The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 17, 1903, Page 3

THE SUNDAY CALL. ot friend—I had heard he was abroad— 1 got this telegram from a relative who happened to be down there.” cll,” sai@ the superintendent, “your d made & mighty good fight before e up. The Teller, that's the man e got out here, he's so hacked up and battered his mother wouldn't she wanted to; at least, at Gay, here, says. We haven't m. because the doctors have been ever since he was found and they ect to do some more to-night when ve had our interview with him if he One of my sergeants e freight yerds about 4 < nd sent him here in the ambu- e; knew it was the Teller because he s stowed away in one of the empty rs that came from Plattville last night, Siattery t's his running mate, e one we caught with the coat and hat geve In that they beat their way on et freight. I guess Elattery let this one 4o most of the fighting; he ain’t scratch- Mr. Harkless certainly made 1t r the Teller.” “My relative believes that Mr. Harkless 11! alive,” sald Meredith. Barrett permitted himself an indul- He had the air of having long overed everything which anybody wish to know and of knowing a t deal which he held in reserve be- suse |t WS necessary to suppress many fscts for @ purpose far beyond his audi- t comprehension, though a very sim- he dly alive.” 1 said Meredith. Barrett has to say it.” Smith. “We're up here ow before he dies, to try what disposal they replied to tell th shivered. *“I believe i the other than to hear the res- 's mighty Lad, eriff of Cariow, the f bis honest, rough face falling pattern; “I reckon we nate uch as you hate to hear it; really didn't get the word ck our throats all day; o't recollect as I heard a siagie it before I left our city this folks thought & good deal Mr. Meredith; I don’t believe thinks more. But it's come “ sweating this other ma can’t break him down. to”—the Sheriff paused, by the thought that unbefitting a hospital ace, and shets his jaw e up here is calied the Barrett says; his name's er. Well, we toid Slattery 1 died and left a confession; im think there wasn't no might as well up might git off easier; k out for a mob if he on, but it never He's nervy, all that is, he said it the Teller was cn his swore he seen him git sidn’t say another yer. 8o, soon as it ne up here—they before he dies. We'll i with us,” Hor- it's all the “I reckon Gay Meredith he young man tly behind his hand, med to straightfor- d at an evi- t reply. “His chances because they’li hang They took the ball a of shot out of his side, a lot more for afterwhile, if He's been off the table an nd he's still going.” in his favor, isn't 1t?” said h. “And extraordinary, too?” If )r. Gay perceived a slur in these gations he betrayed mno exterior ation of it exclaimed Horner. “Shot! I there’d be'n a pistol used, though they got it beats me—we stripped and it wasn't Mr. Hurk.leffi; he er carried one. But & shotgun” ttendant entered and spoke to the strgeon, and Gay rose wearily, touched ihe drowsy young man on the shoulder, » je way to the door. “You can now,” bhe sald to the others: ough 1 doubt it's being any good to 11, quiet ward. e wis's pungent smell of chemicals n the room; the light was low, and the imbued with a thick, oon” purmur, incoherent whisperings was the only cot in use in the ward, and Meredith was conscious of a terror that made him dread to look at it, to go mear st Beside it & nurse sat silent, and upon it feebly tossed the racked body of hixln whom Barrett had called Jerry the Tel- ler. bead was s shapeless bundle, =0 -:rx‘hed it was with bandeges and cloths, and what part of the face was visible was discolored &nd pigihented with drugs. Stretched under the white sheet the man loaked immensely tall—as Horner saw with vegue misgiving—and he lay in an fashion, as though he 1, inhuman iid peen ell broken to pleces. His - to move were constantly by the mnurse, and he as y renewed such attempts; hand, though torn and bandaged, was not to be restrained from a wander- ‘-r.;‘. restless movement which Meredith felt to be pathetic. He had entered the room with a flare of hate for the thug whom he had come to see die, nnd.who had struck down the old friend whose nearness he had never known until it was too late But et first sight of 'hle oken figure he felt all animosity fall ouly awe remained, and eway from him; e gryowinl, traitorous pity as he watched he long, white fingers of the Teller pick &t the coverlet.” The man was ering rapid fragments of words and ;C:;;-ho' I feel a sense of wrong,” Meredith whispered to Gay. “I feel as If 1 had done the fellow to death myself, as ¢ 1t were all out of gear. I know now ow Henry felt over the great Guisard. God, how tall he looks! Thl:t doesn’t scem to e like a thug's hand. The surgeon nodded. *“Of course, if ere's a mistake to be made, you can unt on Barrett and his sergeants to ake it. 1 doubt If this is thelr man. When they found him what clothes he re were torn and stained; but they Had - od once, especially the linen.” rr‘::t bent over the recumbent figure. See here, Jerry,” be said, “I want to talk to you a little. Rouse up, will you? I want to talk to you as & friend. The incoherent muttering continued. “See here, Jerry!” repeated Barrett, more sharply. “Jerry! rouse up, will t any (oolln‘l;“undu- stand that, Jerry!” He dropped hand on the man's shoulder and shook him slightly. The Teller uttered @ short, said Gay, and swiftly inter- Bending over the cot. he sald in a pleasant, soft voice: *It's all right, old man; it's all right. Slattery wants to know what you did with that man down at Plattville, when you got through with him. He can't remember, and he thinks there was money left on him. Slattery’s head was hurt—he can't remember. He'll £0 shares with you, when he gets it. Siat- tery’s going to stand by you, If he can get the money."” The Teller only tried to move his free band to the shoulder Barrett had shaken. “Slattery wants to know,” repeated the surgeon, gently moving the hand back upon the sheet. *“He'll divyy up, when he gets it. He'll stand by you. old man. “Would you piease not mi It pered the Teller faintly, “would you please not mind if you took care not to brush against my shoulder again?” The surgeon drew back with an excla- mation; but the Teller's whisper gathered strength, and they heard him murmuring oddly to himself. Meredith moved for- ward. “What's that?" e startled gesture. 5 5 to be trving to sing or some- said Barrett, bending over to listen, (The Teller swung his arm heavily over the side of the cot. the fingers never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay leaned down and gently moved the cloths asked, with a €0 that the white, scarred lips were free. They moved steadily: they scemed to be framing the semblance of an old ballad that Meredith knew: the whisper grew more distinct, and it be- came a rich but broken voice, and they heard it singing. like the sound of some far, halting minstrelsy Wave willows- beams amile. Earthly mus: Lisle. “My God!” cried Tom Meredith. The bandaged hand waved jauntily over the Teller's head. “Ah, men,” he sald, almost clearly, and tried to lift himself on his arm, I tell vou it's a grand eleven we have this year! There will be little left of anything that stands against them. Did you see Jim Romley rde over his man this afternoon?” As the voice grew clearer the Sherift stepped forward, but Tom Meredith, with murmur waters—golden sun- nnot wafen —lovely—Annle & loud exclamation of grief, threw him- self on his knees bekide the cot and selzed the wander! fingers in his own. *John!” he cried. “John! Is it you?’ The voice went on rapidly, not heeding him; “Ah, you needn’t howl; I'd have been as much use at right as that sopho- more. Well, laugh v, vou Indians! I it hadn't been for this ankle—but it seems to be my chesit that’s hurt—and side—not that it matte sophomore’s just as good, or better. only my egotism. Yes, side—and chest—and head—all over, 1 be- lieve. Not that it matters—I'll try again next year—next year I'll make it a datly, Helen said, not that I should ca!l you Helen—I mean Miss—Miss—Fisbee—no, Sherwood—but I've always thought Helen was the prettiest name in the world— you'll forgive me?—And please tell Par- ker there’s no more copy, and won't be— I won't grind out another stick to save his immortal—yes, ves, a daily—she sald— ah, I never made a good trade—no—they can’t come seven miles—but I'll finish vou, Skillett, first; I know you! I know early all of you! Now let's sing ‘Annie Lisle.” He lifted his hand as if to beat the time for a chorus. **Oh, John, John,” ¢ and sobbed outright. : boy—my boy— old frierd The cry of the classmate was llke that of a mother, for it was his old, idol and hero who lay Helpless and broken before him. The brougham lamps and the apathetic sparks of the cab gleamed in front of the hospital till daylight. Two other pairs of lamps joined them in the earliest of the small hours, these stbjoined to two decp-hooded phae- tons, from each of which qufckly descended a gentleman with a beard, an air of eminence, and a small, ominous black box. The air of eminence was justified by the haste with which Mere- dith had sent for them, and by their wide repute. They arrived almost simul- taneously, and hastily shook hands as they made their way .to the ward down the long hall and up the narrow corridors They had a short conversation with Gay and a word with the nurse, then turned the others out of the room by a practiced innuendo of mapner. They stayed a long time in the room without opening the door. . Meredith paced the hall alone, sometimes stopping to speak to Warren Smith; but the two officlals of peace sat together in dumb consternation and astonishment. The sleepy young man relaxed himself resigne@ly upon a bench in the hall and returned to the dormance from which he had been roused. The big hospital was very still. Now and then a nurse went through the hall, carrying something, and sometimes a neat youms physician passed cheerfully along, looking as if he had many patients who were well enough to testify to his skill, but sick enough to pay for it. Outside, through the open front doors, the crickets chirped. Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the cool night air. A slender taint of drugs hung everywhere about the building, and the almost imperceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, he thought,*and imbued with a hideous portent of suffering. That John Harkless, of all men, should lle stified with ether, and bandaged, while they stabbed and slashed and tortured him, and made an outrage and a sin of that grand, big, dex- terous body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in the little ward were turned up, and they seemed to shine from a chamber of horrors, while he walited, as a brother might have waited outside the Inquisition—if, Indeed, a brother would have been allowed to walit outside the Inquisitiof. Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had “lost track” of him as men sometimes do lose track of their best beloved, but it had always been a comfort to know that Harkless was— ewhere, a comfort without which he tould hardly have got along. Like others he had been waiting for John to turn up—on top, of course; for people would always bellieve in him S0, «that he would be shoved ahead, no matter how much he hung back himself —but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in Indiana. He had heard vague- ly that Harkless was abroad, and he had a general expectation that people would hear of him over there some day, with papers like the Times beseeching him to go on missions. And he found him here, in his own home, a stranger, alone and dying, recelving what ministratjons were reserved for Jerry vhe Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found him. He wondered how much those two had seen of each other, down there In Plattville. If they had liked each other, and Hark- less could have lived, he thought it might have simplified some things for Helen. “Poor Helen!” he exclaimed aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren four sentences. He wondered how much they had liked each other. Perhaps she would wish to come at once. When those fellows came out of the room he would send her a word by telegraph. ‘When they came out—ah! he did not want them to come out; he was afrald. They were an eternity—why didn’t they it's it must be the ied Tom Meredith, * come? No; ke hoped they would not come just now. In a little Ume, in a few min- utes, even, words €0 much; but now he couldn’t quite bear 1o be told he had found his friend only to lose him. the man he had always most needed, wanted, loved. Everybody had always cared for Harkless, where- ever he went. That he had always cared for everybody was part of the reason maybe. Meredith remembered now, hearing a man who had spent a day in Plattville on business speak of him: “They've got a young fellow down there who'll be Governor in & few years. He's a sort of dictator; and runs the party all over that part of the State to sult his own sweet will, just by sheer personality. And there isn't a man In that district who wouldn’t cheerfully iie down in the mud to let him _pass over ary. It's that young Harkless. vou know; owns the Herald, the paper that downed McCune and smashed those finitation ‘White-Caps’ in -Carlow County.” Meredith I'ad been momentarily struck by the coincidence of the name, but his notion of Harkless was so insep- arably connected with what was (to his mind) a handsomer and more spacious— certalnly more illuminated—fleld of action, that the idea that this might be his friend never entered his head. Helen had sald something once—he courd not remember what—that made him think she had half suspected it, and he had laughed. He thought of the whimsical rate that had taken her to Plattville, of the reason for her going. and the old thought came to him that the world Is. after all, so very small. He looked up at the twink!ing stars; they were reassuring and kind. Un- der their benignancy no loss could be- fall. no fate miscarry—for In his last thought he felt his vision opened, for the moment. to perceive a fine tracery of fate, “Ah, that would be too beautiful!” he said And then he shivered: for his name was spoken from withiy It was soon plain to him that he need not have feared a few words, for he did not in the least understand those with uhdich the eminent surgeons favored him; an they at once took their departure. He did not understand, however, what Horner told him. Mr. Barrett, Warren Smith and the sleeny voung man had re- entered the ward: and Horner was folloav- ing, but waited for Mered'th. Somehow, the look of the Sheriff's Sunday coat, wrinkling forlornly from his broad. bent shoulders, was both touching and sol- emn. He said simply: “He's consclous and not out of his head. They're gone In to take his ante-mortem statement,” and they went into the room. Harkless' éles were bandaged. The lawyer was speaking to him, and as Hor- ner went awkwardly toward-the cot War- ren said something indicative of the Sheriff’s presence, and the hand on the sheet made a formless motion which Hor- ner understoad, for he took the pale fin- gers~in his own, very gently, and th set them back. Smith turned towars Meredith, but the 'atter made a gesture which forbade the attorney to speak of him, and went to a corner and sat down with his head in his hands The sleepy voung man onened a note- book and shook a §tylographic pen o that the Ink might flow freely. The lawyer. briefly and with unlegal agitation, ad- ministered an oath. to which Harkless re- sponded feebly, and then there was si- lence. = ow, Mr. Harkless, if you please,” said Barrett, Inslnuatingly: “if yvou feel like telling us as much as you can about it He answered in a inw. rather indistinct voice, very deliberataly. pausing before al- most every word. Tt was easy work for the sleeny stenographer, € “l understand. T don’t want to go off my Lead again before 1 finish. Of course, 1 know why vou want this. Tf it were only for myself I should tell you nothing, because, If T am to leave, T should like it better if no one were punished. But that's a bad community over thete: they are everlastingly worrying our people: they have always been a bother to us, and it's time it was stopped for good. T don’t belleve very much in punishment, but you can't do a great deal of reform- ing with the Cross-Roaders unless you catch them young—very young. before they're weaned—they wean them on whisky, T think. T realize you needn't have sworn me for me to tell you this. Horner and Smith had started at the mentfon of the Cross-Roads, but they subdued thelr ejaculations, while Mr. Barrett looked on as if he had known it, of course. The room was still, save for the soft transcribings of the stylographic pen. “I left Judge Briscoe's and went west on the pike to a big tree. It rained, and 1 stepped under the tree for shelter. There was a man on the other side of the fence. Tt was Bob Skillett. He was carrying his gown and hood—I suppose it was that—on his arm. Then T saw two others a little farther east, in the mid- dle of the road; and I think they had followed me from the Briscoes,’ or near there. They had their foolish regalia on, as all the rest had—there was plenty of lightning to see. The two in the road were simply standing there in the rain, looking at me through the eyeholes in their hoods. I knew there were others— plenty—but I thought they were coming from behind me—the we: “I wanted to get home—the Courthouse yard was good enough for me—so I started east, toward {fown. I passed two gentlemen; and one fell down as I went by him, but the other fired a shot as a signal, and T got his hood off his face for it—I stopped long enough—and it was Force Johnson. I know him well. Then I ran, and they followed. A little ahead of me 1 saw six or eight of them spread across the road. 1 knew I'd have a time getting through, so I jumped the fence to cut across the flelds, and T lit in a swarm of them—it had rained them just where I jumped. the fence, but one of the fellows in the road leaned over and smashed my head in, rather—with the butt of a gun, I be- lieve. I came out from the fence and they made a little circle around me. No one eaild anything. 1 saw they had ropes and saplings, and I didn’t want that, exactly, so I went into them. I got a good many hoods off before it was over, and T can swear to quite a number be- sides those I told you. He named the men, slowly and care- fully. Then ‘he went on: “I think they gave up the notlon of whipping. We al? got into a bunch, and they couldn't get clear to shoot without hitting some of their own; and there was a lot of goug- ing and kicking—one fellow nearly got my left eye, and I tried to tear him apart and he screamed so that I think he was hurt. Once or twice I thought I might get away, but somebody ham- mered me over the head and face agaln, and I got dizzy; and then they all jumped away from me suddenly, and Bob Skillett stepped up—and—shot me. He walted for a good flurry of lightning, and I was slow tumbling down. Some one else fired a shotgun, I think—T can’t be sure—about the same time, from the side. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t, and then they got together for a consultation. The man ‘I had hurt—I didn’t recognize him—came and looked at me. He was nursing him- self all over, and groaned, and I laughed, I think—at any rate, my arm was lying stretched out on the grass and he stamp- ed his heel into my hand, and after a he would not dread a few I set my back to. hittle of that 1 quit feeling. “I am not quite clear about what hap- pened afterward. They went away, not far, I think.» There’s an old shed, a cat- tle shelter, near fhere, and I think the storm drove them under it to walit for a slack. It seemed a long time. Sometimes 1 was conscious, sometimes I wasn't. I thought 1 might be drowned, but T sup- pose the rain was good for me. Then I remember being in motion, being dragged and carried a long way. They took me up a steep, short slope, and set me down near the top. I knew that was the rall- road embankment, and I thought they meant to lay me across the track, but it didn’t occur to them, I suppose—they are not famillar with melodrama—and a long time after that I felt and heard a great banging and rattling under me and ail about me, and it came to me that they had disposed of me by hoisting me into an empty freight car. The odd part of it was that the car wasn't empty, for there were two men already in it, and I knew them by what they said to me. “They were the two shell men, who weren't vindictive; they even seemed to be trying to help me a little, though per- haps they were only stealing my clothes, and maybe they thought for them do anything unpleasant would be superflu- ous; I could see that they thought I was done for, and that ‘they had been hiding in the car when I was put there. I asked them to try to call the tralnmen for me, but they wouidn’t listen, or else I couldn't make myself understood. That's all. The rest is a_bl 1 haven't known anything, more until those surgeons werg here Piease tell me how long ago it ha nefl. 1 shall not die, I think; there are a good many things I want to know about” He rmoved resticssly and the nurse soothed him. Meredfth rose and left the room with a noiseless step. He went out to the stars again, and looked to them to check the storm of rage that buffeted his bosom. He understood lyneching, now the thing was home to him, and his feeling was no inspiration of a fear lest the law mis- carry;: it was the itch to get his own hand (n the rope. Horner came out presently and whispered a long, broad, profound curse 'upon the men of fhe Cross-Roads, and Merecith's gratitude to him was keen. Barrett went away soon - after, icuving the cab for the gentlemen from Plattville. Meredith had a strange, un- reasonable desire to kick Barrctt, possibly for his sergeant’'s sake. Warren Sinith sat in the ward with the nurse and Gay and the room was very qulet. It was a leng vigll They were only waiting. At 5 o'clock he- was still alive— t that, 'Smith came out to say. Mercdith sent his driver with a telegram to Helen which would give Plattville the news that Harkless was found and was not yet gone from them. Horner took the cab and left for the sta- tion; there' was a train and there were things for him to do in Carlow. At noon Meredith sent a second telegram to Helen, as barren of detall as the first; he was alive—was a little Improved. ~This tele- gram did not reach her, for she was on the way to Rouen, and half of the popu- tion of Carlow—at least, so It appeared to the unhappy conductor of the accom- modation—was with her. They seemed to feel that they could camp in the hospital halls and corriders and they were an Incalculable worry to the authorities. More came on every train and nearly all brought flowers and jelly and chickens for preparing broth, and they insisted that the twp latter del- icacies be fed to the-patien once. Mer- edith P qs@* respongibility’ for them all great manyt to stay at his They were still in ignorance of the truth about the Cross-Roads, and some of them spent the day (it was Sunday) In plan- ning an assault upon the Rouen jail for the purpose of lynching Slattery in case Haurkless' condition did 'not improve at once. Those who had heard his state- ment kept close mouths until the story appeared In full in the Rouen papers on Monday morning: but by that time every member of the Cross-Roads whitecaps was® lodged in the Rouen jail with Slat- tery. Horner and a heavily armed posse 10de over to the muddy corners on Sun- day night and the Sherif discovered that he might have taken the Skilletts and Johnsons single-handed and unarmed. Their nerve was gone; they were shaken and afrald; and, to employ a figure some- what inappropriate to their sullen, glad surrender, they fell upon his neck in their relief at finding the law touching them. Tirey had no wish to hear “John Brown's Body"” again. They wanted to get inside of a strong jail and to throw themselves on the mercy of the court as soon as pos- sible. And those whom Harkless had not recognized delayed not to give them- selves Gp; they did not desire to remain at Six-Cross-Roads. Bob Skillett, Force Johnson and one or two others needed the care of a physician badly, and one man was suffering from a severely wrenched back. Horner had a train stopped at a crossing, so that his prisoners might not be taken through Plattville, and he brought them all safely to Rouen. Had there chanced any one to. ride through the deserted Cross-Roads the next morn- ing, passing the trampled flelds and the charred ruins of the two shanties to the east and listening to the lamentations of the wonfn and children, he would have declared that at last the old score had been pald and that Six-Cross-Roads was wiped out. b The Carlow folks were deeply Impressed with the two eminent surgeons, of whom some of them had heard, and on Tuesday the bulletins marking considerable en- couragement, most of them decided to temporarily risk the editor of the Her- ald to such capable hands, and they re- turned quietly to their homes; only a few were delayed in reaching Carlow by traveling to the first station in the oppo- site direction before they succeeded in planting themselves on the proper train. Meanwhile the object of their solicitude tossed and burned on his bed of pain. He wus delirfous most of the time, and in the intervals of half-consclousness found that his desire to live, very strong at first, had disappeared; he did not care much about anything except rest—he wanted peaco. In his wanderings he was almost always - back In his college days, beholding them in an unhappy, distorted fashion. He would lie asprawl on the sward with the otkers listening to the seniors singing on the steps, and all at once the old, kindly faces would expand enormously and press, over him with hideous mouthings, and an tgly senior in cap and gown would stamp upon him and grind a spiked heel into his hand; then they would him high into the air, that was all flames, and he would fall and fall through the raging heat, seeing the cool earth far beneath him, but never able to get down to it again. And then he was driven miles and miles by dusky figures through a rain of bolling water, and at other times the whole uni- verse was a vast, hot, brass bell, and it gave oft a huge, continuous roar and hum, while he a mere point of con- sciousness fi in the exact center of the heat and sound waves, and he lis- tened, listened for years, to the awful, rel. “addl brazen hum from which there could be n. escape; at the same time it seemed to him that he was only a freshman on the slippery roof of the tower trylng to steal the clapper of the chapel bell. Finally he came to what he would have considered a lucid interval, had it not ap- peared that Helen Sherwood wak whisper- ing to Tom Meredith at the fqot of his bed. This he knew to be a fictitious pre- sentation of his fever, for was she not by this time away and away for foreign lands? And, also, Tom Meredith was a slim young thing, and not the middle- aged youth with an undeniable stomach aud a baldish heads who by the grotesque necromancy of his hallucinations assumed a preposterous likeness to his old friend. He waved his hand to the figures and they vanished llke figments of a dream; but all the same the vision had been rcal- istic enough for the lady to look ex- quisitely pretty. No one could help wish- ing to stay in a world which contained as charming a picture as that. And then, too quickly, the moment of clearness passed, and he was troulled about the Herald, beseeching those near him to put coples of the paper in his hands, threatening angfily to believe they were deceiving him, that his paper had suspended, If the three issues of the week were not instantly produced. What did they. mean by keeping the truth from him? He knew the Herald had not come out. Who was there to get it out in his absence? He raised himseif on his elbow and struggled to be up; and they had hard work to quiet him. But the next night Meredith waited near his bedside, haggard and disheveled. Harkless had been lying in a long stupor. Suddenly he spoke, quite loudly, and the youug surgeon, Gay, who'leaned over him, remembered the words and the tons all his life: “Away and away—across the waters,” said John Harkless. “She was here—once —in June.” \ “‘What is it, John?" whispered Mere- dith, huskily. “You're easier, aren’t you?” And John smiled a little, as if, for an instant, his swathed eyes penetrated the bandages and saw and knew his old friend again. That same night a friend of Rodney McCune's sent a telegram from Rouen: “He is dying. His paper is dead. = Your name gaes before the convention in Sep- tember." CHAPTER XIII, JAMES FISBEE. On Monday morning three men sat in council in the Herald office; that is, if staring out of dingy wmdows in a de- mented silence may be called sitting ‘in council;- that was what Mr. Fisbee and Parker and Ross Schofield were doing. By almost desperate exertions these three and Bud Tipworthy had.managed to place before the public the issues of the paper for the previous week, unaided by their chlef, or, rather, aided by long accounts of his' condition and the manner of his mishap; and. in truth; three copies were at th#t moment in the possession of Dr. " Gay, accompanied by a note from Parker warning the surgeon to exhibit them to his patient only as a last resort, as the foreman feared the perusal of them might cause a relapse. By~ indiscriminate turns, acting as edi- tors, reporters, and typesetters—and par- ticularly space writers—the three men had worried out three.issues, and part of the fourth (t6 appear the next morning) was set up; but they had come to the end of ‘their string, and there were various horrid gaps vet to fill in spite of a too gen _spreading of .advi ents. Bud Tipworthy had been sent out to be- slege Miss Tibbs, all of whose recent buds of rhyme "had been hothoused into inky blossom during the week, and after a long absence the youth returned with a somewhat abrupt qua! rain, entitled *“The Parislans of Old which she had produced while he walted— only four lines, aceording to the measure they meted, which was not regardful of art—less than a drop In the bucket, or, to preserve the figure, a single posy where they needed a bouquet. Bud went down the rickety outside stairs and sat on the lowest step, whistling “Wait Till the Clouds Roll By, Jenny"; Ross Schofleld descended to set up the quatrain, and Fisbee and Parker were left to silence @nd troubled meditation. They were seated an opposite sides of Harkless’ desk. Sheets of blank scratch- paper lay before them and they relaxed not their knit brows. Now and then one of them, after gazing vacantly about the room for ten or fifteen minutes, would attack the sheet before him with fiercest energy; then the energy would taper off, and the paragraph halt, the writer peruse it dublously, then angrily tear off the sheet and hurl it to the floor. All around them lay these snowballs of defeated Jjournalism. Mr. Parker was a long, loose, gaunt gentleman, with a peremptory forehead and a capable jaw, but on the present oc- caslon his capability was baffled and swamped in the attempt to steer the craft of his talent up an unaccustomed chan- nel without a pilot. “I don’t see as it's any use, Fisbee,” he sald, morosely, after a serles of efforts that littered the floor in every direction. “I'm a born composi- tor, and I can’t shift my trade. I've stood the pace fairly for a week, but I'll have to give up; I'm run plumb dry. I only hope they won't €how him our Saturday ‘with your three columns of ‘A Word on the Lotus Motive,’ reprinted from Febru- ary. 1 begin to sympathize with the boss, because I know what he felt when I bul- lyragged him for copy. Yes, sir; I know how it is to be an editor in a dead town now.” “We must remember, too,” sald his companion, thoughtfully, ‘‘there is the Thursday issue of this week to be pre- pared, almost at once.” “Don't! Please don't mention that, Fi bee!"” Parker tiited far back in his chair with his feet anchored vnder the desk, preserving a precarious balance. “I ain't grateful for my promotion to joint editor-in-chief as I might be. I'm a mid- dling poor man for the hour, I guess,” he remarked, painfully following the pere- grinations of a fly on his companion's sleeve. Mr. Fisbee twisted up another sheet, and employed his eyes in following the course of a crack in the plaster, a slender black aperture which staggered across the dusty ceiling and down the dustier wall to disappear behind till dustler map of Carlow County. “That's the trou- ble!” exclalmed Parker, observing the other’s preoccupation. “Soon as you get to writing a line or two that seems kind of promising you begin to take a morbid interest in that blamed crack. It's busted up enough copy for me, the last eight days, to have filled her up twenty’times over. L don't know as I ever care to see that crack again. I turned my back on it, but there wasn't any use in that, be- cause It a fly lights on you I watch him like a brother, and if there ain’t any fly I've caught a mania for tapping my teeth with a pencll, that is just as good.” To these two gentlemen, thus disen- re-entered (after a much longer absence than Mis Selina’s q . justi- uatrain, fled) Mr. Ross Schofield, a healthy glow- exertion lending pleasant color to his o‘urnnt :lnnn.uxd an almost visible lau- of success crowning his brows. In tion to this imaginary ornament, he was horned with pencils over both ears, and held some scribbled sheets in his hand. . “l done a good deal down there' he announced cheerfully, drawing up a chair to the desk. *“I thought up a heap of things I've heard lately, and they'll fill up mighty well. That there poem of Miss Seliny’s was a kind of an inspiration to me, and [ tried one myselt, and it didn't come hard at ail. When I got started once, it jest seemed to flow from me. I didn’t set none of it up,” he added mcad- estly, but with evident consciousness of having unearthed genius in himself and an elate foreknowledge of the treat in store for his companions. “I thought I'd ort to see how you liked it first.” He of- fered the papers to Mr. Parker, but the foreman shook his head. “You read it, Ross,” be sald. “I don’t belleve T feel hearty enough to-day. Read the items first—we can bear the waliting.” inquired’ Mr. Schofleld. “For the poem,” replied Parker grimly. With a vague but not flecting smile, Ross settied the sheets in order, and ex- hibited tokens of that pleasant nervcus- ness incident to appearing before a crit- idal audience, armed with literature whose merits should delight them out of the critical attitude, *I run across a great scheme down there,” he voluntcered amiably, by way of preface; “I described everything in full, in as many words as I could think up; it's mighty filling, and it'll please the public, too; It gives 'em a lot more information than they us'ally git. 1 reckon there's two sticks of jest them extry words alone.” . “Go on,” said the foreman, rather om- inously. Ross began to read, a matter necessi- tating a puckered brow and at times an amount of hesitancy and ruminating, as his‘results had already cooled a little, and he fourd his hand difficult to decipher. “Here’s the first,” he said: “ ‘The large and handsome, fawn-col- ored, two years and one-half old Jersey of Frederick - Ribshdaw Jones, Es- quire—""" The foreman. interrupted him: “Every reader of the Herald will be glad to know that Jersey's age and coler! But - “ ‘—Frederick Ribshaw Jones, Es- quire,’”” pursued his assistant, with some discomfiture, ‘“‘—Esquire, our popular and well-dressed ,fellow-citizen—' " “You're right; Rib Jones is a heavy swell,”” sald Parker in a breaking veice. ‘*‘—Citizen, can be daily seen wander- ing from the far end of his pasture lot to he other far end of it." " ‘His!" " exclaimed Parker. The Jersey's?"” returned the other, meekly, “Rib “ ‘His pas- Jones." ™" sald Parker. of that item? It is! out of Plattville, my friend; it's too small for you: you go to Rouen and you'll be city editor of the Journal inside of a week. Let's have another.” Mr. Schofield looked up blankly: how- ever, he felt that there was enough live, legitimate news in his other items to re- deem the somewhat tame quality .of the first, and so, after having crossed out several of the extra words which had met 50 poor a reception, he proceeded: “‘Whit Upton's pigs bpoke out last Wednesday and rooted up a fine patch of garden truck. Hard luck, Whit.’ *¢ “Jerusalem Hawkins took a drive yes- terday aftermoon. He had the bay to his sidebar. Jee's buggy has been recently washed. - Congratulations, Jee ““There's thrilling information!’ shouted the foreman. . “That'll touch the gentla reader to the marrow. The boss had to use some pretty rotten copy himself, but he never got as low as that. But we'll use it;. oh, we'll use it! If we don't get her out he'll have a setback, but if they show her to him it'll kill him. If it doesn't, and he gets well, he’'ll kill us. But we’'ll use it, Ross. Don't read any more to us, though; I feel weaker than 1 did, and I wasn't strong before. Go down and set it all up.” Mr. Schofield rejoined th an injured air, and yet hopefully: “I'd like to see what you think of the poetry—it seemed all right to me, but I reckon you ain't ever the best judge of your own work. Shall I read it?” The foreman only glanced at him in silence, and the young man took this for assent. “I haven't made up any name for it yet."” 0, the orphan boy stood on the hill, The wind blew cold and very chill—" Glancing at his auditors, he was a trifle abashed to observe a glaze upon the eyes of Mr. Parker, while a purple tide rose above hi# neck band and unnaturally dis- tended his throat and temples. With a placative little laugh, Mr. Schofleld re- marked: “I git the swing to her all right, I reckon, but somehow it doesn’t sound 80 kind of good as when I was writing it.” There was no response, and he went “‘But there he saw the little rill—'" The poet paused to say, with another amiable laugh: “It's sort of hard fo git out of them ill, hill, chill rhymes once you strike ‘em. It runs on like this: ““Little rill That curved and splattered around the hill" “1 guess that's all right, to use ‘hill’ twice; don’t you reckon so? “And the orphan he stood thers until The wind and all gave him a chill; And he sickened— That day Ross read no more, for the tall printer seemingly incapable of co- herent speech, kicked the desk impotent- ly, threw his arms above his head, and, his companions confidently looking to see him 'foam at the mouth, lost his balance and toppled over backward, his extensive legs waving wildly in the air as he struck the floor. Mr, Schofleld fled. Parker made no effort to rise, but lay glaring at the ceiling, breathing hard. He remained In that position for a long time, untll finally the glaze wore away from his eyes and a more rational ex- pression settled over his features. Mr. Fisbee addressed him timidly: *“You don't think we could reduce the size of the sheet?” “It would kill him,” answered his pros; trate companion. “We've got to fill her solid dome way, though I give up; I don't know how. How that man has worked! It was genius. He just floated around the county and soaked in items, and he wrote editorials that people read. One thing's certain—we can't do it. We're ruining his paper for him, and when he gets able to Tead It'll hurt him bad. Mighty few knew how much pride he had in it. Has it struck you that now would be a precious good time for it to occur to Rod McCung to come out of his hole? Suppose we go by the board, what's to stop him? What's to stop him, anyway? Who knowa where the boss put those coples and affidavits, and if we did know would we know the best way to use 'em? If we did, what's to keep the Herald alive until McCune lifts his head? And it we don’t stop him the Carlow County Herald is finished. Something’s got to be done!” 3 No one realized this more than Mr. Fisbee but no one was less ca- pable of doing something of his own ini- tiation. And although the Tuesday issue was forthcoming, embarrassingly pale in spots—most spots—Mr. Martin remarked rather publicly that the items were not what you might call stirring, and that the unpatented pages put him in mind of Jones’ fleld in winter with a dozen chunks of coal dropped In the snow. And his ob- servations on the later issues of the week (issues which were put forth with a sug- “Is that the end You want to get gestion of spasm, and possibly to the per- manent injury of Mr. Parker's health, he looked so thin) were too eruelly unkind to be repeated here. Indeed, Mr. Fisbes, Parker, the luckless Mr. Schofleld and the young Tipworthy may be not untruthful- ly likened to a band of devoted mariners lost in the cold and glaring regions of a journalistic Greenland—limitless plains of empty white paper extending about them as far as the eye could reach, while life depended upon their making these ter- rible voids productive; and they shrank appalled from the task, knowing no means to fertilize the barrens; having no talent to bring the still snows Into harvest, and already feeling—in the chill of Mr. Mar- tin’s remarks—a touch of the frost that might witber them. It was Fisbee who caught the first glimpse of a relief expedition clipping the rough seas on its lively way to res- cue them, and, although his first glimpse of the jaunty pennant of the relleving vessel was over the shoulder of an ice- berg, nothing was surer than that the craft was flying to them with all good and joyous speed. The iceberg just men- tioned assumed—by no melting process, one may be sure—the form of a long let- ter, first postmarked at Rouen, and its latter substance was as follows: “Henry and I have always believed you as selfish, James Fisbee, as you are self- engrossedand incapable. She has told us of your ‘renuncfation’; of your ‘forbidding’ her to remain with you; how you ‘command- ed,” after you had ‘begged’ her, to return to us, and how her consclence told her she should stay and share your life in spite of our long care of her, but that she yielded to your ‘wishes’ and our en- treaty. What have you ever done for her and what have you to offer her? She is our daughter, and needlessgto say we shall take care of her, for no one believes You capable of it, even in that miserable place, and, of course, in time she will re- turn to Ler better wisdom, her home and her duty. I need scarcely say we have given up the happy months we had planned to spend in Dresden. Henry and I can only stay at home to pray that her preposterous mania will wear itself out in short order, as she will find herself unfit- ted for the Tidiculous task which she fn- sists upon attempting against the earnest wishes of us who have been more than father and mother to her. Of course, she has talked volumes of her affection for us, and of her gratitude, which we do not want—we only want her to stay with us. Please, please try to make her come back to us—we cannot bear it long. Her excuse for not returning on the day we wired our intention to go abroad at once (and I may as well tell you now that our intention to go was formed in order to bring affairs to a crisis and to draw her away from your Inflience—we always dreaded her. visit to you and held it oft for years)—her excuse was that your best friend, and, as I understand it, your pa~ tron, had been injured in some brawl in tbat Christian country of yours—a charme ing place to take a girl like her—and she would not leave you In your ‘distress’ yn- til more was known of the man’'s injurles. And now she insists—and you will know it from her by the next mail—on return- i§g to Plattville, forsooth, because she as been reading your newspaper and she says she knows you are in difficulties over it. and it is her moral obligation—as by some wild reasoning of her 6wn she con- siders herself responsible for your ruffling patron’s having been alone when he was shot—to go down and help. T suppose he made love to her, as all the young men she meets always do, sooner or later, but I have no fear of any rustic entanglement for her; she has never been really inter- ested save In one affair. We are quite powerless—we have done everything; but we cannot alter her determination to edit your paper for you. Naturally, she knows nothing whatever about such work, but she says, with the air of triumphantly squelching all such argument, that she has talked a great deal to Mr. Macauley of the Journal. Mr. Macauley is the af- fair I have alluded to; he is what she has meant when she has sald at different times that she was Interested in journal- ism. But she is very businesslike now. She has bought a typewriter and pur- chased a great number of soft pencils ard erasers at an art shop; I am only sur- prised that she does not Mitend to edit She i3 coming at once. For mercy's sake don’t telegraph her not to; your forbid- dirgs work the wrong way. Our only hope is that she will find the conditions so utterly discouraging at the very start that she will give it up and come home. If you are a man you will help to make them so. She has promised to stay with that country girl with whom she contract- ed such an incomprehensible friendship at Miss Jennings’. ’ “'Oh, James, pray for grace to be & man once in your life ‘\and send her back te us! Be a man—try to be a manl Re- member the angel you killed! Remember all we have done for you and what & re- turn you bave made, and be a man for the first time. Try and be a man! Youm unhappy sister-in-law, “MARTHA SHERWOOD.™ Mr. Fisbee read the letter with a great, rising delight which no sense of duty could down; indeed, he perceived that his sense of duty had ceased to conflict with the one strong hope of his life, just as he perceived that to be a man, ac- cording to Martha Sherwood, was In part to assist Martha Sherwood. to have her way in things; and, for the rest, to.be the sort of man she persuaded herself she would be, were she not a woman. This he had never been able to be. By some whimsy of fate, or by a faile ure of Karma (or perhaps by some tri- umph of Kismetic retribution), James Fis- bee was born in one of the most business- like and artless cities of a practical and modern country, of money getting, money saving parents, and he was born a dream- er of the past. He grew up a student of basilican lore, of choir-scresns, of Persian frescoes, and an ardent lounger in the somewhat musty precincts of Chaldea and Byzantium and Babylon. Early Christian symbolism, a dispute over the site of a Greek temple, the derivation of the lotus column, the restoration .of =& Gothic buttress—these were the absorbing questions of his youth, with now and then a lighter moment spent in analytical con~ sideration of the extramural decorations of St. Mark’s. The world buzzed along after Its own fashion, not disturbing him, and his absorptions permitted only a faint consclousness of the despair of his rela- tives regarding his mind. Arrived at mid- dle age, and a little more, he found him- self alone in the world (though, for that matter, he had always been alone and never of the world), and there was plenty of money for him with various bankers who appeared to know about looking after it. Returning to the town of his nativity after sundry expeditions in Syria—upon which he had been accompanied by dusky gentlemen with pickaxes and curly, long barreled muskets—he met and was mar- ried by a lady who was ambitious, and whb saw in him (probably as a fulfiliment of another Kismetic punishment) a pow- er of learning and a destined success. Not long after the birth of their - only child, a daughter, he wrs “called to fiil the chair” of archaeciogy in a newly founded university; one of the kind which a State and a millionaire combine to pur- chase ready made. This one was handed down off the shelf in a more or less cha- otic condition, and for a period of years betrayed considerable doubt as to its own intentions, undecided whether they wers