Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

But an uncontrollable desire for human intimacy is only one item of the oddities of this little beast. As a vagabond of the wilderness he was like other vagabonds there, and got on well enough without any human association. Carnivorous entirely, he cannot be accused of looking for the well-filled granary of later times; he invades no cabbage-patch, and is entirely guiltless of succulent sweet potatoes and milky roasting-ears. His presence in increased numbers among the fields and farms of civilization is accounted for by the fact that he has simply declined to move on. He will not retire to the wilds of the pan-handle or the neutral strip, driven thither by the too copious outpour of civilization. His conduct indicates the just conclusion that he can endure all the vicissitudes of the school-house States if they can, in turn, endure him. Doubly armed, this autocrat of the prairies holds in unique dignity the quality of absolute fearlessness, and, aside from any hydrophobic endowments, is now the chiefest terror of the free and boundless West.

A figure-head seems to be necessary in the conduct of all the larger affairs of life. From this idea have come all the griffins, and the sphinxes, and the St. Georges and Dragons, the hideous caryatids, gnomes, gorgons, chimeras dire, the eyes of Chinese junks, and the wooden cherubs that until later years looked over the waste of unknown waters beneath the bows of every ship that sailed. On the seals of one-half of all the Western States and territories mephitis might figure as the chiefest animal of their natural fauna, and for him might the buffalo and the bear be properly discarded. They are gone: he remains and impresses himself upon the community unmistakably. But mottoes and great seals and epitaphs are things not expected to be governed in their making by anything like actual fact.

It will be conceded that no other beast approaches this in the particulars of his armament. So confident of his resources is he that the idea that he can be worsted never enters his elongated cranium. Though he never uses his phenomenal powers except upon what he considers an emergency, these supposed emergencies arise quite too frequently for the general comfort and piety of his neighborhood. It is said that the little western church never thrives greatly in a neighborhood that is for some reason peculiarly infested by him. Yet it is a remarkable fact that when he visits the farmer's hen-roost, which he often does, the owner, if he came from some timbered country, nearly always lays the blame upon the much-maligned "coon;" meaning, of course, that pad-footed and ring-tailed creature who is credited with a slyness verging upon intellect, but who never visited a prairie in his life. He does this because there is no penetrating and abiding savor left behind--except in case of accident--in any of these maraudings. It is a mere piece of cunning. He wishes to come again some other time. The victims of his appetite, comprising everything smaller than himself in that region, are never subjected to his caudal essences, and a good reason for this would be that he wishes to eat them himself. Those who know mephitis well, and also know this trait of his character, are impressed anew by the mercifulness of some of nature's instincts and freaks.

And here arises the question of a certain occult power apparently possessed by this creature alone. It seems to be established by undisputed testimony that he is the most skilful packer of meats, with the least trouble and expense, known in the annals of the art preservative. His hollow logs have been repeatedly split in his absence, and found full of dead fowls, killed in a neighboring farm-yard, squeezed in closely side by side for future use, and all untainted and fresh. How does he accomplish this? There are evidently various things to learn from the field of natural history which might be turned to the uses of man. To say nothing of the value of the patent, this would be a very useful household recipe if known. The inference is that there may be an occult quality in his strange and characteristic endowment not heretofore suspected.

Our western friend has an extensive family relationship. There are at least six varieties of him in various latitudes. No one branch of the family is believed to have any fellowship with any other branch, probably for weighty and sufficient family reasons; though to the ordinary human senses there is so little difference in the sachet that one cannot see reason for being so particular among themselves. Two of him are very common west of the Missouri--one as big as a poodle and variously striped, and the other of a smaller and more concentrated variety, more active also in his habits. It is the bigger of these two who goes about waving his plume and seeking new acquaintances, as though he contemplated going into the Bohemian oats business among the farmers, and who courts admiration while he spreads consternation. It is he who lies in ambush in the corn-shocks, in the early days of the yellow autumn, apparently for the express purpose, through the media of the farmer's boys and the district school, of informing the whole neighborhood, and especially the little girls, that he is still about. It is he who is borne oftenest, in spirit and essence, through the open windows of the settler's house, causing the mistress thereof to wish, and to often say that she wishes, that she had never come away from Ohio, or wherever she used to reside, and where she declares mephitis to have been a nuisance utterly unknown. It is he who lopes innocently along the railroad track, declining to retire, meeting death without a murmur, knowing, perhaps, that his dire revenge will follow the fleeting train, whose wheels have murdered him, for many a mile, even across the plains and into mountain passes, and perhaps return with it and add a little something, a piquant mite, to the loud odors of the Missouri River terminus. The passengers all know he has been killed, and know it for the remainder of the journey, or else they wonder at the pungency of the atmosphere apparently pervading a stretch of country as big as all New England, and which they will talk about as one of the western drawbacks after they have returned home. It is he who rather rejoices than otherwise at the number and ferocity of the farmer's dogs, and who is indirectly blessed if they have the habit of going into the house and lying under the beds. Then indeed may he fulfil his mission. When they at first, and through inexperience, attack him, he routs them all without excitement or anger on his part, causes an armed domestic investigation of them, and their banishment without extradition, and through them impresses himself upon the unappreciative western understanding.

The little one, the other common variety, is perhaps more rarely seen, but he is at least frequently suspected. Not much bigger than a kitten, and almost or quite black, he lacks the look of innocence and the appearance of docility so falsely worn by his relative. Once they both hibernated: at least the books say so. Now, as one of the changes wrought by the settlement of the country, this small one becomes a frequent all-the-year tenant of the farmer's out-buildings. His battery is quite as formidable as the other's is, and may, indeed, be considered as an improvement in the way of rapidity and concentration, like the Gatling gun. The barn is not always his residence; and without inquiring if it is entirely convenient he frequently takes up his domicile in or under the dwelling. A mephitis in the cellar is one of the Kansas things. He does not, while there, produce any of the mysterious noises that indicate ghosts. The house is known not to be haunted, for everybody understands quite well who is there. But the owner must not attempt ejectment. Peace and quiet he insists upon. You must bar him out some time when he is absent on business, wait until spring, or move to another house. It is the middle one of these remedies that is usually adopted, if any. While he stays, there are no joint occupants with him in the place he has pre-empted. He will catch mice like a cat, and the joy of his life is the breaking of a rat's back with one nip behind the head. He has a most formidable array of teeth, and eschews vegetables entirely. He is the foe of all the little animals who live in walls or basements, or in holes or under stones. Even the weazel, that slim incarnation of predatory instinct, declines to enter into competition with him, and goes when he comes, or comes when the other goes. One of them is suspected, from this fact, of eating the other, and mankind, with the only form of disinterestedness of which we can justly boast, does not care which of the two it is.

The biggest one of the mephitis family lives in Texas, and that empire is not disposed to boast itself withal on that account. He came there from Mexico, possibly on account of his being preposterously considered a table luxury in the latter country. But it is a land of which such eccentricities may be expected. They eat the ground-lizard there,--a variety of the celebrated "Gila monster,"--and some other creatures to our pampered notions not less repulsive; though they seem to avoid, by peculiar management, that quadrennial banquet of crow which constitutes our great national dish. Mephitis is, however, purely American wherever he comes from. Europe knows him not in quadrupedal form. He is one of the things got by discovery, though he may not take rank, perhaps, with the gigantic grass we call "corn," or with tobacco, or even with ginseng or sassafras, or the host of acquisitions which would distinguish us as a people even if we had him not at all. And now that we have got him, we must apparently cherish him; and with our usual thrift we have made many attempts to utilize him. He often appears in polite society under the name of sable, or some such thing, and no odor betrays him. Of the strange fluid, which is one of the most wonderful natural defences ever bestowed upon an animal, pharmacy has concocted a medicine, and the perfumers an odor for the toilet. Yet it must be admitted that one of his chiefest uses, so far, is to furnish the western editor with a synonym and comparative, and a telling epithet in time of trouble. He often caps the climax of a controversial sentence as long as one's arm, and if you take the county paper you need not be long in discovering that while we scientific may call him _mephitis_, he hath another name not often heard by ears polite, or frequently mentioned in the society in which the reader moves.

That other vagabond who may be considered as being vaguely referred to at the head of this chapter has no possible kinship with him who has been desultorily sketched. Yet the two stand together in my mind in a kind of vague relationship of character. I was not surprised at my first sight of a coyote, but he grew greatly upon me afterwards. It was his voice. He is but a degenerate wolf,--the weakest of his family save in the one respect referred to,--but he is an old and persistent acquaintance of every frontiersman, ten times as numerous and prominent in every recollection of that far time of loneliness and silence as any other beast.

If you visit Lincoln Park, at Chicago, you will find a special pen devoted to the comfort and happiness of this little gray outcast of the wilderness; and I may add that he does not appear there to any advantage whatever. On the wide plains where there was nothing, apparently, to eat, he was, for a coyote, usually in good condition. His coat was tolerably smooth sometimes, and he was industrious and alert. Here, where he is regularly fed at the public expense, he is so shabby that one hesitates to be caught looking at him as one goes by. There is that about an animal that expresses unhappiness as plainly as it is expressed by men, and the Lincoln Park coyote is unquestionably the most abject specimen of his entire disreputable family.

The reader will understand that in all I may have to say about the little reprobate I do not refer for any particulars to that incarcerated and unhappy vagabond just mentioned. On the contrary, he was the first sensation of my earliest border experiences. He came the first night, and every night thereafter, for several years. I grew to know him well, and have had many a brief and solitary interlude of mingled amusement and vexation on his account, when there was nothing else on earth to laugh at or be sorry about. I often have shot at him, usually at very long range, but never to my knowledge killed, or even scared him. It is well understood that he always knows whether or not you have with you a gun, and will be distant or familiar accordingly. But finally exasperated by a wariness so constant, I have sought revenge by a form of murder that I do not now claim, upon reflection, was entirely in self-defence or perfectly justifiable, and which to this day remains a red stain upon an otherwise fair reputation. I killed twenty odd of him in a single night with insidious strychnine and a dead mule, and in the morning was astonished not so much at the slaughter as at the fact that he had not suspected the somewhat worn expedient, and avoided the banquet.

The trouble with him is, that he does not avoid anything that may be imagined to be good to eat. If there was ever an animal preternaturally and continually hungry, it was the old-time coyote of the plains of western Kansas and the mountains and plateaux of southern New Mexico. Yet no one ever saw a starved coyote, or found a dead one. The odor of the camp-fire frying-pan reached him a long way off, and was irresistible. He crept nearer and nearer, as the evening passed, and finally the camp was surrounded by a gray cordon who crouched and licked their jaws, and kept still and waited. But when the little fire was dead and the voices had ceased, and every man lay wrapped in slumber and his blankets, the tuneful side of his nature would get the better of him, and he began to faintly whine. He was getting the key-note, and ascertaining the pitch. The first faint yelp, imprudently uttered, affected his companions as yawning does men, and now a still hungrier one gives utterance to a screech so entirely coyotish that the example is irresistible. Then pandemonium awakes. Each vagabond rises up, sits upon his tail, elevates his chin, and gives utterance to a series of yelps that rise in crescendo, regardless of time, or measure, or interval, or the lateness of the hour. Then, when the camp was new, and the men were beginners in that strange and lonely life that often kept its unexplained and indescribable charm for them ever afterwards, there would be responsive sleeplessness and profanity. The hardest ordeal was to become finally accustomed to this nightly pandemonium, which no effort could prevent, no vigilance avoid. The first effect was to be slightly, though privately, frightened. The next was to intensify the feeling of lonesomeness. One lay in torment, silent, sleepless, wondering if it was a common thing, and if it were possible to yelp a human creature to death in the course of time. Then one talked to his companions, and perhaps expressed himself in a couple of languages. The most futile of all toil would be an attempt to drive the singers away. Silent only for a moment, they would all come back again and make up for lost time. This is how the early wanderers in what is destined to be the garden of the Union first made the acquaintance of the most characteristic animal of the country, and this is why he dwells in the memory of every man who ever slept beneath the sparkling dome west of the Missouri the sweet sleep of toil and health--a sleep that by-and-by was uninterrupted by all the night-sounds the wilderness might invent except the stealthy footfall of some human stranger.

And when the gray vagabond had become an accustomed nuisance he began to exercise his real calling; for all his other modes of obtaining a livelihood are mere by-play to his actual business, which is stealing. In this line he is something preternatural. He had in those days a remarkable liking for harness, straps, raw-hide, saddles, boots. He chewed the lariat from the pony's neck, and would steal a saddle and gnaw it beyond use or recognition by the owner. He would walk backward and draw anything that had a rancid smell a mile or so from where he found it. He was accused of deliberately drawing the cork and spilling the horse liniment, and of then lapping the fluid from the ground regardless of consequences. He would chew a belt of cartridges for the sake of the tallow with which they were coated, and spit them out again in a dilapidated pile of sheet metal. Vagabond luck saved him from having the top of his head blown off during this meal; and I have known a Mexican youth to be killed in trying to straighten some of them out again. Whips and thongs were dainties, chewed, swallowed, and digested without danger or difficulty. The owner was under the necessity of looking after his boots more carefully when they were off than when they were on, and axle-grease was a precious commodity stored for safe-keeping with the teamster's spare shirt, in some arcanum of the equipage where the utmost diligence would not reveal it.

It was a most desolate country, whose silent leagues bore no sustenance, and whose creatures, save him, were few. He was everywhere, and the secret of his existence lay in his one virtue--industry. He gathered a livelihood from the things despised of all others, and he seasoned it with content and made it answer. Never a beetle or a lizard crossed his path unchased. Plainsmen said that when he encountered one of the little land-turtles or terrapins, then common, he staid with it until it died and the shell came off. He killed the virulent little prairie rattlesnake, also plentiful enough, by seizing it in the middle and snapping its head off with a single jerk, as one cracks a whip. But if he had been bitten he would always have recovered. He chased jackass rabbits in pairs, and while one ran straight after the rabbit the other would cut across the angle, and thus the two would run down an animal that, when really on business, is able to fling his heels derisively in the face of the best-bred greyhound. And when they had caught him there was always a controversy. No coyote ever divided honorably. That "honor among thieves," so often mentioned, was not in his education. He sucked eggs--all that he could find; and when anything died within ten miles or so he knew it. He was contemporary with the bison, and was the bison's assassin; for when age and decrepitude overtook the shaggy bull, and three or four lame and grizzled companions went off together, he and his companions literally nagged them to death one by one. If the veteran lay down, they bit him. As long as he remained on foot they followed and teased him. When he died, they fought over and ate him, denying even a morsel to the buzzards and ravens. They followed the Indian hunting-parties, thankful for the morsels that fell to them, which were not many; for the noble red man was himself no disdainer of viscera: he included the whole internal economy under the possible head of tripe, and if in haste ate it raw; and all he left of a dead buffalo was a hard-earned morsel even for a coyote, if he had come far to get it.

And when the white hunter came, then was the time of feasting for _canis latrans_ in all his squalid days. He was the only creature benefited by a ceaseless slaughter of about twenty years; a slaughter which meant nothing but a passion for killing, and which, leaving every carcass where it fell, in about that time exterminated the biggest, most imposing, and most numerous of the wild beasts of America.

By-and-by the railroads began to stretch their lonesome lines across the plains, and the settlers began to come. For a certain time the coyote seemed to retire before them, and there seemed a prospect for his final extermination. Not he. When the cattle-men and pioneers grew too plentiful and meddlesome; when the new-comer began to lie in wait at night for the protection of the pigs and chickens reared in hope and toil; and when the unhesitating shot-gun was the companion of his vigils, sir coyote began to come back east and reoccupy the region he had left. But under changed conditions. He is an animal of mental resource and acumen, and he changed his life. It is almost useless to add that he became worse. Middle and eastern Kansas have him in considerable numbers now, and it is noticeable that whereas he once had the impudence to sit and bark at the intruder like a dog as he passed by, he is now seldom seen or heard. Then he was merely a thief; now he is a freebooter besides. He once burrowed in the hill-top, and launched his family upon the world in a comparatively open and respectable manner, equipped only with teeth, instinct, and perseverance, confident of their future. He has now retired to the woods that line the streams, and joined that disreputable brush society which was never very respectable among either coyotes or men. He is clannish. Generation after generation stick together in the same retired locality, and sally forth at night among a population greatly richer in eatables than any he was formerly accustomed to. He no longer wanders to and fro through a vastness in which his personality was in keeping, and his slanting eyes and three-cornered visage now find furtive occupation beside fence-chinks and through cracks and knot-holes. He knows a thousand devious ways which all in the end lead to the barn-yard. It is a bleak time with him when he is forced to resort to the catching of mice again; but when I see him loafing on the sunny side of the stacks in a distant field I know what he is there for, and wish him luck for old acquaintance' sake.

Strangest of all, he has almost lost his voice, and the era of free concerts is over. Down at the bottom of a ravine, perhaps immensely tickled at some toothsome find, he sometimes so far forgets himself as to give a yelp or two. This feeble demonstration usually attracts the attention of others than those intended, and perhaps the farmer's boy, the inevitable mongrel dog with cock ears and phenomenal activity, and the frequent fowling-piece harass him greatly for the time being. But it is not to be supposed that he has lost his ancient qualifications for the performance of characteristic exploits. He merely suppresses them for the present because it is his interest to do so. Versatile, persistent, and patient, he almost deserves respect for his uncomplaining acceptance of the conditions of a changed world, his contempt for public opinion, and the common-sense which has led him to decline to follow all his contemporaries into the limbo of extermination. When I see him now, the leer in his eye and the grin on his mouth almost seem those of recognition. As of old, he wags his way along the top of the high divide, but now fenced and full of spotted cattle, with the same pensive, quick-turning, alert head, the same jog-trot, the same lolling red tongue, the same plume trailing along behind, ever mindful of a coyote's affairs, ever thinking of his next meal. Yet he is so much like his cousin, the dog, that know him never so well you can hardly help whistling to him. And when you have passed by, if you will look back you will see him sitting upon his tail and looking after you with the same expression which in the olden time made you know that he was wondering where you were going to camp, and whether, when he had barked you into stupidity or death, there was anything about you rancid, portable, dragable, tough, but perchance coming within the wide range of a coyote's menu.

JAMES W. STEELE.

_A MEMORY._

On Narragansett's storm-beat sand
We walked with slow, reluctant feet;
I held enclasped her slender hand,
With loved possession, deep and sweet.
Out on the wave the wild foam swung,
The circling sea-gulls upward sprung;
While o'er the level sand the sea
Came rolling soft and dreamily.

The sunset's glow was on her cheek,
Where love and heaven seemed to blend;
So full our hearts we could not speak,
As summer's glories found an end.
What tender lights sieved through the mist,
As waves and sunlight sparkling kissed,
While o'er the sea, to setting sun,
Swung thunder of the evening gun!

Ah! gentle form, what gift was thine
To give the sky a deeper blue,
To make the barren sands divine,
And heaving sea a rosier hue?
'Twas morn of life, and love's sweet glance
Gave dreary years their one romance,
When yielding form and tender eyes
Return to earth its paradise.

On Narragansett's dreary sand,
Now bent and old, alone I stray,
Nor see the lights, nor waves, nor land,
But one lone grave so far away.
The storm-tossed foam and gulls distraught
Return like dreams, with haunted thought--
"No more, no more, oh! never more!"
Moan the dark waves along the shore.

PAUL DAVIS.

_THE NIGHT OF THE FRENCH BALL._

A detective is well used to the unusual and to meeting as cold facts what, when told, seems a tissue of the wildest improbabilities. During my experience I had one case which for certain strange features I have never had surpassed. It seemed to make itself into my hand as clear as a first lesson in reading for a child, until almost the end, and then came points which are hard enough to unravel.

It occurred years ago, on the evening of the French Ball. I was free, and attended it. It was the usual thing. The Academy of Music was filled with gay women and young fellows about town. By twelve o'clock the wanton hilarity was beginning to get well under way. The women were leaning heavily on their partners' arms and indulging in loud laughter, while the steps were more vigorous than decorous. The high-kicking had begun. My attention had been particularly drawn to one young woman. She was not very tall, but was beautifully made. She was dressed like a Columbine. Her short, pointed skirt of yellow silk and blue velvet came hardly to her knees, and the waist was quite décolleté. On her blond hair was perched a conical cap with tiny silver bells on it. Around her face was wound a piece of white lace to serve as a mask. I noticed her because she was such an exquisitely graceful dancer. Her small feet, cased in gold shoes with high heels, twinkled as prettily as possible as they lightly touched the waxed floor. The dancing was an intense pleasure to her evidently. She could hardly keep her feet still during any pause in which she had not to move. They would beat impatiently upon the floor, and she would toss one in front of the other and sway her sinuous little figure, impatiently waiting till her turn to dance came again.

As I was standing near the door looking at her a party of several young men came into the Academy. They stood and looked about and passed remarks on the scene as if they had not yet become acquainted with its features. They had been to a theatre, probably, and came to the ball after it. The eyes and cheeks of two or three of them were bright, as if they had been drinking. One young fellow seemed to be the object of much attention from the others. He was a German, of medium height, with blue eyes and exceedingly blond hair, while a rich color mantled in his cheeks. The others would make some remark or comment on the scene to him, and he would laugh or smile with the air of a philosopher who had come to find a cynical enjoyment in the insane folly of his kind. The others addressed him in German or French, and called him "Graf." From his manner and appearance it did not require much astuteness to conclude that he was a young German of rank who was visiting the country.

One of his companions turned to him with a broad smile and made some remark, pointing out one of the dancers. I looked in the direction and saw my pretty blond Columbine pirouetting gracefully around, with her arms stretched out to her partner, a big fellow who was a little fuddled with wine, and who had strayed out of the orbit of the girl in a turn in the dance. She was not going to be balked of her share in the measure, and tripped about by herself quite contentedly till he should come back. It was an amusing touch to see the fairy-like creature smiling good-naturedly, while the lumbering fellow who was dancing with her, or who should have been dancing with her, was gyrating beyond her reach. I glanced at the group of fellows to see if it was she they were observing.

A change had come over the German. His face was as white as death, and his eyes were dilated and fixed. He had fallen a little back of the others, as if he did not wish to be observed. This was interesting, and I felt my professional instincts aroused. He answered their remarks with a rather hard, forced smile. A moment after he made some proposal or said something that seemed to be a surprise to them, and I saw them shake hands with him. He left the hall in a hurried way. I slipped after him. I wished to see what he did. He stood for a moment in the foyer, and I saw his hands clinch fiercely. Then, in a distraught sort of way, he walked around to one of the other entrances to the dancing-floor and looked about among the dancers. He tried not to get where he could be seen, and there was a fierce scowl on his face. I lounged slowly in the neighborhood, and watched him. The deathly paleness had not left his face.

All at once he walked in upon the dancing-floor, with an attempt at careless ease, and addressed a masker who wore the costume of a Franciscan friar, a roomy brown suit, with a rope knotted at his waist for a cincture, and a large hood to it which he had pulled up over his head. He was standing near the entrance. He was masked, so he was pretty thoroughly disguised. The monk was not dancing.

The young German spoke to him, and then drew him out of the hall. In the corridor he spoke more earnestly to him. The man seemed to be declining some invitation or request. But after a few moments of earnest speech from the German the two walked away, and, keeping them in view, I saw the pair leave the Academy.

I was at first tempted to follow them. But having no more definite purpose than to see what would come of their movements, I concluded to remain and witness the fun at the ball, which always grew fast and furious at the small hours of the morning.

So I resumed my old post and amused myself by watching the reckless extravagance of the mob of revellers. The little Columbine, though she had been taking her share of the champagne, for I had seen her in the wine-room several times, was very firm on her feet. Her eyes twinkled with a lazy sort of brightness. She had a better partner now, a little young fellow dressed in black tights and a short velvet jacket. They were coming down the middle of the room, his right arm around her waist. Every few steps as they advanced, both facing forward, they flung their legs in the air with a wild but graceful vigor. Then they would whirl around to a sort of waltz-step, which the man in tights would wind up by clasping the Columbine firmly around the waist and gyrating so rapidly that her body was thrown out at right angles to his own.

They attracted a great deal of attention, because the grace of their movements was very great, despite the wild abandon of it. I do not know how I came to remark it, but while they were mid-way on their course I saw the Franciscan monk come in at one of the entrances. He leaned against a pillar, and I saw him watching the pair.

They finished their bacchic course, and the youth in the black tights escorted the panting, smiling girl to a seat, where he made a mock bow of the deepest reverence and went off. I kept my eye still fixed on the girl, who was smiling and fanning herself. Even then her little feet beat the floor to the sound of the music.

While she was sitting thus the monk came up and seated himself on a chair by her side. He made some remarks to her. She coquettishly answered them. Then to another she shook her head with playful determination. The monk pressed the point, for he bent forward, though I noticed that when she turned towards him he seemed to shrink back.

Finally Columbine sprang to her feet, took his arm, and with a half-regretful glance at the merry dancers left the room with him.

* * * * *

The next day the evening papers had a startling story. I have kept the newspaper account. It was this:

"A SEQUEL TO THE FRENCH BALL.

"Those who were at the French Ball last night in the Academy
of Music may have remarked a young woman dressed as Columbine,
who excited a good deal of attention by her graceful dancing.
The giddy young thing will not dance at the next French Ball.
She was lying at the morgue this morning, stone dead, waiting
to be identified. It seems a cruel mockery, after her last
night's gayety, to behold her now, in her ball dress of black
and yellow velvet, lying till someone shall tell who she is.
Failing all identification, some doctor's scalpel will dissect
the corpse and study the muscles which worked so healthfully
in the dance.

"The young girl was strangled to death last night in a
carriage. She left the ball with some one dressed like a
Franciscan monk, at two o'clock. The monk gave a card to the
driver, after printing on it 'No. -- 120th Street.' He also
gave the driver a twenty-dollar gold piece. All this without a
word. He was closely masked. The driver had only remarked that
his hand was very white and large, and that he wore a heavy
plain gold ring.

"The two got in and he drove off. While he was driving along
the upper part of Madison Avenue he heard a sound which
attracted his attention. On looking round he saw that the door
of the carriage was open. He stopped, reached back with his
whip, and banged it to. He supposed the couple inside were
probably the worse for the wine they had taken at the ball,
and had either failed to shut the door, which had worked open,
or that the handle of the door had been fiddled with till it
opened, and they were too far gone to notice it.

"At all events the twenty-dollar gold piece had made the
driver disposed to be obliging, and he had pushed it to for
them, and driven on. When he reached 120th Street, at the
designated number, he got off the box and opened the carriage
door.

"A lamp-post in front of the house lit up the carriage. The
curtains of the carriage windows had been drawn. They were not
drawn when the couple got in. What he saw terrified him.
Columbine was lying, with her white wraps fallen about her,
between the seats, and a monk's frock and a girdle of rope,
together with a mask, were tossed on a seat. The monk had
disappeared!

"The hackman shook the girl and tried to rouse her, but could
not. He pulled her forward, and then saw that her face was
frightfully red, and that the eyes were puffed out. On the
throat were the marks of fingers where a terrible grip had
been taken of her neck.

"The story was clear enough. The monk, whoever he was, had
strangled the girl in the carriage, and had then thrown off
his disguise and let himself out at the door while the
carriage was still in motion.

"This savage crime was evidently premeditated. The masker had
printed the address, had not spoken a word, and had paid the
fare before entering the carriage. So there was not the sound
of his voice, or his handwriting, to identify him, and his
form and face had been completely hidden.

"The cabman drove at once to the nearest police-station and
told his story. The body was taken to the morgue. The
detectives are at work on the case, which promises to be a very
pretty one. _Known_: a man masked as a monk who was at the
French Ball, and who had a large white hand, on which he wears,
or wore, a plain gold ring. _Unknown_: the murderer. Who is the
detective that will run down the game?"

"Here he is," I said to myself, as I finished reading the account. I had more points than the paper gave. The scenes at the ball came back to me very vividly now. The sudden deathly paleness of the German stranger, and his departure with the Franciscan friar! There was a connection here that was too evident to be passed over.

I determined to find out who had murdered the pretty Columbine, who had won me so by her graceful dancing and smiling good-humor. Early the next morning I went to the morgue. There she lay, the dainty figure stretched out so stiff and cold in the big gloomy room. What a contrast to the scene in which I had seen her last! There was a damp cloth over her face. When it was removed I saw a round, full face, the features small and delicate. I gently pushed back the lids from her eyes. They were a dark blue. Her blond hair was her own, and not a wig. I pictured to myself the smoothly-rounded cheeks with the warm color of life in them. I glanced regretfully at her feet, still in their high-heeled golden shoes. They had tripped to their last dance, the dance of Death, and were motionless forever.

I found that a beautiful emerald which I noticed pinned in her corsage on the night of the ball was gone. It had been rudely plucked away, for the lace about the edge of her dress was torn and hanging. But a large ring of rubies and diamonds had been left on her finger, and was kept at the station-house. I had remarked the emerald because it had an old-fashioned setting in gold, and impressed me as a family jewel.

The people who lived at No. -- 120th Street were a most respectable family, and a large one. They deprecated the publicity which the number of their house in the story of the murdered girl had thrust upon them. Inquiry into the character of this family satisfied me on one point, that the monk had given that address simply because it was a distant one, whether he had written it at random or had known the people residing at the number.

I went to all the transatlantic steamers which were in port and got their passenger-lists of the voyage over. In one that had arrived three days before I found a name which I will call in this story Count Hermann Stolzberger of Vienna. He was the only German count who had come over in any of them.

I made a tour of the swell hotels in the city and examined their registers. In one on Fifth Avenue I found the entry, "Hermann Stolzberger and servant." He had arrived three days before.

I engaged a room at the hotel. I wished to be in the neighborhood. I had first inquired if Count Stolzberger had left town, and the clerk had told me no. Where was he to go? The clerk had heard him say to a friend that he expected to be in New York ten days or so. Was he in now? No. He had gone out with friends and would not be back for dinner.

That evening I lounged around the office, sitting in the long corridor into which the door from the street opened. I waited until twelve. No Count! I prolonged my guard for an hour more, and he had not appeared. I wished above all to get a look at Count Hermann Stolzberger. He might, it was true, have gone in at the ladies' entrance, or he might remain out all night. On the other hand, he possibly had delayed with friends and would yet return. I waited.

My patience was rewarded. At half-past one a cab rolled up to the door, and a young man in a large overcoat, somewhat foreign in its mode, sprang out and walked with a quick, nervous tread into the corridor. He walked rapidly by, but my eye had taken him in from the moment he opened the door. My memory of faces is excellent. I recognized the blond fairness of the Count at once, though there was not much color in his cheeks, and his face looked worn and thin. Count Hermann Stolzberger was the young German who had entered the French Ball and turned pale at the sight of the Columbine!

I have said that this case almost seemed to unroll itself for me; but there were two or three connections to be made to constitute proof, and not leave me with a distinct suspicion only.

I visited the morgue daily in hope of some clue, but none came. No one identified the body, and after the allotted length of time it went to the dissecting-table. There were hundreds of visitors to see it, and a great deal of sympathy was expressed; but that was all. Nobody claimed it or seemed to have known the poor girl.

A costumer had claimed the Franciscan's robe. I fancy he did this more through curiosity to find if it were the one he had let than on account of the value of it, for it must have been very cheap. I got the address of this man and called on him. I asked him if he remembered the man who had hired it. He said he did. It was a smooth-faced, dark-complexioned man of about forty. He remembered, because he had made some joke with him about his being clean shaven enough for a monk.

The man had given no address, and he did not know who he was. This was a slight hitch in the proceedings. I was convinced that the murderer in the garb of the Franciscan friar was not the man who had engaged it of the costumer, but the German. He was of much the same size and build as the original monk, and so he had assumed the loose brown habit without exciting my attention. But the fact of the German's turning so pale and calling the monk out from the dance had made me feel that he was the one who had strangled the gay Columbine in the carriage that night.

The Count seemed to grow visibly thinner. There was a drawn look to his face, and during the time that the dead girl lay at the morgue he seemed to be held by some terrible thought. I had shadowed him closely to see if he ever went to see the remains, but he did not go near them. His terrible secret was telling on him fearfully, however. The color had become faint in his cheeks, and his eyes had a haggard look. When he was with others he would affect a gayety that drove much of this distressing expression from his face; but when he came home alone it was very marked.

Something had to be done if I was to secure the proof that would convict the Count. It was the third day since I had come to the hotel and busied myself in studying him. He had gone to the reading-room, contrary to his usual habit, after finishing his breakfast. While he was there two of his friends came in, and they began conversing together. I slipped across the way and hastily wrote a message, sealed it, and charged a messenger-boy to deliver it, saying that he was to wait and see if any answer would be given.

I hurried back to the reading-room of the hotel again. The Count and his friends were still there. If they only remained till the messenger arrived! I had seated myself in a corner behind some one, but with my eyes commanding a full view of the three. The message did come before they left. One of the hotel clerks brought it in. The Count tore open the envelope and read the note. I could not but admire his self-control. The nostrils expanded and hardened, and a stolid look crept into his eyes for a moment; but that was all. What he read was this: "You know and I know whose hands left those marks on the throat. Why do you not wear your gold ring?"

He remained in thought for a moment. Then he lightly excused himself to his friends and went out, having asked something of the servant. He had gone to see the messenger-boy. I did not fear the description he would get being of much help to him. He was not gone very long. When he returned he talked easily to his two friends, and after a little while they went out together.

When he came in that night a letter was waiting for him which had come through the mail. "What good did it do to kill Columbine?" was all there was in it.

The next morning when he awoke he found a note under his door. Its contents were these words: "Is it harder to be choked to death by ten fingers or by a rope?"

There was a far more guarded expression about his face after these notes than before. He always wore a fixed, stolid calm now. He evidently felt that some eye was on him, and he could not tell when or where.

The evening of the following day he received another message. It ran: "Leave New York at once if you would save your neck."

The Count was too sharp for me. He did not go. But he did not go out so much in the daytime. He could not altogether cloak his feelings. There was a disposition on his part to take quick, searching glances about him.

But the strain on him was telling. It cost him more effort to keep from looking troubled. His face got thinner and paler. I was "shadowing" him closely; but I had to be very careful, for he was trying to discover who it was that was on his tracks.

One morning he went out about the hour he generally left the hotel. It was the fourth day after the note which advised him to leave New York. He went directly to a railroad station and took the train for Chicago. I was prepared for this emergency, and went on the same train.

When it arrived in Chicago, he went to the Palmer House and registered as Karl Schlechter. He had not been in his room half an hour when a note was given him. It had been sent by a messenger-boy. "Karl Schlechter is Count Herman Stolzberger, and the halter is as near him in Chicago as in New York," ran the note.

It seemed almost cruel to pursue him like a Nemesis; but I thought of the gay Columbine whose young life had been mercilessly choked out of her by his smooth white hands, and did not desist.

He left Chicago that night after sending a telegram. Probably it was to his man in New York. He went west as far as Kansas City. A note was handed him in the same way as soon as he had got well settled at his hotel: "The ghost of a strangled girl does not care for place."

He remained here only a day, sending another telegram. When the train had started which carried him away, he walked through the cars deliberately looking at the passengers.

At Denver the old story was repeated: "Eyes sharper than your own are still on you. You cannot escape the hold of your murdered victim."

The next step was to Salt Lake City. He went through the same tactics on the cars, and his sharp eye took me in.

A new note reached him at the Walker House. "It may not be long before we meet again, and then my fingers will be at your throat."

In the evening after dinner he was in the billiard-room of the hotel. He saw me there and finally came and seated himself by my side. He engaged me in conversation. He spoke English in a broken way which there is no need to reproduce.

"Was I from New York?" he began.

"Yes."

"Are you travelling for pleasure or business?" he asked next.

"For pleasure," I answered.

"A foreigner is a little surprised when he sees an American travelling in his own country. It seems as if he must be familiar with it. Where are you going from here?"

"Oh, I am not settled. I drift where the humor takes me."

I saw I had become the subject of his suspicions. But he did not yet know me as the author of the notes.

He did not remain long in Salt Lake City. I went from the place when he did. He had noticed me once or twice and felt certain I was following him. He went to San Francisco direct. When we arrived there, he gave some order to a hackman, before stepping into the carriage. I engaged another hackman.

"Follow that carriage until the man gets out, but only keep close enough to know where it goes."

The hack in which the Count had got travelled around without any definite termination apparently. He wished to know if anyone was following him, and had told the hackman to see if another carriage was after him. He soon found there was, and then he drove at once to the hotel, and hurried into the office.

I got there a few moments later. I went to the register. His name was not there at all. I looked around the place and found him sitting not far off. He had begun to watch me. I went down stairs and gave a note to one of the boys to take out to the message office, and have it sent to Count Stolzberger. I had prepared it beforehand, so I was only gone a moment. He kept me well in view all he could. When he finally went to register, he signed his right name, Count Stolzberger, and the clerk gave him the message which had been brought in.

He seemed puzzled. He had kept me in view ever since I arrived, and I had had no time to write a note. So for a moment he did not know what to think. The note had said: "The man who lent you the costume of the friar has been found. There are not many more turns for you now. This man will recognize you when he sees you. Other witnesses will prove that you spoke to Columbine, drove off with her in the hack, and that the poor girl was found dead after your disappearance. What lacks to fit the rope to your neck?"

He engaged his room, and soon after he had gone to it a boy came to me and asked me to go to the Count's room for a few moments.

Count Stolzberger was sitting in an easy-chair near a table, on which there was writing-material. He rose, greeted me with dignity, and motioned me to a chair, asking me to sit down.

"You remember that we both came from Kansas City together, and that part of the journey was made in a sleeping-car," he said, with slow deliberation.