unfortunate young friend to jail,” declared the lawyer grimly. “And I
believe I know already who that somebody was.”

“You do!” exclaimed the girl eagerly.

“Yes. As I presume you are aware, Miss Worthington, Sheridan is not the
only letter carrier who occupies a room at Mrs. O’Brien’s boarding
house. A young man named Smithers, also employed at Branch X Y, lives at
the same address. He has the bedroom next to Owen’s. He is a member of
the Samuel J. Coggswell Association, and a close friend of Jake Hines,
Coggswell’s confidential man.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Dallas breathlessly. “Then, of course, it was he who put
the ticket in Owen’s trunk. He could easily have entered the room when
Owen wasn’t there, and slipped the piece of pasteboard through a crack
without opening the trunk at all.”

“Yes,” agreed the lawyer; “doubtless that is how the thing was done.”

He leaned back in his chair, and gazed up at the ceiling meditatively.
“The whole wretched plot is perfectly clear to me,” he said. “I can see
every step those rascals took. First they got a man to send that
registered package from a downtown post office--a liquor dealer named
Warren. I met him this afternoon, and one look at the fellow served to
convince me that he is crooked. The box was empty, of course, when he
sent it; there was no watch inside. The package was addressed to a
saloon keeper on Sheridan’s route, and they timed the mailing of it so
to make sure that it would arrive at Branch X Y during our friend’s
tour.

“Then, at half past three,” he continued, “while Sheridan was on his way
to deliver the package, one of Coggswell’s emissaries--probably Jake
Hines--went to pawnshop on the letter carrier’s route, and pledged a
watch--the watch which the perjurer, Warren, swears was in the
registered package when he mailed it. The pawn ticket is next handed to
Carrier Smithers, who is instructed to put it into Sheridan’s trunk, so
that it will be there when the post-office inspectors come to search the
room.”

“But why, if the inspectors are as honest as you say,” demanded Dallas,
“should they so quickly have suspected Owen? Why should they have gone
straight to his room and opened his trunk? Doesn’t that look
significant?”

“A very sensible question, Miss Worthington. At first blush it does look
significant, I must admit. But I have interrogated my friends, the
inspectors, on that very point, and their explanation is satisfactory.
They tell me that the reason they were so quick to suspect my client was
because they learned that on that same day he had been trying
unsuccessfully to borrow money from his friends at Branch X Y. Naturally
that caused them to give him immediate attention.”

“And what does Owen say about this story that he was trying to borrow
money?” inquired the girl anxiously. “Does he deny it?”

“No; on the contrary, he admits it,” replied Judge Lawrence, with a
frown. “He was quite frank about the matter with the inspectors. He told
them that he had a chance to buy a diamond ring at a great bargain
yesterday. The ring was worth a hundred and twenty dollars, and its
owner was willing to sell it for ninety. Owen had sixty dollars saved
up, and tried to borrow the needed thirty from his fellow carriers. That
was yesterday morning.”

“And he bought the ring last night,” sighed Dallas. “Where did he get
the money? Hasn’t he explained?”

“Yes. He says that yesterday afternoon, when he had given up all hope of
being able to raise the cash for the ring, he unexpectedly encountered a
prosperous friend, a Boston man named Cowan, whom he had not seen for
several years. Owen declares that Cowan loaned him the thirty dollars.”

“And he’s telling the truth, of course,” said Dallas. “Surely it ought
to be easy to prove that, Judge Lawrence. All we have to do is to get
this Mr. Cowan to corroborate Owen’s statement.”

The lawyer smiled sadly. “That is where fate has dealt our young friend
a nasty blow. Sheridan is a most unlucky fellow. It ought to be easy, as
you say, to get this man Cowan to corroborate his statement--but it
isn’t.”

“Why not?” demanded the girl. “You don’t mean to say that he denies it?”

“Not quite as bad as that,” replied the judge, “but almost. Fifteen
minutes ago, Miss Worthington, I telephoned to this man’s hotel--Owen
told me where he was stopping. The clerk informed me over the wire that
Mr. Cowan died this morning of heart disease. My client’s statement
cannot be corroborated. Fate seems to be on the side of Samuel J.
Coggswell and his rascally crew.”

CHAPTER XI.

AN OFFER DECLINED.

As the day set for Owen Sheridan’s trial approached, ex-Judge Lawrence
grew more and more pessimistic as to the outcome. Although he was quite
certain that his client was the victim of a dastardly plot, he realized
that simply to make such an assertion in a court of law could do no good
unless he was able to prove it to a jury’s complete satisfaction.

He had obtained a bondsman for Owen, and the latter had been freed from
a cell at police headquarters, and was able to take an active part in
the preparing of his own defense.

Every day the carrier and his lawyer held long conferences, and went
over every detail of the case, seeking in vain to find some weak spot in
the chain of circumstantial evidence which his enemies had forged--some
point in the “frame-up” which was open to attack.

In this endeavor, however, they did not meet with much success until one
day Owen burst into the lawyer’s presence with a joyous smile upon his
face, and exclaimed excitedly:

“I’ve got an idea, judge, and I think it’s a winner.”

The lawyer listened attentively to what his client had to say, and when
the latter had finished, jumped up from his chair and impulsively
grasped the young man’s hand.

“I congratulate you, my boy,” he said warmly. “You are right; your idea
is a winner. Your cleverness may save you from a term in jail. I am more
confident now as to the outcome of this case.

“Be sure not to mention a word about this to a living soul,” he went on,
with a chuckle. “I want to spring it as a surprise. Whenever you meet
any of Coggswell’s bunch, pretend to be overwhelmed with despair. Make
those fellows think that you are on the verge of a breakdown as a result
of brooding over your impending fate. That will make the shock all the
greater when we spring our little surprise on them in court.”

Thus it happened that when, the following day, Jake Hines, on his way to
the headquarters of the Samuel J. Coggswell Association, encountered
Owen on the street, the latter looked so worried and cast down that Jake
almost felt sorry for him.

Hines stepped into Boss Coggswell’s private office at the clubhouse a
few minutes later, and told his chief about the meeting.

“That fellow looks like a ghost, governor,” he declared. “He’s scared
stiff. I almost think that if he had the price of a steamship ticket
he’d skip his bail and beat it.”

Boss Coggswell waxed thoughtful at this remark. “Do you know, Jake, that
isn’t at all a bad idea,” he said. “I refer to the suggestion you just
made about the young man skipping his bail. If I thought that he could
really be persuaded to do that I almost think I’d prefer to have things
turn out that way. I have no desire to see the fellow sent to prison. If
he became a fugitive from justice, it would suit our purpose just as
well, it seems to me. All we want is to have him so utterly discredited
that he’ll be unable to do us any injury.”

Coggswell had already used his political influence to have the trials of
Carriers Greene and Tom Hovey for tampering with Judge Lawrence’s mail
put down at the bottom of the court calendar. His object in doing this,
of course, was to have Owen Sheridan’s case disposed of before these
other cases came up for trial, so that the young man would be unable to
implicate him--Coggswell--by telling what he knew about the conspiracy
to pry into the ex-judge’s private correspondence.

