Chapter XV: The Back Trail (4)

As he neared the barn, a prolonged sniff caused him to start and crouch near to the ground. Then he remembered. It was Wolf, the dog—the companion, who had accompanied Dora and him on their tramps across the fields, and on their fishing trips to the lake.

“Wolf!” he called softly.

The big collie came bounding through the darkness.

“Still, Wolf! Be still, boy!” he commanded.

To his relief, the dog recognized him and refrained from barking. Two paws pressed against his knee, and the animal whined joyously.

“Go back, Wolf!” he ordered, as he patted and fondled the collie.

Reluctantly, the dog turned toward his kennel, and Reynolds slid open the door of the barn. A restless horse tramped in his stall and a frightened rat scuttled across the floor, as he felt about in the darkness and found the ladder leading upward. Nimbly he ascended to the loft, and, creeping far over to the wall, he stretched himself upon the odorous hay.

He closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. He faintly heard the clock in the farmhouse striking the hour. After an age of sleeplessness, it tinkled again. The smell of the sun-dried grass brought remembrances of his boyhood, and he thought of the plans he and Dora had made for the future. Then he remembered the “good fellows” of the city, with their invitations to “have another,” and their shallow praise. He groaned in despair. He had severed himself from all of the real joys of life, and now he was but a hunted thing—to prowl forever from place to place, in his efforts to escape the relentless hand of the law.

As he lay there, an almost uncontrollable desire to scratch a match, that he might relieve the awful blackness, possessed him.

“I can’t,” he reflected. “It might set fire to the place.”

Suddenly he sat up, gasping, with a whistling intaking of breath. What had he heard! Again they came! The faint strains of music were permeating the loft, as if some stringed instrument was being played close by. He dug his fingers into his ears, hoping that the sounds might be the product of his imagination. But no! As he removed his fingers, they continued; a strange, weird tune, unlike anything he had ever heard before.

Again he jammed his fingers into his ears to shut out the sounds. Had his crime driven him mad? Was he haunted, he wondered fearfully. With unsteady, trembling legs, he made his way to the ladder and lowered himself downward. He crouched in an unoccupied stall and waited. A rat squeaked beside him, but he failed to move. He was listening for that fearsome music; and whenever he closed his eyes, the white face of Kineally would spring before his vision.

Of what avail was his freedom if this continued, he thought. Ideas of giving himself up entered his mind; but he remembered the high-backed chair with its straps and its horrible death-dealing wires. What a death! No! He couldn’t surrender himself! But still, if he was to be forever haunted, why, maybe it would be better. Maybe it——

With a start, Reynolds awoke—not from sound sleep, but from one of the fitful dozes, into which he had lapsed just before the gray light of morning began to lighten the barn. With an ejaculation of self-rebuke, he sprang up and stood, blinking, in the shaft of sunlight which blazed through a cobwebby, dusty window. He, who had intended to depart before sunrise, had overslept. He could hear persons moving about in the farmhouse, as well as the occasional rattling of crockery and the sputter of grease in a frying pan.

Then footsteps sounded outside of the barn, and before he could turn—could dart to cover—the door slid back, and a girl stood before him. Her face, crowned by a wavy mass of fine-spun, fair hair, was the flesh-and-blood likeness of that portrayed by the picture he carried in his pocket. She wore neither hat nor bonnet, and a dotted bungalow apron covered her from shoulders to ankles. She stared in amazement, her brows puckering as she noted the rumpled condition of his clothing—his drawn features and his bloodshot eyes.

“Why, Bob!” she exclaimed perplexedly. “What—why—how——”

As she paused, he moved forward a step, his nails biting into the palms of his clenched fists. Oh, how he longed to take her in his arms and tell her the whole miserable story! Little beads of moisture surged into his eyes; and in a moment she was close to him, resting her hands on his shoulders.

“Tell me, Bob!” she said anxiously. “Tell me what is the matter. Why didn’t you come to the house? Why are your clothes all mussed up?”

Choking back his emotions, he hesitatingly placed his hands on her arms.

“D—don’t you know?” he inquired brokenly.

“Know what?” she demanded.

“I—I——” He hesitated to say the words. “Heavens, Dora, you must have read last night’s paper! Don’t you know that I’m a—a murderer? Oh, Dora, I’m a murderer!”

Her fingers clinched convulsively through his coat and pinched into his shoulders.

“I’ve killed a man—the man who was giving me a chance!” he groaned. “All because of the cursed drink!” And, with his head bowed on her shoulder, he poured forth the story of his fight with Kineally—of his trip to Farmhill—and of his night in the barn. Then his arms relaxed and he gently tried to push her away.

“Don’t touch me, girl!” he told her. “I’m a murderer—not fit to touch!”

Her arms slipped about his neck, and she held him closer.

“I won’t leave you—I won’t!” she cried. “Oh, Bob! don’t you know that I love you? We’ll go somewhere together.”

“No!” he protested. “Why, Dora, I’m haunted. I lay up there in the loft last night and heard music—that dreadful, unearthly music; and Kin—his face kept coming before me out of the darkness. No; I’m going to give myself up and have it over with.”

With the passion and entreaty of one who loved, she argued, but he steadily persisted in his resolve. He gently drew her arms from about his neck. She made one final appeal.

