out of the entanglement of go. I don't know anything about the roads over here.” She pointed out the way across the hills, and a four-mile dash followed. Up hill and down the big roadster raced, devouring the interspaces, and at the topping of the last of the ridges, in a small, low-lying swale which was well hidden from any point of view In the vicinity of the distant dam, they came upon the interlopers. There covered wagon, as Martin's telephone message had catalogued them. The horses were still in the traces, and just beyond the wagon a legal mining claim had been marked out by freshly driven stakes. At one end two of the men were digging perfunctorily, while the third was tacking the legal notice on a bit of board nailed to one of the stakes, Smith sent the gray car rocketing ttlown into the swale, brought it to a stand with a thrust of the brakes, and jumped out. Once more the primitive Stone Age man in him, which had slept to long and so quietly under the Law- renceville cenventionalities, was Jjoy- ously pitching the barriers aside. “It’s moving day for you fellows,” he announced cheerfully, picking the big- gost of the three as the proper sub- fect for the order giving. “You're on the Timanyoni Ditch company's land, : nd you know it. Plle Into the wagon rnd fade away!" The big man's answer was a laugh, inted, doubtless, by the fact that the order giver was palpably unarmed, Smith's right arm shot out, and when the blow landed there were only two {eft to close in on him. In such sud- fen hostilities the advantages are all #1th the beginner, Having superior rench and a good bit more skill than either of the two tacklers, Smith held his own until he could get In an few more of the smashing right-handers, but In planting them he took punish- ment enough to make him Berserk- mad and so practically invincible, | legs and bodies, sufficiently terrifying, | ope would suppose, to a young woman sitting calmly in an automobile a hun- dred yards away. The struggle was short In just pro- portion to its vigor, and at the end of it two of the trespassers were knocked out, and Smith was dragging the third over to the wagon, into which he pres- ently heaved the man as if he had been a sack of meal. Miss Baldwin, sitting in the car, saw her ally dive into the covered wagon and come out with a pair of rifles, Pausing only | long enough to smash the guns, one after the other, over the wagon wheel, he started back after the two other | men. They were not waiting to carried to the wagon; they were and running in a up wide semicircle to that might be. and colonel’s It was all very brutal no doubt, but the daughter was Western born { and bred, and she clapped her hands and laughed In sheer enthusiasm when gaw Smith of chas- ing the circling runners. . He did not return to her until after { he had pulled up the freshly driven stakes and thrown them away, and by that time the with the horses lashed to a keen gallop, was disap- pearing over the crest of the northern ridge. “That's one way to get rid of them {isn't it?" sald the emancipated bank man, jocosely, upon taking his place in the car to cramp it for the turn. “Was that something like the notion you had in mind? “Mercy, no!” she rejoined. And then: “Are you sure you are not hurt?’ “Not worth mentioning.” barbarous, she make a show wagon, he evaded guns.” your own expense, { to have you arrested.” “We cross that bridge we come to it.” he returned. gt 4 were back in the country from which I have lately escaped, it wauld be proper for me to ask your permission to drive you safely home. Since won't we and do It anyway.” “Oh, Is that necessary?’ she asked, meaning, as he took it, nothing more { than comradely deprecation at putting him to the trouble of it. “Not absolutely necessary, perhaps, but decently prudent. You might drop me opposite the dam, but you'd have to pass those fellows somewhere on i it unpleasant for you." She made no further comment, and he sent the ear spinning along over | the hills to the westward. A mile The Struggle Was Short. short of the trestle river crossing they overtook and passed the wagon. Be cause he had the colonel's daughter with him, Smith put on a burst of speed and so gave the claim jumpers no chance to provoke another battle, In the maze of trossroads opposite the little city on the south bank of the river, Smith was out of his reck- oning, and was obliged to ask his com- pantan to direct him. to say anything any more,” she sighed, in mock despair. “Take this road to the right” { “I can't talk and drive a speed | twisting the gray car into the road she { had indicated, and he made the asser- ing miles In the preoccupied fashion. There was a reason, of a sort, for his silence; two of them, to be exact. For one, he wad troubled by i haunting sense of familiarity which was still trying to tell him that this was not his first meeting with Colonel Baldwin's daughter; and the other, much bigger and more depressing, was the realization that in breaking with | his past, he had broken also with the same of ever asking one of them to marry him. lof familiarity — when Miss Baldwin pointed to a transplanted Missourl farm mansion, with a columned por- tico, standing in a grove of woods on the left-hand side of road, telling him it was Hillcrest, There was a massive stone portal fronting the road, and when he got down to open the gates the young { woman took the wheel and drove ! through : whereupon decided that it was time for him break away, and sald so. ‘But how will you get back to ths camp?” she asked. my two legs yet, and the the he to “I have walking isn't bad.” “No; but you two men again.” “That is the least of my troubles.’ Miss Corona Baldwin, like the Mis colonel, her father, upon moments now and then when she had the ultimate courage of her impulses “I should have you hadn't trouble in the she asserted meeting his gaze level-eyed. The polite paraphrases of the cof fined period were slipping to the end of his tongue, but he set his teeth upon them and sald, instead: “That's all you know about it. What if 1 should tell you that you've been driving this morning with an escaped convict?” “1 shouldn't belleve it," she sald calmly. “Well, you haven't-—not quite,” he | returned, adding the qualifying phrase in sheer honesty. Fhe had untied her vell and was | nsking him hospitably if he wouldn't | come ifn and meet her nother, {thing in the way she said it, some little | twist of the lips or look of the eyes, { touched the spring of complete recog- { nition, and the familiarity puzzle van- ished Instantly. “You forget that I am a working- i man,” he smiled. “My gang in the quarry might meet those gourt came said world.” will think I've found a bottle And then: “Did you ever a glove, Miss Baldwin-—a white with a little hole in one finger?” “Dozens of them,” she admitted; “and of them had holes, I'm afraid. But what has that to do with your coming in and meeting mamma ‘and letting her thank you for saving my life?” “Nothing { hastened to | bade somewhere,” loge | kid most at all, of course” he say; and with that he her good-by rather abruptly, and { turned his back upon the transplanted Missouri mansion, muttering to him- hind him: “ ‘Baldwin,’ of course! What an ass I was not to remember the rame! And now I've got the half of it, too; it's ‘Corona.’ "” CHAPTER VIL Timanyoni Ditch. Smith had his vote of thanks from Colonel Dexter Baldwin in Williams’ gheet-iron office at the dam, of construction himself was not pres- ent. “You've loaded us up with a toler ably heavy obligation, Smith—Corry's mother and me,” was the way the colonel summed up. “If you hadn't been on deck and strictly on the job at that rallroad crossing yesterday morning" “Don’t mention it, colonel,” Smith broke in. “I did nothing more than any man would have done for any weman. You know it, and I know it. Let's leave it that way and forget it.” The tall Missourian's laugh was en- tirely approbative, “I like that,” he sald. man-fashioned way of looking at it. You know how I feel about it—how any father would feel; and that's enough.” “Plenty,” was the brief rejoinder. “But there's another chapter to It that neither of us can cross out; you'll have to come out to the ranch and let Corry's mother have a hack at you," Baldwin went on. “I couldn't figure you out of that If I should try. And now about those clatm jumpers: I sup- pose you didn't know any of them by name?" ® “No.” “Corry says you gave them the time of tnelr lives, By George, I wish I'd been there to see!” and the colonel slapped his leg and laughed. “Did | they look like the real thing-—sure- | enough prospectors?” 1 “They looked like a bunch of hired assassins,” sald Smith, with a grin. “It's some more of the interference, isn't it?” The colonel's square jaw settled into the fighting angle, “How much do you know about this { business mix-up of ours, Smith?" he asked. “All that Willlams could tell me In a little heart-to-heart talk we had the other day.” “You agreed with him that there was a tolerably big nigger in the wood- pile, didn't you?" “I had already gathered that much { from the camp gossip.” “Well, it's We're just about as helpless as a bunch of cattle in a sink- wns the ranchman president's of the camp “What in the name of the great horn spoon can we do—more than we have | done?” BO. hole” {| confirmation guesses, “There are a number of things that might be done” | back reflectively upon the presumably | said Smith, falling em jes 2 HE “They Looked Like a Bunch of Hired Assassins. ¢ dead part of and buried bank-cashier [ to stay hin. “And If you can mans in the game and play it out, { big money in enough i to make it well for you to i put up the fight of your lives” saving ige there is it for all of you; worth while “Big money?