“Yes,” the boss went on, his ears wiggling rapidly as he spoke, “I
almost think I’d prefer to have young Sheridan run away. It almost
breaks my heart to think of a nice young man like him having to go to
jail. He has tried to injure me, ’tis true, but I hope I am not
vindictive, Jake--I certainly hope I am not vindictive. If I thought
that it was only the lack of the price of a steamship ticket which
prevented him from leaving the United States, I think I’d loan him the
money, Jake--yes, indeed!”

Hines pondered over this. He had heard of fugitives from justice sending
for their sweethearts to join them in some remote portion of the globe
where there was no extradition treaty with the United States government.
But Dallas Worthington did not impress him as being the kind of girl who
would respond to such an invitation. On the contrary, she probably would
accept the fact of the letter carrier’s flight as conclusive proof of
his guilt.

If Sheridan stood trial, was convicted, and sentenced to jail, the girl,
believing that he had fallen an innocent victim to circumstantial
evidence, might still remain loyal to him; but if Sheridan ran away, he
would no doubt by such a craven act lose the love of Dallas forever.
Thus thought Jake Hines, and consequently he decided that Boss
Coggswell’s plan was a good one.

“I think you’re right, boss,” he said. “It would be a mighty good idea
for us to finance a little trip abroad for that feller.”

“But it must be done very carefully, Jake,” said Coggswell. “Remember,
we have Judge Lawrence to deal with--a mighty shrewd lawyer. If he
managed to implicate me in this young man’s flight, it would place me in
a very painful position. It is essential that I remain an anonymous
philanthropist, Jake.”

“I’ll look out for that, boss,” Hines assured him. “I’ll work it so that
it can’t possibly be brought home to you. I know a way.”

Half an hour later Hines stepped into the real-estate office of Walter
K. Sammis. Dallas Worthington looked up from her typewriter, and
frowned her disapproval of her visitor.

“If you don’t leave here immediately,” she began indignantly, “I’ll call
Mr. Sammis----”

“Hold on there, little one!” he interrupted blandly. “I know I ain’t
welcome here, but don’t go up in the air before you hear what I got to
say. If you don’t let me get it off my chest, you’ll be sorry. I’ve come
to tell you something about that letter-carrier friend of
yours--something that’ll help him.”

The girl hesitated. “Well, hurry up and say it,” she said coldly. “I’ll
listen.”

“I met Sheridan on the street a little while ago,” said Hines, “and he
looked so bad that, honest, I couldn’t help feelin’ sorry for him.”

“He doesn’t need your pity,” declared Dallas scornfully.

“Maybe not,” said Hines; “but at the same time he’s got it. It almost
made my heart bleed to see him lookin’ like that, and I made up my mind
that I’d like to do something for him.”

The girl received this declaration with an incredulous laugh; but,
unheeding this, her visitor went on: “I’ve got a little money saved,
girlie--a couple of thousand dollars that I don’t need just now. If you
think your carrier friend could use it, he’s very welcome to it.”

Dallas looked at him in great astonishment. This generous offer quite
took her breath away. Her tone was a little less hostile as she said:

“Why, that’s very kind of you, Mr. Hines; but I don’t think Owen--Mr.
Sheridan is in need of money.”

“I reckon he is,” replied Jake, with a grin. “I know very well that he
ain’t got a dollar to his name. I don’t like the feller--he’s a crook,
and I ain’t got any use for crooks--but at the same time, as I say, I
feel sorry for him. And, besides, he’s a friend of yours, and any friend
of yours, little one, can command Jake Hines’ bank roll. So you tell him
the next time you see him that if he can use a couple of thousand he’s
welcome to it.”

With these words he hurried out of the office, satisfied that he had
succeeded in his mission.

“It’s sure to work,” he said to himself as he walked back to the club.
“From the look on that guy’s face, I’m sure that it’s only the lack of
funds which prevents him from beatin’ it. As soon as he learns that
there’s a chance for him to get hold of enough dough to make a safe
get-away he’ll grab at it quick.”

When Dallas saw Owen a little later she repeated to him what Hines had
said, and the young man, greatly mystified, went to report the incident
to his friend and counselor, Judge Lawrence.

“What on earth does it mean, judge?” he inquired. “What is their game in
offering me money?”

The lawyer laughed. “It is very clear what their game is, my boy. They
are in hopes that you are in such terror of the coming trial that you
can be tempted to seek safety in flight. The two thousand dollars is
intended to pay your expenses.”

Owen frowned; then his face suddenly lighted up. “Say, judge, I’ve got
another idea. Couldn’t we make great capital out of this offer? What’s
the matter with my accepting this money from Hines, in the presence of
concealed witnesses, then exposing the whole game? The very fact that
they are trying to induce me to jump my bail ought to be enough to
prove that they are behind this conspiracy.”

Judge Lawrence smiled. “I was thinking of that, but it wouldn’t work.
Those rascals are too smart to lay themselves open to a trap of that
sort. That is why Hines went to Miss Worthington instead of making that
offer direct to you.

“You see,” he went on, “while we can readily guess their motive, they
haven’t said anything that would incriminate them. Hines simply offered
to lend you some money, which might be taken as a philanthropic and
disinterested act on his part. He did not suggest that the money be used
to defray the expenses of your flight. He would claim that he thought
you might be able to use it to defray the expense of your defense.

“And, besides, you can rest assured that if you agreed to accept the
money, Hines wouldn’t be so careless as to make out the check to you. He
would make it out to Miss Worthington. There’s nothing criminal in a man
lending or giving a couple of thousand dollars to a young lady whose
friendship he ardently seeks. That’s the answer which they would make to
an attempt on our part to make capital out of the incident.”

Sheridan realized the logic of this, and Hines’ offer was turned down
flat.

Boss Coggswell was greatly disappointed when his lieutenant reported to
him that the letter carrier had refused to avail himself of this
opportunity to seek safety in flight.

“It is too bad,” he sighed. “I would have preferred to let this
unfortunate young man down easy. He has chosen unwisely. A sojourn
abroad is much more pleasant than several years behind bars. But since
he refuses to accept my aid,” he went on, those expressive ears of his
wagging rapidly, “I’m afraid he’ll have to go to jail. Yes, Jake, as
much as it pains me to have to say it, I am quite certain now that he’ll
have to go to jail.”

CHAPTER XII.

ON THE STAND.

Boss Coggswell was not present in the courtroom when Owen Sheridan’s
came up for trial. Not that he was not interested, nor was it a feeling
of delicacy which kept him away; but he realized that his presence might
excite comment and lend color to the accused man’s assertion that he was
the victim of a conspiracy.

“You’ll be there, of course, Jake,” he said to his subordinate, “and
I’ll rely on you to bring me the news just as soon as a verdict is
reached.”

Hines grinned. “Yes, you can bet your boots, boss, that I won’t lose any
time gettin’ here with the glad tidings. I guess you’re right in
decidin’ not to be present. It’d look pretty raw for you to go to court.
No use takin’ any unnecessary chances.”

“It isn’t that, Jake,” replied Coggswell deprecatingly. “It isn’t that,
my boy. I have no reason to be afraid. When one’s conscience is clear,
one doesn’t have to worry about what people might think. But the fact
is, Jake, I have a tender heart--you ought to know that by this
time--and I could not bear to be present to witness that poor man’s
sufferings.”

Hines grinned again, and looked at his chief admiringly. “All right,
boss,” he said. “You wait here, and I’ll bring you the news as soon as
the jury brings in a verdict.”

Hines had not the slightest doubt as to what that verdict was going to
be. He felt confident that the evidence against Sheridan was so
crushingly conclusive that the jury wouldn’t hesitate more than three
minutes before deciding that he was guilty.

If he had any apprehensions on the subject they would have been
dispelled by what he had seen that morning. He had encountered Owen on
the street, walking arm in arm with Judge Lawrence, and if ever two men
looked worried, the accused carrier and his counsel did.

“Poor gink!” said Mr. Hines to himself. “I guess he’s sorry by this time
that he didn’t take that money and beat it while he had the chance.
Wonder how he’ll look in a suit of stripes and with his hair close
cropped.”

There was a broad grin upon his face as he entered the courtroom and
seated himself on one of the rear benches. Catching the presiding
judge’s eye leveled sternly upon him, and suddenly realizing that his
levity was hardly decorous, he hurriedly assumed a serious mien.

He found it difficult to refrain from chuckling as the case progressed,
however, for as witness after witness took the stand to testify against
Sheridan, and the strong chain of circumstantial evidence was presented
link by link to the jury, the prisoner’s counsel, eminent lawyer though
he was, seemed to become more and more baffled and depressed.

Ex-Judge Lawrence was famed for his skill as a cross-examiner. This was
the only point on which Coggswell and Hines had been apprehensive. They
feared that there was a possibility of some of the witnesses going to
pieces under the vigorous, searching questioning of counsel for the
defense.

But, to Hines’ great relief, the ex-judge, in this case, gave no
evidence of being an expert at the art of cross-examination. He did not
succeed in “rattling” a single witness; in fact, he handled them all so
mildly and apparently with so little spirit that Hines muttered to
himself contemptuously:

“Huh! Him a great lawyer! Guess he’s been very much overrated. Why, I
know a whole lot of ordinary police-court counselors that could give him
cards and spades.”

William Warren, wholesale liquor dealer, was the first witness to take
the stand. He testified that he had sent his good friend Michael
Harrington, a saloon keeper, a gold watch by registered mail. He had
placed the watch in the package in the presence of two witnesses, who
had also been with him when he handed in the package at the registry
window of a downtown post office.

Judge Lawrence asked this witness but four questions in
cross-examination:

“Are you acquainted with Samuel J. Coggswell, Mr. Warren?”

“I never had the pleasure of meeting the gentleman.”

“Are you acquainted with a young man named Jake Hines--a prominent
member of the Samuel J. Coggswell Association? Before answering this
question, Mr. Warren, let me remind you that you are under oath.”

“It ain’t necessary to remind me of no such thing,” retorted the witness
indignantly. “Yes, I know Mr. Hines. I am proud to say that he is a good
friend of mine.” He glanced across at the spectators’ benches, and Jake
smiled at him an acknowledgment of this compliment.

They had expected this question, knowing that it was the accused
carrier’s hope to be able to make the jury believe that he was the
victim of a conspiracy. They had decided that Warren should tell the
truth, and admit that he knew Hines. To have denied the fact would have
been dangerous. There was no telling that the defense did not have
witnesses at hand ready to take the stand and swear that they knew of
the friendship.

“Yes, I know Jake Hines,” the witness repeated, almost belligerently;
“but that don’t----”

“Did you meet him, or in any way have communication with him, on the day
you sent the registered package?” interrupted counsel for the defense.

“Yes,” replied the witness unhesitatingly. “Mr. Hines came to my office
that day. He was in the neighborhood, and he dropped in to make a social
call.”

This question, too, had been expected. Warren had made up his mind to
answer it truthfully, for it was quite possible that Hines had been seen
entering his office.

“And at that meeting between Hines and yourself, Mr. Warren,” counsel
for the defense went on, “did either of you say anything about this
watch which you were going to send to Harrington?”

“Not a word,” emphatically replied the witness, who was prepared for
this question also. “Not a single word, sir. We never spoke about the
watch at all. Hines didn’t know that I was going to send it.”

As the conversation which had taken place that day between Hines and
himself had been behind a closed door, with no chance of anybody having
overheard them, Warren felt that he was quite safe in making this
denial.

“That’s all,” said the cross-examiner, with an audible sigh, and the
witness, as he stepped down, exchanged a triumphant glance with Jake
Hines.

The next witnesses were the men who had been in Warren’s office when he
placed the watch in the package, and who had accompanied him to the post
office and seen the package handed in at the registry window. Both of
them were reputable business men, and Owen’s lawyer made no attempt to
impeach their testimony. In cross-examination he let each of them off
with but a single question, which was the same in each case:

“On the way to the post office, where did Mr. Warren carry the package
in which you had seen him place the watch?”

“In the left-hand pocket of his coat,” the two witnesses both answered.

Michael Harrington, the saloon keeper, testified that the package
contained no watch when he opened it; which statement was corroborated
by several witnesses who had been present in the saloon when the accused
postman brought in the registered package.

Harrington made a good impression on the stand. He denied that he knew
Jake Hines, except by reputation, and volunteered the information that
he had “no use for Sam Coggswell, or any of his bunch,” being himself of
the opposite political party. Hines could not help grinning at Judge
Lawrence’s evident discomfiture.

The pawnbroker’s clerk, an exceedingly nervous young man, who took the
stand and swore that Owen had pledged the watch for forty dollars, was
cross-examined at greater length than any of the previous witnesses.

Counsel for the defense, however, could not shake his testimony. He
admitted that he was acquainted with Jake Hines, but denied that the
latter had been in the pawnshop that day, or had held any conversation
with him regarding the watch. Another audible sigh came from Judge
Lawrence as this witness left the stand.

The two post-office inspectors testified to having found the pawn ticket
in Owen’s trunk, and a half dozen of the employees of the Branch X Y
took the stand and reluctantly stated that Carrier Sheridan had tried to
borrow thirty dollars from them that day.

Owen’s counsel did not attempt to cross-examine any of these witnesses.
As the last of them left the stand and the prosecutor announced that
this closed the government’s case, Jake Hines leaned back in his seat
and smiled expansively.

“Let ’em beat that if they can,” he muttered confidently. “I can see
from the looks of the jury that they’ve made up their minds already.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

HE WANTED TO KNOW.

It was customary with the French marshal, Bassompierre, when any one of
his soldiers were brought before him for heinous offenses, to say to
him: “By heavens, brother, you or I will certainly be hanged!” which was
a sufficient indication of their fate.

A spy, being discovered in his camp, was addressed in these terms; and
next day, as the provost was carrying the culprit to the gallows, he
pressed earnestly for leave to speak with the marshal, alleging that he
had something of importance to communicate.

The marshal, being made acquainted with his request, exclaimed, in his
customary rough and hasty manner:

“It is the way of these rascals; when ordered for execution, they
pretend some frivolous story, merely to reprieve themselves for a few
moments. However, bring the dog hither.”

When the culprit made his appearance, the marshal asked him what he had
to say.

“Why, my lord,” replied he, “when I first had the honor of your
conversation, you were obliging enough to say that either you or I
should be hanged; now I come to know whether it is your pleasure to be
so; because, if you won’t I must, that’s all!”

Needless to say that the rascal was pardoned.

HE COULDN’T UNDERSTAND IT ALL.

An Irishman, who was terribly afraid of ghosts, got a berth on board an
American vessel.

As the ship was leaving the port, he asked one of the sailors if there
were any ghosts on board.

One of them, for a joke, said it was as full of ghosts as a churchyard.

This frightened Pat so much that when he turned into his hammock he drew
his blanket so far over his head that his feet were left naked and cold.

He endured the suffering for a few nights, and then he went to the
captain and complained about his blanket.

“Please, sor,” said Pat, “my blanket is too long at the top and too
short at the bottom, and sure, I even cut a bit off the top and sewed it
onto the bottom, but, faith it’s just the same as iver it was. I can’t
undershtand it at all--at all.”

                       THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.

A Kangaroo Cat.

Mrs. Pussy Cat, who lives at the home of Thomas Evans, in Newport, Ky.,
is greatly worried over one of her offspring. No other member of Mrs.
Cat’s numerous family is like the newcomer. This kitten has only two
feet and walks or hops about like a kangaroo. There are only tufts of
fur where the front legs ought to be. In hopping about, the kitten
balances itself with its tail, which it uses as a sort of rudder.

Gets Fifty-dollar Tip for a Shave.

Jack O’Reilly, barber in West Third Street, Los Angeles, Cal., had the
surprise of his life a few days ago. A prosperous-looking man walked
into the shop. When the job was done, the patron unlimbered a wad of
bills, stripped off a fifty-dollar yellowback, and said: “Things have
come my way handsomely. Here’s a bit of a tip.”

Leaving O’Reilly stupefied with astonishment, the man walked out. He was
a prosperous Los Angeles stock broker, O’Reilly said.

Asks $500 for Loss of Faded Army Uniform.

On the loss of a faded blue army uniform, a relic of the Civil War, Mrs.
Mary Heintzelman, seventy-three years old, of Minneapolis, Minn., bases
a claim for five hundred dollars against Hennepin County, which she has
already filed.

Five years ago Mrs. Heintzelman went to the Hennepin County poor farm.
Her only possessions were packed in an old-fashioned trunk. In the top
tray lay the old uniform and a packet of soldier’s letters, written on
the heavy blue stationery used in war times. They were the only links
that bound the old woman’s life to the highest happiness her life had
known.

The uniform, more than half a century ago, had been worn to the war by
George Heintzelman of the Forty-seventh Pennsylvania infantry. They had
been betrothed, she and the young soldier, when he marched away to war.
The memories of those days when he and she were young have been the only
comforts in the old woman’s life.

Three years later Heintzelman came back, badly wounded. He recovered,
but a bullet through his lung had impaired his health. They were
married, and moved West. The husband’s health did not improve. A few
years later he died.

Mrs. Heintzelman stored the old uniform and the letters in the trunk and
set about to make her own way in the world. The years that followed were
lonely and full of hard work and trouble. The treasures in the trunk
were the only solaces in the woman’s life.

Finally, too old to work longer, she went to the home. Every spring, on
the anniversary of the day that her lover had marched away, Mrs.
Heintzelman would take out the old uniform and hang it on the line to
air. Softly she would caress the faded garment and read over the old
letters, and her sadness and loneliness would be lost in the flood of
pleasant memories that floated back from her youth.

A week ago, as the old uniform hung upon the line, a cinder descended
from a smokestack. It smoldered for a moment in the garment, flared up,
and Mrs. Heintzelman’s last treasure was gone forever.

Blasted Romance of Poor Aunt Emily.

When board of health inspectors of Indianapolis, Ind., went to the home
of Emily Smith, a recluse, to remove piles of dust-covered books and
papers which literally filled her little house, they uncovered a hidden
fortune and unearthed a story of a blasted romance.

Fifty years ago the woman was a belle in the English settlement in New
York City and was preparing to be married, when the man who had won her
was stricken with fever and died.

She moved to Indianapolis twenty-five years ago, and, residing in a slum
district, has been an object of charity for many years. About eight
thousand dollars was found secreted in the house, which was cleaned only
after the indignant woman had shrieked in protest.

The following is the supposed pauper’s riches: Currency, $846.97;
certified check, $200; bank deposits, $1,800; mortgages, $5,000, and
insurance papers of undetermined value.

“There is nothin’ there you’d want to see, and, besides, it would kill
Aunt Emily if you disturbed her papers,” a negress told the officers.

“This is my home; it’s none of your business what I have beneath these
papers!” Miss Smith shouted, as the officers started to move the
newspapers and pamphlets.

Fighting Man’s Square Meal.

Charles Weber, a pugilist from New York, while in a cell in
Philadelphia, Pa., on a charge of forgery, having been brought here from
Moyamensing Prison, told Turnkey Gordon, of the Thompson Street police
station, that he hadn’t eaten for a week; that he was as hungry as a
polar bear, and wouldn’t Gordon please get one dollar from his money in
the sergeant’s desk and take his order for a square meal? Gordon did.

Ten minutes later Gordon faced the house sergeant with a wry face. “What
do you think of that fightin’ guy?” he asked. “‘E said ez ’ow ’e wanted
a square meal, and sent me out fer a dollar’s worth of cream puffs, and
blow me if ’e didn’t eat every bloomin’ one of ’em.”

Answers the Call of Cupid.

After having answered nearly four million calls, Miss Theresa Cox, chief
telephone operator at the Minnesota State House, has fallen victim of
Cupid, and given up her job. For ten years, ever since the capitol was
completed, Miss Cox has guarded the switchboard day in and day out, the
personification of efficiency and amiability, and long years ago gained
the reputation of being a model telephone girl.

On ordinary days she made between one thousand and twelve hundred wire
connections. When the legislature was in session, or in other times of
stress, the demands on her switchboard were greatly increased, and she
would be called over the lines sixteen hundred times or more.

No one ever applied for her job, and she probably was the only one in
the capitol whose job was not in danger. The uncertainties of political
positions had no fear for her, for no governor ever could have thought
of removing Miss Cox. There would have been a storm of protest akin to a
riot.

But what governors could not do, Henry Jopling accomplished. He invited
Miss Cox to marry him, and Dan Cupid advised her to surrender.

“I’m awfully sorry to leave here,” she said to a gathering of State
House officials and employees who gave her a wedding “shower,” and her
voice shook a little. “You have all been so kind to me.”

Old-time Circus Man’s Will.

William Washington Cole, an old-time circus owner, at one time of Cole
Brothers and later a part owner in the Barnum & Bailey show, left an
estate valued at five million dollars, according to his will filed with
Surrogate Daniel Nobel in Queens County.

Mr. Cole died in Whitestone, L. I., March 10th. He left a widow, but no
children, brothers, or sisters. Distant relatives live in England and in
Scotland.

He left to his widow, Mrs. Margaret Cole, two hundred thousand dollars
and two-eighths of the residue after the bequests are paid. Mrs. Cole is
also to receive certain specific bequests. Sixty-five persons receive
bequests and annuities aggregating about five hundred thousand dollars.
The will also makes bequests to churches and institutions to the extent
of one hundred thousand dollars.

Transcontinental Pedestrians.

In competition with Edward Payson Weston, the veteran walker, and to win
a fifteen-hundred-dollar prize offered by the Panama-Pacific Exposition,
Mr. and Mrs. Tom Jackley are walking across the country, with the
requirement that they “make” the capital of each of the forty-eight
States within three years. They left San Francisco September 12, 1912,
and seem sure of winning, as they are now in the East, and have four
months to reach Augusta, Maine. They are forbidden to ride in any way,
and may obtain money only by selling pictures of themselves.

Gets $7,000,000 from Uncle.

Using the name of Albert Brown nearly cost Albert James Bourne, a
transient farm hand, a fortune of seven million dollars, left him by an
uncle who died several months ago in Melbourne, Australia.

After a search through seven States, Bourne was located on a farm near
Lincoln, Neb., by private detectives who had been hired to search for
him. It was discovered he had been in a hospital in St. Joseph, Mo.

The property left him consists of 339,000 acres of free land, 25,000
sheep, 400 horses, hundreds of cattle, and 50,000 pounds sterling.
Bourne is Irish, and fifty years old.

Sues Farmers, but Vanishes.

Two years after filing suit against wealthy Howell County farmers of the
South Fork, Mo., neighborhood, whom he accused of slanderous statements
concerning himself, the whereabouts of Wiley C. Goldsby, the plaintiff,
are unknown, and caused the dismissal of the suit, which had been taken
to Ozark County on a change of venue. Goldsby was last seen when he left
for the Kansas wheat fields.

After Goldsby had been in charge of the ranch house of Doctor R. A.
Sparks for some time, stories were circulated in the neighborhood that
he was a woman masquerading in male attire. It was said he often wore a
kimono when preparing breakfast for the ranch hands, and devoted his
spare time to crocheting and other fancywork. It was these statements
that Goldsby made the basis of a suit for heavy damages.

University Student at Ten.

Helen Bradford, of Ottumwa, Iowa, ten years old, has made arrangements
to enter the University of Iowa in September.

She was graduated from high school, and is heralded as one of the best
mathematicians among grade students of the State. She will be the
youngest girl to attend Iowa in more than ten years.

Cupid Tricks Truant “Cops.”

Cupid has had Minneapolis, Minn., school-attendance officers dodging
around corners in pursuit of children under sixteen who were not
attending school, only to have them flash a marriage license. This has
happened several times during the present school year, and
school-attendance officers are getting vexed at Cupid.

The law is that children must attend school until they are sixteen,
unless they have completed the elementary-school course. However,
attendance officers have given up the chase after the truants when it
has been proved they have been married.

Teressa Amundson, Alida Sandeen, Ruth Rosendahl, Lillian Jordan, Agnes
Gratz, and Alice Hanson are the girls who have abruptly ended their
education by the marriage route and had attendance officers guessing.

Fight Lake of Burning Oil.

Recently, citizens of Oilton, Okla., and neighboring towns witnessed the
most extensive oil fire that has ever occurred on the river since the
field opened. It was one mile northeast of the town, on the Cimarron
River, where the oil had formed a lake in the bend of the stream. It
burned for hours, sending up a column of smoke and flame that was
noticeable from towns twenty miles away.

William Murdoch, traffic manager of the Oil Belt Terminal Railroad,
headed a squad of men who prevented a spread of flames, which would have
been disastrous to the big railroad bridge.

He Helped to Found Republic of Texas.

J. W. Darlington, ninety-four years old, of Austin, Tex., is the only
person now living who heard the sounds of the guns at the battle of San
Jacinto, seventy-nine years ago.

Mr. Darlington was one of the band of Texans who met and defeated the
Mexicans under Santa Anna, but was prevented from fighting in the battle
itself by being detailed to look after the supply train.

Mr. Darlington came from Virginia to Austin in 1839, the year that
Austin was laid off as a town, and the first capitol was built. He
married Miss Eleanor J. Love in 1843, and has four daughters and one son
living. He is an honorary member of the Daughters of the Republic, and
still takes an interest in affairs of the State. His chief delight seems
to be recalling his life in Texas in the early forties.

In the battle of Plum Creek, in 1840, Mr. Darlington, at the head of
about two hundred citizens, whipped the Comanche Indians so that they
gave the early settlers no more trouble. He was also engaged in a battle
at Plum Creek in 1842.

Mr. Darlington helped to plane the logs for the first capitol during
Lamar’s administration, and also to build the fort around the capitol,
to protect it from the Indians on one side and the Mexicans on the
other. The capitol was then used not only for the sessions of Congress,
but as a church, school, opera house, dance hall--in fact, for all
public gatherings.

Rounded “The Horn.”

Vanburen Crompton, of Allen Dale, Ill., is one of the few men living who
went to the California gold fields by way of “the Horn.” Most of the
emigrants went overland by wagon, enduring many hardships. Mr. Crompton,
then a young man, with two companions chose the water route. Taking a
boat at New Orleans, they followed along the Mexican and South American
coast, rounding Cape Horn, and then up the western coast, to San
Francisco. The ships in that day were slow, and it required many weeks
to make the journey. Thousands of men were called westward by the lure
of gold, but only a comparatively small number found riches. Mr.
Crompton was among the unlucky ones, and returned home after six years.
He now lives on the farm on which he was born, and in one of the first
frame houses erected in southern Illinois. In the early days there was a
fort near the farm, a refuge from the Indians.

Still Another “Pick” to Feed.

Former President Roosevelt’s fear of race suicide would have received a
rude shock had the colonel been in the front office at the Young Men’s
Christian Association in Nashville, Tenn., when “Bee,” a crippled
porter, and quite a fixture at the building, asked for a day off.

“What in the world do you want with a day off, Bee?” asked one of the
secretaries to whom this request, coming from Bee, was something
unusual.

“Well, suh,” said the old negro exultantly, “Ah have a visitor at mah
house dis mawnin’. It’s de nineteenth, suh. Ah shore has a hard time to
sport ’em, suh. Eatin’s am high and money am mighty procrastinatin’.”

Bee’s request was granted.

“Up, You Dead!” Cry Saves the Trench.

A French lieutenant, now lying wounded in a Paris hospital, has given
this account of the thrilling action in which he received his injury:

“We were fortifying a trench which we had taken. Behind a barrier of
sacks which blocked one end of it, two sentinels kept careful watch. We
could work in all security.

“Suddenly an avalanche of bombs tumbled down on our heads. Before we
could recover, ten of our men were stretched on the ground, dead or
wounded, pell-mell.

“I opened my mouth to urge them on again, when a stone from the parapet,
torn out by a projectile, hit me on the head. I fell unconscious. My
stupor lasted a second only. A splinter of shell tore my left hand, and
the pain brought me to.

“As I opened my eyes, weakened, my mind benumbed, I saw the ‘boches’
jump over the barrier of sacks and invade the trench. There were about
twenty. They had no guns, but they carried in front of them a sort of
wicker basket filled with bombs.

“I looked to the left. Our men had gone, the trench was empty. The
boches advanced; a few more steps and they were on me.

“Just then one of my men, lying on the ground, a wound on his forehead,
a wound on his chin, blood streaming from his face, dragged himself to a
sitting position, seized a sack of grenades near him, and cried out:
‘Up, you dead!’

“He pulled himself to his knees, dived into the sack, and flung the
grenades at the group of assailants.

“In answer to his cry, three more wounded men dragged themselves up. Two
of them, who had broken legs, took guns, and, opening the magazines,
started a rapid fire, each shot of which hit home. The third, whose left
arm was inert, seized a bayonet with his right.

“When I picked myself up, having quite recovered my senses, about half
the hostile group had been felled, the rest having retreated in
disorder.

“All that remained was a huge, perspiring subofficer, congested with
rage, who, leaning against the barrier, protected by the iron shield,
continued most courageously, I must say, to fire his revolver in our
direction.

“The man who was first to organize the defense, who had cried, ‘Up, you
dead!’ received a bullet straight in the jaw. He collapsed.

“Suddenly the soldier with the bayonet, who for some minutes had been
crawling from corpse to corpse, stopped about four feet from the
barrier, drew himself up, dodged two bullets fired at him, and plunged
his bayonet into the German’s throat.

“The position was saved. The wounded soldier’s sublime appeal had
resuscitated the ‘dead.’”

Alleged Dead Man Denies the Report.

Once upon a time the city editor of a newspaper printed a story about a
man being dead who wasn’t dead.

Much to his consternation, the man arose the next morning and read a
lurid account of his death. He pinched himself to see if he were dead or
alive, and, coming to the conclusion that he was very much alive, after
looking at a black-and-blue mark where his fingers had closed together
upon his tender flesh, he sought the city editor.

“I read in the morning paper that I was dead,” he remarked to the
newspaper man at the desk.

“Well,” laconically responded the city editor, “what about it?”

“I am here as a living witness to testify that I am not dead,” responded
the man who was printed dead, “and that the reports of my death are very
much exaggerated.”

“I want you to understand here and now that if this newspaper says you
are dead, you are dead,” retorted the city editor.

“But don’t you see that I’m very much alive?” queried the astonished
dead man.

“All right,” replied the city editor, “we’ll put you in the birth column
to-morrow morning.”

Well, there is a parallel case to this in Montana, as is shown in an
opinion by the State supreme court, written by Associate Justice Sanner.

Frank Lemmer, a taxidermist, was the object of an obituary notice in the
Great Falls _Tribune_, W. M. Bole’s newspaper. The notice had him dead,
and dead to rights, because of an overdose of morphine, administered
upon a prescription by a physician, but evidently the _Tribune_ made the
mistake of not putting Mr. Lemmer in the birth column the next morning,
although it explained later that Lemmer had arisen from the dead, with
due apologies to the supposed dead man.

Now, Lemmer objected to being called a “dead one,” and promptly
instituted suit against the _Tribune_, claiming that he was not dead,
and that his business as a taxidermist had been injured by the alleged
malicious publication that he was dead.

Naturally, the defendants demurred both generally and specifically,
which demurrer was sustained by the Cascade District Court. The
plaintiff thereupon declined to plead further, and suffered judgment of
dismissal with costs. Naturally an appeal was taken.

Justice Sanner, Chief Justice Brantly, and Associate Justice Holloway
concurring, calls attention to the inference contained in the
publication of the alleged death of Lemmer.

“The necessary inferences are,” says the opinion, “that Frank Lemmer
died; that he died from an overdose of morphine; that the morphine was
procured on a doctor’s prescription, which prescription was obtained at
Lemmer’s instance by a stranger. None of these circumstances, nor all of
them, suggest anything disgraceful or criminal.”

The opinion then proceeds to say that it is no disgrace to die, and that
one may die without moral turpitude from an overdose of morphine
procured by a doctor’s prescription, even though a stranger acted as
messenger in the transition.

“Speaking generally,” continues the opinion, “there is no doubt that one
may suffer such damages from almost any publication whatever,
particularly a publication to the effect that he is dead; but whenever
such damages are sought, it is not enough to aver generally that in
consequence to the publication the plaintiff has been damaged in his
business; the facts showing such damages must be alleged or no cause of
action is stated.”

The opinion then proceeds to show that the demurrer to the complaint was
properly sustained, and the judgment is affirmed.

“Movie” Mysteries Are Here Explained.

Rumbling bass notes from the unbridled, unleashed piano. Thunderous
roars from the big bass drum. Frequent crashes of brassy cymbals. You
instinctively clap your hands to your ears and breathlessly await the
bursting of the awful tornado that is scurrying over your head.

Then comes a pause in the deafening and ominous roar--the house is so
still you can hear the clicking of the projecting machine as the film is
reeled off.

Yes; we are in the midst of a fearsome forest, and the heroine is just
about to merge from the inky blackness with all her troubles--there she
is, now!

What was that? A flash of lightning! The drummer redoubles his sonorous
roll, ending with a wild, spine-stiffening thump. Some storm. The
heroine’s hair is blown so violently you fear it may be torn out by the
very roots.

She falls to the moss-grown forest floor. Livid flash and another
thunderous roll. Then the deluge. The heavens open, and while the
fanfare is loudest and the lightning is lividest, our fair lady is
soaked to the skin with real water and falls to earth, beaten down by
the very force of the torrent from on high.

Great scene, that!

Come with us now and see how the game is played. Ah, the movie studio!

Here’s a patch of nice green grass on the studio floor, and back of it a
few shrubs and some sizable trees. Up on a scaffold high enough to be
out of the camera’s ken are a dozen men, each armed with a huge watering
pot.

The heroine stands on the side lines, waiting for the storm to begin.
Storm in broad noon of a sunny day? Sure thing. Just watch.

An excited-looking individual holding a bunch of manuscript stands
beside the heroine--yes, you’ve guessed it, he’s the movie director.

She gets behind the trees, and the man at the camera crank starts
turning. She pushes her way through the tangled wildwood and stubs her
toe, looking unutterable anguish the while.

“Down stage!” yells the excited director.

She staggers on as directed, the camera man cranking nonchalantly with
one hand while he takes puffs at a cigarette with the other. The poor
girl tries to rise, and wabbles feebly.

“Fall in front of the camera!” bawls the director.

She falls at the proper focal distance.

“Stretch out your arms--look wild!” yells the boss of the works.

“Let her go!” this time to the men with the watering cans.

And poor heroine, struggling and staggering, is drenched to the skin
with the downpour, not from the heavens above, but quite as wet.

But, we ask, where is the lightning for this wild outburst of the
aforesaid Nature.

“Oh, that’s easy!” laughs the director. “We put that in afterward with
the scratch of a pin.”

“But how are you going to make it look like night?”

“Easier still--we’ll tint the film blue. Got to have sunlight to take
any kind of pictures, anyway.”

So, when you see this thrill, remember that the lightning is a pin
scratch, and the night effect is blue aniline dye and not by the gloom
of night. As for Jupiter Pluvius, the men with the cans of water can wet
down the place with equal skill.

Have you ever witnessed an exciting scene about a big building--a home
or a factory--and then, in the next reel, watched it go up in smoke and
flame? Yes? Some expense? Not so very much, for you haven’t seen the
real building burn down at all, but only a little model of it after the
scene has been acted out in front of the real building.

“The best fire effects are made in the studios, anyway,” the movie
expert will tell you.

It was in a studio that the eruption of Mount Etna was manufactured. The
promoters had tried taking real moving pictures of the volcano in
eruption, but they were not nearly as good as the studio-made variety.
These had the verisimilitude of real life, with fleeing thousands, men,
women, children, and animals, pouring down its red-hot sides. The films
of the fleeing people were merely super-imposed on the film of the fake
volcano, studio made.

You have seen your favorite heroine jump unhesitatingly off a tall
cliff? Or swim an ice-choked river? You never knew she could swim. Nor
does she. Another movie trick is what you have seen. Movie stars seldom
do such things. Professionals, dressed exactly as they are, and made up
to resemble them, do this part of the stunt for the real actors. Jumping
from a burning building is another movie feat which is only a trick. The
real people get only as far as the windows. Dummies do the jumping and
the falling.

So! But how do they make inanimate objects move about as if they were
endowed with life? How does a catsup bottle jump up from the table and
climb down to the floor on the rungs of a chair? Or how can grandpa’s
clock walk up the stairs, turning around solemnly the while to look you
straight in the eye and give you warning of the flight of the hours?

Perhaps you have seen horses running full tilt at you and never seemed
to catch up. So simple! Right in front of the horses is a high-powered
automobile, in which the movie camera is set up. The horses follow the
car, and the camera man grinds out his film, always keeping a few feet
ahead of his charging subjects.

Prehistoric Man Now Seen in Wax.

The three great links in the chain of human ancestry in America,
beginning nearly twenty thousand years back, have just been represented
for the first time in scientifically reconstructed wax faces at the
College of Medicine, University of Nebraska, in Omaha. This is the first
reconstruction work of the kind that has been done on prehistoric skulls
of America.

Scientists are enthusiastic over the three great types it has brought
out on the skulls of modern Indian, the cave-dwelling cannibal of three
thousand years ago, and the Nebraska “Loess man,” fragments of whose
skull were deposited with the glacial drift when the Missouri River
bluffs were made, between ten thousand and twenty thousand years ago.

For eight years the skulls of the low-browed Loess man, found by the
archeologist, Robert F. Gilder, of Omaha, have remained in the museums
in Omaha, Lincoln, and at Harvard University, while science has
hopelessly longed to know what a face this preglacial man must have
worn.

Finally German scientists worked out an accurate system of facial
measurements compiled into an elaborate table, by the use of which faces
can be faithfully reconstructed over skulls. To date little has been
done along this line in Europe. In America the first work in building up
faces of prehistoric man has just been completed by Miss Myra Warner,
clay-model artist, who has made a specialized study of this German
system in the art schools of the East.

Miss Warner was handed the three skulls by Doctor Charles W. M. Poynter,
professor of anatomy of the University of Nebraska. She was told nothing
about the origin of the skulls. She worked faithfully for months, and,
with the aid of the table of measurements, built up the three wonderful
faces. It was not until she had nearly finished that she discovered one
of the three to be a modern Indian type. Yet, without knowing she was
working on a modern Indian skull, by applying only her table of
measurements faithfully to the skull as she built the clay upon it, she
produced so characteristic an American Indian type that Doctor Poynter
declared the accuracy of her work on the other two skulls, equally
unknown to her, could by no means be called into question.

The cannibal cave-dweller type is that of which Mr. Gilder found remains
in sunken cave homes along the Missouri River. He has uncovered some
forty of these caves, and has established the fact that the inhabitants
belong to what is known as the “round-headed” branch of the human race.
Geologists believe the inhabitants of these caves thrived some three
thousand years ago.

But the chief interest in the reconstruction work at the University of
Nebraska attaches to the face that has been built over the skull of the
Loess man. In all, the fragments of but six skulls belonging to this
type are in existence to-day.

This extreme primitive type of man is believed to have stalked over the
wastes of North America before the glaciers plowed their great gorges
and before they deposited the Kansan drift and the Loess clay to build
the bluffs at the Missouri River. This man, low-browed and of little
brain capacity, lived contemporaneously with the mammoth or mastodon,
which he probably slew for food, if indeed he could wield a stone weapon
sharp enough and strong enough to pierce the thick hide.

And yet, now that the faces have been reconstructed, we find no close
resemblance to the ape type, as many of the most excitable scientists
have expected. “The truth is,” says Doctor Poynter, “if man sprang from
the same original stem as the ape, the ape branch sprang off so far back
in antiquity that none of the skulls of the missing links could possibly
be expected to withstand the weathering to the present day. No one will
ever find a skull that will carry man back even anywhere near the ape
days, and the remotest skull we can find is already very much a man’s.”

This Loess man then belongs to an age perhaps hundreds of thousands of
years later than the time man and ape parted company and began to
develop along different lines.

Yet this Loess skull has, by competent geologists and ethnologists been
placed next in age to the famous Neanderthal skull found in 1856 in a
cave in the valley of Neander near Dusseldorf, Germany. The Neanderthal
skull is known the world over as representing the great antiquity and
low order of the human race. In brain capacity the Loess skull boasts
little, if any, advantage over the Neanderthal.

The prominence of the supraorbital ridges or bony brows is, next to the
receding character of the forehead, the most notable feature of this
primitive type.

“Neither the projections of the supraorbital ridges, nor the receding
forehead, is an Indian characteristic,” says Henry F. Osborn, professor
of zoölogy in Columbia University and curator in the American Museum of
Natural History. Doctor Osborn was one of the first to go to Omaha and
study this remarkable skull when it was found eight years ago.

The age of this skull is established by its association with the layer
of clay drift in which it was found. Doctor E. H. Barbour, head
professor of geology of the University of Nebraska, went over the ground
thoroughly and helped to excavate many of the fragments of the Loess man
some ten miles north of Omaha.

“From the geologist’s standpoint,” says Doctor Barbour, “these bone
fragments were not buried. Instead, the bones were doubtless deposited
with the Loess, the age of which may be safely reckoned at ten to twenty
thousand years or more, and the bones are at least as ancient as this
formation.”

Somewhere in its mighty course the glacier picked up these fragments of
skulls and a few arm and leg bones and rolled them along with the rest
of the drift, to be deposited solidly in the Loess clay when the bluff
was built.

Old Paymaster Says Farewell.

Amos Hershey has just retired as postmaster of Gordonville, Pa., ending
a period of fifty-five years of service for the United States postal
department.

In 1860, before the Civil War, Mr. Hershey, then sixteen years of age,
entered the employ of John K. Smoker, in a general merchandise store. At
the same time he became one of the clerks in the post office. Five years
later Hershey purchased the store business from Smoker and was himself
appointed postmaster. He received his commission from William Dennison,
postmaster general under President Lincoln.

The efficiency of the post-office department in that day was very crude
toward what it has become in later years. When Mr. Hershey first entered
the service, there were no railway mail cars. In fact, it was only in
1860 that an arrangement was made with the railroads to run a mail train
between New York and Washington, the only advantage of which was the
quick transfer of mail matter from one large place to another. The
traveling post office, where mails are assorted when going at fifty
miles an hour, had not yet come.

It was several years later that a Mr. Davis, of the St. Joseph, Mo.,
post-office force, broached the thought that considerable valuable time
would be saved if the overland mail could be sorted on the cars, and
made up for offices at the end of and along the routes. The department
allowed him to carry out this idea, which, starting in such a humble
way, is now one of the most important branches of the department.

