> The Real an By FRANCIS LYNDE | tiustrations by IRWIN ERS | EY aa Copyright by Chas. Scribner's Sons CHAPTER Xl!l—Continued. a} Cin nation which had so radically changed clast of an agnostic century could. But the flagstoned porch with Corona for his companion, there were phenomena apparently unexplainable on any pure- ly material hypothesis, “I am sure I have much less than half of the curiosity that women are said to have, but, really, I do want to know what dreadful thing has hap- High Line offices this morning— mamma and 1” was the way in which cur: and Smith started so nervously that he dropped his pipe. “You can be the most unexpected person, when you try.” he laughed, but the laugh scarcely rang true. “What makes you think that anything has happened 7” “I don’t think—I know,” the small “You've been telling us in all sorts of dumb ways that you've had an upset- ting shock of some kind; and I don't believe it's another lawsuit. Am I right, so far?" “IT believe you are a witch, and it's a the Salem period,” he rejoined, “They would have hanged you to moral certainty.’ “Then there was something?” queried; adding, jublilantly: “I knew ime “Go on,” said the one to whom it had happened; “go on and tell me the rest of it.” color of her eyes and hair.” “Wha-what!? the ejaculation was fairly jarred out of him and for the moment he fancied he could feel a cool The clairvoyant who did not claim to be a professional was laughing softly. “You told that a in was adorable in the exact in which she could afford to be visibly transparent ; , you said ‘afford,’ and I've been holding it against you, Now I'm going to pay you back. You are the transparent this time. You have as good as admitted that the ‘hap- pening’ thing isn’t a man; ‘wha-what' always means that, you know; so it must be a woman. Is it the Miss Rich- lander you were telling me about not long ago?" There are times when any mere man may be shocked into telling the truth. and Smith had come face to face with one of them. “It is,” he said. “She is in Brewster?’ “Yes. She came this evening.” “And you ran away? That was hor- ribly unkind, don’t you think—after she had come so far?” “Hold on,” he broke in. “Don't let's go so fast. I didn't ask her to come. And, besides, she didn't come to see me.” “Did she tell you that?” “I have taken precious that she shouldn't have the chiince, me once degree Ve one, good care I morning by way of the dam, making the long detour count for as much as possible in the matter of sheer time- killing, It was a little before noon | when he reached town by the round- about route, and went to the hotel to reconnoiter, The roomclerk who gave him his key gave him also the informa- tion he craved. “Mr. Richlander? Oh, yes; he left | early this morning by the stage. in the range beyond Topaz. gentleman, Smith?” “The name seemed familiar when I saw it on the register last evening” wns Smith's evasion; “but it is not such a very uncommon name, He didn't say when he was coming back?” “No Smith took a fresh hold upon life { and liberty. | ously narrow in some respects, it is | comfortably broad in others, and a | danger once safely averted is a danger lessened. {in the grillroom, the fighting manager to the private suite in the Kinzie build- | ing offices into which he had lately moved and once more plunged into the business battle, Notwithstanding a new trouble { which Stillings had wished to talk over {with his president and the financial | manager the night before—the claim set up by the dead-and-gone railroad | fices and went across the street to the | hotel, Hophra House was on the ground floor, | The room was well filled, but the head waiter found Smith a small table in the shelter of one of the pillars and brought him an evening paper. Smith gave his dinner order and be- gan to glance through the paper. The subdued chatter and clamor of the big room dinned pleasantly in his ears. Half absently he realized that the head waiter was seating someone at the place opposite his own; then the faint odor of violets, instantly reminiscent, came to his nostrils, He knew In- stinctively, and before he could put the newspaper aside, what had hap- pened. Hence the shock, when he found himself face to face with Verda Rich- ing as it might have been. She was looking across at him with a lazy smile in the glorious brown eyes, and the surprise was quite evidently no sur- | prise for her. here,” she explained; and then, quite i nt the dam—the battle was progress ing favorably. Williams was plishing the incredible in the matter | of speed, and the dam was now nearly {ready to withstand the stresses when they should come, powerhouse was rising rapidly, accom the East. Altogether things were look- period since the hasty reorganization. Smith attacked the multifarious details of his many-sided job with returning energy. If he could make shift to hold on for a few days or weeks longer. . . . While Smith was dictating the final | rapher a young man with sleepy eyes { and yellow creosote stalns on his fin | gers came in to ask for a job. Smith ! put him off until the correspondence ing. “What kind of work are you looking { for?" was the brisk query. “Shorthand work, if I can get said the man out of a job. Smith was needing another stenog- rapher and he looked the | over appralsingly. The appraisal was | not entirely satisfactory. There was a it" opened eyes, and the rather weak chin { hinted at a possible lack of the dis- creetness which is the prime requisite in a