THE YOUNG MAN FROM
WYOMING
AT EAGLES MERE.
A SULLIVAN COUNTY NOVELETTE.
BY THOMAS J. INGHAM.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
"The second year of my residence there I began to per
ceive the rapid growth of the city, and noticed especially how
quickly the suburbs were being turned into city lots. I then
began to interest myself in the price of lots. I often inquired
the prices and noticed the sales.
"To enable me to get long walks in the suburbs, I rose at
break of day in summer, and had the long mornings for them.
I could do this easily, "for I was in the habit of retiring about
the time other young men were commencing the amusements
of the evening. Near the end of the second year I found I had
saved three hundred dollars, and determined to invest it in
city hits. 1 found some newly laid out lots on the Boston
Road, and selected one which could be purchased for three
hundred dollars. My Wyoming experience had made me ap
preciate the importance of good titles, and before 1 paid the
money 1 required an abstract of the title and had it examined
by a lawyer.
"In the spring following this transaction General Wash
ington was inaugurated President. 1 stood in the crowd on
Wall Street and saw him take the oath of office. While an
event of such far-reaching national importance was taking
place, I ought to have confined my thoughts, perhaps, to the
good of my country; but when I saw Washington standing
there in quiet dignity, with such power and goodness in his
eyes, I said. 'Now we shall have a good government.' Then I
remember that old Dalton had said, 'lf we ever get a good
government them certificates will be paid,' and I thought,
'The good time is coming when I shall get the money for my
certificates.'
"1 have no doubt the confidence inspired by the inaugura
tion of Washington affected others as it affected me; for in
the following month trade was brisk and real estate in New
York took a sudden rise. Some parties who had purchased
lots adjoining mine on both sides determined to put tip a block
of buildings, and wanted my lot. When 1 told them my price
was one thousand dollars they expressed great surprise, and
reminded me that I bought it for three hundred only six
months before. 1 replied that 1 did not buy to sell at the
same price, and would not sell for less than the sum named.
They finally accepted my terms, and 1 got the money.
"Among the first measures considered by Washington's
administration were those relating to finances, and I observed
the very question in which I was so much interested was be
ing discussed. Hamilton recommended, and almost all the
members of Congress agreed, that the certificates evidencing
the taking of property ought to be paid in full; but some con
tended that they should be paid to the original owners and
not to the assignees of the certificates. If this view had pre
vailed it would have robbed me of my farm. I was much
pleased when it appeared that Hamilton's proposition to pay
the actual holder of the paper had been adopted. It appeared
by the act of Congress that interest at 6 per cent, would be ,
paid on two-thirds of the amount of these certificates imme
diately, and on the balance interest at 6 per cent, after the year
1800, with 3 per cent, interest in the arrears of unpaid interest
up to that date. As soon as this act passed there was a great
demand for certificates, and speculators got large amounts
from ignorant people for a trifle.
"It was the same summer that yellow fever broke out in
New York, and the spring which had opened so auspiciously
was followed by a summer of panic and death. All who could
leave the city left it. Business for awhile almost came to a
standstill. All the salesmen in Mr. Golding's store got leave
of absence except myself, and for two months Mr. Golding and
I were able to do all the business alone. Over two thousand
persons died out of a population of less than twenty-nine thou
sand. It was a gloomy time; for people not only felt the im
mediate evils, but feared greater evils in the future. It was
talked that yellow fever would now visit them every year, and
as the seat of government was likely to be removed. New York
would decrease in population. This talk depressed real estate.
The 'bulls' in the city lot business had it their own way in the
spring, but the 'bears' had the lots under their feet in the fall.
I was still firm in my opinion that the city would continue to
grow. Shrewd business men 1 talked with said that suitable
quarantine regulations would keep the yellow fever out of the
city, and the removal of the seat of government would not re
move our harbor or check our foreign commerce. I knew
myself that the Hudson River was a great highway of inter
national commerce, and would command the trade of the lake
country, which was then being peopled. I seized the oppor
tunity to invest my thousand dollars still farther out on the
Boston Road.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
"In the following June I was walking one day beyond the
north-westerly limits of the city. I crossed a deep hollow
and walked around a large swamp. Beyond the swamp I
came to a small farm-house, in quite a retired place. The
house was of stone, and being very old, seemed almost ready
to fall down. The land was in parts very rocky, and the cul
tivated fields had been 'run down' by poor farming. A short
man, rather thick set, with a face of many wrinkles, and a
farmer-like appearance, stood in a field near the road. I said.
