Evening Star Newspaper, April 6, 1924, Page 80

THE _SU. NDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. APRIL ¢, Orn t7e Swarmp Roaa. 6y WILL PAYNE Lustrated by J-G-Stephenson The Story of an Adventurous Reporter on the Trail of a Murderer m HE farmhouse had never been |branch and jammed down the accel- | the hood to look at the engine he painted and was now black with age. To keep out the winter cold, it was banked with dirt about the basc. At one cor- ter the spring rains, pouring down rom a broken eaves trough, had washed away the dirt, embankment, disclosing the rotten ends of the per- pendicular siding boards. At the sther corner of the north front was a <narled honeysuckle vine, two-thirds lead. Its spreading branches, leafless r bearing only scant and sickly ver- lure, clung to the warped sideboards ke the gaunt arms of an old hag em- & the ruinous house. One grim pane roken out of the window n the west gable and the hele had u stuffed with rags. VFor o long time debt and drink and n had blasted this place, and now there was something else. liot morning sun three women and two children stood in the bare door- vard, visibly huddling together, \lanched and agape. They stared now t the house, now at the two empty automobiles standing by the road- side—one of them a long, gray fiv passenger car. the other a red two- passenger roudster. Sometimes, with an excess of horror, they looked over at a skinny old crone who hopped and peered with an uncanny excitement. One of the children was a red-headed freckled boy of ten, whose long legs vrotruded from frayed breeches that failed by inches to reach his knees. His mouth was open though it had been frozen that Wik a nobby as it Coming out of the house, Skinner iced this gaping boy first of all In his rapid walk toward the red au- tomobile he even looked around ¢d a bony horse standing with head over the rickety barnyard fence and looking on thoush it, were speculating upon what had happened. Then he the skinny crone behind his niachine, him with snappy little and nervous as the he apprehended that she burned with a gruesome excitement. Jler snappy eves watched his advance @ moment, then she darted at him. “Have y' seen the tracks?” she de- nded. “I'll show to ¥. This ! This way!" Her weazen hand clutehed at his coat sleeve and she nodded her old head at him Skinner thought of an unclean old bird as she bobbed along the road side—keeping « little in advance him in her febrile eagerness. At the lilac thicket she pointing her lean arm and extended index finger in a rigid line. The trac of an automobile showed plainly on the grass there. At a slance Skinner saw that a machme had drawn up in the cover of the lilac thicket, then backed away to turn aronnd. around,” “He turned it erone, her beady eves snapping Skinner. we yere!” her arm and forefinger extended, she followed the curving track which the had made backing and and 't saw —as beady rat—and of at ¢ e a ™ ‘em said the at machine in turning. ‘Backed plumb into that!" she said, triumphantly, and even before she pointed to them. Skinner noticed that twigs and branches of the young | tree were broken. He reached up and picked a thread of black cloth from & broken branch. Plainly the top of the car had been up and the collision with the tree had torn it. “Backed plumb ound! around she said, and swung he skinny old arms in a half circle, as +hough she were swinging the car around. “Plumb around!” she re- ted, repeating the gesture also. Skinner found it peculiarly gruesome. “I sce,” he murmured and started abruptly across the road toward his car. following the long gray car out from town he had taken most of the curves on two wheels at risk of his neck. Even now, after ten min- utes spent in the farmhouse, the deed 1ad only just accomplished itself. Tt was o recent that it still oozed and quivered under the bright morning sun. That came to him as he drove away ind he shuddered Partly from mere instinct of flight, e jammed his foot savagely against the accelerator. But there was a professional reason for speed, too; and as the little red car leaped away his shocked brain Dbegan contposing the story as it would appear in the extra. It would be the first extra Allentown had ever ex- perienced, and he wondered how much of a hit that metropolitan touch would make. A wiry and undersized man was Skinner, tanned a good leathery brown. There were a few gray hairs in his bristling, intractable mustache, and his gray eyes studied the back-reel- ing road through a pair of round, gold-bowed spectacles. A faded cloth hat was jammed down on his solid head. He wore a limp shirt, with a rusty little tie under the limp tura- down collar, and an office-stained alpaca jacket over that. Manifold adventures had enriched him little, except in experience; but as usual he was quite hoyishly eager over his new adventure of the Allentown Gazette. A quick side glance showed that fhe speedometer was registering thirty-five miles an hour, and when he looked back to the road two gal- loping horsemen had popped up out of the ground. He recognized the grizaly-bearded one on the left and nodded, as he flashed past—with a grim littlo smile, for the man was rrying a repeating shotgun, and Skinner approved of that. Under cer- tain circumstances buckshot was very affective. Two- minutes later he slowed up with a frown. Coming out, he had simply trailed the gray car over an unknown road. He knew the gén- eral direction, of course; but just ahead a road branched to the left. Should he turn thére? By general di- rection it ought to be his way. There was no one in sight to ask; but, in any event, it could hardly take him far out. He swung into the left Under the | bout the two automobiles | and | watching | halted, stooping and ' Stooping, with | Plumb | erator again. It was very good going until he passed a small white farm- house; then the gravel ceased and it hecame a dirt road. In a few minutes the ground sloped down and the dirt road resolved itself into a rutty wagon track. The road grew worse. Overhanging bushes on both sides lashed the churning car. The heat and the dank smell became stronger. Obviously, he was in a swamp. Now and then through the { bushes, in fact, ho could see where ditch had been run on i the road in some long tempt at drai to turn her bandoned at- It was impossible he prospect of backing lup a mile through that tortuous, | rutty road was not inviting. He | pushed on, hoping to come cither to | 2 better road or at lea where he could turn around. So far |the road had been dry and baked hard as fron. Now it dropped into lush ground that yielded sponizily and with | squashy sound under the wheels. Three rods ahead the miserable road curved out of sight ‘beneath over- hanging bushes { * {WWITH « bitter thought that the road i couldn’t be worse, he shifted jinto low gear, churned through the screen of overhanging bushes at the curve and almost immediatcly stopped the car, every merve in his body tingling. A rod ahead of him the road was blocked by un automobile with th top up. The back of the car was scratched and the top torn in half a dozen places. aping at this appari- tion, nner's first thought—which me with a deep pang-—was that he had no weapon. His second thought. which came fast on the heels of the first, was to shift the driv into reverse position for backing. He was doing that when a man stepped out of the busWes and laid a right hand on the foredoor of the car though he were taking possession of it. 'Git out!” said the man. He w burly person, with broad shoulders and a deep chest. Although he, wore a loose, faded gray coat, one might see that his waist—encircled by a rusty leather belt that held up ! his frayed trousers—was smaller than his chest. He had lean loins, and in comparison with the mighty chest the legs looked almost spindling. collarless calico shirt was open at as the throat, showing a hairy chest and | the base of a thick neck. In other circumstances Sk might have admired his figure Suessed that he was a prize fighter. Just now he could see scarcely an thing except the man's face a foot from his own. It was a swarthy, ani- ymal face and there was a peculiar meaning upon it—in the cat eyes that glittered into Skinner's and on the lips that made a straight line which was Dbisected by a diagonal white scar. That diagonal scar across the long, straight line of the lips seemed to belong to the face like a natural feature of it. That is what Skinner noticed—and the pockets in the man's loose, faded gray coat. The hand was thrust into the left pocket, where it grasped an automatic revolver. ¥rom the gaping right-hand pocket a ham- mer protruded. It was clear to Skin- ner that on the approach of his noisy car the man had taken that hammer out of the tool kit of the stalled car nd put it in his right-hand coat | pocket as though he had an idea of | using it, and that idea wis implicit in he peculiar look on the man’s swarthy face. Implicit in that look also were the things Skinner had seen n the weather-beaten farmhouse. They had been beaten with a hammer. “Get out where?" said Skinner, aim- Jessly, as these things swam through his mind. There was no mistaking the cold ferocity with which the man replied, opening his lips just wide enough to emit the sounds: “Git out o' the car.” “Oh, sure!” Skinner replied cheer- tully. “Devil of a road, ain’t it?' He shut off the engine, threw the lever into neutral and set the hand brake— not pausing in the operations and certainly not hurrying. “Live around here?” he inquired cheerfully, as he slid nimbly along the seat and opened the foredoor on the other side. #* ok % Hr\\' NG put that little space be- tween himself and the man, he paused with his hand on the open foredoor to add sociably, “I'm driving througl: from Indiana. Old woman at a log cabin back there told me to take the first turn to the left. Guess she thought she'd play & trick on me. Rottenest road I ever saw in my life, “It's rotten luck, too,” Skinner com- plained; “rotten luck.” He stepped down to the weedy roadside, and con- tinued: “I wanted to make a place they call Allentown by half past §, sure. I'd like to wring that old scare- crow’s neck for sending me off here! He was, of course, merely fighting { for time and trying to think up some- thing. “Your car break down?’ he added neighborly, as he stepped over [in front of the man and looked mildly up into his swarthy face. By contrast his stature seemed that of a boy. As he logked into the sin- ister eyes, where a peculiar meaning lay, he felt to his marrow that there was going to be no delay, and he was inspired to say, with a confidential i little smile and nod, “Fact is, 1 got into some trouble last night; been driving like the devil ever since 10 o'clock. 1 guess they're after me.” He thought the man's eyes wavered a hairs breadth, and he added, with another confidential little nod, “I shot a man. Can’t we get out of this?" Plainly, then, the man hesitated, | with a slight scowl. “Know anything | about a car?” he asked. 1 “You bet I do!” Skinner asserted | confidently. “I was in that business once.” 1 “If you git my car to goin’,” said | the man in his peculiar manner of speaking, which' was like a curse, you can follow me out in your car.” “It was an offer—a promise, whatever that might be good for. “Sure!” sald Skinner cheerfully; “let's have a lock at it And lifting ner both sides of | st into a space | ng lever His | and | continued: “Mighty good car, too. 1 know it like a book. Used to have the agency for it. Trouble is, it's too high-priced for farmers.” < And he rattled on while his hands fussed pointlessly with spark plug and carburetor. He must gain all the time he could —but not push —for the miputes in which this man might hope to escape were running out. So far as his scant knowledg went the engine teemed sound. “Looks all right. Let's give her a try.” he said, utting the hood. Starting the stalled car might be as bad for him as failing tg start it. for ho had a leaden notion that onee there was u clear way out of the b mp only one of them would ever take it By way of answer the man only gave a grim little nod and pulled a nickel-plated watch out of the small pocket in his frayed trousers, con- nlting it while Skinner's heart | seemed to fade out of his body. Re- turning the watch to the pocket, the it a second too far But he must do something. man looked at him—giving him, per- | haps, three minutes; or was it only one? * * KINNER climbed into the drivers seat. The man was about to fol- low him, but changed his mind and took a seat in the tonneuu instead— that is, behind him. With a dull, mechanical eye Skinner looked at throttle and spark lever; then turned the magneto key and put his hands to the wheel. He threw in the self-starter. It churned and the engine whirled, but no explosion came. He tried it again with the same result. Mechanically, he looked again at lever, spark, magneto key and at other equipment. Then he saw, with astonishment, that the gasoline dial howed plainly that the tank was empty. Through his brain flitted the surprised and contemptuous thought, “Here's a man | running for his life with an empty tank and not knowing it!" He about to call out, with a touch of in dignation, “Why, you're out of j In fact, he half turned his head for ! that purp But immediately he [1ooked b: n, applied thé self- I starter twice more, then slipped quickly to the other end of the seat saying, “It won't go!” at the same | time springing from the ear. “I tell you what,” he added, as the man was getting out of the “We've to turn m car around |and beat it back to the main road It's the only way. You and I to- ! gether can swing it around.” He supposed it was exactly the man had in mind; but it would was in lifting the car be worth that little re te, especially as the man must turn the car before he could leave, unless he chose the slow and difficult process ing up. “All right,” said the man and together they started up road to the red car. But Skinner walked ahead and so crossed over to the right-hand side of the road. Thus when they turned behind the car to lift it he would be at the man's left and his right hand would be close to the gaping pocket in which the automatic revolver lay. It was a desperate chancs but that ‘was better than no chance at all. He kept talking. He was talking they took positions behind the car, and he thought, “When we stoop I will grab for it." But before they stooped, the man very deliberately took the out of his left-hand pocket and put it in the right-hand one, looking down into Skinner's eyes then with a tiger- ish little grin—as though some brute instinct had sense a danger. ‘Guess you'd like that gun,” he suggested with a ghastly sort of grin. A horrible joke seemed stirring in his mind and Skinaer suddenly smelled blood upon him. He must have grinned that way when he was at work back therc on the main road. ‘Look here!” said Skinner promptiy, don’t know who you are or what you're doing down here. you want to get out. My name's Morrison and I'm from Shelbyville, Indiana. You'll read about me if you get an Indianapolis newspaper this | morning. I've got to get out to gave my neck. Now I know a way to get out and you don’t. Listen to jthis: 1 came through a town called 7Gurner Junction about an hour ago. 1 know a fellow there. He advised me to strike for a little flag station call- ed Platburg and swing on a freight there and so get up to Chicago. This red car of mine is pretty easy to fol- low and I knew I'd have to drop it pretty soon. He told me the road to Platburg—not used very much and most of the way through woods. I ought to have turned five miles back; but like a fool I decided to 1keep on, to Allentown. {road looked sort of rough and 1 { thought I could make Allentown and catch a passenger train. But it | too late for Allentown now. i be pretty sure to have word there pefore we could make it, and tho passenger train would be gone, Plat- burg is the only chance I see and I know the way there. If anybody's looking for you,” he added, his eyes steadily upon the man’s, “it won't be Jong before they find that car, and | this neighborhood won’t be healthy.” grimls the | | revolver But I know | The woods : car, | ‘his shoulder, what | ground, caught him by the throat and gain him three minutes—and his help ! around ought to| | looking up through his of back-! | ! i i { They-d | turned restlessly “Have y seen the tracks?” she de- manded. “Tll show 'em to y'. Thix way! This way!” AS the man looked at Skinner an d to beat in so that Skinner fairly feel their impact upon nerves. “What make you think somebody’s looking for me?” he asked. “You're pretty particula gun,” Skinner replied, with nod The man asked his eyes boring “You come along pointed south. ure!” Skinner replied promptly. ce anybody?” asked the man t a soul,” said Skinner, the old woman at the lag cabin that I told you about. She told me to turn here. You come with and we'll make Platbure”™ “All right,” said the and Skinner's constricted panded exultant Together they stoo d to lift, behind them—almost in their ears, seemed—a voice shouted, “Hell With the marvelous swiftness of a pouncimz cat the man glanced over hurled Skinner to the ould about that a little question, head He another to Skinner's that road?” me gTimly heart ex- and it drew the hammer. It all happened while the shout was still ringing in Skinner's ears. He lay perfect i gold-bowed spectacles at the burly form of death which knelt over him. He struggling In the least, either physically or mentally: but lying i a kind of quiet wonder, as though the mechanism of his life had been abruptly shut off. awaiting the blow He saw that the man had turned his head again to look in the direc of the sound and noted the swelling vein on his thick neck. wother voice, some distance answered, “Hello, there!" The laxed and the arrested mechanis started up again. “Here's the track of a car!” called the fikst voice, “Hurry back to Tatroe’s and telephone to watch the other end of this road. Then come back here. We'll follow the road through.’ “I guess they're after me,” Skinner whispered at randorm. The man paid no attention to that. With one heavy hand resting on Skin- ner’s chest at the base of the throat, he stretched his thick neck, turning his head from side to side, trying to make out, the person who had shouted. “I can't see,” he growled under h breath, looking down at the prostrate man. “Stand up,” Skinner suggested in a whisper. The man glowered dubjously down at him an instant and it seemed that the pupils of his cyes contracted. “I killed three this morning,” the man growled. “Td as lief kill you as look at you” With that he got on his haunches and slowly raised him- self, stretching his neck and peering. When he was upright he glowered down and motioned Skinner to rise. Two or three yards brought them to a place where, above the intervening bushes, Skinner could see the head and gray slouch hat of his grizzle- bearded friend. “He's horseback and he's got a gun,” the man mumbled in Skinner's ear as they crouched out of sight. “I could git him easy enough, but the horse'd git away.” He evidently revolved the problem which that presented, as his eves up and down the . | instant his glittering eyes seem- his | exeept | was | road; and through the hand that rested on his back Skinner could fair- Iy feel the trembling and quivering of nerver and muscles as in a big ani- mal that prepares to crouch for a | spring. At the same time the man's sweat and odor, and the subtle feel of something obscene and bloody about him, were sickening. * * * T restless, glittering eyes came back Skinner. “There's bridle-path back there a way said. I & here “Wi to a he i a horse that,” the man added. It seomed. in fact, | With the telephoned trond would E the only outlet alarm theirsbad soon blocked at both for & man to make his pain- {ful way afoot across the swamp would {lak hours. But with a horse i Eht follow the bridle-path something that would give a chance of cscape. “I'll git him and you git his hors i®aid the man, grumbling under h tbreath; “and I'l give you a lift as far back the bridle-path,” he addedy | with last was a lie, but Skinner was too |much’ occupied with other things to |pay attention to that ! ou'll lay down on your back with ur hat ever your face beside the !bushes here and keep groanin’, man explained. “I'll be in the bushes. He'll git off'n his horse to take a look at you and he'll put the bridle around his arm He made & motion like @ horseman slipping a hridle over his arm. When he squats down to take the hat off'n your face you reach up fand grab the bridle” He nodded his head as though that were all; then ladded as a sort of elaboration. “I'l {jump out the bushes and It seemed to Skinner, in fa I ly ingenious. He could fairly see the griasle-bearded man dismounting. {slipping the bridle over his arm and !stooping with his shotg: {lessly under his arm or laid upon the zround, and this other leaping from the bushes upon his bowed backs B “We ought to have gome blood on {the hat.” he said stupidly. It was all |he could think of. | The man nodded and drew a jack- knife from his pocket. Skinner stu- pidly held out his arm and wondered {dully how much blood-poisoning there {might bo in the blade which the man (drcw across it. He stared down at the {red streak which broadened on_his |tanned arm, while the man caught the Jcloth hat from his head and dabbled the crown with red. Skinner took the hat. without both- ering to put it on, and as he did so {something that had been lying in re- Iserve in his brain recurred to him in {a flash. be {ends anc many | ling the hat-crown. against his arm, “we've got to make sure he does get reach down with his gun and poke the the hat off my face. Or he might {wait till the other man comes back. |We've got to make sure he gets off the horse,” he repeated earnestly; “we must scatter something around for him to get off and look at.” 2 it when I drove down| wnother littte grin. Obviously the | n tucked use-| ‘See here,” he said, himself smear- | off the horse, you see. He might just| 1924 —PART -o. | The man nodded assent. | “I'll lie down beside the ditch there,” | Skiner went on, pointing to the side of the little clearing, “and you get in | the bushes just behind me. T've got a leather wallet in my hip pocket. I'll spread that out beside the ditch as| though somebody might haye been go-| |ing through it. And I've got some note | paper in my pocket.” He took from |the pocket of his alpaca jacket a doz- {en sheets of memorandum paper and {the stub of an editorial pencil that made a broad black mark—things that {lie had hastily caught up from thel felleh could follow |45k When news of the murder camel! into the office. He exhibited them to his companion. “I'll fold over a sheet of this paper—see?—so it looks like [the back of a big envelope, and T'll write my-address on it. He'll want to isee what's in it.” | Writing rapidly on the.folded sheet lin a large hand, he pronounced the |words as he traced them: “Thomas {Morrison. Shelbyville, Ind, Lane {County,” while the man silently look-| ‘ed on F * 2 INISHING the rapid writing, Skio- ner stepped excitedly down the | | road a few feet to the beginning of | the little clearing and spoke breath- | | lessly, for their business demanded i haste: “He'll ride around this clump | of bushes—see? T1l be lying in that narrow place between the bushes and | !the ditch, just on the cdge of the!| ditch. He'll have to get off his horse jw have to stay this side of the ditch.| { That'll bring him with his back to the | | bushes when he bends over. You'll| ;i» in_ the bushes.” | The man surveyed the scene and jnodded. Having dismounted at the! |spot to which Skinner pointed, the stooping horseman's back would be | !only a foot from the bushes. A leap {and a blow of the hammer would do | it easily. | Having surveyed the scene, the I'man's cat eyes turned to Skinner. He | took the automatic revolver from his { coat pocket, exkibiting it in his huge !nn]m. “If you try a game you git [ this through the head.” he said, part- |ing the hard line of his lips just | enough to emit sounds. “Sure!” said Skinner, though that were understood. He stepped forward to the spot he had indicated, i tossed his open purse to the ground and laid the decoy envelope near it; then stretched himself on his back and looked up at the man. The man stepped over him and | thrust himself into the screen of bushes, squatting. Skinner could see him as he crouched, the automatic re: volver in his left hand, carefully lev- eled at the prostrate head; the ham- { mer grasped in his right hand. Then Skinner, with his face toward | the bushes, put the cioth hat over his head and cheek, spread his limbs as though he lay sprawling from a blaw, and uttered a loud groan. An instant later he groaned again, louder yet, and .the grizzle-bearded horseman shouted, “Hello, there!” Twice again Skinner groaned and again the horseman, mearer at hand, called, “Hello, there!” 5 Another groan, an -interval® of silence, then the voice asked, “Are | subcommittee, | “HE'S HORSEBACK, AND HE'S GOT A GUN,” THE MAN MUM- BLED IN SKINNER'S EAR. you hurt?* Evidently-the -rfdgr-had come to the edge of the.clearing,-in view -of the prostrate body, -and paused there. But.all Skinner could ®ee, out ef ome eve under the hat | there. brim, was front of his head, the edge of bushes and through the leafage a b of one knee of the crouching man. His heart fairly stopped beating and th hand that hung over the ditch side clutched into the weeds. He gave a fecble moan and heard a horse’s hoof sink squashily into the wet ground . ridem evidently was coming to- and in another second would dismount, or else Skinner's hands clutched tighter into the weeds and he held his breath. Then he heard a rustling and cra ling of the thick bushes and he could motion in those that were within his little field of vision as though a large object had been thrust again: them. With all the agility of which he was capable, pulling himself by the hand clutched into the weeds, he rolled over into the ditch and as he went he heard the grizzl bearded man say, “Come out of that' When he sat up in the ditch the horse’s forequarters were pressed into over { the brush. The grizzle-bearded rider | was standing in the stirrups, the shot gun ward, his finger on the trigger. Its muzzle was two feet above the head of the swarthy man who crouched To him the sudden leap of the spurred horse into the bushes had the little space directly in | at his shoulder aiming down- | come like a flas a clear sky h of lig! | htning out « A quarter of at hour later Skinner was expiaining in gleeful excitement “You see, his guso dial showed | the tank was ¢ —plain as the | nose on your face. It must have bee !almost empty whew he drove up t the farmhpuse—and his life depend | Ing upon his getaway 1 made up my mind he couldn’t read. and whex came right down to the pinch staked everything on that.” | With a forefinger he affectionatel; | tapped the sheet of paper which like a large scribed before | eves and then The order « | was At your ! and hand corner, where county oft heavily unders of memorandum , he had folded to look : envelope and super the swarthy. man laid on the ground it, arranged in the dress on an envelop: in the bushes | the lower 1 the nam “Look Out ~But : added to the grizzle bearded man, I ten vears growth while T was Iving there wait ing to see whether you'd notice th envelope, or whether I'd have to shout | to you and get a bullet through m { head.” lost {Copyright, 1924.) ‘Discovery of North Pole look these things over and he'll ® Fifteen Years Ago Today (Continued from Fourth Page.) many later meetings, my mind. That winter—the winter of 181 11—Peary had an apartment in the Dresden, in Washington, on Connecti- cut avenue just south of the magnil cent arch bridge over Rock Cree valley. It was late in the afternoon when 1 reached him home. 1 went there directly from my office on Capitol hill after the close of the day’s work. Dr. Tittmann had ad- vised him of my coming, and he was expecting me. I well remember the appearance of the reception room into which I w shown, though it was but a second before the great explorer appeared. and after that 1 saw only him. The quiet elegance of the room was real- 1y enhanced by a few beautiful und well chosen trophies—a tripod of narwhal tusks and a small the éxplorer's ship, and, if € remember rightly, a hand some bearskin rug. These objects faded into the background when the man appeared From the first moment when piercing gaze surveyed me as if would seek my innermost thoughts until our last meeting Some four vears later, the one dominant his pressed me was hiS own unfaltering honesty, coupled with a spirit of utter abomination of dishonest others. . At that meeting commenced a friendship which I have ever prized, in which I have ever gloried. Hearings on the Peary bill were resumed on January 7, 1911, when, on invitation of the congressional Peary appeared be- fore it. It was mot my privilege to attend the first day’s hearings, but reading over the record of it later, and knowing so well the calm, de- liberate manner of the explorer, I can well imagime that to all present —to all the members of the commit- tee, save one or two—it must have been- a most refreshing and im- pressive experience, and that for many years thoir memories will rc- tain the picture of this man of ploneer instincts telling in modest, straightforward and precise lan- guage the story of his great achieve- ment. It was on Thursday, the 13th day of January, that I attended a hearing very different from the onme which preceded it. Peary was in the hands of a member of the subcommittee | whose whole attitude toward him was | hostile, and whose questions appar- | ently had been inspired by some one clever enough to. suggest scientific half-truths and make them masque- rade as facts. Standing across the table from where Peary was seated, I was so impressed ‘with the straightforward manner and clear-cut, precise an- swers which he gave that I did not notice. the passing of time. FPeary’s patience under the badgering ques- tions of ignoranee and bias seemed still clear in | model of | the Roosevelt, | trait of the | man which always tremendously im- | al I wondere at it It was late afternoon when 1 heard Tittmann vouching for me as of his bureau, and found m 1 the chair which Peary hail vacated. It seemed but a few min later that 1 was walking across the Capitol plaza in compan: ! with Dr. Tittmann and his son. Bot¥ were congratulating m on m atement before the committee. hour later Peary callad my home & phone—I was out—and he left a mes sage thanking me for my stateme™ before the committee tes statement, which consum / minutes in fs presents culmination of hours o careful study and labor on my part and that of my colleague, C. R Duvall, at that time also of the coas | and geodetic survey, now of the Car negic Bureau of Terrestial Magnetisn To have known Admiral Peary | T knew him 1 have ever considered | ome of the greatest of privileges. {"only was he a scientist and enginee: lof mo small ability, but even mor | was he w pionecer and an explorer- | & man who sought to do things tha | had proved too difficult for othe | But. above all other things, was he very embodiment of sincerity, sympathy and’ This only a few tion the | men. he a man, courage ability . Northern Hot Springs. \HAT ancient volcances had some- thing to do with the “lay-put” o. western America is evident not oni, from the wonderful display of moun tain scenery in the Rocki and mino rapges. Springs that send out hc water in unlessening volume 4 nd tem perature indicate th there i some lively action away down insid and they occur not in one locality alo but at considerable distances The springs in Yellowstone Park anc in the Canadian National Park at Banil ; are very well known. But at least three others have recently been found farther north, in a region that is usual- 1y associatsd with cold rather than hot things. During the survey for a rail- way line through the Yellowstone pass a natural hot spring was discovered near Myette peak, and the railway | people immediately included in their literature descriptions for the benefit of tourists. Still farther north, at Port sington, are springs whose waters give good out-of-door bathing at 10¢ degrees. These have been reserved the Canadian government. The third hot-water reservoir is almost on the edge of the Pacific ocean. on the west coast of Vancouver Island. With im- mense quantities of coal, tar, gas and oil underground, some of which, inthe Mackenize river district, has been o fire for years at a time, one need not be surprised if the bowels of the eart: should be found to hold a reserve stocl;, of hot water which lets off from nu merous faucets throughout the coun- o very ’ 9| v 4