confidential clerk. “Any business experience?” “Yes; I've done some railroad work." “Here in Brewster?” Shaw lied smoothly. Omaha.” “Any recommendations? “No; in of “To Whom It May Concern” letters, They were all on business letterheads, and were apparently genuine, though none of them were local. Smith ran them over hastily and he had no means of knowing that they had been care- fully prepared by Crawford Stanton at no little cost in ingenuity and painstak- ing. How careful the preparation had | ready suggestion. “You can write or wire to any of these gentlemen,” he said; “only, if there is a job open, I'd be glad to go to work on trial” The business training of the present makes for quick decisions. Smith time 1 remembered that I could prob- ably get a bite to eat out here.” “You are queer! All men are a little queer, I think—always excepting colo- nel-daddy. Don't you want to see her?” “Indeed, I don’t!” “Not even for old times’ sake?” “No: not even for old times’ sake. I've given you the wrong impression completely, if you think there is any obligation on my part. It might have drifted on to the other things In the course of time, simply because neither of us might have known any better than to let it drift. But that's all a back number, now.” “Just the same, hor coming shocked you.” “It certainly did,” he confessed sober- ly: and then: “Have you forgotten what I told you about the circumstances under which I left home?” “Oh!” she murmured, and as once before there was a little gasp to go with the word. Then: “She wouldn't ~ghe wouldn't—" “No,” he answered; “she wouldn't; but her father would.” “So her father wanted her to marry the other man, did he?” Smith's laugh was an easing of strains, “You've pumped me dry,” he returned, the sardonic humor reassert- ing itself. A motorcar was coming up the drive- way. It was high time that an inter ruption of some sort was breaking in, und when the colonel appeared and brought Stillings with him to the loung- ing end of the porch, a business confer. ence began which gave Miss Corona an excuse to disappear, and which ae counted easily for the remainder of the wwening. “And You Ran Away?” snapped a rubber band around the let- his desk, “We'll give you a chance to show what you can do,” he told the man out of work. “If you measure up to the requirements, the job will be perma- nent. You may come in tomorrow morning and report to Mr. Miller, the chief clerk.” Having other things to think of, Smith forgot the sleepy-eyed young fel- low Instantly. But it is safe to assume incident so readily if he had known that Shaw had been waiting in the anteroom during the better part of the dictating interval, and that on the de- parting applicant's cuffs were micro. scople notes of a number of the more important letters, CHAPTER XII “Sweet Fortune's Minion” It was late dinnertime when Smith closed the big roll-top desk in the new ol | i | “But You Believe Me Guilty, Youll” Don't pleasantly: “It Is an exceedingly little world, isn't it, Montague?” He nodded gloomily. “Much too little for a man to hide in,” he agreed; adding: | at least, that it would be only a ques- | tion of time.” After the waiter had Richlander's order she began again {| “Why did you run away?" Smith shrugged his shoulders help lessly. “What else was there for me to do? Besides, 1 believed, at the time, that 1 had killed Dunham. I could have sworn he was dead when I left him." She was toying idly with the salad- | fork. “Sometimes I am almost sorry | that he wasn't,” she offered. saying that you were enough to wish to see me hanged?” he suggested, with a sour smile. “It wasn't altogether that: no” There was a pause and then she went on: “I suppose you know what has been happening since you ran away-— what has been done in Lawrenceville, 1 mean?” ward out for me. It's two thousand dollars, isn't it?” She let the exact figure of the re | ward go unconfirmed. “And still you are going about in public as if all the hue and cry meant nothing to you?! The beard is an lm- | provement—it makes you look older | and more determined—but it doesn't disguise you. I should have known you anywhere, and other people will.” Again his shoulders went up. “What's the use? he sald “I couldn't dig deep enough nor fly high found me, and if you hadn't, somebody else would have, the same any time and anywhere.” | “I was intending to go on up to the mines with father,” she said evenly. “But last evening, while I was waiting for him to finish his talk with some mining men. I was standing in the mez- zanine, looking down into the lobby. I saw you go to the desk and leave your key: I was sure I couldn't be mista- ken : so I told father that I had changed my mind about going out to the mines and he seemed greatly relieved. He had been trying to persuade me that 1 would be much more comfortable if I ' should wait for him here,” | It was no stirring of belated sentl- ment that made Smith say: “You you cared enough to wish to see me?” “Naturally,” she replied. “Some peo- ple forget ently: others don’t. I sup- pose I am one of the others.” Smith remembered the proverb about a woman scorned and saw a menace | more to be feared than all the terrors of the law lurking in the even-taned rejoinder, It was with some foolish {dea of thrusting the menace aside at any cost that he said: “You have only to send a ten-word telegram to Sheriff Macauley, you know, I'm not sure that | it isn't your duty to do 80." “Why should you telegraph Barton Macauley?’ she asked placidly. “I'm not one of his deputies.” “But you believe me guilty, don't you?” The handsomesshoulders twitched in | the barest hint of indifference. “As 1 { have sald, I am not in Bart Macauley’'s | employ—nor in Mr. Watrous Dun- 'ham's. Neither am I the judge and jury to put you in the prisoner's box and try you. I suppose you knew what you were doing, and why you did it, But I do think you might fave written me a line, Montague. That would have been the least you could have done.” For some time afterward the talk i i apparently enjoying her dinner, Smith and as a matter of routine, It was not had never been dropped. but I can’t say as much for father. vanish, That is a future, however.” Smith's laugh was brittle, “We'll leave It a future, If you Uke, { % i President Will Take High Rank as Statesman. Even His Most Bitter Political Op- ponents Must Admit Him to Be a Figure of Exceptional Intel. lectual and Moral Power. If a man could sit down today and thereof.’ "” | you?” | “No; you know I didn't mean that; I merely mean that it's no use crossing | the bridges before we come to them. | Pve been living from day to day so { long now, that I am becoming hard- | ened to it” | Again there was a pause, and again iit was Miss Richlander who broke it, The slow smile was dimpling again at the corners of the perfect mouth. “You are going to need a little help, | Montague—my help—aren't you? It occurs to me that you can well afford | to show me some little friendly atten- | tion while I am Robinson-Crusoed here waiting for father to come back. “Let me understand,” he broke in, | frowning across the table at her. “You | are willing to ignore what has hap- | pened—to that extent? You are not | forgetting that in the eyes of the law {I am a criminal?” . | She made a faint little gesture of im- patience, “Why do you persist In draggis that in? I am not supposed to know anything about your business affairs, with Watrous Dunham or anybody else. Besides, no one knows me here, Besides, again, I am | a stranger in a strange city and we are | —or we used to be—old friends.” Her half-cynical tone made him | frown again, thoughtfully, this time, “Women are curious creatures” he commented. “I used to think I knew a little something about them, but I | guess it was a mistake. What do you want me to do?” “Oh, anything you like; anything | that will keep me from being bored to death™ Smit ' ging and no one cares. h Iaid his napkin aside and glanced at his watch. “There 18 a play of some kind on at the opera house, I believe,” he said, rising and going around to draw her chair aside. “If you'd care to go, I'll see if I can hold somebody up for a | couple of seats.” “That is more like it. I used to be afraid that you hadn't a drop of sport- day. up glad to learn, even at this late that I Take stairs, and we'll go to the play.” They left the dining room together, and there was more than one pair of eyes to follow them in frank admira- tion. “What a strikingly handsome | couple,” said a bejewelled lady who | sat at the table nearest the door; and | her companion, a gentleman with rest | less eyes and thin lips and a rather wicked jaw, sald: “Yes; I don’t know the woman, but the man is C : Baldwin's new financier: the fel who calls himself ‘John Smith." The bediamonded lady smiled dryly. “You say that as if you had a mortal quarrel with his name, Crawford. If I were the girl, I shouldn't find fault with the name. You you don't know her? Stanton had pushed his chair back and was rising. “Thke your time with the ice cream, and I'll join you later upstairs. I'm going to find out who the girl is, since you want to know.” was mistaken, me say CHAPTER XIV. Broken Threads. Mr. Crawford Stanton a little later went upstairs to rejoin the resplendent lady, who was taking her after-dinner ense in the most comfortable lounging- chair the mezzanine parlors afforded. “No good,” he reported. “The girl's name is Richlander, and she—or her father-—comes from one of half a dozen ‘Lawrencevilles’—you can take your choice among em.” “Money?” queried the comfortable one, “Buying mines in the Topaz,” sald the husband mechanically, He was not thinking specially of Mr. Josiah Richlander's possible or probable rat- {ng with the commercial agencies: he was wondering how well Miss Rich- lander knew John Smith, and in what manner she could be persuaded to tell what she might know. While he was turning it over in his mind the two In question, Smith and the young woman, narrowly from the vantage-point af- forded by the galleried mezzanine, drew his own conclusions. little signs they were not merely chance acquaintances or even casual friends, Their relations were closer—and of longer standing. Stanton puzzled over his problem a forsaken the easy chair and had disap- peared from the scene. patient. Who was this fellow Smith, there were Intimations that If Mr. Crawford Stanton were finding his task too difficult, there wus always an al ternative, (TO BE CONTINUED) Sob ——— Curse of Modern Life. To eat what you lke, and all yin like, may be a merry life, but it will be a short one. The curse of modern life 1s overfeeding~-Dr, Frank Crane that loyal Americans of 50 years hence will stamp with thelr approval, It ants and followers might point with pride, It is a thing which none can do and few would attempt; yet the read. ing of great men's characters Is one of the most fascinating employments of the intellectual life, The secrets of the past supply an infallible gulde to the events of