“Wait, Bob!” she pleaded. “Let me go into the house and get last night’s paper. I’m sure that there wasn’t any—any murder headline on it.” And she darted from the stable.

Her mother, busy in the kitchen, glanced up in surprise at the flushed cheeks and excited eyes of the girl.

“What in the world——” she began, but Dora interrupted.

“Where is last night’s paper, mother?” she asked.

“On the sitting-room table, I think,” Mrs. Whately replied.

Dora hurried from the room. The paper was not on the sitting-room table, and she searched frantically about the room. Finally she found it, half hidden under a pillow on the lounge, where her father had left it the evening before. Spreading out the first page, she read:

MURDOCK TESTIFIES.

Iron King Goes Before Congressional Committee.

Nowhere on the page was Reynolds’ name mentioned. She hurriedly rustled over page after page, until at last, on one of the sporting pages, she discovered a small paragraph commenting on his poor pitching of the day previous. Paper in hand, she sped back to the barn. Reynolds was not in sight.

“Bob!” she called softly; but received no answer.

Into the loft she climbed, but he was not there. As she stood on the hay, she became aware of a peculiar sound. Music! That was what it resembled, and across her mind flashed the words of Bob. For some seconds she listened in bewilderment, and then the little wrinkles of perplexity cleared from her forehead. She climbed higher upon the hay, until she reached a tiny window, far up near the roof. Over its opening were stretched several taut elastics—the work of her little brother. With each gust of breeze they vibrated and twanged, making sounds not unlike the music of a harp or a zither.

Descending from the loft, she hurried out of the barn. The man whom she loved must have taken advantage of her absence to hasten away, she reasoned, that he might carry out his resolve to surrender himself to the authorities. So down the dusty road she hurried, determined to overtake him ere he should reach the town.

* * * * *

A great gray touring car hummed its way along the country road, a continuous cloud of dust, like rising smoke, trailing in its wake. A big, burly man, with tanned features, and whose eyes were obscured by masking goggles, gripped the wheel; while beside him sat another man, not so big, but with a bristling black mustache and keen piercing eyes.

“Remember, Mac!” the big man was saying; “if we find him I don’t want the newspaper men or anybody else to ever hear a word of this. I called on you for help because you are a friend of mine as well as a police inspector, trained in the ways of tracing men.”

“Don’t you worry, Owen!” the other replied. “Never a word will get out. Nine times out of ten a young fellow who has committed a crime, or thinks he has, will risk a trip to his home or old surroundings. If we don’t find the boy somewhere about Farmhill, we’ll change our tactics. He must have landed quite a crack on your skull,” he added.

“He surely did,” the big man agreed. “I was unconscious for a half hour or more; and I guess your idea, that he imagined he’d finished me, and was thus frightened into running away, is right.”

The man with the wiry mustache nodded and tightly gripped the side of the car as they jounced over a particularly high bump in the road.

“But if the experience proves to be the shock necessary to break the boy away from the drink and that gang he was traveling with,” continued the big man; “why, I’ll be mighty thankful that he struck the blow. He’s not only a wonderful pitcher, but I like him. He—look, Mac, look! So help me, John Rogers! Look ahead, there!”

Appearing around a bend in the roadway, from behind the trees of the roadside, a solitary figure was tramping toward them.

Stopping the engine and jamming his foot against the brake pedal, the big man jerked the car to an abrupt stop beside the young fellow, who had turned out and halted by the edge of the road, waiting for the automobile to pass.

“Rube!” the big man cried, pushing his goggles up on his forehead and springing from the car.

The man by the roadside stood as if paralyzed. He stared wildly at the big man who had leaped from the automobile.

“K—Kineally!” came from between his lips in a throaty whisper. “Kineally! Owen Kineally!”

He slowly—fearfully extended a hand as if to touch the big manager—to make sure that he was a reality and not the fantasy of a haunted mind.

The big man quickly reached forth and firmly grasped the hand.

“It’s me, all right, Rube!” he assured, with the flicker of a smile. “It takes a mighty hard wallop to put a tough old geezer like me down for good.”

Drawing free his hand, the young fellow dropped upon one knee in the dusty, sun-scorched grass of the roadside, and burying his face in his arm, he gave vent to his pent-up emotions, his body shaking with convulsive, boyish sobs of relief. The bareheaded girl, who had appeared around the bend of the road and was hurrying toward them, was unnoticed by Kineally and the inspector.

“I—I’m glad! I’m glad!” the kneeling man choked out. “I’m going to stay here away from the drink, and so help me, Heaven, I’ll never touch another drop!”

The big man rested a hand on the young fellow’s shoulder.

“No, I don’t think you will drink any more, boy!” he said. “But,” he continued, “you are coming back with me, and I’ll make you the greatest pitcher in the game, and you and _the girl_ can marry and be happy.”

Before the young fellow could reply, the girl was beside them, her eyes aglow and her bosom rising and falling rapidly as she breathed. Many a picture of Owen Kineally had smiled at her from among the pages of newspapers, and she recognized the big man standing over Reynolds. Unmindful of the others, she dropped to her knees beside the man she loved, and with her arms about his neck, she murmured: “Oh, but I’m happy, Bob! I’m so happy!!”

UNIQUE NAMES FOR CREEKS

THAT Iowa is a farming State is reflected in the names of many of the streams that flow through it.

To begin with, there is a Farm Creek, so that Farmer’s Creek has a place. Then there is a Chicken Creek, a Duck Creek, a Goose Creek, and a number of Turkey Creeks, as well as Pigeon Creek. There are Fox, Hawk, and Rat Creeks to make way with the domestic animals, and some Crow Creeks, while there is also a Fly Creek and Mosquito Creek to worry the summer boarders. Milk and Cold Water Creeks are present, likewise a Hog Run and a Mud Creek, so that Bacon Creek is not strange.

It seems natural that with a Bee Creek and a Bee Branch there should also be a Honey Creek. There are a couple of Cherry Creeks, a Crabapple Creek, and plenty of Plum Creeks, and, for wild animals, there are Bear, Beaver, Buck, Crane, Deer, Doe, Elk, Otter, Panther, Raccoon, Skunk, and Wolf Creeks.

With a Keg Creek there is a Whisky Creek and a Whisky Rum. Finally, there is Purgatory Creek.

Cap’n Dan’s Son

BY Bernard Teevan

THE old sailor, Cap’n Dan, sat on the edge of the deck house of the sloop _Agnes T._, watching the fleet coming in from the day’s work at “dragraking.” The “handrakers” were already in, the contents of their baskets emptied into his, and piled up neatly in the hold, their scores tallied up in the little leather-covered notebook that was Cap’n Dan’s daybook, ledger, journal, and everything else known to the practice of accounts.

The handrakers had all brought in a good day’s catch. If the dragrakers did as well, the _Agnes T._ would have a heavy load to carry to the city, and the money to meet the note which would soon be due would be ready when the time came to pay it.

Cap’n Dan cast an eye aloft at the empty bushel basket which had been hoisted at the masthead to let every one know the _Agnes T._ was ready to buy clams. Then he looked out toward the mouth of the harbor, where the first of the fleet of dragrakers was coming in around the point. In that instant the expression of his face altered, and his troubled glance changed to one of pride and pleasure.

The cut of the head of the mainsail told him that, as usual, it was the _Victorine_ that was leading the fleet, outpointing and outfooting the _Ranger_, _Nautilus_, and the _Dashaway_, to say nothing of the other sloops less famed for their speed. Parental pride shone clear in his gray eyes, for was not the _Victorine_ his own boat, and was not his only son, Young Dan, sailing her?

Young Dan, at twenty-one, had already won the reputation of being the smartest boatman in Lockport. The way he would carry on sail was, in the words of the clammers, “a caution.” Me was the light of his father’s eye, and Cap’n Dan had begun to lean rather heavily on his son.

He was looking forward to the time when Dan’s already keen business ability would be sufficiently recognized to have the dealers up in the market place the same reliance on his word as they had for so many years placed on the father’s. Then he could step aside and take a rest, that rest so many men look forward to before the great rest comes.

When Young Dan caught sight of his father he arose from his seat on the wheel box and swung his arm in salutation. Then he gave the wheel a couple of turns, shot the _Victorine_ up in the wind, and laid her alongside the _Agnes T._ as if the sloop were a fast horse, that a skillful driver had stopped at a carriage block.

“What luck, Dannie?” called his father. “I see you wasn’t the last one in.”

“Had a bully day, dad. Struck a fresh bed off West P’int, and got a jim-dandy load. Goin’ to send any to market to-night?” Then, casting back to his father’s allusion to his beating the other boats, he added dryly: “Oh, yes, there’s some go in the old _Victorine_ yet. Them fellers make me tired with their talk about beatin’ her.”

“Just as soon as we c’n git the _Agnes T._ loaded, Dan, I want you to start for the market. Dolan telegraphed me to-day they wanted all I could send ’em, and as soon as I could get ’em off.”

As the boy had stepped aboard the sloop by this time, the captain added, in a whisper: “You know that Voorhees note falls due day after to-morrow, and I need the money to meet it.”

Dan nodded his head, and some of the gravity that had settled down again on his father’s face was reflected on his own. Then he started in on the heavy task of transferring his day’s catch from the deck of the _Victorine_ to the hold of the market boat.

While he and the three men who made up the working crew were hard at this, the remaining boats of the fleet were coming up, one by one, and ranging themselves on either side of the market boat. With jibs hauled down, and mainsails slatting in the breeze, they all lay head to the wind, while their crews passed basket after basket down into the hold of the _Agnes T._, to the accompaniment of loud interchanges of talk and chaff.

Before the sun had vanished in the west, the loading was accomplished, the sloops had pushed off, one by one, and worked away to their anchorages for the night, and Young Dan and Jim Humphreys, who comprised his crew, had hoisted the mainsail on the _Agnes T._

His father hauled his skiff alongside as Young Dan and Humphreys went forward to get in the anchor, and, as the pawls clinked against the ratchets, with that sound which is so musical to a seaman’s ears, Cap’n Dan picked up the oars and started to pull toward the shore.

“Be careful, Dannie,” he called across the water. It was the usual warning and farewell. “Don’t carry that tops’l after dark. It begins to look squally off to wind’ard.”

“All right, father!” yelled Young Dan, as the anchor broke from the ground and he ran aft to the wheel. “We’ve got to get these clams to market, you know.”

He spun the wheel over as Humphreys hoisted the jib, and the sloop filled away, with her bowsprit pointing out toward the mouth of the harbor.

By the time the _Agnes T._ had cleared the point, Young Dan found that the wind had freshened considerably, and was now coming out of the northwest in such vigorous puffs that carrying the topsail was out of the question. Humphreys suggested turning in a reef, but Young Dan said he guessed that wasn’t necessary just yet. He asked Jim to take the wheel while he went below to put on his coat. When he had taken his place again, Humphreys dropped down into the cabin, lit the fire, and put the kettle on for tea.

Young Dan ate his evening meal as he sat at the wheel, and before it was finished the increasing force of the wind made steering with one hand and holding his teacup in the other a rather difficult business. When it was finished, and Humphreys had cleared away the dishes, he came up on deck and settled down in the lee of the deck house, with his coat collar turned up around his ears.

“Gee, Dannie, but it’s blowin’!” he commented. “And ain’t she a-travelin’, though? Do you want me to get out the lights?”

“Oh, never mind ’em,” replied Young Dan, with the sailor’s too common disregard of the use of side lights. “We can light ’em up when we get around the fort. Come and take the wheel, will you, Jim? I want to fix that jib. She’s slattin’ round there, and ain’t half drawin’.”

Jim uncoiled himself from his corner, in the lee of the house, and took the wheel as Young Dan went forward. They were off Coffin’s Beach by this time, and Jim could see the summer hotels lifting their huge bulks up against the dark-blue sky, studded with stars that twinkled with unusual brilliancy in the frosty night air.

As the sloop was running dead before the wind, the mainsail was doing all the work, and the jib was slatting to and fro, and not doing what the young skipper thought it should. That was how his passion for carrying sail showed itself, and that was the cause of the tragedy that followed.

Picking up the long oar lying along the rail, he took a turn of the sheet around it at the clew of the jib, and boomed the sail out to port, where it caught the full strength of the wind. As it bellied out, causing the sloop to fairly jump through the water, Young Dan watched it for a moment, and then called out to his companion:

“How’s that, Tim? Ain’t she a-pullin’?”

Before Humphreys could make a reply, he heard a crash, and the wheel was jerked out of his hands.

To his horror, he saw the mast break off just under the hounds. With the topmast and all the gear, it fell to the deck, striking Young Dan, and burying him beneath the wreckage.

The shock of the accident stunned Humphreys for a moment. Then he jumped forward along the tossing deck to drag his companion’s body out from under the splintered spars, sails, and rigging.

The jib was lying in a tangled heap, and the mainsail was hanging broad off to leeward, dipping down into the seas as the sloop rolled, and coming up with a jerk, as if it meant to pluck the cleats and blocks and traveler clear from their fastenings.

Humphreys caught hold of Young Dan’s feet, and, gently as he could, pulled him out from beneath the piled-up gear. Stricken as he was by the shock of the catastrophe, terror caught a fresh grip on him as he saw the boy’s face.

Ashy white, he lay with his eyes closed as if in death. Across his forehead a great cut ran, with the blood slowly and steadily oozing out, and down through his hair, already matted with the thick stream.

Humphreys sickened at the sight, and tried to turn his head away. For the moment he was panic-stricken, then he shook himself together, and half carried, half dragged the body of the boy down into the cabin and stretched him gently on the blankets in the berth. Then he jumped on deck again.

For the time one idea possessed him: He must get a doctor for Dannie. He never thought to let the anchor go, never thought to light a signal lamp. He wanted to get a doctor at once, and he knew there were two or three doctors at the quarantine station over by the fort.

Humphreys had lost his head, in the desire to carry out this plan of action. He tumbled the skiff overboard, shipped the oars, and, hatless, and without taking time to pull off his coat, he began to row to the government reservation, where the one thing needed, a doctor, was to be found.

No one knows how long it took him to pull across the mile of water, nor how long it was before he rushed, breathless, up to the doctor’s door. Without even sinking down into the chair the kindly health officer pushed over to him, he stammered out the story of the tragedy that had been enacted out in the bay, on the deck of the _Agnes T._

Before Jim had finished his tale, the health officer called to one of his assistants to ring up the boat and let the captain know they were going out. Then he busied himself putting some instruments into a black bag, and, before Jim had completely recovered his wind, he was in danger of losing it again as he followed the doctor and his assistant down the path to the landing, where the little white tug, with its tall, yellow stack, was moored.

As they went along, the health officer asked Humphreys for the address of the injured boy’s father.

“We’ll send him a telegram,” he said. “Then he’ll probably come out to look for the sloop, too. You say she had no lights burning? Hum! That makes it so much harder to find her.”

They stopped at the office of the press association, down at the pier, and the operator sent the message to Lockport, following it with a brief story of the accident to the main office up in the city. Then they stepped aboard the tug, the lines were cast off, and the search for the _Agnes T._ began.

What that night was to Humphreys, and to Cap’n Dan, who, on receipt of the telegram, had hired the only tug in Lockport and started out to find his son, only they could tell. Calculating on the direction of the wind, and the set of the tides, the two tugs cruised about until the day began to break along the eastern horizon.

Working gradually to the eastward, backward and forward on long stretches, the tugs gradually, as if by a common instinct, drew together. By the time the dawn had broken, and Humphrey could make out the other tug, he told the health officer she was from Lockport, and that probably Cap’n Dan was aboard her.

He stepped outside the pilot house, with a pair of binoculars in his hand, and, as he did so, he noticed a man do the same thing on the other boat.

Putting the glasses to his eyes, a glance told him that it was Young Dan’s father. Humphreys swung his arm over his head, and then saw the captain turn and speak to the man in the pilot house. A moment later, just as the tug headed for the health officer’s boat, the captain of the latter, who had been scanning the horizon, gave a start, and cried out: “There she is!” Pointing off to the eastward, he twirled the spokes over, gave a pull on the jingle bell, and whistled down the tube to the engineer to “give her all the steam she could carry.”

The eyes of every one on the two boats turned in the direction in which the quarantine tug was headed, and then the sound of the jingle bell on the Lockport boat came across the water.

Head and head, they raced to the eastward, smoke pouring from their funnels, and a broad wave of foaming water piled up before their bows. The light was now strong enough for them to make out the _Agnes T._, aground on the long, sandy beach at the eastern end of the harbor.

As she lay with her bow buried in the sand, and listed over by the weight of the outswung boom and the wreck of the topmast, the sloop made a tragic picture in itself. The cold, gray light of the dawn fell down and around the _Agnes T._, making her stand out against the steel-blue water and the pale sand hills, looming large against this background until her proportions seemed gigantic.

The mainsail hung idly down from the gaff, that had been held just below the break in the mast by the jamming of the hoops. The main sheet trailed overboard in long, tangled loops, the shrouds and halyards drooped in picturesque confusion. Jib and mainsail were gray with the night dew and the reflected light.

The little waves rolled up and broke along her sides and spent their tiny force upon the beach. So they were doing yesterday, when Young Dan was living; so they were doing to-day, when the boy was lying stretched out in the berth, a ghastly, solitary tenant.

As the two tugs came nearer and nearer to her, the Lockport boat gradually drew ahead of the health officer’s tug. They could see Cap’n Dan go aft with one of his best men and stand by the painter of the skiff that was towing astern. Humphrey noticed a couple of men standing on the beach, near the wrecked sloop, and through the glasses he made them out to be patrols from the life-saving station.

He could also see a big power boat coming down from the village that lay inside the point, still farther to the eastward, and he wondered if her business lay with the _Agnes T._ The leading tug slowed down as she reached a point in the channel, off the wreck. Cap’n Dan and the man near him dropped over into the skiff and pulled like madmen for the sloop.

Just as they came alongside of her, the power boat swung up by the wreck, and a man standing up in the bow called to the captain:

“Keep off that boat! There’s a dead man aboard of her, and I’m the coroner. I warn you——” His words trailed off into silence as he caught sight of Cap’n Dan’s face.

Even the crass spirit of a jack-in-office could not resist the mute protest he saw in every line of it. Stern, rigid, a very mask of immobility, given a dignity that made it noble by its grief and suffering, the father’s face awed everything into silence.

Moving as in a trance, Cap’n Dan climbed over the rail of the sloop and stepped down into the cabin.

As he disappeared from sight, the spell of silence laid on the coroner was broken, and he began to mutter protests against “violations of the law,” and declaring “he’d stop this thing right now, before it went any further.”

Presently Cap’n Dan emerged from the cabin, carrying the limp body of his son in his arms. As he stepped into the cockpit, the coroner’s voice was hushed.

The father straightened himself up with a dignity that made the movement noble, and faced the official with eyes that looked across the boy’s body.

Between the time he had gone down into the cabin and came out of it, twenty years seemed to have been added to his age. In his grief, he looked like some old chieftain who had given up the life of his favorite son in his country’s cause, and was now bearing the body home to his castle to mourn over it.

A little shadow of deeper pain passed across his face as he looked at the intruder on his woe, and then he said simply:

“He is my son.”

At the sound of his voice, and the look in his face, the coroner recoiled from the captain as if he had been struck. The man in the skiff uncovered his head. He thought Young Dan was dead.

The captain, still holding the boy in his arms, stepped down into the skiff and held him close to his breast as the man at the oars pulled slowly toward the tug. By this time the health officer’s boat had come up to the skiff, and the doctor, leaning over the rail, said quietly: “Let me see him, captain.”

Cap’n Dan looked up at the doctor.

“He’s dead,” he said, almost in a whisper.

“Won’t you let us see him? There may be a chance,” the doctor pleaded.

Then Cap’n Dan held his son out to the two doctors, who laid him down on a blanket on the deck.

There was a moment of silence as the two worked over the body; then, with an exclamation of satisfaction, one of the doctors sprang to his feet.

“I thought so!” he cried. “I thought he was still breathing! He’s badly hurt, but the poor lad is not dead!”

Cap’n Dan stood as if turned to stone. A great tear rolled down his face, but he said nothing. He watched with indescribable pathos as the surgeons brought their skill into play, and finally, when Young Dan began to babble an incoherent string of words, he drew one weather-beaten hand across his eyes, as if in a daze.

A while later, Young Dan sighed and looked into his father’s face.

“Was I in time, dad?” he whispered softly.

Cap’n Dan smiled down at him, and lied so bravely that the recording angel must have stopped to mend his pen just then, and forgot to mark it down against him.

“Plenty, Dannie, plenty,” he replied.

And then he leaned still farther down and kissed him.