—you mean in | our investment?” “Oh, no; not at all; In cine ther fellows.” Smith Colonel Dexter Bal hat and his his grizzled “Say, I'm quizzically. “But 1 to be stance,” “Th ne hing the 1 iy. soft ran hair. Smith; mustn't he you that from Missouri,’ think this pit smillr 1 yor from your own da thing or the main thing this They are obliged to have this dam site or, at one as high up the river as this, in order to get the water over to thelr newly alienated grant in the western half of the park.” “You've got it straight” | colonel, ; “Very good. Then they're simply { obliged to have your dam, or-—~ Don't | you see the alternative now, colonel?” “Heavens to Betsy!” exclaimed the { breeder of fine horses, bringing his fist | down upon Williams’ desk with a crash that made the ink bottles dance. And then: “What a lot of are-—the whole kit and b'ilin' of us! If they get the dam, they sell water to lus; if they don't get it, we sell it to them I “That's It, exactly,” Smith put in quietly. “And I should say that your stake in the game {8 worth the stiffest fight you can make to save it. Don't {| you agree with me?” | “Great Jehu! 1 | ejaculated the amateur trust E2 he broke down the barriers mas. i shouldn't ‘shown’ in the chance to sel you'd was wm 44] in Case jeast the said i i i i should say sol!" terfully, “That settles it, Smith. You can't wiggle out of it now, no way or You've got to come over into Williams tells shape. Macedonia and help us. fuse me." Do you believe that Smith would be wise in taking an im. portant position with the ditch company-—especially if he really hopes to escape prison as a re. sult of the Lawrenceville affair? Wouldn't he be wiser if he disap. peared from the hew job? sos (TO BE CONTINUED) Resistance of the Wind. Tests on a model of the naval collier Neptune made in the wind tunnel of the Washington navy yard by Naval Constructor Willlam McEntee show that If this vessel were steaming against a 30-mile wind at 14 knots an hour it would require about 770 horse power to overcome the resistance of the wind. This Is about 20 per cent of the power necessary to propel her through the water, sm ————————— A115 to Conscription (Co r— Organized Opposition nspicuously Absent. Country Indicate That Enrollment Of 10,000,000 Quiet Reported Everywhere, Is In Excess More tha; Americans enrolled thems Washingtcn 10,000,000 od service day, with preparation, Registration of military census ever taken in tl completed of consequence States rd withou! uniowa event The e system devised of invoking ery of the naticn ith smoothness fF i * Wf perfec rowder ed w a co-operation tv and Free Yet municipal To Enlist made it clear, how as a bar to enlist officials tion acted wished or nrolled patriotie impulse 1 ranks now and jay ao marine corps Tues bide not himself will pass from the ymatically. A man as to the part of army in ich regulars, National ive army cards mailed by their home the present address of wt he Guard men absent failed to ind{ Many from ghow vidual precincts the Four Arrests Reported. Only fcur arrests were officially re portedt o the Department of Justice-—at Ohlo; Hartford, Conn.; Richmond, Va, and at a small place Louis, Quieter Than Election. Official reports showed that the reg {stration passed without even such ex: Reports were slow in coming into the Department of Jus because it indicated lack of trouble, in view of the strict instructions sent everywhere to report trouble instantly to Washington. Cards Ran Out the registration had to be stopped tc permit the printing of more cards, reg istration exceeding all expectations. In Texas, where the Government's Investigation of the anticonseription activities of the Co operative Association recently led to t nent of ning of men, armed riptione, the growing threats resistance regietration was i ried out withe Cleveland and Detroit reported to t ut a hitch he War Department that registration was not completed at 9 o'clock and the Michigan polis zovernors of Chio and the until] all were each reg. authorized 'o order in city to slay open were igtered In Cleveland a shortage of registra. day, could : printed reg instr cards developed during the until more Were and addr ars 1cted take the cenes of 5 them at t! m No Hint Of Slacking. ration day Regist developments INDIANS RESIST LAW Navajoes Drive Registration Officials From Reservation Navajo on : ise 10 Selective Draft act ng war and costume e t of ihe day dan a x § n #51 dances in pauuve MOUNTAINEERS REGISTER. No Trouble In the Tennessee and Vir ginia Districts. and Tues. Twelve hu in Br considerable Bristol, Tenn nineteen day A the men bility t ndred st registered ol percentage of m lia various Upper and Southwest Virginia in. no opposition whatever the registration. In the mountain sections where {it was thought that there might be hostilities to the registration, it is reported that all men between the ages registered Two hundred members of a local fra i ternal order marched in a body to the polls and registered amidst the cheers of a huge crowd, exemption fire for over claimed 0 military service reasons. Reporiz from Tennessee that dicate thers was to CONVICTS TERRORIZE JOLIET. Fire Buildings and Attempt To Escape Prison, Joliet, Nl. After one prisoner had been killed, eight severely injured and several others hurt during three riot | our outbreaks at the state prison by a thousand convicts, a rainstorm drova the last 200 of the mutineers to the cellhouse, although they had stubborn. iy refused to move before the bayonets of national guardsmen who quelled the outbreak. Fires sat within the prison | buildings destrsyad the prison yard { buildings, entailing a total loss of | $200,000. Several other buildings | were damaged by the flames, The monitor Weehawken was built | in Jersey City in 1862, and in January, | 1863, was attached to the South At [lantic squadron; she was sunk during | the attack on Fort Wagner, in Septens ber. 1863.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers