■AM SIO,OOO FOR 100 WORDS. "The Million Dollnr Mystery" story will run for twenty-two consecutive weeks in this paper. liy an arrangement toith the Thanhouser Film company it has been made possible not only to read the story in this paper but also to see it each week in the various moving picture theaters. For the solution of this mystery story SIO.OOO will be given by the Thanhouser Film corporation. CONDITIONS GOVERNING THE i CONTEST. ' The prte* of SIO,OOO will be won by the fban, woman, or child who writes the most tcoeptable. solution of the mystery, from ilfhich the last two reels of motion picture drama will be made and the last two Chapters of the story written by Harold liaoGrath. Solutions may be sent to the Than- Jfousir Film corporation, either at Chicago or Jleno York, any time up to midnight, <Vi. 14. This allows several weeks after the last chapter has been published. A board of three judges will determine ~which of the many solutions received is the \ acceptable. The judges are to be [ Hvrold MacGrath, Lloyd Lonergan, and Mist Man Tinee. The judgment of this Hoard will be absolute and final. Nothifig 'of ffi Jitcrary nature will be considered in nor given any preference in ! 'iJiip faction of the iriuner of the SIO,OOO prize. The last two reels, which will give the most acceptable solution to the mys terj/, trill be presented in the theaters r 'hal ing >this feature as soon as it is pos sible to produce the same. The story eorre nijloading to these motion pictures will ap- PfHr.lj» the newspapers coincidentally, or ai" : ition after the appearance of the pic tures as practicable. With the last two reels unll be shown the pictures of the win ner, "his or her fcomev and other interesting ■features. It is understood that the news •pwpcrs, so far as practicable, in printing the last two chapters of the story by Har old MacGrath, will also show a picture of ihe successful contestant. Solutions to the mystery must not be more than 100 words long. Here are some Questions to be kept in mind in connection with the mystery as an aid to a solution: . i No.l —What becomes of the millionairet ft No. 2—What becomes of the $1,000,000t '■ No.S—Whom docs Florence marry f :} No. 4 —What becomes of the Russian countesst Nobody connected either dir&ctly or in directly irith " The Million Dollar Mys tery" will bo considered as a contestant. SYNOPSIS OP PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Stanley llargrcuvc, millionaire, after a miraculous em-ape from the den of the lt»nit of brilliant thieves known ax the Black Hundred, Uvea thai life of a re cluse for eighteen years. llargreave ac cidentally meets Braine. lender of the Illaek Hundred. Knowing limine will try to get him. he escapes from his own home by a balloon. Before escaping he writes a letter to the girls' school where , eighteen yeara before he mysteriously left on the doorstep hla baby daughter* f Florence Rray. That day Hargrcave nlso draws fI.tMHMMM) from the bank, but .* y It la reported that this dropped Into'thn ■en when the balloon be escaped In waa V t punctured. Florence arrives from the girls' school. J Countess Olga. Br nine's companion, vis its her and claims to be a relative. Two V bogus detectives call, but their plot la foiled by Norton, n newspaper man. » By bribing the captain of the Orient (Norton lays a trap for Braine and hla Ban*. Countess Oign nlso vlslta the Orl * ent's captain, and she easily falls into y the reporter's snare. The plan proven abortive through Rraine'a good lnck and only hireling* fall Into the hands of )> the police. After falling In their first attempt the >■ Black Hundred trap Florence. They ask her for money, but (lie escapes, again • foiling them. Norton and the rnnntesa call on Flor ence the iieTt day, once more safe at y home. The visitors having gone, Jones remove* a acctlon of flooring and from ' ■ oavlty takes a bo*. Pursued by mem hers of the Blnck Hundred, he rushes to v I the water front and ancceeda In drop. _ | ping the box Into the sen. •» | Conntess Olga succeeds In breaking •- the engagement existing between Flor ence Ilargrenve and Norton. I Accomplices cf limine succeed In kld jr Inoplnc Florence while she is shopping >- «nd hurry Tier ofT to sea. She leaps Into the «en and la picked tip In a dazed eon. y flitlon by II party of fishermen. The Black Hundred locnte her, and Bralne, f. dlspilscil as her father, succeeds In tak ing; her back to se H with him. Florence *» «ets Are to the boat and Is rescned by a > iihlp on which Norton has been shang haied. "* ' Norton and Florence, safely ashore „ and with no longer any mlsunderstand between them, take the train for home. The train la wrecked and waltlmc f (members of the Black Hundred carry - the Injured Florence to a deserted hut. -Norton, who tries to rescue her. Is tied to the railroad track*. Florence aavea him and Anally Jones comes to the res cue of both. The Black Hundred recover the hnr Jonea dropped In the ocenn. Br a clever ruse Norton and Jones regain ft. rCopyright! 