ODD BITS OF NEWS

JAMES CARROL, of Tacoma, Washington, drove a motor car weighing one and one-half tons down a wooden staircase of seven hundred steps.

* * * * *

Truman C. Allen, of Oquawka, Illinois, has not taken a drink of water in forty years. His sole drinks are coffee at breakfast and tea at supper.

* * * * *

Conrad Dubosiki, a twenty-one-year-old Russian giant, who is working on the farm of J. Polokof, in Lebanon, Connecticut, is seven feet two inches tall.

* * * * *

Mrs. Joseph Cummings, of Bernardston, Massachusetts, has a thoughtful hen which has laid an egg with a “C,” which is taken to stand for Cummings, plainly marked on one end.

* * * * *

Mrs. A. A. Morse, of Lewiston, Maine, brought from Durham a specimen of a tree resembling hemlock, which bears red berries the size of huckleberries. Botanists of the neighborhood are at a loss as to the name of the tree.

* * * * *

Alderman Henry A. Lewis, of Bridgeport. Connecticut, is said to own a cat which is part Angora and the rest just plain cat, and which is so strictly vegetarian that it refuses to eat meat or any delicacy covered with meat gravy, but relishes corn on the cob, turnips, cold potatoes, and watermelon rinds.

* * * * *

Charles H. Heeps, of Oxford, Massachusetts, one Thursday evening recently bought an acre of land; Friday morning he bought some lumber, and had it on the ground at eight o’clock, and with the help of his wife, who held the uprights, he finished a two-room house, fifteen feet by twenty, and moved his furniture into the building by Saturday night.

* * * * *

W. A. Rauls, judge of the probate court of Jasper County, South Carolina, has lived successively in three counties without ever having moved out of his house. At first the house was in Beaufort County; then Hampton County was formed, and the judge’s house was included; and finally Jasper County was created, and the house was in this area.

Applause

_Edited by Burt L. Standish_

“YOU want me to be a crook?”

Grant Seward’s jaw squared, as he shot this from between his set teeth, and there was a dangerous flash in his dark eyes.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, Grant.”

“There isn’t any other way. You don’t call it _straight_—do you?”

This was what Grant Seward replied to his unscrupulous employer, when the scoundrel wanted him to cheat the customers by filling up the five-gallon Beaver Spring water bottles with ordinary river water. There were other frauds suggested by the rascally storekeeper, too, which Grant spurned.

The upshot of it is that Grant Seward finds himself in the business of cutting ice on the St. Lawrence River, among the Thousand Islands, with the thermometer near the bottom of the tube, and winds that threaten to saw his ears off, even through his thick cap.

Besides battling with the ice and an arctic temperature, rather than be a party to the groceryman’s mean trickery, Grant has to fight several human enemies, who have a habit of “hitting below the belt.” You will read all this and much more in the new novelette,

A BATTLE BELOW ZERO,

BY WELDON W. BRODERICK

to be published in the next issue. The story is full of thrilling adventures, with some novel and narrow escapes for this thoroughly American hero. He strikes all his own blows fairly and squarely, giving the other fellow always a fair show—often when he hardly deserves it. I can promise the novelette to be one of the breeziest, most convincing, and absorbing that has ever come from this author’s facile pen.

There have been many calls from readers for more stories from Cornelius Shea. In a recent issue, you were promised that this call would be answered. It has been, for Shea has just completed a serial which he has entitled

THE LOST PLACER

and it carries an appeal to every reader of fiction who has a drop of red blood in his veins. The first chapters of this serial begin in the next issue, and depict Western life in a manner that has made Shea famous as a writer of stories dealing with stirring doings on the borderland.

In the opinion of many, Leslie W. Quirk is the best writer of sport stories in this country. Certainly it is true that he is an authority on all sports, and you feel when you read his description of a contest of any kind that the author knows what he is writing about, that he has been right down there himself, and has not just sat up in the grand stand, or read about it the next day in the morning paper. Not only does Quirk know all sports, but he knows how to tell about them in a most interesting manner. His plot is always a good one, and he draws his characters so well that they “stick.”

THE YELLOW MORNING-GLORY

which you will find in the next issue, is, in my humble opinion, the best running story that Quirk has ever written. It is quite a long story, but, take my word for it, you will wish that he had made it twice as long.

There is a particularly well-assorted and well-written collection of short stories in the next issue. Let me hear what you think of my selection, and which of the stories you like best, and, what is of more importance, why?

FROM OUR HONORARY EDITORS

FOR THE EDITOR: I have read TIPTOP for many years, and, though the name has grown to mean more to me and my whole family than I can tell, I agree with you in that the name “TIPTOP SEMI-MONTHLY” is too unwieldy and suggests too much the old five-cent-weekly form of publication, which is now obsolete. So let us all cry long live WIDE-AWAKE!

BARTON HEDGES.
Buffalo, N. Y.

GLAD IT DID

FOR THE EDITOR: I am greatly pleased with your magazine, and think it is a fine publication. I have been taking it since its first issue, and took the weekly for twelve years. Of course, as an old reader, I prefer the Merriwell stories, and would like a novelette of that family every other issue. The cover on the November 10th issue was fine. Have yet to strike a poor issue. “From Hank to Geo” is great! So are the stories about Clem Frobisher. Can’t we have another animal story by Harold de Polo? Every lover of nature likes them. Excuse this long letter, but it had to come. Will close now.

RALPH SMITH.
Lawrence, Mass.

OF INTEREST TO ALL

You readers, gentle and otherwise, certainly were weak on fish, but, oh you birds! Here are the names of the five readers whose letters showed the greatest amount of ingenuity in solving the “Concealed Birds” puzzle in the October 25th issue: Miss Irene Evans, Grassmere, Washington; J. E. Price, 89 Academy Street, Malone, New York; Frank Chalfaut, 404 North Marion Street, Bluffton, Indiana; F. Gleason, 5702 Ayala Street, Oakland, California; and F. R. Rudderham, U. S. S. _Georgia_, Care Postmaster, New York, N. Y.

* * * * *

Those who sent in correct answers to the puzzle are:

A. Stanley Bowles, Geo. Conner, G. S. Tuttle, Frank
Lonsford, Mrs. H. L. Drake, John Verner, Thos. L.
Welch, Theodore Blake, Shaw Livermore, G. H. Brunner,
M. Case, H. English, Gerald Garsch, A. Martin, F. W.
Kramer, E. E. Crompton, Thos. W. Bond, C. H. Lenze,
E. Walter, G. E. Missing, J. A. Winkler, G. A. Marsh,
Chas. E. Drummond, Ross Merrick, H. N. Jennings, Earl
Seckel, Russel Hardy, Albert Muench, E. G. Smith,
Forrest Forsyth, John R. Jordon, Myron Bilderbeck, G.
C. Matheson, Jas. K. Darling, Ivan McCune, R. Hovel,
Edwin Beggerow, Frank H. Bartz, Murray Weems, Jr., R.
Ford, Roscoe R. Keeney, F. H. Bice, H. Johnson, J.
M. Keley, C. E. Shipley, H. Goodwin, E. A. Collins,
Guy Greeman, Wallace J. Geck, J. W. Covert, Miss Lora
Clarke, Miss C. E. McComas, Wm. A. Mullen, Lawrence
Mody, J. T. Thompson, C. L. Harrer, B. Elkin, M.
Steinberg, J. F. Travers, C. F. Jones, Geo. Pregrin,
C. J. Butts, Myron A. Jenkins, R. Khugler, Sam Powell,
C. L. Barton, Neil Parsons, H. Page, Coy Williams, P.
H. Riel, Clarence H. Clay, O. Deutschmann, J. Burke,
Clifton Alford, R. Altmeyer, James Mossburger, Harold
Nelson, Chas. Smith, Anton Paterson, O. W. Slusser,
C. Kilburn, Mrs. O. D. Rhea, Walter E. Goodwin, Mrs.
A. J. Nurse, Milond Nellans, E. W. Inyart, Miss Mabel
Mullikin, Harold Thune, W. Culbert, H. E. Davis, Harold
Stonehill, N. Woledehoff, G. L. Fowler, R. W. Older,
Geo. H. Hogan, F. Quantmeyer, H. L. Wickey, Alden
Bermingham, W. E. Outman, Herbert Reine, C. Noethling,
J. S. Riddle, H. A. Bridenbecker, Frank Spoon, L. R.
Cantwell, Chas. Schnell, U. G. Figley, Vernon Beightol,
Theodore Phillips, Clifford Johnson, C. W. Gillman, D.
A. Gardner, Rollin W. Cowles, J. F. Howell, S. Melvin,
J. W. Schroeder, Vernon Headapohl, Otto A. Lohmeyer,
Jr., Frank Mora, Harold A. MacNain, I. M. King, T.
M. Poyle, Hy. Bokarny, F. W. Brooks, Paul Malloy,
Elbert Bedwell, Carl Shoemaker, Frank Branson, S. S.
Reilley, W. E. Quigley, C. M. Haller, R. W. Lawrence,
C. Ingwersen, Roger Saldarine, Ray Barriger, Chas.
Duffy, James McNamara, W. Verschooe, James Shortell,
S. E. Wood, F. E. Cowley, Jr., Mrs. Carle F. Williams,
T. Hayes, A. C. Smith, T. F. Chesebrough, Andrew de
Comsey, E. J. Kohler, E. F. Johnson, R. Anderson, Miss
Winifred Whitham, C. Murphy, Howard Holiday, Wilmer
Taylor, Carlo Izzi, Miss Elizabeth Greer, Miss Marion
Reaves, E. O. Hayden, N. Hatlestad, Phil. Thomas, Carl
Cohn, John L. Foley, R. C. Vallmore, and Miss Edith
Whipple.

* * * * *

Here is the answer to the puzzle, which was entitled “Concealed Birds.”

1. Robin. 2. Turkey. 3. Magpie. 4. Harpy. 5. Hawk. 6.
Crane. 7. Crow. 8. Tern. 9. Kite. 10. Chickadee. 11.
Linnet. 12. Curlew. 13. Loon. 14. Hornbill.

<b>But don’t get discouraged, for, once again you
have an opportunity to secure a free subscription to
WIDE-AWAKE MAGAZINE for a year.</b>

One year’s subscription to WIDE-AWAKE MAGAZINE will be given to each of the five readers whose letters indicate that the writers exercised the greatest amount of ingenuity in arriving at the correct solution of the following puzzle. These letters should not be over one hundred words in length, and will not be judged from the standards of penmanship and grammar. The answers must be received by January 24th.

To inform our correspondents as to whether they worked out the puzzle to a proper conclusion, we will print the names of all those who send in correct answers.

How are you on sports? What, every one of you has his right hand up! Well, then, try this:

SPORTS PUZZLE

This sports puzzle consists in guessing the names of certain games, or sports, as shown in the following example:

The initials of all nouns in the sentence given below, when placed in their proper order, form the name of a sport. One letter, however, is omitted. This letter must be supplied.

The _u_ndercurrent washed away the _t_restle, the only _s_afeguard against the _q_uicksands surrounding the _i_sland.

The initials of all the nouns in the order in which they appear in the above sentence are U T S Q I. Arranging them in proper sequence, the result will be: QUITS. Supplying the missing letter, O, the name is Quoits, a well-known sport.

In like manner, the name of a popular game, or sport, is contained in each of the following sentences:

1. The farmer had a good output of tomatoes, beats, and lettuce; but his onions, beside the apples he produced, were the most profitable of what he sold.

2. Landscapes, lighthouses, armories, and drawings of houses filled the book, and afforded considerable amusement.

3. The crow circled the edge of a thicket, soaring over the rocks, and landed on the crest of a little knoll.

4. Life in the summertime, when amusement supplants tedious lessons, is most enjoyable, with its appeal for bathing and boating.

5. Elks, skunks, otters, lions, and rabbits are some of the animals whose cages we visited.

6. Each section of the notebook contained entries of special interest at the time it was exposed.

7. The foul gave the apparent losers the game.

8. The eyes of the listeners stared out of their sockets, as the lecturer continued his account of the thrilling adventures depicted in “Bandits’ Trails and Blood.”

9. The song of the canary was carried across the courtyard, to the room occupied by the old studious ecclesiastic.

10. Quinine is the best remedy for a cold, although it is a widespread opinion that other things can be used to bring about the same end.

YOUNGEST UNIVERSITY STUDENT

STUDENTS and faculty of the University of Chicago are expecting much of Benjamin Perk, of Indianapolis, thirteen years and four months old, who has registered as a freshman. Perk was graduated last spring from the Indianapolis Manual Training High School, and was awarded a scholarship at the university. He is enrolled in the junior college of philosophy.

Perk follows in the footsteps of Harold Fishbein, who came from Indianapolis a year ago at the age of fifteen and has continued his remarkable record at the university. Perk is the youngest student ever matriculated at Chicago.

Are You Too Fat?

Reducing Outfit Sent Free

With permission it will be my pleasure to mail two very important free gifts to every over-fleshy reader of this publication (male or female) who writes a postal to me. If you, reader, are putting on fat or are excessively fleshy at the present time, then you certainly must have this free outfit, because it includes absolutely everything necessary to give you an immediate demonstration of what the very latest and greatest (1915) health and Nature methods are so marvelously accomplishing for stubborn obesity cases. One of these free gifts is a neatly bound copy of my world-famed “new-thought” Treatise, telling in easy language the simple things you can do for yourself, and much you must NOT do when reducing. No other book is like it—every person over-weight should study it. The other gift is surely going to please and surprise you. It is a complete, ready-to-use testing package of my wonderful reducing materials, the like of which you have never seen before. They are delightful to use and are meeting with tremendous favor. Your own doctor could not possibly object to my healthful preparations. He will tell you it may be positively dangerous to use old-fashioned methods of starvation, excessive sweating and continuous strong purging of the bowels with drastic, poisonous cathartics. How can a weak heart stand this enormous strain? Why take such chances when my absolutely safe, health-giving method is ready for you and waiting? There is no delay. It starts at once. I purpose it to put the system in vigorous health, to vitalize weakened organs and strengthen the heart by perfectly reducing every pound of superfluous flesh on all parts of the body, double chins, large stomachs, fat hips, etc. You will never know until you try it. Remember, just a postal request will bring all to you absolutely free by return mail, in a plain wrapper. You can then judge by actual results, and may order more of the reducing preparations later if you need them.

=CAUTION! My Method is being widely imitated. None
genuine unless coming from my laboratory.=

Please write your address plainly.

=F. T. BROUGH, M. D., 51 Brough Building, 20 East 22nd St., NEW YORK=

_IN THE NEXT ISSUE_

THE OPENING CHAPTERS OF A SERIAL BY

CORNELIUS SHEA

ENTITLED

THE LOST PLACER

For years Cornelius Shea has been one of the most popular authors of stories of adventure in the West. Mr. Shea wrote a serial for you, “The Kid From Bar B,” which we published during the early summer months. At that time you were asked if you wanted more stories by Mr. Shea. We received a flood of replies in answer to this question, and all of the letters spoke most highly of Mr. Shea’s work, and requested more of it.

Mr. Shea says that “THE LOST PLACER” is a far better story than “The Kid From Bar B.” We agree with him. What do you say?

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 25, “familiarty” changed to “familiarity” (told of his familiarity)

Page 58, “McShane” changed to “McShayne” (arranged with McShayne)

Page 79, “Rosmommon” changed to “Roscommon” (you reach Roscommon)

Page 87, “gold” changed to “golf” (golf clubs, boxing)

Page 94, “Venon” changed to “Vernon” (reason for Vernon)

Page 100, “vagabone” changed to “vagabond” (Nonsense, you vagabond!)