'Good morning, sir,' and touched my hat in a respectful
manner.
Good mornin',' he replied, ' 'Asta coined from the city
sa early this mornin'?'
" 'Yes,' I answered, 'just taking a walk.'
Asta bean oot 'ere before?' he inquired.
' 'Oh, yes,' I replied, 'more than once.'
' \\ hat dost tha think o' the land I got 'ere?'
" 'lt lays well,' said I, 'but I think I have seen better
land for farming.'
CALEB CONOVER
RAILROADER
-
Wlho O, ™rA STGRY '<*/> LOVE,POLITICS,INTRIGUER
A RICH &r POWERFUL BOSS (
- AND AN INTREPID YOUNG]
' REFORME:R%
BY ALBERT PAYSON TERhONE'v
- COPYHISMT 1907 BV AU66BT PAVaow.TH<HUwfl
Then, according to the letter, a cha
teau on the north shore had been
rented for the autumn months.
Here the bride and groom had dwelt
In Claude Melnotte fashion for barely
a week when another woman ap
peared.
The newcomer was a singer former
ly employed at the Scala, but now
Just returned from a prolonged South
American tour. Her voice had given
out, and,'faced by poverty, she had
prudently unearthed certain proofs to
the effect that, twelve years earlier,
she had secretly married Prince Ama
deo d'Antri, then a youth of twenty
two.
Thus equipped, she had descended
on the happy pair, and a most painful
scene had ensued. D'Antri, con
fronted with the documents, had made
no denial, but had tearfully assured
Blanche that he had supposed the wo
man dead. Be this as it might, the
first wife had been so adamantine as
to refuse with scorn the rich allow
ance d'Antri offered her, and carried
the matter to the Italian courts.
There it was promptly decided that,
as Amadeo'B princely title was chiefly
honorary, and carried no royal pre
rogatives of morganatic unions, the
first marriage held.
"So I am without a home and with
out a name," laboriously translated
Letty, punctuating her daughter's
written sentences with snuffle and
moan. "What am I to do? Poor Ama
deo is disconsolate, it would break
your heart to witness his grief. But
he cannot help me. Most of our ready
money has gone Into the houses we
have bought and other necessaries.
The bulk of my dot is, of course,
deeded to Aniaedo, according to conti
nental custom, and it seems the poor
fellow's ignorance of finance has led
him to invest it in such a way that
for the present it Is all tied up. I
am without money, without friends.
Helas! I —"
"In other words," Interpolated Ca
leb, "he's got her cash nailed down,
and now he's kicking her out dead
broke, while ho and the other wo
man—"
"I start to-morrow for Paris," con
tinued the letter. "I have Just about
money enough to get me there, and I
shall stay with the Pages until you
can send for me. Oh, Mother, please
make It all right with Father If you
can. Don't let him blame poor Ama
deo. You know how Father always —" j
"Well, goon!" commanded the
Railroader grimly.
"That's about all," faltered Letty.
"The rest Is Just —"
"A eulogy on the old man, eh? Let
It go at that. Now —"
"Oh, what are we to do?" driveled
the poor woman, sopping her eyes.
"And all the —"
"All the splurge we made, and the 1
way our dutiful girl was going to j
boost us Into the Four Hundred?" fin- I
lshed Caleb. "Thank the Lord, it '
comes too late for a campaign docu- j
ment! But I guess It about wrecks !
my last sneaking hope of landing on
the social hay-pile. Never mind that
part of it now. We'll have all the
rest of our lives to kick ourselves over
the way we've been sold. And I'll
give myself the treat, as soon as I can
get away, of running over to Yurrup
and having Friend d'Antri sent to Jail
for bigamy and treated real gentle
and loving while he's there, if a mil
lion-dollar tip to the right politicians
In Italy will do It. And I guess it will.
But 1 can't get away till after this
election business is all cleared up.
And Blanche's got to be brought hom«
right off. Jerry!"
His son's momentary interest in the I
family crisis had already lapsed. He
was sitting, stupid, glazed of eye, star- !
ing at the floor. At his father's call
he glanced up.
"You'll have togo to Paris for her,"
went on Conover, "and bring her back.
Take the next steamer. There's boats •
•oiilnc on most of the lines Wednes
" 'Wheer's that?' he asked.
" 'ln Wyoming Valley,' said I.
A ered o' tliot,' he answered, 'but 'a got brothers in
the lake coontry on better lond. 'A be a-goin' tn goa there
when a can sell this 'ere farm.'
' \\ by do you wish to sell your farm?' I asked.
" 'Look at the waaste land,' said he, 'an' look at the kind
o' soil. It will raise nowt.' .
"Without repeating more of his dialect, I will add that
he informed me his grandfather had got the farm when the
English took New York from the Dutch, and the old house
was standing then. That his grandfather had lived there
many years, and when he died had devised it to his eldest son
for life, with remainder to his eldest grandson, who was the
present owner, lie said he had been brought up 011 a farm in
England, and could not make anything farming such land as
he had here. His brothers had gone to the lake country and
got good land, and were making money while he remained
poor; besides, lie said that swamp made his family sick, and
he expected they would all die of the yellow fever if they
stayed another year. I asked him if lie did not think the city
would spread out as far as his farm in a few years, and make
it valuable.
'Naw, not in my toime,' he answered; 'd'ya moind the
city 'a bean growin' moor'n a hundrred years to git auf 'ere.
and 'nil take a hundred years moor to git 'ere.'
(To be continued V
| days. Let's see, this Is Monday. Gc
: to Ballston, as you were going to
i to-morrow morning. Get that pack
1 from Lanier, and send it to mt
from there "by registered mail. Be
sure to have it registered. Then catct
the afternoon train to New York. Tha'
ought to get you in by five-thirty 01
Hlx. I'll telegraph'Wendell to-night tc
find out what's the fastest steamei
Bailing next morning, and tell him tc
; take passage for you. Hunt him ui
! as soon as you reach town. And sleet
jon board the boat. That'll cut out
! any chance of your missing It. Bring
1 Blanche back here to us by the earll
est steamer from France or England
that you can get. And while you're
In Paris, if you can hire some on the
Quiet to drop over into Italy and put
d'Antrl into the accident ward ol
' some dago hospital for a month 01
two, I don't mind paying five thousand
for the Job. Come up to my study
and I'll fix you up financially for the
trip, and give you that note to Bruce
Lanier."
Gerald heard and nodded assent tc
the rapped-out series of directions
with as little emotion as though com
manded to transmit some campaign
message to Billy Shevlin. His fa
ther, noting the quiet attention and
response, was pleased therewith. And
the latent fondness and trust which
were slowly placing his recent con
tejnpt for his only and once adored
son, perceptibly increased.
As the two men left the room, Mrs.
Conover looked lovingly after Gerald
through her tears.
"Poor dear boy!" she soliloquized.
"He's getting to be quite his old
bright self again. When Caleb men
tioned his going to New York his eyes
lighted up Just the way they used to
when he was little."
All unaware that she had detected
something which even the Railroader's
vigilance had overlooked, the good
woman once more abandoned herself
to the Joys of a new and delightfully
unrestrained fit of weeping.
When at last she and her husband
were together, alone, that night, Mrs.
Conover had some thought of com
menting upon that fleeting expression
Bhe had caught on Gerald's face. But
Caleb was so immersed in his own
unpleasant thoughts she lacked the
courage to Intrude upon his reflec
tions.
Which is rather a pity, for had she
done so, the Inefficient little woman
might have changed the history of the
Mountain State.
CHAPTER XX.
Election Day.
HAIN, which Caleb Conover had
so eagerly desired as a check
on fair weather reformers'
Election Day zeal, began
■oon after midnight, and with it a
gale that is still remembered as the
"Big November Wind." The wind
whips lashed the many-windowed
Mausoleum, and the roar and swirl of
dashing water echoed from roof and
veranda-cover. A belated equinoctial
was sweeping the Mountain State,
driven on the breath of a tornado such
as not one year in twenty can re
cord, east of the Mississippi.
Yet-none of the three members of
the Conover family, sheltered within
the Mausoleum, were awakened by
the bellow of the cyclone, for none
were asleep.
Gerald, despite the early start he
must make In the morning, was still
dressed, and was slouching back and
forth In his suite of apartments, mut
tering occasionally to himself, and at
other times pausing to gaze lifelessly
ahead of him. He shambled into an
Inner chamber, unlocked and opened a
drawer In his chiffonier, fumbled for
a moment or two with something he
took therefrom, then closed and
looked the drawer and returned to the
light. In a few moments the nervous
neaa had died out of his face and bear-
lrig, and with a return of his habitual,
listless air he had resumed his walk.
Caleb Conover, stretched on a camp
bed in the corner of his study, smiled
j contentedly as the rain beat in tor
; rents on the panes. But when the
gale waxed fiercer and the rain at last
ceased, he frowned.
"Going to blow off clear and cold
after all!" he grumbled, turning over.
"And the Weather Bureau's the only
one that can't be 'fixed.' "
But even the shriek of the storm
could not long hold his attention. The
Railroader was vaguely troubled as
to himself. Heretofore, like Napol
eon's, his steel will had been able to
dictate to Nature as imperiously as
:to his fellow-man. Now he had ac
quired an unpleasant habit of lying
awake for hours in that big lonely
study of his, of seeking in vain to re
cover his old-time power of perfect
self-mastery.
He thought of Blanche? Yes, there
was a nice sort of complication,
wasn't it? Another international mar
riage and the usual ending thereof.
"These foreigners can give us poor
Yankee Jays cards and spades at the
bunco game!" he mused, lialf-admir
ingly. "They beat our 'con' men
hands down, for they don't even need
to pay out cash in manufacturing
green goods and gold bricks, and they
don't get Jugged when they're found
out. When'll American girls get
sense? When their parents do, I pre
sume."
Even the .very patent fiasco attend
ant on his one conspicuous effort to
use this relationship as a master key
to the portals of society had not
wholly discouraged him. Later, when,
practically by acclamation, he should
have won the Governorship, and when
the Princess d'Antri's European tri
umphs should be noised abroad in
Granite, surely then
But now there was no question of
acclamation. If ho should win it
would be by bare margin. He knew
that. And, as for Blanche —well, if he
could keep the worst of the scandal
out of the American papers and make
people think his daughter had come
home merely because her husband
abused her, or because she was tired
of her surroundings—if he could
achieve this much it would be the
best he could expect.
Gerald, too; he had hoped so much
from the boy's glittering New York
connections. Now that illusion was
forever gone. Though his son's more
recent behavior had in a slight meas
ure softened the hurt to paternal
pride and hope, yet the hurt itself,
Caleb knew, must always remain.
And that particular pride and hope
were forever dead.
In a quaint twist of thought over
the Biblical story of Job that he had
heard on one of his rare visits to
church Conover, as he lay staring up
Into the dark and listening to the
noisy rage of the storm, fell to fitting
the story to his own case.
"The first message 1 got," he re
flected, becoming grimly entertained
In his own analogy, "knocked over
my plans for Jerry. Then the second
stole from me the only square woman
I ever knew and all my chances of a
campaign walkover. The third
smashed my ideas for Blanche, and
for making a hit in society. The
fourth —well, I guess the fourth ain't
showed up yet. Will it clean me out
when it does come, I wonder, like it
did the feller in the Bible? Let's see,
he had a whiny fool for a wife, too, if
I remember it straight. Yes, there's
a whole lot of points in common be
tween me and him. I wonder if ho
ever run for any office. How was it
all those messages of his wound up?
'And—and I only am escaped alone to
tell thee.' That was it."
After which plunge Into the theolog
ical exegesis—the first and last where
of he ever was guilty- Caleb Conover
turned his thoughts to the morrow's
election, and thus communed with
himself till dawn caught him open
eyed and unsleepy, his splendid
strength and energy in nowise dimin
ished by forty-eight hours of wake
fulness.
It was a tattered, desolate world
that met the Railroader's eyes as he
gazed down from his window across
the broad grounds and over the city
that lay at their foot. The wind hnd
fallen, and a pink-gray light was fill
ing the clean-swept sky. Nature
seemed ashamed to look on the results
of her own violence, for the dawnllght
crept timidly over the sleeping
houses.