1014: By HaroM MacGrath.] CHAPTER XIII. AN AGENT FBOlt BTTSBIA'. THE Black Hundred, not as individuals but as an organization, began to worry. Powerful, and often reckless and dar to look about for some basic cause for all these failures against Hargreave's daughter and Hargreave's ghost. They had tried to put the Inquisitive reporter out of the way; they had kid every trap they could tnink of to catch the mysterious visitor at the Hargreave home; they had thrown out a hundred lures to bring Hargreave out of his liar, and failed* and they ha<l lost a dozen valuable men and several ' dollars. This must end somewhere, /and quickly, ••• 70 QO -IT 3 HIS cst^>.»Tl,M :~, The one rny of hope for the conspirators lay in the fact that Florence had never seen her father and knew not in the least what he looked like. They determined to try again in this direction. Hive it all up," said the countess to Braine. " I tell you, whatever is back of all this is stronger than we are. He knows the organization, and for all we know he may be a ghost." I never go back," smiled Braine. " There's something more than the million. Theresa the Sport of the thing. We've been bested in a dozen bouts, and nearly always by a fluke. They have the breaks, as the.v say out at the Polo grounds."' " But the time and expense when we might be getting results elsewhere! I tell you, Leo, 1 m afraid. Tt s like always hearing some one behind you and never finding anybody when you turn. I have told you my doubts.. I have also asked you to trap that butler, but you've always laughed." " Ton are seeing ghosts. Olga. A new mm from holy Russia," shrugging, " is coming to night. Evidently the head over there thinks our contributions of late have not been up ta the mark, and they are going to stir us up. I am willing to wager my soul, however, that that box is simply a hoax to befuddle' us. Either that or it holds the key. Rut the rest of them insist that the box must be recovered. V\ hen I leave this room tonight I am going over to Riverdale and stalk all by myself. I'm going to get a glimpse of that myterious stranger. -.He carries a scar of mine some where, for I hit him that night." The door opened, and the executive chamber became silent. Count Paroff,' boomed the voice of Vroon. " He will present his credentials." This formality was executed as prescribed by the rules ; and Count Paroff was given his chair. He spoke for a while, rather pom pously. " The head organization is not satisfied with itn offspring in this Hargreave affair," he said in conclusion. " You are slow." Then you have come with some suggestions foT the betterment of our business?" asked Braine ironically. Sir, this is not the hour for flippancy," said the agent coldly. Braine made a sign with his hand, a sign not observed by every one. Instantly Paroff bent lowly. He recognized that the speaker was the actual, not the nominal, head of the American branch. " What are your suggestions?" inquired the nominal head from his chair, anxious to avoid a clash between the newcomer and the trucu lent master of them all. " I have been informed that Hargreave's daughter has never seen her father, not even a photograph of him," said Paroff, more amia bly. " We are absolutely certain that this is t'ne case," said the nominal head, who was known a? the president. " Rut we tried one play in that direction, and it failed miserably." " I have the story," replied Paroff. "It was clumsily done. The ruse was an old one." Braine was frank enough to admit the truth of this statement, however much he dislikcl the admission. He nodded. " I lmve authority to take a hand in thus af fair. We cannot waste all summer. Those government plans of the fortifications of the Panama are waiting. There's your millions. But the fact remains that it is the law of the Black Hundred never to step down till abso lutely defeated. The hidden million is but *HE TELEGRAPH, HARRISBURG, PA.. SEPTEMBER 1914. ■ HAROLD MAC GRATH- half; we must find and break this renegade Hargreave." " If lie lives," said Braine. ' Who can say one way or the other?" brusquely asked Paroff. " The fact that all your plans and schemes have come to naught should prove to you that you are not fighting a ghost..- There is but one way to bring out the truth." " And that is to make a captive of his daugh ter,'.' supplemented Braine. " And we have worked toward that end ceaselessly. We are quite ready to listen to your suggestions, count." " And so am I," thought the man with his ear to the little hole in the ceiling above. " And some day, my energetic friend, I'm going tn pay you back for that bullet." . Count Paroff cleared his voice and laid his plans before his audience. "To act frankly and in the open, to go boldly to the Hargreave home and proclaim myself Hargreave. I can disguise mytelf in a manner that will at least temporarily fool the butler." " Who has been with his master for fourteen years, knows every move, habit, gesture, inflec tion," interposed Braine. " But proceed, count, proceed. You will remember the old adage: too many cooks." . " Ah," flashed back the count, " but a new cook ?" Olga touched Braine's crm warningly. "\ou mean, then, that there has been talk in St. Petersburg of disposing of some one?" " A good deal of talk, sir," haughtily, for getting that he haj bent humbly enough but a few moments gone. " Very well; go on." Thought the man at the peephole above: "There's another adage. When thieves fall art, then honest men get their dues. Yes, yes; proceed, proceed!" Paroff went on. " I shall, then, go frankly to the Hargreave house and claim my own. Meantime I leave to you the business of luring the butler away. Half an hour is all I need to bring that child here, to break the wall that stands between us and what we seek." "Is that