The evening world. Newspaper, January 23, 1915, Page 9

a \ “atpiking, Di Ron in | sic teentght, 1900, wy Steet & eth.) i Sesorars OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS. ive CHAPTER XI. (Coutinast.) HAT followed went un- noticed by the cheering, clapping spectatore crowd- ing the canyon brink to see the foaming, churning tor- Tent recoil upon fiercely upon the restraining gate And steep-sloped wall of the . dam's foundation courses. But Elsa aw Ballard shrink as from the touch of @ hot iron; saw Bromley run out quickly to lay hold of him. Most terrible of all, #he turned eud- ly to see her father coming out of mine entrance with a gun in his :Rande—saw and understood. It was Wingfield who came to the ‘rescue. “Be brave!” he whispered. “‘See— “he isn’t hurt much” And then, to the others: “The show is over, g00d peo- - ple, and the water is rising to cut us off from luncheon. Shall we mount end ride?” Dispersal followed, and at the re- treating instant Elsa observed that }, her father hastily flung the rifle into the mine; remarked this, and had a impse of Ballard and Bromley walk- ing together toward the shore along ¢he broad coping.of the dam. At the buckboards, Wingfield stood her friend again. “Send Blacklock down to see how serious it 1s,” he @uggested, coming between her and the others; and while ehe was doing, it, he held the group.for a final look «down the canyon at the raging flood ‘etl churning and leaping like a wild thing imprisoned at its barriers. * Young Blacklock was back almost d4mmediately with his report. Mr. Bale MES bee, got pear. pies in some Ay not) serfous, aad he sent ra that he was sorry that the feed- ing of the multitude kept him from @aying 80 to Miss Bisa in person. Elsa not dare to look at Wingfield; and fa the buckboard, seating for the re- Sar. to Castle 'Cadia, ehe contrived to ve Bigelow for her companion, In the office room of the adobe bun- jw Bromley was deftly dreasing Dandaging a d: bullet score the muscles of lard’s arm; @ wound painful enough, but not dis- t do you think now?” he in the midst ef the emall sur- ‘aervice, “I don’t know what to think, Lou- don, You are sure it was the Colonel vwho fired at me?” 2"Disaw all but the trigger-pulling, ju might say. When Mr, Pelham cut im off, he turned and stepped back dato the mouth of the mine. Then I heard the it, and saw him come Mt ow pf) Ender thi ing. ‘ wrong track, all of us. Wingfield and = and I had it figured out that the ionel was merely playing @ cold- @leoded game fo it is a false acent, Loudon. There was noth- to be gained by killing me to- 6 to have for his son-in-law old, gentlemanly Kentuckian ,dtock, and all that, you know. I @an't put the two together.” *. "Tm going to put the two together gome day when I have time,”: said lard; and the hurt being repaired, ‘went out to superintend the ar- ments for feeding the visiting in the big mese tent. Cad the barber peeqh-making, it into req tours of inspection through the Park ate out the heart of the after- «f0em-for the visitors, Bromley took of that part of the entertain- ‘ mt, leaving Ballard to nurse his ,gore arm and to watch bo slow sub- f e a would | good, f ping back wall. ‘eo, The August sun beat flercely upon é leserted construction camp, and eat, rarely oppressive in the min.the cook camp, Garou and helpers were washing dishes by the icQrate and preparing the evening Bien to be served after the crowd Bom in girt altitudes, was. stifling. py turned, and the tinkling clatter of hina was the only sound to replace ear-long clamor of the indus- nd the hoarse roar of the river igh the cut-off. lard found the ailence even more oppressive than the heat, and to escape both he descended the ravine . below the dam and made a careful ..gxamination of the ground laid bare by the draining of the tunnel ‘and ~, the artificial. stream-bed. The sight instructive but not particularly ring. great pit described by Gar- ‘tri thr @iner was no longer a foaming whirl- p but the cavernous undercutting Pool, ¥ @f tho. stream was alarmingly evi- , In tho tunnel the erosive effect _the torrent had been even ripping rifts and ch: all directions, and the ‘Don't forget: Next week's Comp stark’ series. It is also one of the cleverest ern abutment ii 1H ing, to say the least, and the Kentuckian’s face wore a harassed scowl when Bromley, re- turning with the excursionista, saw itself and beat 4 Ne ing else is.” he ry of the hollow-tooth promon: “Worse, and more of it!” was ley’s comment. Then he ndded: “I've Ing, too. ‘Mhe Colonel anywhere, and the corrals are all open.’ ‘The harassed scowl took on two crowd out of the way.’ “We'll get rid of it prett; I've arranged that with Mr. ‘To get the people back to Denver by st time the trains will have fo here between 8 and 8.80." “That's good, as far as it win you tell Mr. Pelham about the rotten tooth ?—to-night, I mean?” “Surely,” said Ballard; “and an when the luncheon in the early. ham. gre camp mesa to wait for the fireworks, he got the president into the bungalow office, and Hoel the cot, and fired the dis- hearten! pet . ‘Singulariy enough, as he thought, ‘the promoter did not to be foundly moved; and, thinking he ad not made the discouragement plain enough, Ballard went over the needed,” shouldn't tose a a | in ing. And, of course, it will delay the land sales in the flood area. The settlers who would buy and locate in the bot- tom lands before we have filled that hollow tooth would take their lives in their hands.” “Oh, I think you're a little nervous to-day, Mr. Ballard,” was all the sat- isfaction he got. “We'll £ on with the ditch work and let this matter rest for awhile. But a word 'n your ear; not a syllable of this to any one, if you please. It can do no , you know, and it might do a great deal of harm. I shouldn't even tell Bromley if I_ were you.” “Bromley knows.” “Well, aee to it that he doesn't tell. beg to be platform on the mesa's edge and the full moon rose to peer over the back- ground range, paling the reds yellows of the rockets. He was sitting where the president had let him when Bromley came in to an. nounce the close of the fete cham- all over, and they're taking to the Pullmans, You don’t want to go to the foot of the pass with one of the trains, do you?" “Not it zon go. I'd Ike to. stay on one of the engines in the morning. Then he asked the quéstion for which Ballard had been waiting. “How did Mr. Pelham take it?” “He took it easily; @ great deal too easily, Loudon, There's something wrong somewhere.” Hoskins, engineer of the first sec- tion, was whistling for orders, and Bromley had to go. “I've heard a thing or two myself,” he averred. ‘I'tl tell you about thei in the inorning. The company’s sec retary been making stock trans- fers all day—when he wasn't speech- itying. There's something doing, and Mr. Pelham is doin, Ballard got Sp oe went to the door it. with the assi ‘6. n't all,” he eaid, with an air of sudden conviction. “This jan't an irrigation Grery | t all, It's a stock deal from first to last. Mr. Pelham knows about that hollow tootir-he knew before I tol . ve beer working my way around to that, too. All right; my resignation goes in to- morrow morning, and I suppose yours ‘I guess #0; I've been half sorry didn’t eaw it off short with Mr, Pel ham when I had him here. Good night. Don't let them persuade you to go over th Stop r= ma: get what sleep you can.” Bromley promised; and a little later Ballard, sitting in the moonlight on the bungalow porch, heard the trains pull out, “I shouldn't be much surprised if you never came back to Arcadia,” he a) es \y the bi ness entanglement and let his gase go in the opposite direction; toward the great house in the upper valley, At the first glance prang up with an exclamation. The house was there, looming shadowtly in the moon- “I think its right, but | don’t want to take the responsibility.” Hight, with a broad sea of ailver to take the place of the brown valley level in the bridging middie distance. But the curious thing was the lights, unmistakable electrics they were, aa heretofore, twinkling through the tree-crownings of the knoll. Ballard got u: and went to the edge 5 of the mesa cliff to look down rend trell, ie the flood, rising now by impercept! gradations as the retreating slopes made the area of the reservoir lake larger. It was fully half-way up the back wall of the » which meant that the colonel's power plant at the upper canyon must be sumbe: . Yet the lights were on at Castle 'Cadia. While he was speculating over this new mystery, the four head lamps o! an automobile came in sight on the roundabout road, and presently a big tonneau car, well filled, rolled silently over the plank bridge below the dam and pointed its four monster eyes up the Incline leading to the camp mesa. ‘hen it came to a stand at the clift’s edge, Ballard saw that it held Mrs. Van Bryck, Bigelow, and one of the Cantrell girls in the tonneau; and that Elsa was pearing tne driving-seat with young Blaokloc! “Good evening, Mr. Ballard,” oa: from the shared half of the driving- seat. And then: “We are out bls | the new car—isn't it a beauty ?—an d we thought we'd make @ neighborly call. Aren't you giad to see us? Please say you are.” CHAPTER XIil. HE | clock, Bromley’s testimonial admiring classmates of the Ecole Polytechnique, had tinkled the hour of ten; the August from his enthusiastic and moon rode high above the deserted },. bunk shanties and the dismantled machinery on the camp mesa; the big car, long since cooled from its climb over the hogback hills, cast a fore- whortened shadow like that of a equat band wagon on the stone chip white- Nese of the cutters’ yard; and still the Guests lingered on the porch of the adobe bungalow. For Ballard, though he played the Part of the somewhat pussied host, ori the prolonged stay of the touring car party was an unalloyed joy. ‘When he had established Mrs. Van Bryck in the one easy chair, remin- fscent of Engineer Macpherson and his canny ekill with carpenter's tools, and had dragged out the blanket- covered divan for Miss Cantrell and Bigelow, he was free to ait a little part with Elsa on the porah step. The long In of the industrial battle was off. Having fully de! mined to send in his resignation in t morning, the burden of responsibility was measurably lightened. And, to cap the ecstatic climax, Miss EI mood was not mocking; it was sym- pathetic to a degree. Only young Blacklock’a rest! ness sounded a jarring note in theme, When the collegian had tink- ered with the car to the stopping of ita motor and the extinguishing of its headlights, he had taken to the desert of stone chips, ram! leasly, but never, as Ba. served, far enough to lose the white wall of masonry, thi ing lake in the canyon rift, or the rocky hillside of the opposite shore. It the latest of the little mys- ‘When the Kentuckian came rth long enough to remark it, he fancied that Jerry was waiting ob- ight of grow- mi me sbould ornate little French ing?” fay il MT Ss “Where's your snake, Jerry?” he a asked, coming up with « stick. “Cut it out,” said the collegian, ing eo that Miss Craigmiles Rot overhear. “I've been try- ing to get @ word with you all eve- he ning, and I had to invent the Wingfeld says we're all off wrong; ‘way off. You're to watch the dam— that’s what he said; watch it till he comes down. That's all.” “Tt was a false alarm,” said Ballard, when he rejoined Elsa. “Jerry's got you know.’ “Nothing of itself; but I bave seen with my own & bad case of enmul, You were say- ooo ini “I wasn't saying anything, but 1 th? mean to. You must be dying to know why we are here—why we are staying eo long.” “T'm not,” he answered, out of a full heart. “My opportunities to ait quiet ih Sieeeee meer Se, z= ven 2 so frequen: afford to spoil this one with askings about the whys and wherefores.” “Hugh!” she broke in imperatively, “You are jesting again in the very thick of the miseries. I brought you out here to tell you something. Your life was attempted again to-day; do you know by whom?" “Yes.” He answered without think- ing, and could have bitten his tongue for it the moment afteward, “Then you doubtless know to whom all the terrible happenings, the—the— imes are chargeable?” “Yi in. “How long have you known this?” "T it almost from the first.” She turned upon him like eome wild creature at bay. “Why are you waiting? Why haven't ogy had him thrown into prison, like any other common mur- derer?” He regarded her gravely. No man quite understands “You seem to forget that Iam his be daughter's lover,” he said, as if that ttled the matter beyond question. ‘And you have never sought for an explanation?—beyond the one which would stamp him as the meanest, the most despicable of criminals?” “I have; fruitleasly, though, I think, ‘until to-day.” “And to-day?” feverishly. he questioned He paused, ploking and choosing be bo the words. And in the end he great shadow. Tell me, Elsa, dear, is your father always fully ac- er were t! in her lap, and there were tense lines of suffering about the sweet mouth, lete Novel in The Evening World, “The Prince of Graustark,’ ories published in the past year. Don Denial was useless now, and he said ea,” “ ful found them both i came in hur- riedly, secretly, and he w: not lieve me when I told him that Mr. ley was hurt; be seemed to ba gure it must be some one else, Then pf . He had gone out to waylay She was in the full tide of the mis- erable confession now, and he tried to at on,” ashe insisted, wa, too, but un- has not tried to be chari- joesn’ lard interrupted. “Don't,” she said, “That is the bit- terest drop in the cup. You refuse to think of the heritage I should bring wi but I think of it—day and nigh ‘hen your telegram came from 4 ton to Mr. Lassley at New York, I was starting for France, for Paris, to see if I couldn't persuade Dr, Perard, the great specialist, to come over and our guest at Castle 'Cadia. It seemed to be the only hope., But when you telegraphed I knew I couldn't go; I I must come home. And in spite of all he has tried three times to kill you, and it is only by God's mercy that hasn't suo- ceeded. You know he must be in- eane; tell me oad must know tt, Breckenridge,” she pleaded. “Bince it lifte a burden too heavy to ne, I am heartily glad to be- Heve it,” he rejoined, tenderly, “I understand quite fully . it makes no difference—between us, I mean, You must not let it make a difference, Where did you leave your father?” “After dinner he went with Mr. Wingfield and Otto to the upper canyon. There le a breakwater which love you as I do,” Bal- gree i 8 - iy pee a zt E e “None the less, he has prepared for it im other ways, The cattle have all been driven out of the river valley below, and the ranch is deserted, some one told me to-day that the mi: over yonder had been abandoned.” Hie mention of the sircontum mine chasm, when a huge slice of the dump alid off and settled into the de; with a splash, The king's dau, rose, steadying herself by the the derrick-fall, The Kentuckian got ‘upon his feet and stood beside her, Th taoor "she aids pointing; “tt 0 door!” she ni was closed when we came out here, [ am gure of it!” It was open now, at all events; and be- presently she went on in @ frightened i oTEERRY Sazas ys tlt And nd two, acrosa the waite “Look! there is something bic? moving—among the ore-bins!” The movi ob} defined itelf quickly for the two at the derrick- heel, and for an Black- lock, who was crouching behind his of stone directly opposite the mine entrance. It too! pe figure of a man, alouc! muffled in a long coat, creeping on hands and knees toward the further dam-head; creeping by inches, and what appeared to be a six- th of gas-pipe. The young woman's whisper was full of sharp “eon, Breck: a " reckenridge! it's father—just as I have seen him before! He ta go- is to do something desperate—can't you stop him?” There are crises when the mind, acting like @ piece of automatic ma- chinery, flies suexestion to con- clusion with such Hghtning-like ra- pidity that all the intermediate ateps are slurred. Ballard saw advance, realized its object, and saw that he would not have time to in- tervene by crossing the dam, all in the same instant. Another click of the mental mechanism and the al- ternative had suggested itself, was weighed, measured and transmuted into action. The looped-wp derrick-fall was a fron pulley with the hooks and grape ron pulley with the and grap- pine. shale, from its ings at the mast-heel, tt swing out and across the canyon lke ® huge pendulum. arm when he grasped the pulley hook and slashed at the rope lashings with “That will do,” sali and then to the colonel: “I be Laver over to the other better ide. BeE if i i 1 : i i ate Fe i I if 5 é fl te els , 5 F ; i i ft f ul 4 F Fr 7 ite & ii 3 4 # i 2 3 E . : i inf i i fis i ty y i al E 8 se : iit ef i ry s b A i : if ‘i F hr i , f i E i a i a 4 i i } i f H 3 - u Hl i H : | i i i § i .& i [. ‘Y FA if if fel ii ail Feseek a 5 . aE A, ieet? : lee ! i i ty 8 3 °& fs 4 what 1 alty—even mistaken loyalty—ie worth. My own grudge is nothing—I haven't migh But there are other liv. inching Bl a to-morrow it was the colonel’ rupted him. ” by George Barr McCutcheon, is the best and latest of the ’t overlook its first instalment, Monday. That will insure -your re HE j rt E itt Fi iit 2 ef le Hi fa 1 5 " nl i Ri i great“G i