tomorrow. Perhaps the man would have held skillfully tl course intellectual neutrality Wilson followed for years, in the face of incessant and ter- rific onslaughts from both German and anti-German Under of this pres insidious, nf lent, resourceful to wh right and necessary 1 1 lished } never lived who resolutely and of external and that President almost three 80 ie sides, the i s wh sure iroit, vio- his resista thought nee in « votion nt he rm foe 1 him in all { did minds as intellectual an The exceeding son's mental fruit In frequent cha This is a fault, If we the rather the first but | it from the point of view experienced in internat in place y ul ot Is a wonderful » especially in the acute is cedented which 1 have come out of the still, conflagration - Whi cool world of us was not? of peace and the cloistered sha the the storms of this awful war and not b been driven of the hil university Into terrifying ave at times into blind pockets which retreat was dy asks for men who We ! ae possible, : never make a mistake, ope their but the true as few th errors may be have the we pray that may for course as soon as they are seen to be “ey grace to abandon them Wrong. Wailing About the Loan, Perhaps the £200) (00 0 have Th Fo A i + loan could been Mm dlpnrna in Park tf out t panting 1 and flabby sot thing ngs ‘ was to has not diracy was : the forthcom- to frustrate stration eXpPect ed We were 0 Marx ime in our cry- Pershing 1s ing training camps wWihili« rance was ing on tseneral in France The feat us while out for n ihmarine was to de- our Com- brought in in little destroyers are In 1 waters id kh to he the pulsion wou ’ to fill up fn filled more than will ment. The business of wailing Is getting a e¢ more difficult day, but there is no reason to suppose that it will be forced into involuntary bank- ruptey. Every cloud has its dark side. There will always be something to nag ahont-—the lack of camp comforts at Plattshurg, or the criminal deficiency in Pullman accommodations for troop transport, or some such excess of the red tape practitioners at Washington But then, without where would democracy bet—New York Eve ning Post. he = every 1isst hee walling, Make War With All Our Strength, Americans love peace, but they would be unworthy their heritage if they did not love liberty more, Only by showing their willingness and readiness to fight—and fight with all their strength--ean a people who love ltherty hope to preserve liberty when ite existence Is threatened, The crisis forced upon this nation by the German government places lib- erty at stake In this land Just as Ger many’s assaults upon other nations have threatened the overthrow of lib- erty In Europe. In this crisis American duty is plain Neither the sinister scheming of pacifists and pro-Germans nor the cowardly cry for a defensive war; neither the anti-Britishism in high places which comes perilously near to being a pro-Germanism, nor the pa- can be permitted to palsy the military arms of the United States, Not an Army at War, But a Nation. The power against which we are ar rayed has sought #o impose its will upon the world by force. In the sense in which we have been wont to think of armies there are no armies in this struggle. There are entire nations armed. ‘Thus, the men who remain to tl the soll and man the factories are battle flags. It must be so with ns. It fs not an army that we must shape and train for war; it is a nation. President’s Draft Proclamation. Druggist’s Experience With Kidney Medicine —————— _ 1 have handled and sold Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp-Root for some time and have heard customers claim that it had pro duced very satisfactory results in differ ent ailments of the kidneys, liver and bladder. 1 have noth ig In favorable reports at hand and my personal opin ion is that there is not anything on the market that will equal Swamp hoot for disease of the kidneys, liver and bladder and 1 know of a physician who is a very strong believer in the merits of Swamp Root. Very truly yours, THE J. M. WATTS MERC. STORE, J. M. WATTS Bept. 28, 1016. Wattaville, Miss Prove What Swamp-Root Will De For You Send ten cents to Dr. Kilmer & Co, Binghamton, N. Y., for a sample size bottle. It will convince anyone. You will also receive a booklet of valuable information, telling about the kidneys and bladder. When writing, be sure and mention this paper. Regular fifty-cent and one-dollar size bottles for sale at all drug stores. —Ady. a - its Play. » hand of fats . The occaslong] use of Boman Eye Ba at night upon retiring w prevent and lleve tired eyes, watery eyes and eye st Adv sam rain arine Life FRECK Now Is the Time to Get Ugly Spoils longer 12 + ES of These need than rie Looe : clear the skin and gai: piexion gure to ssk for gtrength as this is sold under guars f antes © back If it falls 1 remove (reckies ~» the double “Dressmaking Not an Art” That dressmakir is n an art, 1 iabor, was held United States in Bed. I'm going to kill that mosqui- on't Fund John-You think ten Just as 1 doze off? Wife—But they They buzz like a telephone John—Yesx, and buzz, they don't buzz till tion's been made.” be bit. ways buzz first like a telephone the connec Chaparral. A thunderstorm may purify the at- mosphere, but that is poor consolation the man struck by lightning tn who has been Instant Postum A table drink that has taken the place of coffee in thousands of American homes. “There's a Reason”
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers