The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 9, 1904, Page 1

——r st installment Francis novel As t of to- i st and sus- ader until the ers,” published tions, In Ashes of Empire. n. th renson for er the driving roofed shelters d by the follo: was furrowing n ever widening voted a bond loan 000 to pave its streets, (—— mem—mmw.xaxu e T YR TR 43 M MM s 1 M sl R LTI LG 5. 130 SIS 0 Then under the forced draft. of skiliful exploitation three years of high pressure passed quickly; years named by the promoters the period of development. In the Year. Omne the very heavens smiled and the rainfall broke the record of the oldest inhab- itant. Thus the iregion round about lost the word “arid”, as a'qualifylng adjective and the picturesque fictions of the prospectus makers were mirac- ulously justified. In the Year Two there was less rain, but still an abun- dant crop; and Jethro Bimsby, drift- ing in from some unnamed frontier of & newer cow country, saw.what he had missed, took. to drink and shot himself in the lobby of the MidyCon- tinent Hotel, an ornate, five-storied brick and terra-gotta structure stand- §” bramding”corral. It wés ifi' this same Year Two, the fame of the latest of Western Mec- cas for young men having penetrated to the provincial backgrounds of New Hampshire, that David Kent came, By virtus of his diploma and thres years.of country practice in the New Hampshire co\in!y town, where his father "before: him had read Black- stone_and: Chitty, he had-his window on the fourth floor of”tife~Farquhar . bullding letmregl “Attorney and Coun- sglor at Law"; but, up to the' ddy in the, ‘latter part of the fafeful Year Three,, when the overdue crash came, he was best known as a reckless plunger: in real estate—this, mind you, at a moment when every third man counted his gains in “front feet,” and was shouting’ himself hoarse at the daily brass band lot sales. ‘When the bottom féll out in the autumn of Year Three Kent fell with it, though not altogether as far or as hard as many another. One of his professional hold-fasts—it was the one that afterward. became the bread- tackle in' famine time—was his posi- tion as local attorney for the raflway company. By reason of this he was among the first to have g hint .of the et I EERS I %f[-’”ffl%”gg impending cataclysm. The Western Pacific, after’so long a pause on the banks of.Dry Creek, had floated its second mortgage . bonds” and would presently build on to the capital, leav- ing Gaston to way- -station quietude. Therefore and wherefore— .Kent, was, 'not "lacking in native shrewdness or, energy. § He foresaw, fot'thé piulble bubble burst which-en- sued, indeed, but the certain and tnev+ itable end of the speculative era. Like every one else. he had bought chiefly with promises to pay, and his paper in the: three: banks aggregated 'a' sum equal to a frugal New Hampshire com-+ petence. »How long have I got?” was the la- conic wire which he sent.to Loring, the- secretary of the Western Pacific Advisory. Board in:Boston, from whom his hint had come. And when Loring replied that the grading and track- laying contracts were already award- ed, there was at least one “long” on the Gaston real estate exchange who D = For JYE' AFCsS, BU wrought desperately night und day to “unloed.” As It turned.out the race agains; tinie was both a victory and a defeat. On, the mornipg when the Daily Clar- jon sounded! the. first_note of public alarm: David Kent took up the last of _his' bank- promises to 'pay, and trans. ferred “his“final' mortgaged- holding 'in Gaston jrealty. ,When it -was’dode hd locked himselt {n his office 14 the Far: quhar building and. balanced “the ac- count. On leaving the New Hampshire cotuitry tdwn to tfy the new cast for fortune in the golden West he had turned his small patfimony into cagh— some ten thousand dollars of it ‘' To set over mmt the biil of exchange for this amount, which he had: brought to Gaston a year earlier, there was a clean name, & few:hundred:dollars in bank, six lots, bought aid 'paid Yor, in one of the Gilton suburbs, -nd a vast deal of experience. Kent ran his hands through his halr, opened the check book and hastily fill- * ‘Rroken the same to you, Major. Thank you™ And the © ed and t ty-seventh man pocketed his salva wreck and fought his way mnc through the jam at the d Two hours fur- ther along in the forenoen the Apache National suspendec yment and the bahle exgminer was wired for. For suyddenness thoroughgoing comp[gteneu (he G n bubble-burst- ing was;a r ana e’ day th¥e w for'enlargemént, ar of & fortuight? the trampled the stengh’ Flight- upen’ dny terms vn-n becams the order ‘of the day t the place Bad been ‘suddeniy, pl ten the panicky exodhs . .co ly have Been rhore headibng. Nde the less, in anysugh, didosdeniy up- JTh-mnz thers are straggides. pe jome left like stranded ks« bbing tide; others ridlbaf by mayibenefilier ;siiphed: nbr capsta: L When L Wasto “e; thers dvere deserted rflg(s. and.emuy s birBs in ruthless profusjon; shutithpre - wasflso a hungry METORify;0f sthe! grewsiof#the stranded 4nd" anchote ufiks’ >} “hekind to live orvate ns«th \r"'sm an id presently to Freying ong upen 'or waiting lke ‘l Spanish Main iy luckless ar- #hin grappling hrjcb"‘a.u!o a local S:h} was 23 neces- fir¥iin jaatiop: i1 eaved as in Gas- tOn-the strctiunis partly, also, because He ‘.‘ gg‘g»m ofyhis_kind, and t saye, laboratory oppos t\immsv r; the study, of’human nature af'its worst. % He Hiarkeds the; ralsing of the black fl:k as llu, G Staways, gstting cleared their s Bluebeard ad- be for such attdmh@yeo rl ves on Ha.v'k the w.on’ Major Gul 3. Bucks, some 1 Atler'vauiv he.;was tolearn that he A ed out.a. chegk, payable to himself for the remaining few hundreds.:. When he reached the® Apaché*National' on ‘the ,gorner, of, Colorado. and ' Texas streets he was.the one'hundred:and twenty- Ie\enth Jupn, in lh& queue, ‘which ' ex- Srided around the colner Yand doubled back .and forth in the cross streéts to " the stoppage of ail traffic. ' The an- nouncement.in the Clarion had done its work, and the baleful flower of.panic; which iis “a’ juggler's ross for quick ; mwlng possibilities, was , filling the Nery'air ofithe street with its acrid¥ streetl 1 the perfdme—the . scent of all others that soonest drives men; mad. < ‘Major James Guilford, the flf-ldent of the Apache National, was in the cage with™the swéating paying tellers, and it'was to him. that Kent presented his' check when his turn came. ‘What! You too, Kent?” sald the preddgnt. reprouhlu.lly. *“I thought you “Wad more backbone.” 4 Kent shook his head. . L “Gaston hu absorbed nlne-tenlxu of fhe money I brought here} I'll absorb the remaining tenth myself, if it's just badyunderrated. Mayor. % tatly ¢ coj ~'gi{tg of the former orf when thelfamine time was blcédngers'to’ sack and scuttle, it was Jasper G.#Bucks*who ca a confer- ence of his*fellow: werwolves, set forth 2 and brought a},the'child of sheer despera- tion’ fiercely at b: into being. It+wasjin‘the: autumn of that first fysmiciyear, that Secretary Lor- faveling from Boston to the State alonia mission for the Western Pacmc stopped , over a traln with “Kent." yAfter a rather dispiriting dinner insthes deserted * Mtid-Continent Cafe, a=d'dome’ plowing In the field of recol- lection® Kent's rooms in the Farqu- ‘har bullding, sthey took the desertsd ldgn twilight to walk to s “It was 'v.‘f)e"’nt thing for you to do —stopping’ over: train with me, Grant- ham,” sald the‘host, when the five squares intervening had beem bhalf measured. . “I have had all kinds of a time out here in this God-forsaken des- ert, sbut never until to-day anything approaching a chummy hour with a man I know and care for. Kent had not spoken since they had felt their way out of the dark lower all “of ‘the Farqular bullding. Up to :‘Nfl point the talk had been