so?" murmured Braine. "Olga, I want you to play a trick on this handsome delegate at large. I'm not very enthusiastic over his talk. I want him humiliated. AH you have to do, he says, is to walk into the Hargreave house and. walk out again. Well, let's you and I see that he does that and noth ing else. I'll have no one middling with my own game." Some one sneezed, and everybody looked at his neighbor. The sneeze was repeated, but muffled, as if some one was desperately anx ious to avoid sneezing. "It came from above!" whispered Olga. " Don't look up !" Braine WBB cool. He walked idly across tl 0 room to where Vroon sat. " Very well, Paroff; we give you free rein." To Vroon he said: " Some one is watching from the room overhead; I thought that room belonged to us." "It does," said Vroon stolidly. " Then how Is it that some one is watching from up there? No excitement. I'm going to bid every one good-night, then I'm going to investigate. When I leave you will quietly Rend men to all the exits to the building. I want the man who sneezed, and I want him badly." Olga departed with Braine, only she imme diately sought the taxi that brought her and was driven home. It was always understood that when any serious exploit was under way hereabouts she was to make her departure at once. Vroon stationed his men at the several exit* and Braine went upstairs. The man who had sneezed, however, had vanished as completely as if he had worn that invisible cloak one reads about in the I'ersian tales. As a matter of fact, after the second sneeze he had gone up to the roof, got out by the trap, and jumped— rather risky business, too —to the next roof and had clambered down the fire escape of the second building. lie was swearing inaudibly. After all these days of cure and planning, after all his cleverness in Ideating the ren dezvous of the Black Hundred, and now to lose his advantage because of an uncontrollable sneeze! lie would never dare go back, and just wheu he was beginning to pick up fine bit* of information! So Florence Hargreave was gcing to have a new father in a day or so? There were some clever rogues among this band of theirs; but their cleverness was well offset by an equal number of fools. Yes, there were some clever rogues, and to prove this assertion Braine secured a taxicab and drove furiously away, his destination tho home of his ancient enemy. He dropped the cab a block or two away nnd presently stowed himself away in the summer house at the left of the lawn. It would Lave been a capital idea —that is, if the other man had not thought of nnd anticipated this very thing. So he used a public pay station telephone; and Braine waited in vain, waited till the lights in the Hargreave house went out one by one and it became wrapped in darkness within and moonshine without. Braine was a philosopher. He returned to his waiting taxicab, drove home, paid the bill, smiling grimly, and went to bed. Tt was going to be a wonderful game of blind man's buff, and it was going to be sport to watch this fool Pnroff blunder into a pit. The next afternoon Florence and Norton sat in the summer house talking of the future. Lovers are prone to talk of that. As i£ any thing else in the world ever equals the present! The.v talked of nice little apartments and vaca tions in the summer and how much they would save out of his salary, and a thousand and one other things which would not interest you at all if I recounted them in detail. But they did love each other, and (hey were going to be married ; you may be certain of that. They did not care a snap of the finger what Jones thought. They were going to be married, and that was all there was to it. Of course. Flor ence couldn't touch a penny of her father's money. If he. Norton, couldn't take care of her without help, why,, he wouldn't be worth the powder to blow him up with. " But, my dear, you must be very careful," hv said. " Jones and I will always be about somewhere. If they really get hold o"f you once. God alone knows what will.happen. It is not you, It is your poor father they want to bring out into the open. If they knew where he was they would not bother you in the least." " Have I really a father? , Sometimes I doubt. Why couldn't he steal into the house and see me, just once?" " Perhaps he dares not. This house is al ways watched, night and day, though you'll look in vain to discover any one. Your father knows best what he is doing, my dear girl. You see, I met him years ago in China: and when he started out to do a certain thing he generally did it. He never botched any of his plans. So we all must wait. Only I'm going to marry you all the same, whether he likes it or not. The rogues will try to impose upon you again; but do not pay any attention to notes or personals in the papers. You've been through enough. And it was a lucky thing that I was on that freighter that picked you up at sea. I shall always wonder how that yacht took fire." " So shall I," replied Florence, her brows drawing together in puzzlement. " Sometimes I think I must have done it. You know, peo ple out of their heads do strange things. I seem to see myself as in a dream. And this man Braine is a scoundrel!" " Yes; and more than that, he is the dear friend of the countess. But understand, you must never let her dream,or suspect that you know. By lulling her into overconfidence some day she will naturally grow careless, and then wt'll