And, with the first glimmers in the
east, the people of city and State were
afoot, for history was to be made.
Election Day had begun.
CHAPTER XXI.
The Fourth Messenger of Job.
aIDNIGIIT had again come
around. The election was
long since over, yet the city
did not ring with the uproar
incident on such affairs. For the re
sult was not yet known. The storm
of the previous night had cut off tele
graph and telephone communication
in twenty parts of the Mountain State
Qranlte itself was isolated. Hundreds
of mechanics were at work repairing
the various lines of broken wire and
replacing overthrown poles. But the
work had not yet sufficiently pro
gressed to allow the full transmission
of election returns from the up-State
counties.
Train service remained unimpaired,
save for an occasional broken trestle
one or two of the minor branches
of the C. O. & X. And since nightfall
some of the returns had been brought
to Granite by rail, but these merely
proved the closeness of the conflict,
and gave no true hint as to the actual
outcome. The Granite vote was all
In, hours ago. From the slums and
the dark places of the city's under-
World the long-trained servant* of Uie
" y
Machine nan swarmed to the polls,
overwhelming all opposition from the
smaller and more respectable element,
and had carried Granite tumultuously
" for Conover.
)
t \
The Railroader, with a dozen or more
men, sat about the big centre table.
The Railroader, with a dozen or
more men—district leaders, ward cap
tains and picked adherents of his own
—sat about the big centre table of his
study, an Arthur, somewhat changed
In the modernizing and surrounded by
news, "Conover 7,910, Standish 5,-
495."
"Why don't we hear from Grafton?"
asked Staatz.
"They're patching up the connec
tion now," answered the operator.
"It's the farthest city on the line.
You've got all the rest of the returns
from its county."
"That place is a regular nest of re
formers, from the mayor down," com
mented Bourke. "And besides, Stan
dish won a lot of votes by his grand
stand scrap in the op'ra house there
last month. It looks bad."
"Most reform places do after they've
tried a dose of their own medicine
for awhile," answered Caleb. "But.
we've spent enough 'good dough there
to square the whole noble army of
martyrs. I guess Grafton's O. K."
"Boss," said Billy Shevlin, "you're
the only man in this whole shootin'
match what ain't all hectic over this
fight. An' you're the one man who's
IT or out in th' woolly white snow ac
cordin' to th' way that genial beast of
prey th' free independent an' other
wise bought-up voters jumps. Ain't
you worried none?"
"What good'd that do? Xo use pay
ing twice, if there's anything to worry
about. And if there ain't, what's the
use of wasting a lot of good anxiety?"
Again the footman came in. This
time not with coffee, but with a card.
"I thought I told Gaines I wasn't to
be broke in on this evening," began
Conover, glowering at the intruder.
"Say I can't see anyone. I'm busy,
and —" But he changed his mind.
He had taken the card as he spoke.
Now, as he read it.he said:
"I'll be back in a few minutes, boys.
My New York lawyer wants me for
something."
He left the study and hurried down
stairs to where, in the hall, a man
stood nwaiting him.
"Come in here, Wendell," directed
the Railroader, shaking hands with his
new guest, nnd leading the way to
the library. "What're you doing in
this part of the country? Glad'to see
you."
"I bring you bad news—very bad
news, I ani afraid," began the lawyer
as Conover closed the library door be
hind them.
"I know that," snapped Caleb. "I
knew It as soon as I saw your face,
but I didn't want you shouting it out
in the hall where my butler could hear
you. That's why I —well, what is it?
Tell me. can't you?"
"Your son—"
"Yes, Jerry, of course. I know
that, too. But what's he done this
time?"
"This Is, as I said, a very serious—"
"Good Lord, man! I didn't suppose
you'd took a four-hour train ride from
New York a night like this to tell me
he'd won a ping pong prize or joined
the Y. M. C. A. The chap that's got
to have news broke to him has a head
too thick for truth to be let into it
any other way. Don't stand there
like a lump of putty. What's up?"
, The lawyer, flushing at the coarse
Invective, spared the father no longer.
He spoke, and to the point.
r
"Your son," he said, "is in the police
station on a charge of murder."
_ (To Be Continued.)