Chapter III: The Wiggling Ear

Owen finished his deliveries and returned to the post office with a much lighter heart than when he had started out.

“She’s promised to wait for me, and I’m the happiest man in the world,” he said to himself with a smile. “And she won’t have to wait so very long, either. I’m going after that post-office inspector job hammer and tongs--and nothing can stop me from getting it.”

“Are you Carrier Owen Sheridan?” inquired a voice, suddenly breaking in upon his happy meditations.

“Yes,” answered Owen to the young man who addressed him.

“Well, you’re to come around to the club at nine-thirty this evening,” went on the latter, in a peremptory manner.

“The club! What club?” demanded Owen, staring hard at the speaker, whom he had never seen before.

“The district organization, of course,” replied the young man impatiently. “You didn’t suppose I meant the Elks or the Knights of Pythias, did you? You’re to come around to the headquarters of the Samuel J. Coggswell Association at nine-thirty sharp. The boss wants to see you.”

Having delivered this laconic message, the young man hurried away, and Owen stood on the threshold of the post-office entrance looking after him in great astonishment.

“Boss Coggswell wants to see me!” he muttered to himself. “I wonder what on earth for.”

Then a ray of enlightenment came to him, and he grinned broadly. “I guess Jake Hines has reported to him what I said about those tickets, and his majesty has sent for me to demand an explanation and an apology.”

A frown displaced the grin upon his countenance. “I’d like to see myself going,” he muttered. “If Coggswell wants any explanation, he’ll have to come to me; and, at that, I guess he won’t get a lot of satisfaction.”

But, after a half hour’s reflection, he changed his mind and decided that it might be just as well for him to heed the summons, insultingly peremptory as its delivery had been.

“If I don’t go he may think I’m afraid to face him,” he told himself; “and, besides, I’m mighty anxious to hear what he has to say.”

So, at nine-thirty that evening, Owen, being through with his day’s work, proceeded to the headquarters of the Samuel J. Coggswell Association, a four-story brownstone structure on a quiet residence street.

The quarters of the district organization were luxurious for a political club. Handsome oil paintings in big gilt frames lined the walls of the reception hall into which the letter carrier stepped.

One painting, which hung on the wall opposite the entrance, so that a visitor’s eye was bound to strike it as soon as he stepped through the door, was the full-length portrait of a dark, rather stout gentleman, who stood with his arms folded and his chin sunk upon his chest--a pose made famous by the late Napoleon Bonaparte, and since copied by many others.

A brass plate attached to the massive gilt frame of this portrait in oils bore the legend: “Honorable Samuel J. Coggswell.” By this token Owen knew that he was gazing upon the likeness of the man whom he had come to see. He had never before met or seen Boss Coggswell, and had no idea what he looked like; so, while he waited to be announced, he studied the picture with great interest.

He was greatly astonished at what he saw. From what he had heard and read of political bosses in general, he had formed the impression that they were all rough, thick-necked, illiterate men of a rough type.

He had imagined that Coggswell would be like this; but the face which looked at him from the painting was one of refinement; the forehead was broad and high, the features were regular, the mouth was curved in a kind, almost benevolent, smile. Unless the artist had unduly flattered him, Boss Coggswell looked very much like a gentleman, and a very pleasant sort of gentleman at that.

The young man who had gone to announce Owen’s arrival to the boss soon returned and beckoned to the letter carrier to follow him. He led the way through a billiard room, and among the men playing at the tables Owen recognized Jake Hines, the man who had tried in vain to intimidate him into buying a ticket to the club outing.

Although the carrier was not now wearing his gray uniform, the recognition was mutual. Owen could tell that by the scowl which came to Hines’ face at the sight of him, and, as he passed the table at which the politician was playing, he heard him mutter something under his breath which sounded like “fresh young Aleck.”

Up a flight of stairs which led to a door marked “Director’s Office--Private.” Owen’s guide conducted him.

In response to a knock on this door, a deep, pleasant voice cried, “Come in!” and Owen found himself in a luxuriously furnished room, facing a rotund, smiling, middle-aged man who sat at a mahogany roll-top desk.

One glance at Boss Coggswell convinced the letter carrier that the oil painting downstairs was an excellent portrait. The district leader certainly appeared to be a very pleasant man. It seemed hard to believe that he could be the kind of fellow who would persecute a humble post-office employee for refusing to give up five dollars for a ticket to a club outing.

“Sit down, young man,” said Mr. Coggswell, motioning to a chair beside his desk. “You are Carrier Sheridan, I believe, and you have route number forty-eight?”

“Yes,” answered Owen, inwardly wondering why the political leader should have taken the trouble to familiarize himself with the number of his delivery route.

“I am informed,” went on Mr. Coggswell, with a gentle smile, “that you refused to buy a ticket to the annual chowder and outing of our association.”

“Yes,” replied Owen, meeting his questioner’s gaze boldly. To himself he thought: “He certainly isn’t losing any time in getting down to business.”

“And I am informed, also,” Boss Coggswell went on, still with the same gentle smile, “that you expressed an opinion that my method of selling tickets was closely akin to blackmail?”

“I didn’t say exactly that,” returned Owen. “I don’t know what _your_ method of selling tickets may be; but I did say that if you instructed or sanctioned your followers to hold up government employees and threaten them with all sorts of dire disaster if they refused to buy those tickets, you were a blackmailer, and I had no use for you.”

He looked Coggswell squarely in the eye. “And, moreover, I am still of the same opinion,” he added quietly.

For a few seconds the two men sat eyeing each other; then the political boss suddenly leaned forward in his chair and placed his plump hand upon Owen’s shoulder.

“Young man,” he said, “I like you for that. You make a hit with me. A fellow who is not afraid to speak out always has my admiration. I despise a man who will submit to injustice and tyranny for fear of losing his job, or the hope of getting a better one.”

To say that Owen was astonished by this unlooked-for treatment would be to put it mildly. He looked at the speaker incredulously. The suspicion entered his head that, perhaps, Coggswell was merely playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse--handing him these verbal bouquets first of all in order to give the more force to the abuse and threats which were about to follow.

“Yes,” the boss went on, “as soon as I heard that there was a young man at Branch X Y who had the courage to defy me, I made up my mind to send for him. I wanted to see what you looked like. I wished to find out whether you would have backbone enough to stand by what you had said to Jake Hines, or whether you would cringe and back water as soon as I put it up to you.”

Owen, not knowing what answer to make to these amazing words, smiled lightly and remained silent.

After a slight pause Boss Coggswell went on:

“I am pretty good at sizing up men, Mr. Sheridan, and I like your style. I should be pleased to have you join my organization. We need young men of your caliber in this district.”

“Thank you,” replied Owen, “but I don’t care to go into politics. And, besides, I am of the opposite party.”

“I like you for saying that, too,” declared the district leader warmly. “It is refreshing to meet a young man who is so loyal to his party that he won’t desert it even to advance himself. I am sorry that we can’t have you in our organization, Mr. Sheridan, but I am going to help you, nevertheless; I have taken a great fancy to you, and I am going to see that you get ahead.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” he went on. “How long have you been in the postal service?”

“Nine months,” answered Owen.

“And what is your ambition? Surely, a bright young chap like you doesn’t intend to remain a carrier all his life?”

“Not if I can help it,” replied Owen, with a smile. “I am looking for the job of post-office inspector. That’s what caused me to enter the service.”

“Ah!” murmured Coggswell; “a post-office inspector, eh? You know a good thing when you see it, don’t you? Got any pull?”

“No, I haven’t. But I’m studying hard, and I think I shall soon be able to take the examinations, and----”

A loud laugh from Boss Coggswell interrupted him. “The examinations? Pshaw! They won’t get you very far unless you’ve got a pretty strong pull, besides.”

He looked keenly at the young man, and lowered his voice a trifle as he went on:

“Now, as I presume you are aware, I have considerable influence at Washington. I think I shall use that influence to get you what you want, Mr. Sheridan.”

Owen stared at him incredulously. “Are you joking with me?” he demanded.

“Not at all. I am perfectly serious. As I said before, you have made a big hit with me, and I want to help you. To get you the post you are looking for will not be difficult. You may have to wait a little while, for there are no vacancies at present, but I give you my word that as soon as one occurs you shall be made an inspector.”

He rose from his chair and held out his hand to Owen to indicate that the interview was at an end.

“Well, good-by. I am very glad to have met you,” he said heartily. “Stick to your job as carrier for the present, and rest assured that it won’t be very long before you will be in the department’s secret service.”

Feeling as if he were in a dream, Owen rose and walked toward the door; but just as he was about to turn the handle, Coggswell’s voice halted him.

“Oh, by the way,” said the politician, in a careless tone, “there is one little point that I had almost forgotten. I think you cover route number forty-eight, do you not?”

“Yes, that is my regular route.”

Coggswell drew nearer to Owen and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “Well, Sheridan, suppose there was somebody residing on your route whose mail I happened to be interested in? Suppose I had good reasons for wishing to examine this man’s letters, without his knowledge, of course. Suppose I asked you not to deliver anything to him until after it had first passed through my hands, or the hands of a trusted agent? What would you say to that, Sheridan?”

“I would tell you to go to blazes!” replied Owen promptly. “I am not a crook, Mr. Coggswell.”

So here was the nigger in the woodpile, at last. This was the meaning of all the soft words that had gone before, and the glittering promise which the politician had made to him.

“You are quite sure that you wouldn’t do me a little favor like that?” the boss went on, looking searchingly into the young man’s face.

“Quite,” answered Owen shortly.

“Not even if your promotion to the job of post-office inspector depended upon it? One good turn deserves another, you know.”

“I would rather remain a carrier all my life than stoop to such dirty work,” declared the carrier hotly.

“Better think it over, Sheridan. Don’t be rash. It would be a pity for a bright young fellow like you to have his career ruined for a little thing like this. You understand, of course, that there wouldn’t be the slightest danger of this man finding out that his mail had been tampered with? He would receive every letter in perfect shape. You wouldn’t be running any possible risk of discovery.”

“That doesn’t make any difference,” retorted Owen. “Whether it’s safe to do so or not, nobody is going to tamper with any mail that’s in my charge.”

“You really mean that? You’re not making any grandstand play, eh?”

“I never meant anything more in my life, Mr. Coggswell.”

For several seconds the two men stood staring fixedly into each other’s eyes. Then, suddenly, Boss Coggswell once more placed his hand upon the carrier’s shoulder.

“It was only a joke, my boy. Or, rather, I should say, it was a little test. I wanted to determine your strength of character, and I must say that you have met the test remarkably well. I know now, for sure, that you are honest, and not to be tempted. Good-by.”

With a paternal pat on the shoulder the politician dismissed his visitor.

Owen was very thoughtful as he walked out of the clubhouse. He was not by any means convinced that the sinister proposition which had been made to him was nothing more than a harmless ruse to test his character.

In spite of the politician’s reassuring words, he felt sure that Coggswell had been very much in earnest about wanting him to hand over the mail of somebody on his route--that was the real reason he had been summoned to the clubhouse.

Owen recalled something which he had once heard somebody say regarding Samuel J. Coggswell--a very queer remark which had been made in his presence one day by a man who knew the boss well: “When you are talking with Sammy,” this man had said, “watch his ears carefully. If they begin to wiggle, look out for a crooked deal. Most men can’t move their ears without moving the rest of their heads besides, but Boss Coggswell can wiggle either ear at will. And, whenever he’s up to to some low trick, those ears of his always begin to move. He can keep the rest of his face as straight as a poker player; he can smile on you as sweetly as if he loved you like a brother, when all the time he hates you like poison; he can keep his voice as smooth as velvet; but he can’t make his ears behave when there’s anything crooked going on inside his head.”

Owen recalled these words now, as he stepped out of the clubhouse. And he recalled, too, that all the while Samuel J. Coggswell had been talking to him about that scheme to tamper with the United States mail, his ears had been moving up and down as if on springs. Therefore, Owen felt sure that there was mischief brewing.

TO BE CONTINUED.

UNEXPECTED.

He had been trying to impress upon the children in the school, in the capacity of a temperance lecturer, that though it was right and proper to relieve suffering and poverty, it was much better to find out the cause of it all--drink, of course--and remove that; and so with everything.

“Now,” he said, “suppose your father some morning came downstairs, and, on going to the cellar, found it flooded; what would he do first? Would he begin bailing the water out?”

“No, of course not.”

“Now, what would be the first thing he’d do?”

After a short silence, a shrill, piping voice cried out:

“Why, he’d carry on awful!”

SUMMERTIME IN THE COUNTRY.

By MAX ADELER.

We have moved into the country to stay for a few weeks with some of our relations. They gave us such very warm and repeated invitations that we concluded to make some sacrifice to go, to oblige them, and I had no idea how much they appreciated our company until the end of the first week, when they handed me a bill for fifty dollars for board for three of us.

Life in the country is very charming in summertime. We sleep in the spare room in the garret, where the temperature gets up to one hundred and four degrees. The roof has not been repaired since Columbus landed, and consequently it is full of apertures. For any one who wants to study astronomy while lying in bed, our garret offers phenomenal advantages; but whenever it rains at night there is nothing to be done but to make a raft out of the clothes horse and some bed slats, and float the family until daylight. It is sometimes an exciting apartment. A few nights ago, while hitting at a mosquito with a shuck pillow, I knocked a wasps’ nest off of one of the rafters, and in the morning we had knobs as big as hickory nuts all over our faces and legs.

It is a good thing to live out here in the country, because the early-morning air is so healthful. We get our morning air very early. The family is routed out at four o’clock, so that the men may go to the harvest field, and if we lie abed, there will be nothing to eat until dinnertime. To be sure, that would not make any very great difference, if we could live without food, for country diet is not as attractive as I hoped it would be.

We always have salt ham and fried potatoes for breakfast; then we have boiled ham and potatoes for dinner, and cold potatoes and sliced ham for supper. On Sundays we have two kinds of ham and stewed potatoes, and potato pudding for dessert. When I asked for milk for the children, they said they were using all the milk to fatten the calves.

They apologized for not having butter because the hucksters who supplied it hadn’t come. I threw out a hint about raspberries, but they said the man at the store was expecting them every day from the city, and I would have to wait. They get their potatoes from the city, too, and the ham was cured in Cincinnati.

The only vegetable that grows here is cabbage, but we are not allowed to eat it, because they trade it off at the store for potatoes, and they swap their chickens to the huckster for butter--that is, their young chickens. We had for dinner one day a hen that cackled during the War of 1812. She ate like a piece of india-rubber boot.

One of the finest things about living in the country is that you can wander off to some shady spot and lie in luxurious ease upon the grass, dreaming away the hours. And while you are dreaming away the hours, straddle bugs will probably crawl up your pantaloons and bite you, and caterpillars will insert themselves between your shirt collar and neck. When you get home you find that you have caught a frightful cold from lying on the damp grass, and while you are sneezing, you learn that one of the children has fallen out of the haymow and run a pitchfork through his calf, and that the other one has been pitched over the fence by the Durham bull.

Then, we like to sit out in the cool of the evening and enjoy the calm, quiet solitude of the place. There is a canal at the end of the lawn, and when we get enough of the quiet solitude, the _Mary Jane, of Pencader_, will come along, and we will be entertained by the captain, who swears violently at the boy because he does not stimulate the mules to sufficient activity. As he wakes the echoes with his abnormal profanity, we suddenly put the children to bed to protect them from demoralization; and then, when the hind mule has kicked at the boy three or four times, the boat passes upstream, and silence once more returns.

We sit there until bedtime, beating off the mosquitoes with one hand and scratching the bites with the other. And as soon as we get into our garret with a candle the atmosphere is filled with bugs, which dance around the room and beat against the walls until we go to sleep.

It is a good thing to live in the country, because the children have such a chance to obtain vigorous health. They begin the summer in the country with prickly heat. Before that is cured they get cholera morbus from eating green apples.

Afterward they catch mumps from the children on the next farm, and at intermediate periods they get bitten by the dog, they come near drowning in the creek, they are sunstruck, they rub against poison vine in the woods and swell up, they are tangled in the mower and lose fingers in the feed cutter, they are run over by the ox cart and ground up in the threshing machine.

Then they cry all night in our garret, and eat so much at meals that the owner of the house looks sour at them and growls out something about raising the price of board; and they wear out clothes enough to run an orphan asylum for a couple of years.

One of the best things about the country is that it gives you a chance to go a-fishing. We fish in the creek. After digging for a couple of hours in search of worms, we go to the water and throw in. I get a bite and pull up, and the line winds tightly around the limb of a tree. Then I shin up the tree and undo it, and throw in again. After several more ineffectual bites, I pull up an eel, and find that he has swallowed the hook.

Everybody knows how it is with an eel. You might as well try to hold a streak of lightning. When he has covered your boots with slime, he bites the line off and wriggles back into the water. When you have put on a new hook, you get a bite, and jerk out a muddy snag, and then you catch one small minnow and find that you have been sitting in a puddle of water, waiting for him to nibble.

As your bait is exhausted, you conclude to go home, where you can put some ointment on your blistered hands and face, and pick the ticks out of your skin and have sewed up the rents made in your trousers by the blackberry bushes, and get ready for the mosquitoes in the evening.

There are some very peculiar charms about rural life, and the farmer is the noblest man on earth. But as for me, I believe I prefer existence in an alley in the city to even temporary residence among the agricultural population.

THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.

Failed to Get Guinea Eggs.

Last autumn Clinton B. Struble, of Penn Yan, N. Y., bought one hundred guinea fowls of a dealer in North Carolina, with the intention of raising guineas on his Esperanza estate for the Rochester market. The flock has had the best of care and has been fed with every variety of supposedly egg-producing concoctions known to Yates County poultrymen. Notwithstanding this treatment, which has been kept up for over six months, not one egg was received.

Recently Mr. Struble took a poultry expert home with him in the hope that he might find out what the trouble has been. The expert found the flock in a splendidly healthy condition, but all male birds.

“Dead Man” High, Not Dry.

“There is a dead man on the roof of City Hall,” was the telephone message to Mayor Mitchel’s office, in New York City, the other afternoon. Like alarms followed from tenants of skyscrapers around City Hall Park. Peter Chieffo, the janitor, was sent aloft to investigate.

The janitor found a man stretched out asleep on the sunny side of the clock tower. There was an aroma of rum about him and a spirit of rebellion in his heart. He protested volubly at being awakened.

“’Snice’n’ warm up here,” he said; “lemme ’lone.”

Chieffo helped him down, first by the ladder which leads from the attic to the skylight on the roof, then down two flights of spiral stairs, and lastly down the three remaining marble flights to City Hall Park. How he got up there with the bundle he was carrying is a question which puzzles the members of the board of estimate. The visitor was unable to explain or even to give his name.

Sudden Finish of a “Bad Man’s” Reign.

In the early spring of 1877 the then wild-and-woolly little mining city of Joplin, Mo., began to hear rumors of a great find of shallow lead on the banks of Creek, just across the State line in Kansas. Short is a little stream that rises in the western part of Jasper County, Missouri, and, after meandering around a few miles, empties into Spring River, in the eastern part of Cherokee County, Kansas.

The new discovery of lead was on this stream some nine miles from Joplin. At that time zinc mining was still in its infancy. In fact, there were thousands of tons of high-grade zinc ore, which, under the name of “black jack,” had been thrown out from the lead with which it mingled and lay in the old dumps of the region. But the new strike was of lead only, and shallow lead was the one thing sought after by the miners of those days.

Then there followed a “stampede” worthy to be classed with those we have read about as occurring in the gold fields. One year from that day there was on that ground a thriving little city that claimed a population of 5,000 people.

There flocked in every blackleg and professional “bad man” from a wide section of country. Gambling of all grades flourished unchecked in the broad light of day. Half the buildings were saloons, and a large share of the other half were brothels. The crooked little trail along which the buildings of the place were scattered was very appropriately dubbed “Red-hot Street” by the miners, and it played fully up to its name for many weeks.

Naturally, such surroundings and conditions bred crime. There was quarreling, fighting, and bloodshed. One or two men dropped out of sight, but their disappearance caused hardly a ripple of inquiry. They were mostly of that sort who “die with their boots on,” and no one mourned their loss. Gradually the evil elements grew bolder, and under the lead of the bolder spirits among them, took advantage of the general disorder to rob and plunder at every opportunity.

At the head of these plunderers was one of those characters of whom we read in stories of wild Western life, and whose likeness we may still see exploited upon the screen of the moving pictures. He was a typical “bad man” of the Western mining country. A tall, finely formed fellow, with a handsome, dare-devil face. He wore his hair well down onto his shoulders, sported high-heeled, red-topped boots, “toted” a pair of big revolvers, and when under the influence of liquor, which was practically all the time, he was a dangerous man. The respectable element feared him and the coterie which followed his lead. But there was no organized authority to appeal to for protection, and nothing was done, while the gang went on their way unchecked and grew in insolence and outrage day by day.

This wild leader of a wild band called himself “Tiger Bill” and boasted loudly of the men he had killed in other places and as to the valiant things he proposed to do on Short Creek. But the men of the place were mostly too busy to pay any attention to the vaporings of Tiger Bill, and as time went on he waxed more truculent and boastful than ever.

But he was destined to meet disaster at the moment when his prestige was greatest, and from a source the very last that either the desperado himself or any one else would have thought capable of resistance to his will. Among the dozen or so plank sheds along Red-hot Street, that had up the name of “Restaurant,” was a rough box of a place presided over by a little German.

He was a meek-looking, pink-and-white little man, with weak eyes sheltered behind a pair of large spectacles. He was an industrious fellow, who attended strictly to his business, and whose only name, so far as we knew, was Gus.

One morning Tiger Bill rose in an unusually ferocious frame of mind. The luck had been against him at cards the night before, and his morning potations had not sufficed to soothe his ruffled spirits. Walking along Red-hot Street, he spied little Gus hard at work in his shed. The sight seemed to fire Bill’s soul with a desire to exploit his fame in the place. He felt assured that the inoffensive little German was a tenderfoot ready to his hand, on whom he could demonstrate his valor and satisfy his desire for blood and fame in perfect safety to himself.

“It’s a long time,” he remarked to the henchman at his side; “it’s a long time since I had a man for breakfast. Watch me get the little Dutchman.”

So saying, he strode into the place, with his revolver held ostentatiously in his right hand. Walking up to the rough board counter, he said:

“Here, you little, sore-eyed cuss, give me half a dozen raw oysters. Do it pretty quick, too, if you know what is good for yourself.”

Gus hastened to fill the order. Not a sign did he show of fear, but some remarked later that he served the oysters with his left hand.

“Here,” shouted Bill. “What do you mean sticking such oysters as them under my nose?”

And at the word he dashed the contents of the dish full in the face of the German. As he did so, he threw up his hand holding the revolver. Beyond question he meant to kill Gus.

But Tiger Bill never fired that shot. Quicker than even his trained and murderous hand, quick as a flash, indeed, the little German’s hand came up, and it held a big, old-fashioned Colt revolver, and in an instant the desperado was as dead as he could reasonably expect to be, with a bullet hole drilled neatly through his head.

A great crowd instantly rushed in. Bill lay dead upon the floor, his right hand still holding the revolver; behind the counter stood Gus, quietly wiping off the mess of oysters from his face and the counter.

“Good Lord, Gus, what have you done?” shouted one.

“Mine Gott,” replied Gus. “Vat must I do? He vas schlapped me mit der oysters of der face already, und he vas his gun have ready to shoot. Next time maybe he takes a tenderfoot, maybe! Eh?”

There was nothing further to be said. Gus had stated the question perfectly. So they picked up what was left of Tiger Bill, and, clad as he was, and “with his boots on,” they thrust him into a hole in the woods. Then the decent element, always in a large majority, rallied, and elected men to serve as a committee to control the town until such time as a regular government could be established.

One of the first duties that committee discharged was to send forth notice that if any of the Tiger Bill crowd or their sympathizers were caught in Short Creek that night there would be one of the largest and liveliest hangings in history. That notice was enough; without Tiger Bill, the courage of the bunch was wholly a minus quantity, and they stayed not upon the order of their going, but went.

Silent Workers of the “Black Cabinet.”

“Headwork and legwork are more important than green goggles and false whiskers” for the modern sleuth, according to William J. Flynn, chief of the United States Secret Service, better known as Uncle Sam’s “Black Cabinet.”

As a rule, disguises are not used by those in the service. If the matter in hand, for instance, requires the collection of information from workmen, a man is chosen who looks the part without a disguise. He simply wears such clothes as workmen wear and affects the manners and speech of the men with whom he mingles. On the other hand, if the work requires contact with people in a better-dressed walk of life, or with foreigners or negroes, an operative of the same class is chosen.

The United States Secret Service is under the direct supervision of the secretary of the treasury. The only thing that can land a man in its employ is passing the preliminary examination, submitting to a personal interview with Chief Flynn, and showing one’s nerve and ability during a month of testing out in the real business of detective work for Uncle Sam. If a man makes good after this preliminary test, he goes on the roll permanently.

The men are gathered from greatly different sources. There are college graduates, mostly sons of criminal lawyers; musicians, stenographers, linguists, bank clerks, identification experts, telegraph operators, commissioned and noncommissioned officers of the army or navy, newspaper men, a couple of sheriffs, one or two wardens, and an ex-mayor.

Some of the best work of secret-service operatives in recent years has been accomplished by men formerly in the claims department of a railroad or life-insurance companies.

The secret-service headquarters in Washington occupies a very unpretentious suite of offices on the first floor of the treasury department. Here are the private offices of Chief Flynn, whose salary is $4,000 a year, and the assistant chief, William Moran, regarded as the greatest expert in the detection of counterfeits and counterfeiters.

There is a clerical division employing not more than a dozen persons; an identification bureau, where are kept on file the records of all known counterfeiters and other undesirable citizens, and a large storeroom, where confiscated counterfeiting outfits seized in raids are allowed to accumulate pending their destruction according to law. There is a saying in the service that “once a counterfeiter always a counterfeiter.”

The secret service was created primarily to catch counterfeiters and protect the person of the president. In 1861 there was carried in one of the appropriation acts $10,000 for suppressing the counterfeiting of coin. Annually thereafter provision was made for the same purpose, and embracing the counterfeiting of paper currency.

The United States is divided into secret-service districts, each district having headquarters conveniently located in charge of a skilled operative, who has under his direction from time to time as many assistants as the criminal activities in his locality demand.

Perhaps the most picturesque work of the secret service is performed by its “flying squadron”--the free-lance field workers, who may be sent to any place at any time. Most of these men are not much above thirty years of age; the average age of all secret-service men is under thirty-five. They are alert, energetic, resourceful, and capable of assuming almost any part of a sleuth demanded.

A new recruit in the service starts in as an assistant operative at three dollars a day--if he proves worthy, he is promoted to the rank of operative at five dollars a day. As an operative his pay may increase to seven dollars a day, but before he can obtain the top-notch salary, he must have made good and have acquired a considerable fund of practical experience valuable to the service.

One of the most mysterious phases of the secret-service work concerns the maintenance of communication between the central office in Washington and its field operatives. A message, even in cipher is never dispatched openly to his chief, but to some private individual, previously agreed upon, who in turn places the message in the hands of Chief Flynn.

Secret-service men are at work all the time. When there is no particular case on hand, they are getting a line on the habits, haunts, and byways of certain people who seem to be living without apparent effort. The shadowed party does not suspect it, and he may never know.

Some years ago there was a notorious counterfeiter named Emanuel Ninger, who for seventeen years kept the secret-service men of the whole country chasing him. When they finally landed him, they had enough evidence against him to convict him on a dozen counts.

Ninger was a manufacturer of hand-painted paper money. Being a skillful artist, he was able to paint on white paper an all-but-perfect reproduction of a ten or twenty-dollar bill. But the wet finger of a bartender coming in contact with one of Ninger’s hand-painted bills caused the color to “run.” Ninger had passed this particular bill himself, and through it he was traced, arrested, and convicted.

At the time of his arrest the Washington bureau had on hand a large collection of “Ninger notes,” but Ninger, until apprehended, had been unknown to the secret service, and the notes were credited to “Jim the Penman.”

An Indiana preacher, William K. Wade, turned counterfeiter, but confined himself to twenty-five-cent pieces. The secret-service men were never able to discover the location of his factory nor find his apparatus, but the evidence against him was conclusive, and he was convicted. He served his term in the penitentiary.

During the fiscal year ended June 30th last, there were 368 arrests by the secret service, with seizure of $44,412 of counterfeit and altered notes, $22,319 of counterfeit coins, 154 plates, four dies, and 162 molds.

This Goose Lays Big Eggs.

George Motter, of Nova, Ohio, reports that he has a remarkable goose. This goose doesn’t lay golden eggs, but it does lay eggs which are five inches long, two and seven-eighths inches in diameter, and which weigh three-quarters of a pound each. And Mr. Motter’s goose continues to lay in spite of the fact that she has passed her thirteenth birthday.

“Rings in Noses and Bells on Their Toes.”

Fashions of men and women frequently jump from one extreme to another, but, according to a general all-around prophet, America is soon to witness a series of transformations that will make plain, old-fashioned people simply gasp with amazement. Society maids are to wear rings in their noses and bells on their toes; the fair sex will become entirely bald, and perhaps have cute little landscape scenes done in oil here and there on their shining pates; men may adopt skirts, wear bracelets and earrings, and possibly carry fans instead of canes, the walking sticks being permissible to women alone.

This old world is fast approaching its great upheaval stage, this wonderful prognostigator tells us. The great war of nations shows it--the Scriptures show it, he declares. We have been in preparation for this upheaval for nearly eighty years. He gets this from Peter’s saying that an hour of God’s time is a thousand years. An hour of our time would be eighty-three and one-third years of the Lord’s. This is our eleventh hour of dispensation. It began in 1829 or thereabouts. He also figures it out that the European war will end one year, one month, one day, and one hour from the date of its inception--that--that--oh, well, that lots of things are about to happen, including the customary rise in beef prices.

James Henry Tate is fifty years old, is a pleasant little man, with a great deal of personality and knowledge of events, past, present, and--possibly--the future. Born in America of wealthy parents, educated in the East, and possessing the “gift of tongues” and the power of healing, he went to Denver five years ago after a revelation that Denver is to be the central city of the great upheaval, religious and otherwise.

“Present-day fashions are bearing out the Scriptures. In a very few years women will be wearing bells on their shoes,” he predicts. “Skirts will become tighter, and women will become old at early ages. Then women will wear rings in their noses and will become bald, totally bald. For the Scriptures read in the third chapter of Isaiah, 16th, 17th, and 18th verses:

“‘Moreover, the Lord said because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go and making a tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the heads of the daughters of Zion.’

“I was called by the spirit when I was but seven years old. I have received many calls since. I have the power of healing by the laying on of hands. I carry a bottle of olive oil with me with which I anoint any one who wishes to be healed, after the devils are cast out of the body. I have a good constitution and have never had a doctor.

“My father is eighty-five years old, has served as a State senator in Wisconsin, and he is rugged and strong. I eat no pork or fish that do not have scales. I bar catfish, for catfish are scavengers and unclean. I eat coarse bread and drink pure water.

“Latter-day churches are ignorant in their evils, and that is what is causing so much backsliding. I have telegraphed President Wilson and Secretary of State Bryan many times, and they have always followed my advice, especially in the maintaining of strict neutrality. I have received personal notes from our president, thanking me for my advice and prayers.”

Interesting New Inventions.

J. B. Deidrich, of Streator, Ill., has invented a bread slicer which he believes will be especially valuable for restaurants and boarding houses. The knife is not much different from the ordinary bread knife, but it is suspended from a frame which causes it to come down in the same place each time it is swung for a cut. There is also a gauge which insures every slice being of the same thickness. With its use there is no danger of bread more than an eighth of an inch thick getting by the censor.

Two Wisconsin inventors have patented a kerosene lamp that is automatically extinguished if upset or even lifted from a support.

A screen has been patented that is raised and lowered with a window so as not to interfere with the light when the window is shut.

The latest aëroplane invention is the use of a recording phonograph by which the operator may make notes of his observations.

A conveyer belt has been recently made for an Ohio stone quarry which cost $6,000, weighs 12,000 pounds, is 839 feet long, and 26 inches in width--one of the largest ever made, if not the record breaker itself.

For carrying baskets that lack handles of their own, a folding wire handle has been invented.

A cane that can be taken apart and converted into a stool is a French invention.

Odd Texas Chicken Prodigy.

A four-legged chicken is the latest poultry prodigy to appear in Sulphur Springs, Texas. Mrs. Neal Stribbling found this odd chicken in a brood of twelve Rhode Island Reds. The baby chicken has two legs on its back, directly above its two lower legs. It seems to be able to get about quite as easily as the others of the hatch.

While sitting down it looks as if it were lying on its back, especially when it stretches its upper legs, but generally they lie flat. When walking the upper legs keep in motion, as if they helped the little chick to get over the ground. It is now five days old, seems healthy, and there is every indication that it will live.

Mrs. Stribbling thinks that possibly, later on, the chicken will be able to flop over and use its upper legs for walking. Should this prove true, she will try to sell it to a circus.

Egg in Contribution Plate.

When Reverend J. George Betzle, pastor of the First Baptist Church, in Fremont, Neb., entered the church on a mission, he was surprised to see a hen flutter out from under the pulpit. In his chase after the startled biddy Mr. Betzle found an egg in the collection plate. The hen entered the church through an open window and evidently wanted to contribute her mite to the cause by laying an egg.

Stayed in One Room Thirty-seven Years.

After spending thirty-seven years in solitary confinement in a dungeonlike room that knew no ray of sunshine, Monroe Eoff, sixty-eight years old, Confederate veteran, died in Union, Ark. Thirty-seven years ago he became blind, and immediately shut himself in his room, from which he never left alive. His wife and daughter were the only persons permitted to enter the room.

Gopher-trail Swindle Mulcts the Country.

Following the discovery that Teodoro Rosas, a Mexican youth, of Phoenix, Ariz., had been conducting a gopher farm and mulcting the county out of fifty to one hundred dollars a month, the supervisors abolished the bounty of five cents which they had long paid on each gopher tail.

Farmers regard gophers as pests, and at their request the bounty was made. Bounty claimants were required only to present the tails of rodents, it being presumed that the animals the tails had belonged to were killed. Young Rosas presented several hundred tails a month.

One of the supervisors chanced to pass by the Rosas farm and saw that it was honeycombed with gophers’ burrows. He saw a number of gophers without tails, and questioned Fosas, who admitted that he had never killed a gopher, but, after removing their tails, turned them loose for breeding purposes.

Centipedes Moving North.

The department of agriculture has made a study of the house centipede which of late has spread from the Southern States to a number of Northern States, and has issued a bulletin in which some of its characteristics are set forth. It thrives in most places and devours various house pests, such as moths, roaches, flies, probably even bedbugs, and others. It does not injure household goods, woolens, et cetera, as is commonly supposed. Its bite is somewhat poisonous, but it seldom bites human beings except in self-defense. Prompt dressing with ammonia is recommended as the best remedy for the bites.

Biggest Lemon Is in Jersey.

Mrs. Henry H. Bull, of Sparta, N. J., is exhibiting a lemon said to be the largest ever raised in a hothouse in this section of the country. The lemon measures thirteen inches in circumference, is eight inches in length, and weighs four pounds. It took one year from the time the tree blossomed until the lemon was ripe. The trees is five years old.

Fat Girl Passenger Stops Railway Traffic.

Traffic on the New York Central line was delayed twenty minutes when Anna Chelton, Oil City’s fat girl, weighing more than 700 pounds, departed to join a circus.

Half a dozen men transported her in a specially made wheel chair to the baggage car, and when a transfer was made at Andover, Pa., the car was detached and shifted to the freight depot. Later the baggage car of the second train was shifted to the depot, and the weighty damsel placed in it. The train was held until the crew made the transfer.

Carnegie Medal Is Well Won by Boy.

The stuff they mold heroes of cropped out at Dothan, Ala., one spring morning. Now Henry T. Matthews, a youngster of that city, is wearing a bronze medal presented by Andrew Carnegie for a remarkable deed of valor committed with such modesty as would almost suggest indifference. Newspapers throughout the State are now presenting the youth’s name as a new representative of Alabama in the select few the Carnegie commission chooses to call heroes. It all came about something like this:

Little Benjamin Grant, son of B. J. Grant, Dothan banker, and several other playmates, whose ages averaged about the three-year mark, had slipped from their nurses who chatted in the sunshine and were enjoying the fine spring morning away up under the Grant residence, digging trenches, making frog houses, tunnels, and such things and getting their fresh linen just as dirty as they shouldn’t. Suddenly Benjamin disappeared, right before the eyes of his mystified young friends. It was as if the earth had swallowed him up.

The fair-haired tot had slipped into a deserted bored well, hid up under the house for so long that no one ever remembered when it had been dug, when it had been used, or when it had been deserted and covered up by the building. Moreover, no one happened to know how deep it was, as was later learned, and with these thoughts rushing through her frightened brain the nurse girl in charge of little Ben prepared to inform the child’s mother that her son was somewhere below earth, in a darkened, unknown hole.

The alarm spread with a swiftness hardly believable. Within a few minutes every woman in the neighborhood and every man who might be located sitting about home during the busy part of the morning had rushed to the scene.

The hole into which the boy had fallen was not large enough to carry light more than a few feet; no man in a thousand could squeeze his shoulders into the opening. To be exact, it measured thirteen inches in diameter, as a later measurement showed.

Several men gazed into the blackness of the hole and gazed back again, their faces pale, their eyes wide with a helplessness that brought on an uncanny fright, even in the hearts of the strongest.

Some suggested a rope, others thought of hooks, and some said dig a tunnel. All soon agreed, however, that none of the plans of rescue could be carried out, for a three-year-old boy would never be expected to grab a rope to be pulled through yards and yards of a bored well; iron hooks might tear the baby to pieces while rescuers knelt and heard his cries in vain, and a tunnel to the distance where his cries indicated he had fallen would certainly mean a fatal cave-in.

Suggestions that some person be lowered had, of course, been advanced long before, but had proven useless, for not one person in the great crowd could enter the small opening.

“Send out and get some boys,” shouted one of the directors of the work. The schools and their numerous offerings of all sizes and ages of lads came first into the minds of the volunteer hunters. Two automobiles rushed to a school less than three blocks away.

“We want the nerviest, bravest kids you’ve got in the building,” said a member of the party to the superintendent. “Give us some small ones, who are not afraid.”

The boys arrived. One by one they crept under the house; one by one they looked into the blackness of the hole, and one by one they drew back again. Their eyes glared and they soon became members of the back row of spectators.

Then Henry Matthews came up. He rode into the edge of the crowd on his bicycle, upon which he carried clothes for a tailor, to support his widowed mother.

“What’s the matter?” he inquired meekly. Some one broke the uncanny quietness for a moment and told him.

“Here’s another kid; try him,” whispered a man to the would-be rescuers who had grown despondent. Henry walked forward. They told him what it meant to go headfirst for perhaps twenty or thirty feet downward.

“Let me down,” said the frail boy quietly.

His feet were securely tied with a heavy rope. An electric light with an extension cord was placed in his hand. The boy gazed slowly about the peering faces and shoved his pale face into the blackness. Down he went, inch by inch, and then foot by foot. The rope disappeared, behind him for one yard, two yards, then three, four, five, and six yards. He was still going down, and the light had disappeared in the blackness. The rope must have gone forty feet, thought the men at the other end of the line. Then:

“Pull,” came the faint command from down in the ground. The men at the other end smiled with eagerness as they carefully drew on the line. Then they looked at each other in excited expectation, for the load on the rope was heavier than when Harry descended.

Ten feet of the rope had been pulled to the surface, when the men’s faces changed. Their eyes again filled with fright. Quickly they drew on the line, and soon Henry, his body covered with mud, sticks, and rubbish, appeared alone. They gave him water, fanned him for a second, and his pale face began to show faint color again. Then he spoke.

“I pulled him about ten feet,” he panted, “but his hands--his hands--were so slick--the mud came off and he dropped back. He was on some sticks--sticks caught in the well--when I found him--I’m afraid he fell back through them. If he did, we can’t get him.”

Bennie’s mother fainted and was carried away. Other women, screamed and rushed about blindly. Bennie’s voice was getting fainter. Old men cried--men whose hearts had faced everything from the trials of the Civil War to modern troubles.

“Let me down again,” said the brave young rescuer, as he rubbed his face, as if to awaken to his undertaking.

Again his face disappeared, then his body, and then his feet. On and on he went down. Thirty-five feet of the grass rope had disappeared when the order to “pull” was heard far off. Anxiously, and with, less hope than before, the men pulled. The line was heavier as they pulled, foot after foot, above the surface.

The crying of a baby was heard down in the ground. The larger boy’s feet appeared at the top; then his body, and then his face.

Then--little Bennie, clasped by each wrist by a pair of muddy hands, appeared on earth again.

The women screamed and cried for the hundredth time that morning. The men, or rather, most of them, wept and then cheered. Now everybody cheered, and hundreds of voices let everybody within a block know that the romper-clad boy was in his mother’s arms. They also let those about know that Henry had emerged from beneath the house with eyes, hair, hands, and clothing covered with mud. They grabbed him; women kissed him, and men crowded about the boy.

“Haven’t got time to stop now,” said Henry. “Got to get back to the shop.” And he hurriedly washed the dirt from his face. But they wouldn’t let him go. They surged about the wondering lad and held him for a while, or at least until the praising crowds could press fifty dollars into his bread-earning little hands. Then he turned, jumped upon his bicycle, and rode speedily away, to deliver the clothes for the tailor, for the support of himself and his widowed mother.

Two Years on Their Honeymoon Walk.

Journeys across the continent twice on foot within a period of two years marked the unique honeymoon trip taken by Mr. and Mrs. John Broxman, of near Harrisburg, Pa., who arrived in Baltimore, Md., a few days ago, and who, for just two hours, were the guests of Mrs. C. C. Webber, wife of the pastor of the Emmanuel Evangelical Church, Greene Street, near Lombard.

In the twenty-four months that they have been away the young married couple have traversed the parched sands of the semitropical countries of the South, the fertile valleys of the Middle West, and the rugged mountain paths of the Far Western States. They are happy, and have returned to their homes without reporting a mishap.

In making their long journey on foot, Mr. and Mrs. Broxman have won both fame and fortune, for not only were they cordially welcomed in all the towns and cities through which they passed, but as the result of their long hike they have been presented with a huge sum of money by a brother-in-law of Mrs. Broxman in California, and henceforth they will make their home on a farm which has been purchased by the bridegroom near Harrisburg.

Mr. and Mrs. Broxman strolled into Baltimore unnoticed, and sought acquaintances whom they had known years ago. In their search for their friends they drifted into the neighborhood of Greene and Lombard Streets and dropped into the parsonage of the Emmanuel Evangelical Church in order to get directions as to streets and house numbers. Mrs. Webber happened to be at home, and invited the strangers in. She could not aid them in their quest for the Baltimore friends, but she did entertain them the greater part of the afternoon, and while enjoying the hospitality of her home, the young people told of their unique honeymoon trip.

Mr. and Mrs. Broxman were married two years ago, and had planned to spend their honeymoon quietly in the East. But Mrs. Broxman’s brother-in-law in Santa Ana, Cal., told them that he would present them with a substantial sum of money if they would take as their honeymoon trip a “stroll” from Harrisburg to California and back again. They decided to try and win the prize held out to them, so immediately after the wedding ceremony was performed, they started on their long hike.

From Baltimore the young couple went to Harrisburg.

Dogs Have Acquired the Art of Speech.

In a previous issue we briefly described a dog named Woodrow Wilson that was said to be able to utter sounds which distinctly resemble words. The dog is a bull terrier and was named Woodrow Wilson because on the day of President Wilson’s inauguration he wandered into the home of Miss Rose Bonn, of Scottsdale, Pa., his present owner.

He does such feats in “talking” that he is the wonder of the town. He answers questions promptly and correctly. For instance, when he is asked “Whom do you love?” he promptly replies, “My mamma.”

Woodrow Wilson may be a remarkable dog, but there have been other talking dogs brought to the attention of the public during the last decade, says a writer who has made note of them. There was Cutey! Did you ever hear of her? Well, her owner was positive she could speak, and many of his friends were willing to corroborate his enthusiastic statements.

Cutey’s ability as a talking dog was brought to the attention of the public in a peculiar way. A small boy was playing with a ball in East Fourteenth Street, New York, one afternoon when a fox terrier strolled along and stopped to watch the boy. Greatly to the boy’s astonishment the dog suddenly said: “I want my rights.”

It did not take long for the boy to spread the news about the talking dog, and finally it reached the newspapers. A reporter was sent to see the owner of the dog, Fred Jackson, of 241 East Fourteenth Street. Although the reporter was skeptical when he entered Cutey’s home, he emerged convinced that if the dog did not speak, she made a pretty good attempt.

It took Cutey’s owner three months to teach her how to say “I want my rights.” He got the idea from observing the dog trying to repeat things that were said to her. It was also asserted by neighbors that Cutey was able to say “I will not” and “Good night, everybody.”

A dog named Rolf attracted much attention in Berlin because of his power to utter sounds which could be distinguished as words. This dog not only could speak, but he could spell. In fact, he attracted so much attention that Professor Claparede, of the department of experimental psychology of the University of Geneva examined the dog and pronounced him a wonder.

The professor, in order to avoid collusion between the dog and his mistress, brought a set of pictures along with him which the dog had never seen. One of the pictures showed four mice nibbling at cheese. Without any hesitation the dog spelled out words which convinced Professor Claparede that Rolf knew what the picture was.

Not long ago the police of Philadelphia made what they considered an important capture in the form of a dog who was in league with a band of thieves. While this animal did some petty thieving on his own account, he was valuable to the thieves because of his ability to “talk” to them whenever he saw policemen approaching. His “talk” consisted of short barks, which the thieves understood perfectly.

Although the police were suspicious of the owners of the dog, they could never catch them in the act. Finally it dawned on them that the dog had been trained to run up and down before places which were being robbed. The police then decided to watch the dog, and, swooping down suddenly one night on the four-footed “lookout,” they caught the thieves at work.

There lived in Cranford, N. J., a dog which could not only “talk” but read a newspaper as well. The dog, whose name was Throgs, was the property of Miss Alice Lakey, of the New Jersey State Food Commission, and had the regular job of going to the newspaper store every morning for the family paper. He carried the coin wrapped up in a paper, gave it to the news dealer, got his paper, and returned home with it in his mouth.

One morning the regular news dealer was not present at the stand, but another person in the store slipped a paper into Throgs’ mouth. The dog walked slowly out of the store to the other side of the street, where he dropped the paper and then thoroughly scrutinized it. Convinced that it was not the paper he was in the habit of getting, he sat down and waited until the news dealer returned. Then he walked back to the store, got his regular paper, and trotted home with it.

The Nick Carter Stories

ISSUED EVERY SATURDAY BEAUTIFUL COLORED COVERS

When it comes to detective stories worth while, the =Nick Carter Stories= contain the only ones that should be considered. They are not overdrawn tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of the finest minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is familiar all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be read in twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe test of time so well as those contained in the =Nick Carter Stories=. It proves conclusively that they are the best. We give herewith a list of some of the back numbers in print. You can have your news dealer order them, or they will be sent direct by the publishers to any address upon receipt of the price in money or postage stamps.