have them all. I think I understand what your father's idea is: not to have them arrested for blackmail, but practically to ex terminate them, put them in prison for such terms of years that they'll die there. When you see a snake, a poisonous one, don't let it get away. Kill it. Well, I must be off to work." " And you be careful, too. You are in more danger than I am." " But I'm a man and can dodge quick," hi laughed," picking up hi* hat " What a horrid thing money Is! If I hadn't any money, nobody would bother me." " I wonld," he smiled. He wanted to kiss her, but the eternal Jones might be watching from the windows: and so he patted her hand instead and walked down the graveled path to the street. - It was difficult work for Florence to play at friendship. She was like her father; she diJ not bestow it on every one. She had given her friendship to the Russian, the first real big friendship in her life, and she had been roughly disillusioned. But if the countess could act, so could she ; and of the two her acting was the most consummate, the could smile and laugh and jest, all the while her heart was burning with wrath. One day, a week or so after her meeting with Norton in the summer house, Olga ar rived, beautifully gowned, handsome as ever. There was not the least touch of the adven turess in her makeup. Florence had just re ceived some mail, and she had dropped the let ters on the library table to greet the countess. She had opened them, but had not yet looked at their contents. They were chatting pleasantly about in consequent things, when the maid came in and asked Florence to come to Miss Susan's room for a moment. Florence excused herself, wondering what Susan could want. She for got the mail. As soon as she was gone the countess, cer tain that Jones was not lurking about, picked up the letters and calmly examined their con tents; and among them she found this re markable document: " Dear daughter I have nerer seen : I must turn the treasure over to you. Meet me at Bin the summer house. Tell no one as my life is in danger. Your loving father." The countess could have laughed aloud. She saw this man Paroff's hand; and r nere was the chance to befool and humiliate him and send him off packing to his cold and mis erable country. She had made up once as Florence, and she could easily do so again The only thing that troubled her was the fact that she did not know whether Florence had read the letter or not. Thus, she dare destroy it. She first thought of WW?' ing the clock : then she concluded to drop' the letter exactly where she had found it and trust to luck. , When Florence returned she explained that her absence had been due to dome trifliny honsehold affair. Said the Russian: "I come primarily to ask yon to tea tomorrow, where they dance. If you like, you may ask Mr. Norton to go along. I begin to observe that you two are rather fond of one another." "O. Mr. Norton is just a valuable friend." returned Florence with a smile that quite deceived the other woman. " I shall lie glnd to go to the tea. But I shall not promise to dance." " Not with Mr. Norton ? " archly. "Reporters never dance themselves; they make others dance instead." "I shall have to tell that." declared the countess; and she laughed quite honestly. "Then I have said something witty?" " Indeed you have; and it is not only witty ■but truthful. I'm afraid you're deeper that the rest of us have any idea of." " Perhaps I am," thought Florence; "at least, deeper than you believe." When the countess fluttered down to liei limoueine—Florence hated the sight of it— and drove away Florence remembered hei letters. And when she came to the one pur porting to Be from her father, she read it carefully, bent her head in thought, and final ly destroyed the missive, absolutely confident that it was only'a trap, and not very well conceived at that Norton had given her plenty of reasons for believing all such let ters to be forgariefl. Her father, if he really wished to see her, would enter the house; he would not -write. Ah, when would she see that father of hers, so mysterious, always hovering near, always unseen? It must have been an amnsin* adventure for the countess. To ateal Into the summer house and, wait there, not knowing if Flo rence had ad-vised Jones or the reporter 1 f caught, »he had her excuses. Paroff. the confident however, appeared shortly after. "My child!" whispered the man. And Olga stifled a laugh; but to him It sounded like a sob. "I am worn out," he said. " I am tired of-the game of hide and seek." " Yon will not have to play the came long." thought Olga. " The money ia hidden In my office down town. And we must go there at once. When we return we will pack up and leave »r Europe. I've longed to see you so!" "You poor fool! And they sent jrou t» supersede Leo!" she mused. She played out the (arc* to the very end. She permitted herself to be pinioned and jogged; and for irhat unnecessary roughness she suffered at the hands of Paroff he wquld presently pay. He took her straight to the executive chamber of the Black Hundred and pushed her into the room, exclaiming tri umphantly: " Her* is Hargreave's daughter! " "Indeed!" said Olga, throwing back her veil and standing revealed in her mask. "Olga!" cried Bralne, laughing. And that was the inglorious end of ih« secret agent from Russia. fro BE ooirrmom]
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers