The evening world. Newspaper, January 18, 1915, Page 15

} A New York Man's THE KING OF ARCADIA } In the “Big Outdoors” of the West { BY FRANCIS LY The Eveni id range Adventures i} DE { CHAPTER I. (Copyright, 1000, by Street & Smith) Ballard had telephoned to HE frantic rush of the day of suddenly changed plans was over, have his bay jage transferred from the West India Line dock to the Causeway Street Terminal; and with Gardiner, the assistant professor of geology, to bid him God. speed, had gotten as far as the station platform gates when like a detaining nd. Lassley’s telegram brought him to a #6 hand atretched forth in the dark, Ho read it, with a little frown of perplexity sobering his clean-cut, strenuous face: To Breckenridye Ballard, care Gateman, Causeway Street Terminal, Boston: You love life and crave anccesa. Arcadia irrigation has killed its originator and two chiefs of construction, It will on to Gardiner. ‘Now, what would you make of that?” he kill you. Let it alone, LASBLEY, ked, passing the telegram The assistant in geology adjusted his eyeglasses, scanned the typewritten (linen, and returned the square of yellow paper without suggestive comment. “I make nothing of it, because my field is too prosaic. There are no areassinations in geology. What do it mean?” ‘The young engineer shook his head. “1 have no more idea than the man in the moon, I didn’t suppose Lassley had ever heard of Arcadia before I famed it to him this morning !n a wire telling him of my changed plans. “| thought the Lassleys were io Europe,” eaid Gardiner, “They sail to-day in the Carania from New York, My wire was to wish them a safe voyage, and I gave them my prospective address, That ia how Lassley happens to know where I am going.” “But it does not explain the warn- ing. Is it true that the Colorado irri- gation scheme has Killed three of its omotera?” PreOh, wu novelist might put it that way, 1 euppom,” said Ballard impa- tiently. raithwaite, of the Ge detic Survey, was the man who con~ ceived the idea of making a storage reservoir at the head of the Boiling ‘Water and turning the park into @ farming district. He interested Mr, Pelham and a few other Denver cap- ataliats, and went out as chief en- gincer to stand the scheme on its feet. Shortly after he had laid the foundations for the big dam, he fell into the Boiling Water and was drowned,” “One,” said Gardiner, checking the unfortunate Braithwaite off on his fingers. eThen Billy Sanderson took It— ou remember Billy, in my year? fe made the preliminary survey for @ railroad over the mountains and into the park, and put a few more stones on Braithwaite’s dam, As they say out yonder on the edge of things he died with his boots on; got into trouble about ~ panpstole ne man, and was shot. wetwo, " checked the ener in logy. “Who was the third?” een dour faced, grizzly headed old ®cotchman named Macpherson. He took up the work where Billy Sander- gon dropped it; built the railroad over the range and through the park to the headquarters camp at the dam, and lived to see the dam itself some- thing more than half completed. “And what Happened, to Mr, Mac- nn?” queried Gardiner, one w ‘killed a few weeks ago by having a derrick fall on him, It raised quite a discussion in the technical pe- riodicals. A wire guy cable rotted off rusted off, the newspaper report id—and there war a howl from the wwire-rope makers, who protested that fm cable made of galvanized wire gouldn't ‘rust off. “None the less, Mr. Macpherson was Ned,” observed the professor dryly. { would acem to be the persisting in the discussion, Do none of you?” ot,” scoffed the younr- shall neither fall into the a derrick whose jardiner’s amile was a mere exe- ‘wrinkle of good natured cynicism, yew carefully omit poor Sander- gon's fate, One swima out of a tor- fent—if he can—and one might pos- Bibly be able to dodge a falling der- sick. "Sut who can escape the toils of the woman ‘whose hands are as d whose feet’ "—— ni” paid. the Kentuckian; and laughed aloud, ‘There is on’ een in the world, my dear Herr Professor, for whose sake I might +etand up to be shot at; and she isn't fn Colorado by a good many hundred bands “Bor mano? Nevertheless, Breckenridge, my ¢on, there lies your best chance he fourth in the list of Ce rintes® You are. a. Kentuckian; an ardent and chivalric Southerner. If the fates really wish to interpose in opposition to the Arcadian scheme, they will once more bait the trap with a woman—always presupposing, of course, that there are any fates, and that they have ordinary Intelll- in no danger on that score. Bromley—he was Sanderson's assist- ant, and afterward Macpherson's— wrote me that the Scotchman’s first “Ta edict. was one of banishment for every woman in the construction camps.” banished the der- “If he had only commented ricks at the samo time Gardiner. ‘Phen he added: "You may be sw the fates will find you @ Woman, Breckenridge: the oracles have spoken, What would Arcadia be without its shepherdess? But we pre jesting when Lassiey appears to be very much in earnest, Could there be anything more than coin- cidence in these fatalities?" How could there be?” demanded Ballard. wo sheer accidents, and one commonplace tragedy, which last was the fult—or the misfortune—of poor Billy's temperament, T take St, though he was a sober enough fellow when he was here learning his trade TM live, and TN finish building the ‘Arcadian dan). But neyer mind Lass- ley and his cryptogram: what 1 was trying to impress on your mind when he butted in waa that you were not to forget your promise to come out and loaf with me in August. You hall have the best a construction- camp affords, and vow can geologize ‘to your heart's content in virgin aol.” “That sounds very enticing,” said tential guest, “And, besides, I the nts ted in dams-—and in wire cables that at £" way at inopportune gmoments. IT were you I should . K ¢ Ra AR Se make it a point to lay that broken @uy cable aside, It might make in- teresting matter for an article in the Engineer, say ‘On tue Effect of the Atmosphere in fh Altitudes on Galvanized Wir Ballard laughed. “T believe you'd have your joke If you were dying. I'll keep the broken cable for you, and the pool where Braithwaite was drowned and Sanderson's inamorata —only I suppose Macpherson obiiter- ated her at the earliest possible, Sny, by Jove! that's my train he's calling. aegaey. and don't forget your prom- And but for @ base-runner’s dash across the platforms Ballard would have lost the reward of the strenuous day of plan changings at the final moment. CHAPTER Il. T was on the Monday after- noof that Ballard made the base runner's dash through the station gates in the Bos- ton terminal and stood on the rearmost platform of his outgo- ing train to watch for the passing of a certain familiar suburb where, at the home of the hospitable Lassleys, he had first met Miss Craigmiles. On the Wednesday evening follow- ing he was gathering his belongings in the sleeper of a belated Chicago train preparatory to another dash across platforms—this time in the echoing station at Council Bluffs, to catch the waiting Overland Flyer for the run to Denver. President Pelham's telegram, which bad found him in Boston on the eve of closing a contract with the sugar magnates to go and build refineries in Cuba, was quite brief, but it be- spoke haste: We need a fighting man who can build railroads and dams and dig ditches in Arcadia, Salary satis. factory to you. Wire quick if you can come. ‘This was the wording of it; and at the evening hour of train-changing in Council Bluffs Ballard was sixteen hundred miles on his way, racing defi- nitely to a conference with the Presi- dent in Denver, with the warning telegram from Lassley no more than @ vaguely disturbing underthought, What lay beyond the conference he did not know in detail. As @ man in touch with the moving world of great projects, he knew of the plan for the reclamation of the Arcadian arid- nesses, A dam was in process of construc: tion, the waters of a mountain tor- rent were to be impounded, a system of irrigation canals opened, and an outlet railway built. Much of the work, he understood, was already done; and he was to take charge as chief of construction and carry tt to its conclusion, So much President Pelham's sum- mons made clear, But what was the mystery hinted at in Lassley’s tele- gram? And did it have any connec- tion with that phrase in President Pelham's wire; “We need a fighting man ; ‘These queries were presenting them- selves afresh when Ballard followed the porter to the section reserved for him in the Denver sleeper, The car was filled, and when he could break away from the specu- lative entanglement long enough to look about him, he saw that the women passengers were numerous enough to make it more than prob- able that would be asked later to give up his lower berth to one of them. Being man-selfish and a seasoned traveller withal, he was steeling him- self to say “No” to this request what time the train was rumbling over the bridge to Omaha. At the Omaha station there was fresh influx of passengers for the Denver car, and to Ballard's dismay they appeared to be all women. “Oh, good Lord!” he ejaculated; and finding his pipe he beat a hasty re- treat in the direction of the smoking compartment, vaguely hoping to post- pone the Inevitable. At the turn around the corner of the linen locker he looked back. Two or three figures in the group of late- vomers might have asked for recog- Hition if he had looked at them; but he had eyes for only one—a modish young woman in a veiled bat and a shapeless gray travelling coat, who was evidenily trying to explain some- thing to the Pullman conductor, “Jovet he exclaimed: “if £ didn't know for certain that Elsa Craigmiles is half Way across the Atlantic with the Lassieys—but she is; and if she were not, she wouldn't be here, doing the onally conducted’ for that mob.” And he went on to smoke. It was a very short while afterward when an apologetic Pullman conduc- tor found him, and the inevitable came to pass. “This is Mr, Ballard, I believe?" A nod and an uphanding of tickets, “Thanks. I don't like to discom- je you, Mr, Ballard; but you have jon, and"—— suid Ballard crisply, "The the wrong train, or she bought the wrong kind of ticket, or she took chances on finding the good natured fellow who would give up his berth and go hang himself on a clothes hook in the vestibule. I've been there before, but I haven't learned how to say ‘No,’ Fix it up a5 r Wor aargupetety at Ne NPI BARONE HE RN tintin bata Id Daily Maga Zz re ine, Monday. January 18, a prietorship in was maddening. arrival at Denver. It any way you like, only don’t give me an upper over # flat wheeled truck, if you can help it.” An hour further along came the call to dinner in the dining car; and Bal. lard, who had been poring over a set of maps and profiles and typewritten document mailed to intercept him at Chicago, brought up the rear of the outging dinner group from the Den- ver car. in the vestibule of the diner he found the steward wrestling suavely With a late contingent of hungry ones, and explaining that the tables were all temporarily full, Ballard had broad shoulders and the Kentucky stature to match them. Looking over the heads of the others, he marked a tete-a-tete table at the further end of the car with one vacant place. eg pardon—there's only one of he cut in; and the steward let him pass. When he had taken the Yacant seat he found himself con- fronting a young woman in a veil covered hat and a gray box coat; not a chance-born double of Miss Elsa Craigmiles, but Miss Craigmiles her- elf. “Why, Mr. Ballard, of all things!" she cried, with a brow-arching of surprise, real, or most artistically simulated, And then, in mock con- sternation: “Don't tell me you are the good-natured gentleman I drove out of his section in the sleeping-car.” I sha'n't; becquass 1 don't know how many more there are of mo,” said Ballard. Then pure astonish- ment demanded its due, “Did I only dream that you were going to Europe with the Herbert Lassleys, or” Fe cd made a charming little face at “Do you never change your mind suddenly, Mr. Ballard? i o% you needn't confeas; I know you do, Well, so dol, At the last moment I begged off, and Mrs. Lassley fairly scolded, She even went so fur ax to accuse me of hot knowing my own mind two minutes at a time,” Ballard’s amile was almost grim. “You have given me that linpression now and then; when I wanted to be serious and you did not. Did you Some sboars with that party at Om- Did I not? It's my—that is, It's cousin Janet Van bryck's party; and we are going to do Colorado this hea Talnk of that, a3 an ex- chi @ for England and ce trip to Tromso!” A TAER HER This time Ballard's smile was at- fectionately cynical, “I didn’t suppose you ever forgot yourself sv far as to remember that there was any America west of the Allegheny Mountains,” Miss Elsa's laugh was one of her most effective weapons, Ballard waa made to feel that he had laid himself open to some vulnerable point with- out knowing how or why, “Dear me!" she gasped. does it take you to “How long et really ac- qQuainted with peopie Then, with reproachful demureness; “The man has been waiting for five full minutes to take your dinner order.” One of Ballard's yifts was perti- nacity; and after he had told the waiter what to bring he returned to her question, “It 14 taking me long enough to get acquainted with you,” he ventured. “It will be two years’ next Thursday since we first met at the Herbert Lussleys’, and you have been awfully weet and chummy with me-—when you felt like it, Yet do you know you ave never once gone back to your » days in speaking of yourself’ know to this good moment you ever had any girlhood; and that being the case*—— “Oh, spare ime!” she begged, in 1 counterfeited dismay, “One would think" —— “One would not think anyt of you that he ought not to think, broke in, gravely; adding: "We are a long wa. st the Alleghenies now, and Tam glad you are aware of av America somewhat broader than it is long. Do I know any of your sight- seers, besides Mrs. Van Hryck?” “Tl Mat them, and you can see, whe offered. “There are Major Black- Jock, United States Engineers, re- he tired, who always aays, ‘H'm—ha!" before he contradicts yo the Major's nieces, Madge and Margery Cantrell—the idea of eplitting one name for two giris in the same fam ily!—and the Major's son, Jerry ost hopeful when he is pitted against other young savages on the football field, All strangers, so far?" Ballard nodded, and she went on, “Then there are Mrs, Van Bryck and Dosia—I know you have met them; and Hetty Bigelow, their cousin twice removed, whom you have never met, if cousin Janet could help it; and Hetty’s brother, Lucius, who is something or other in the forestry department, Let me see; how many ia that “Eight,” said Ballard, “counting the negligible Miss Bigelow and her clvil- vice brother.” od. I merely wanted to ace if you were paying attention, Last, but by no means least, there 1s Mr. Wing fleld—the Mr. Wingfield, who writes play Without ever having been suffe to declare himself Miss Elsa's lov Ballard resented the saving of the playwright for the climax; also the tone in which his name was parad “Let me refnember,” he said, with the frown reflective, “I believe it was Jack Forsyth the last time you con- fided in me, Is it Mr. Wingfield now?" “You are quite too incorrigtble,” she laughed; but he made sure there was a blush to go with the laugh, “Do you expect me to tell _you about it here and now?—with Mr. Wing- field sitting just three seats back of me, on the right.” Ballard scowled, looked as directed, and took the measure of his latest rival. Wingfield was at a table for four with Mrs, Van Bryck, her daughter and a shock-headed young man whom Ballard took to be the football playing Blacklock. In defiance of the clean shaven custom of the inoment, or perhaps because he was willing to individual- ize himself, the playwright wore @ beard closely trimmed and pointed in the French manner; this and the quick grasping eyes and a certain vulpine showing of white teeth when he laughed made Ballard liken hin to an unnamed singer he had once heard in the part of Mephistopheles in “Faust.” The overlooking glance necessarily included Wingfleld’s table compan- ions, Mra. Van Bryck's high bred contours lost in adipose, Dosia'a cool and placid prettincss—the passion-~ less charms of unrelieved — milk- whiteness of skin and masses of flaxen hair and baby biue eyes, the Blacklock boy’ square shoulders, heavy Jaw and rather fine eye which he kept resolutely on his plate. At the next table Ballard eaw a young man with the brown of an outdoor occupation richly coloring his face and hands; an old one with the contradictory “H'm—hi writ- ten at large in every gesture, and two young women who looked as if they might be the sharers of the single Christian name, Miss Bige- low he did not Identity. “Well?” said Miss Cralgmiles, seom- ing to Intimate that he had ‘looked long enough. "I shall know Mr, Wingfield, If 1 ever@ seo him again,” remarked Ballard. “Whose guest ish Or are you all Mrs, Van Bryck’s “What an idea!" she scoffed “Cousin Janet is going into the ab solutely unknown. She doesn't reach even to the Alleghenies; her America stops at Philadelphia. Sho is the chaperon, but our host isn’t with us We are to meet him in the wilds of Colorado.” nybody T know?" queried Ballard And--oh, ye I forgot; Pro- fessor Gardiner is to foln us later, I knew there must be one more some- where. Hut he was an afterthought 1—Cousin Janet, [ moan—got his ac- ceptance by wire at Omaha.” “Gardiner is not going to join you,” said Ballard, with the cool effrontery of @ proved friend, “He is going to Join me.” “Where? In Cuba “Oh, no; I am not going to Cuba, I am going to live tho simple life build dams and dig ditchos in Ar cadia.” He was well used to her swiftly changing moods, What Miss Elsa's critics, who were chiefly of her own sex, spoke of disapprovingly as her flightiness, was to Ballard one of her individuallzing charms. Yet he was quite unprepared for her frankly re- proachful question; “Why aren't you going to Cuba? Didn't Mr. Lassley telegraph you not to go to Arcadi “He did, ind But what do you know about it?--if I may venture to ask. For the first time in their two o he saw her vis- And her explana- years’ acquaintan, ibly embarrassed. York, you know; I went to th “um = er to see them off. Mr, Lassley showed mo his telegram to you af tor he had written it.” They had come to the little cot- fees, and the other members of Mi Craigmiles's party nad risen anc gone rearward to the sleeping-car. Ballard, more mystified than he had been at the Boston moment when Lassley’s wire had found him, was still too considerate to make his com- panton a_reluctant witness. More- over, Mr. Lester Wingfield was weigh- ing upon him more insistently than the mysteries, In times past nho had made him o target for certain little arrows of confidence; he gave her an opportunity to do it again, “Tell me about Mr. Wingfeld," he suggested. In ho truly Jack For- ayth's successor’ “How can you doubt nhe re- torted gayly. “Some th not here T will tell you all about tt.” 6 time,’ he rep ted. “In it always going to be ‘some time'’ You have been calling me your friend for a good while, but there has al- ways been a closed door beyont which you have never let me trate. ‘And it's not my fault, as y intimated a few n@nutes ago. Why In It? Ia tt because I'm only one of many? Or is it your attitude toward all_ men?” She was knotting hor vell, and her eyes were downeast when she an- swered him “A closed door? There is, Indesd, my dear friend—two hands, one dead and one still living, closed tt for us, It may be opened some time’—the word persisted, and she could not get away from it—"and then you will be sorry, Let us gob to the sleeping-car. T want you te meet the others.” Then, with » quick return to mockery: “Only f aii you will not care ty meet Mr. Wingfle Ho tried to match her mood; he was always trying to keep wp with her kaleidoscopic chan of front “Try me, and see,” he laughed, "T guess I can stand It, tf he ean? And a few minutes liter he had been presented to the other members of the eightseeIng party, had taken Mra, Van Bryck’s warm fat hand of welcome and Dosia's cool one, and was successfully getting dimselt con- tradiected at every othe breath by the florid-faced old campaigner, who, having been ® major of engineers, was contentiously ritiea! of young civiltans who had taken their 8. B. otherwhere than at West Point CHAPTER III. 1 was shortly after midnight that the Overland Flyer cams to a stand behind a freight train whieh was blocking the track at the blind alding at Coyote. Always a light per, Pallard was aroused by the jar and grind of the sudden st After ly. ing awako and listening for a time, he got up and dressed and went for- ward to see what had happened, The accident wan a box car de- railment, caused by @ broken truck, and the men of both train crews were at work trying to get the disabled car back upon the steel and the track blocking train out of the flyer’s way. Since such problems were acutely in hia Ine, Ballard thought of offering but there seemed to be no |, and he sat down on the edge of the ditch cutting to look on, The night was picture fine, starlit, and with the silent wideness of the great upland plain to give it im- moensity, The wind, which for the first hundred miles of the westward flight had whistled shrilly in the car ventilators, was now lulled to a Whispering sephyr, pungent with the subtile soll essence of the grass land spring. Ballard found a cigar and smoked it _absently. Hix eyes followed the tojlings of the train crews prying and heaving under wiles » with the yellow torch pick’ them out; but his thoughts were far afield, with his dinner-table companion to beckon them, ‘ompanion was the word which fitted her better than any other, Bal- lard had found few men, and still fewer women, completely companton- able, Some one has said that com radeshjp in the test of affinity; and the Kentuckian remembered ' with thrillings of delight @ summer fort- night spent at the Herbert Lasaleys’ cottage on the North Shore, with Milas Craigmiles aa one of his fellow guests, Margaret Lassley had been good to him, holding the reins of chaper- onage lightly. ‘There had been sunny ernoohs on the breezy headlands, and blood-quickening mornings in Captain ‘Tinkham's schooner-rigged whale-boat, when the white horses were racing across the outer reef and tho Water Was too rough to tempt the other members of the house party, Hu had monopolized her crudely during those two weeks, glorying in her beauty, in her bright mind, in her purely’ physical fitness uniting the strength and the suppleness of a silken cord Ho remembered how aturdily their comradeship had grown in the two uninterrupted weeks. He had told her all there was to tell about him- self, and in return she had alternate- ly mocked him and pretended to con- fide in him; the confidences touching such sentimental passages as the devotion of the Toms, the Dicks, and the Harrys of her college years, Hince he had sometimes wished to be sentimental on his own account, Ballard had been a little restive un der these frivolous appeals for sym- pathy, But there ts a certain tonie for growing love even in such bucket- ings of cold water ax the loved one may administer in telling the tale of the predecessor It in a cold | bart, masculine, that will not be warmed by anything short of the ice of indifference; and what- ever her faults, Miss Elsa waa never Indifferent Hullard recollected Kroaned und: Also, he rer never dared t how he had the jeating confidences, abered that he had repel them, choosing rather to clasp the thorna than to re- din row From the sentimental Journey past to the present stage of the same was but @ step; but the present situation was rather perplexingly befoxmed Why had ise Craigmiles changed her mind so suddenly about spending thy suinmer in Europe? What could have induced her to @ubstitute a summer in Colorado, travelling under Mra Van Bryck's wing? ‘The answer to these queryings summed itself up, for th ina name~the hame of a man and a playwright. Hoh Mr. Lester Wingfield responsible for the changed plans, and waa irritably resentful Kentuckian, In the after-dinner visit with the sightsecing party in the Pullman there had been straws to indicate the set of the wind laa deferred to Wingfield, aa the other women did; only in her case Ballard was sure it meant more, And the playwright, be- tween his posings as a literary oracle, assumed a quiet air of pro- 1915 ~~ Miss Cratgemiles that Ballard recatied this, sitting upon the edge of the ditch-cutting In the heart of the fragrant night, figuratively punched Mr. Wingfield's head. Fate had been unkind to him, throwing him thus under the wheels when the missing of a single train for the sightseers or himself would have spared him. and Taking that view of the matter, there was grim comfort in the thought that the mangling could not be pro- longed, The two orbits coinciding for the moment would shortly go apart doubtless upon the morning’ was well. Here- tofore he had been asked to sym- athize only in a subjective sense. With another lover corporeally pres- ent and answering to his name, the torture would become objective—and blankly unendurable, Notwithstandin, he was looking forward with keen desire to one more meeting with the beloved tormentor— @ table exchange of thoughts and words at the dining-car breakfast which he promised himself not all the playmakers in a mumming world should forestall or interrupt. ‘This determination was shaping tt- self masterfully in the Kentuckian’s brain when, after many futile bac and slack-takings, the ditched car was finally induced to climb the frogs and to drop successfully upon the rails. When the obstructing train Began to move, Rallard flung away the stump of his cigar and climbed the steps of the first open vestibule on the flyer, making his way to the rear between the sleeping emigrants in the day- gory ul hopelessly wake Being by this time hopeless! \- ful hee flied his pipe and sought the smoking compartment of the sleeping car, It was a measure of his abstra tion that he did not remark the unfa- miliarity of the place; all other re~ minders failing, he should have realized that the fat negro porter working hi way persplringly with brush and polish paste through a long line of shoes w not the man to whom he had given his iteases in the Council Bluffs ter- minal. ‘Thinking pointedly of Elsa Craig miles and of the joy of sharing an other meal with her, Mm spite of the Lester Wingfiolds, he saw nothing, noted nothing; and the reverie, now frankly traversing the field of #entl- ment, ran on unbroken until he bo- came vaguely aware that the train had stopped and started again, and and that during the pause there had been sundry clankings and jerkings detokening the cutting off of a car, ‘A hasty question shot at the fat cleared the atm phere of porter doubt. “What station was that we just passed?" “short Line Junction, sah; wh: ih we leaves the Denver cyar—yes, sah. Xf “What! Isn't this the Denver car? “No, indeed, ah. Divh yer cyar ‘on th'oo to Oxden; yea, sah, Ballard sat down again and laughed. He was not without @ saving sense of humor, What with midnight prowl. ings and sentimental reverles he hi managed to sever himself most abrupt- ly and effec lly from his car, from his hand baggage, from the pre figured breakfast, with Mise Elsa for his vis- vin; and, what was of vastly greater from the chance of a day- conference with Presl- Jong bnsine One Pelhar dont diner, old man, you are @ true prophet; it ‘isn’t in-ine to think girl and to play the great game at one nd the mame moment,” he sald, apos, trophizing tho associate professor of geology; and the fat sald: Sgano “L was just asking what time I shall reach Denver, going in by way of the main line and Cheyene,” said Ballard, with cheerful mendacity. “Brbout tree o'clock In the aft'= noon, aah; yes, sah, Huccome you lef, Cap'n Boss?” vt tidn't ry loft; it wan the Den- ver sleoper that got left,” laughed the Kentuckian, After which he re- filled his pipe, Wrote @ telegram to Mr. Pelham and one to the Pullman conductor about his hand-bamgage, and resigned himsolf to the Inevit- able, hoping that the chapter of cldents had dono its utmost, Unhappily, it had not, as the day forthcoming amply proved. Reach- ing Cheyenne at late breakfast-time, Ballard found that the Denver train over the connecting line waited for porter the Overland from the West; also, that on this day of all daya the Overland was hours behind her achedule, Hence, there was haste-making @x- traordinary at the end of the Boston- Denver flight, President Pelham was waiting with bis a the new chief off to a hurried dinner- table conference at the Brown Pal- and what few explanations and instructions Ballard got were sand- wiched between the consomme au gratin and the small cof Two items of information were ful, The Fitzpatrick Brothers, ably known to Ballard, were contractors on the work; and thi Loudon Bromley, who had been his friend and loyal understudy in the technical school, was still the assist- ant engineer, doing his best to push the construction in the absence of & superior. Since a chief in any sort stands or falls pretty largely by the grace of his fubordinates, Ballard was partien- larly thankful for Bromley, He was little and he was young; he dressed like a dandy, wore patches of side- Whisker, shot straight, played the vio- lin, and’ stuffed birds for relaxatio. But in spite of these hindrances, or, perhaps, because of some of them, he could handle men like a born captain, and he was a friend whose faithful ness had been proved “T shall be only too glad to retain Bromley," said Ballard, when tas President told him he could choose bis own adsistant, And, as time press he asked tf there Were any specis structions, “Nothing specith was t re “Bromley has kept things moving, can be made to move fester, ant sieve you are the man ww set the Mr. I And new, If you dy, We have fifteen minutes in ch to cateh the Alta Viem train Wenty of time, but none to throw away, I have reserved your sleaper.’ It was not until after the return tt automobile spin, Ballard checked his baggage and had gi his recovered sult-cases to the porter of the Alta Vista car that he learned the significance of the figming claune in, the President's Roston telegram, ey were standing at the steps of the Pullman for the final word: hid SseHmanarupeenyneent HPC MMOUBHDRE OPENER E het! Week's Compile Move in The THE PRINCE OF GRAUSTARK |” SBY GEORGE BARR M‘CUTCHEON © e one: a ~ =. ns na \% * attra | (eng MO x hy drawn aside to make room for « ta poms of still later comers; when Preaident said, with the air of one — sathering \p the unconsidered trifies: “By the way, Mr. you may » Hot And it all pinin sailing up yonder, — Arcadia Park has been for twenty ‘ars & vast cattle ranch, owned, or rather usurped, by a singular old fel. jow, who is known as the ‘King of Ar- cadia.’ Quite naturally, he oppose: plan of turning the park Into a settled agricultural fleld, to the detrl ment of His free cattle range, and he is Hehting us in the courts, you mean ? bl “In the courts and out of might mention that it was coe ot ae cowmen who killed Sanderson; though that was ey, & personal q i believe. The trouble began with his’ refusal to sell us a few acres of . and & worthless mining claim whieh our reservoir->may submerge, and we, were obliged to Tesort to ‘the courts, — Ho in fighting for delay now, and en- couraging his cowboys in a sort of .. uerrilla warfare en the contractore: ” stealing tools, disabling machinery, and ct that sort of thing. Thts was Macpher-~ son's story, and Um passing it on to you. You are forty miles from the nearest Sheriff's office over there; but when you need help you'll get it. Of, course, the company “will back yout fo the last dollar in \ te the lang the treasury 1f,) Ballard’s rejoinder was placatory,,{ “It seems a pity to open up the new country with a feud,” he said, think? ing of his native State and of what. thone little wars had done for some” portions of it. “Can't the old fellow) be concillated in some way “I don’t know,” replied the President btfully. “We want peaceable pos- wion, If we can get it; capital is always on the aide of peace. “L'il make love to the cow-punching princesses,” laughed Ballard if there are any. “There in one, I understand; I believe she doesn't spend much her timo at home. The old man ts ay widower, and, apart from his senseless - fight on the company, he appeara to); be—but I won't prejudice you in ad- thing: The Interruption was the dash of « ing mountain-line train, Ballard saw marked. It in Mr. Brier “Mr. Richard Brice?—the general’ “That's luck,” sald Ballard warmly, came West, I think I'll ride in the dent. “Get in a good word for vance.” & “rit size ro switch engine up the yard with the medallion: “o— a." hotel?" he res “Yeu, manager of the D. @ U. P.?" “We were clasamates in the technical ‘hotel’ till bedtime.” connection with his Tine at Alta vida? T ae “No, don't” said Ballard. up for myself on the ground, © another car to be coupled to the walt- “somebody's prival Fie was in town to-day. nt” | Sues The President nodded. school, and I haven't seén him since he ‘Glad you know him," sald the Presi- while you're about it. There in you signal; goodby, an: good luck to you. Don't forget—‘drive’ ia the word: for aT, man, minute, and dollar there is in ft. Ballard shook the Presidential hand and swung up to the platform of the private car, A reluctant porter ad- mitted him, and that is how it came about that he did not see the interior of his own sleeper until long after. ail the other passengers had gone to And he wound his watch and went. to bed, serenely unconscious that the” hat upon the rail-hook next to his own belonged to Mr. Lester Wing- fleld; that the hand-bags over which Me he had stumbled in the dimly Mghted aisle were the impedimenta of the® ladies Va: or that the dainty little boots proclaiming the sex—and youth—of his fellow traveller in op- posite No, 6 were the footgear of Miss Alaa Craig CHAPTER IV. RCADIA PARK, an the gov- ernment mapmakers have traced It, is a high-lying, enclosed valley in the heart of the middle Rockies, roughly circular in outline, ‘The start from Alta Vista with the = { engine “special” had been made at sunrise, long before any of Ballard's fellow travellers in the sleeping car were stirring, But the day had proved unseasonably warm in the upper snew fields, and there had been time-killing delays. On ho firgt of the tangents the locomolive was halted at @ watering tank. Hallard climbed down from his cramped seat on the fireman's bor and crossed the cab to the engineer's gangway. Hoskins, the engine-driver, leaning from his window, pointed out the projected course of the southern lateral canal in the great irrigation syetem, It'll run mighty nigh due west here, about half-way between us end? the stage trail,” he explained, and Ballard, looking in the direction Indi- cated said: "Where Is the stage trail? 1 haven't seen It since we left the snow balds,’ ‘It's over yonder in the edge of the timber,” was the reply; and in a mo- nt later its precise location was defined by three double-seated buck- * boards, passenger-ladeh and draws by four-In-hand teams of tittuping bro filcking in and out among the and pushing rapidly east- ce was loo great Ballard could see ch of the pine exclaimed. “Thoas ve come all the way from Alta Vista to-day, What ts the °* ion over here?—a summer re- sort hotel?” } any in this valley,” said the nan, “They might ole on over to Asheroft or maybe to Aa- pen on the othenwide of the Taylor, Hut if that’s their notion they're due to camp out somewhere right soon, Ivs all o' forty mile to the neardeat , of the Roaring Fork towns.’ The engine tank was fill fireman Way flinging the ny to orpendicular. Ballard gain, and becau wos intently studying the topography of his new fieid the singular spee- taclo of a party of tourists hastem=i 5 ‘ i ing on to meet night and: the: si 2 luverned wilderness passed 3 mind, ‘ eto Sol (Be Re Canstanan wiobif” Meg ee Po abe