704--Written in Red. 707--Rogues of the Air. 709--The Bolt from the Blue. 710--The Stockbridge Affair. 711--A Secret from the Past. 712--Playing the Last Hand. 713--A Slick Article. 714--The Taxicab Riddle. 717--The Master Rogue’s Alibi. 719--The Dead Letter. 720--The Allerton Millions. 728--The Mummy’s Head. 729--The Statue Clue. 730--The Torn Card. 731--Under Desperation’s Spur. 732--The Connecting Link. 733--The Abduction Syndicate. 736--The Toils of a Siren. 738--A Plot Within a Plot. 739--The Dead Accomplice. 741--The Green Scarab. 746--The Secret Entrance. 747--The Cavern Mystery. 748--The Disappearing Fortune. 749--A Voice from the Past. 752--The Spider’s Web. 753--The Man With a Crutch. 754--The Rajah’s Regalia. 755--Saved from Death. 756--The Man Inside. 757--Out for Vengeance. 758--The Poisons of Exili. 759--The Antique Vial. 760--The House of Slumber. 761--A Double Identity. 762--“The Mocker’s” Stratagem. 763--The Man that Came Back. 764--The Tracks in the Snow. 765--The Babbington Case. 766--The Masters of Millions. 767--The Blue Stain. 768--The Lost Clew. 770--The Turn of a Card. 771--A Message in the Dust. 772--A Royal Flush. 774--The Great Buddha Beryl. 775--The Vanishing Heiress. 776--The Unfinished Letter. 777--A Difficult Trail. 782--A Woman’s Stratagem. 783--The Cliff Castle Affair. 784--A Prisoner of the Tomb. 785--A Resourceful Foe. 789--The Great Hotel Tragedies. 795--Zanoni, the Transfigured. 796--The Lure of Gold. 797--The Man With a Chest. 798--A Shadowed Life. 799--The Secret Agent. 800--A Plot for a Crown. 801--The Red Button. 802--Up Against It. 803--The Gold Certificate. 804--Jack Wise’s Hurry Call. 805--Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase. 807--Nick Carter’s Advertisement. 808--The Kregoff Necklace. 811--Nick Carter and the Nihilists. 812--Nick Carter and the Convict Gang. 813--Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor. 814--The Triangled Coin. 815--Ninety-nine--and One. 816--Coin Number 77.

NEW SERIES

NICK CARTER STORIES

1--The Man from Nowhere. 2--The Face at the Window. 3--A Fight for a Million. 4--Nick Carter’s Land Office. 5--Nick Carter and the Professor. 6--Nick Carter as a Mill Hand. 7--A Single Clew. 8--The Emerald Snake. 9--The Currie Outfit. 10--Nick Carter and the Kidnaped Heiress. 11--Nick Carter Strikes Oil. 12--Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure. 13--A Mystery of the Highway. 14--The Silent Passenger. 15--Jack Dreen’s Secret. 16--Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case. 17--Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves. 18--Nick Carter’s Auto Chase. 19--The Corrigan Inheritance. 20--The Keen Eye of Denton. 21--The Spider’s Parlor. 22--Nick Carter’s Quick Guess. 23--Nick Carter and the Murderess. 24--Nick Carter and the Pay Car. 25--The Stolen Antique. 26--The Crook League. 27--An English Cracksman. 28--Nick Carter’s Still Hunt. 29--Nick Carter’s Electric Shock. 30--Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess. 31--The Purple Spot. 32--The Stolen Groom. 33--The Inverted Cross. 34--Nick Carter and Keno McCall. 35--Nick Carter’s Death Trap. 36--Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle. 37--The Man Outside. 38--The Death Chamber. 39--The Wind and the Wire. 40--Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase. 41--Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend. 42--The Queen of the Seven. 43--Crossed Wires. 44--A Crimson Clew. 45--The Third Man. 46--The Sign of the Dagger. 47--The Devil Worshipers. 48--The Cross of Daggers. 49--At Risk of Life. 50--The Deeper Game. 51--The Code Message. 52--The Last of the Seven. 53--Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful. 54--The Secret Order of Associated Crooks. 55--The Golden Hair Clew. 56--Back From the Dead. 57--Through Dark Ways. 58--When Aces Were Trumps. 59--The Gambler’s Last Hand. 60--The Murder at Linden Fells. 61--A Game for Millions. 62--Under Cover. 63--The Last Call. 64--Mercedes Danton’s Double. 65--The Millionaire’s Nemesis. 66--A Princess of the Underworld. 67--The Crook’s Blind. 68--The Fatal Hour. 69--Blood Money. 70--A Queen of Her Kind. 71--Isabel Benton’s Trump Card. 72--A Princess of Hades. 73--A Prince of Plotters. 74--The Crook’s Double. 75--For Life and Honor. 76--A Compact With Dazaar. 77--In the Shadow of Dazaar. 78--The Crime of a Money King. 79--Birds of Prey. 80--The Unknown Dead. 81--The Severed Hand. 82--The Terrible Game of Millions. 83--A Dead Man’s Power. 84--The Secrets of an Old House. 85--The Wolf Within. 86--The Yellow Coupon. 87--In the Toils. 88--The Stolen Radium. 89--A Crime in Paradise. 90--Behind Prison Bars. 91--The Blind Man’s Daughter. 92--On the Brink of Ruin. 93--Letter of Fire. 94--The $100,000 Kiss. 95--Outlaws of the Militia. 96--The Opium-Runners. 97--In Record Time. 98--The Wag-Nuk Clew. 99--The Middle Link. 100--The Crystal Maze. 101--A New Serpent in Eden. 102--The Auburn Sensation. 103--A Dying Chance. 104--The Gargoni Girdle. 105--Twice in Jeopardy. 106--The Ghost Launch. 107--Up in the Air. 108--The Girl Prisoner. 109--The Red Plague. 110--The Arson Trust. 111--The King of the Firebugs. 112--“Lifter’s” of the Lofts. 113--French Jimmie and His Forty Thieves. 114--Death Plot. 115--Evil Formula. 116--Blue Button. 117--Deadly Parallel. 118--The Vivisectionists. 119--The Stolen Brain. 120--An Uncanny Revenge. 121--The Call of Death. 122--The Suicide. 123--Half a Million Ransom. 124--The Girl Kidnaper. 125--The Pirate Yacht. 126--The Crime of the White Hand. 127--Found in the Jungle. 128--Six Men in a Loop. 129--The Jewels of Wat Chang. 130--The Crime in the Tower. 131--The Fatal Message. 132--Broken Bars. 133--Won by Magic. 134--The Secret of Shangore. 135--Straight to the Goal. 136--The Man They Held Back. 137--The Seal of Gijon. 138--The Traitors of the Tropics. 139--The Pressing Peril. 140--The Melting-Pot. Dated May 22d, 1915. 141--The Duplicate Night. Dated May 29th. 1915. 142--The Edge of a Crime. Dated June 5th, 1915. 143--The Sultan’s Pearls. Dated June 12th, 1915. 144--The Clew of the White Collar.

=PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY.= If you want any back numbers of our
weeklies and cannot procure them from your news dealer, they can be
obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken the same as
money.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK CITY