Before the “catcher” on the mail cars and the “crane” at small stations
came into use, twenty years later, the process of catching and
delivering the pouches was indeed strenuous, both for the mail clerk and
the local postmaster. Shortly before train time, Mr. Hershey mounted a
platform immediately alongside the track, and, propping his feet
securely, would suspend the mail pouch in front of him at arms’ length,
the right hand at the top and the left hand at the bottom. When the
train neared this human crane, the mail clerk appeared at the door of
his car, and, securing himself firmly, would extend his right arm in the
form of a crook or an acute angle, and catch the pouch as the train
rushed by. The mail clerk had his arm well padded to prevent serious
injury; but, notwithstanding, the risk was exceedingly great--in more
ways than one. Mr. Hershey states that the mail trains were running at
the rate of fifty miles an hour, and it is hard for the uninitiated to
comprehend the alertness and strenuosity connected with the delivering
and catching of the pouch, aside from the constant danger.

They had a very complex system in making up letter packages in those
days. Mr. Hershey had to sort the letters for each office separately, no
matter whether there would be only one letter for an individual office.
The letters for each office had to be placed in a paper jacket of Mr.
Hershey’s own making, completely inclosing the letters, and the name of
the office address written plainly on the wrapper, with a waybill
attached to each package.

In the early sixties the postmasters enjoyed the franking privilege,
being allowed to send all their private mail without the use of postage
stamps. This privilege was rescinded in 1864.

Mr. Hershey recalls a story of one of the railway mail clerks, who were
known in the early days as the “paper jerkers,” and how he increased his
salary: “On a side lot near the Forepaugh circus grounds in
Philadelphia, there was a faker, whose outfit consisted of the
stake-and-ring game. The simple and enticing amusement was played as
follows: The stake was placed in the ground at a certain angle, which
led the uninitiated to believe that it was easy to throw the five-inch
rings over it. The feat was almost impossible. The faker had a crowd
around him, and was raking in the dimes--three ‘tries’ for ten
cents--when a black-mustached, middle-sized man walked up and said he’d
bet a dollar he could put three rings out of five over the stake.

“The faker winked at the crowd, and took the man up. The black-mustached
stranger threw five rings rapidly, one after another, and, as three of
them went over the stake, the thrower was in eighty cents. Then they bet
ten dollars even that nine out of the first ten thrown could not be put
over the stake. The whole ten settled safely, and the faker, as he
handed over ten dollars in silver, said:

“I’m broke; what’s your business?”

“I’m a paper jerker on a postal car. I don’t do anything but fling
papers all day long into the mouths of fifty sacks.”

The village of Gordonville in those early days of Mr. Hershey’s
postmastership had two names. The section lying north of the railroad
was called Concord, and that section lying south of the railroad was
named Gordonville. The railroad station was Concord, but the post office
has always gone by the name of Gordonville. The village was named after
Daniel Gordon, who was the first citizen and who built the first houses
in the town.

Child Labor Bill is Signed.

Governor Brumbaugh, of Harrisburg, Pa., signed the Cox child-labor bill.
The new act will become effective on January 1, 1916. Under its
provisions, children under fourteen years of age, with the exception of
newsboys, will be barred from working at any occupation.

Messengers employed between eight p.m. and six a.m. must be at least
twenty-one years old, and children under sixteen will be prohibited from
working unless they attend schools at least eight hours a week. Domestic
servants and farm laborers are exempt.

Sheds Her Artificial Legs.

Removing both of her artificial legs and pulling herself up to the
railings of the Ohio River bridge, Anna Wartenbaker, thirty-five years
old, of Parkersburg, W. Va., plunged ninety feet into the river here.

People on both sides of the river saw her plunge, and hastened to her in
boats. Her right arm was broken in the fall. The woman was despondent
over her crippled condition, and came here with the express purpose of
leaping to death from the bridge.

The Nick Carter Stories

ISSUED EVERY SATURDAY           BEAUTIFUL COLORED COVERS

When it comes to detective stories worth while, the =Nick Carter Stories=
contain the only ones that should be considered. They are not overdrawn
tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of the finest
minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is familiar
all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be read in
twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe test of
time so well as those contained in the =Nick Carter Stories=. It proves
conclusively that they are the best. We give herewith a list of some of
the back numbers in print. You can have your news dealer order them, or
they will be sent direct by the publishers to any address upon receipt
of the price in money or postage stamps.

714--The Taxicab Riddle.
717--The Master Rogue’s Alibi.
719--The Dead Letter.
720--The Allerton Millions.
728--The Mummy’s Head.
729--The Statue Clue.
730--The Torn Card.
731--Under Desperation’s Spur.
732--The Connecting Link.
733--The Abduction Syndicate.
736--The Toils of a Siren.
738--A Plot Within a Plot.
739--The Dead Accomplice.
741--The Green Scarab.
746--The Secret Entrance.
747--The Cavern Mystery.
748--The Disappearing Fortune.
749--A Voice from the Past.
752--The Spider’s Web.
753--The Man With a Crutch.
754--The Rajah’s Regalia.
755--Saved from Death.
756--The Man Inside.
757--Out for Vengeance.
758--The Poisons of Exili.
759--The Antique Vial.
760--The House of Slumber.
761--A Double Identity.
762--“The Mocker’s” Stratagem.
763--The Man that Came Back.
764--The Tracks in the Snow.
765--The Babbington Case.
766--The Masters of Millions.
767--The Blue Stain.
768--The Lost Clew.
770--The Turn of a Card.
771--A Message in the Dust.
772--A Royal Flush.
774--The Great Buddha Beryl.
775--The Vanishing Heiress.
776--The Unfinished Letter.
777--A Difficult Trail.
782--A Woman’s Stratagem.
783--The Cliff Castle Affair.
784--A Prisoner of the Tomb.
785--A Resourceful Foe.
789--The Great Hotel Tragedies.
795--Zanoni, the Transfigured.
796--The Lure of Gold.
797--The Man With a Chest.
798--A Shadowed Life.
799--The Secret Agent.
800--A Plot for a Crown.
801--The Red Button.
802--Up Against It.
803--The Gold Certificate.
804--Jack Wise’s Hurry Call.
805--Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase.
807--Nick Carter’s Advertisement.
808--The Kregoff Necklace.
811--Nick Carter and the Nihilists.
812--Nick Carter and the Convict Gang.
813--Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor.
814--The Triangled Coin.
815--Ninety-nine--and One.
816--Coin Number 77.

NEW SERIES

NICK CARTER STORIES

1--The Man from Nowhere.
2--The Face at the Window.
3--A Fight for a Million.
4--Nick Carter’s Land Office.
5--Nick Carter and the Professor.
6--Nick Carter as a Mill Hand.
7--A Single Clew.
8--The Emerald Snake.
9--The Currie Outfit.
10--Nick Carter and the Kidnapped Heiress.
11--Nick Carter Strikes Oil.
12--Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure.
13--A Mystery of the Highway.
14--The Silent Passenger.
15--Jack Dreen’s Secret.
16--Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case.
17--Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves.
18--Nick Carter’s Auto Chase.
19--The Corrigan Inheritance.
20--The Keen Eye of Denton.
21--The Spider’s Parlor.
22--Nick Carter’s Quick Guess.
23--Nick Carter and the Murderess.
24--Nick Carter and the Pay Car.
25--The Stolen Antique.
26--The Crook League.
27--An English Cracksman.
28--Nick Carter’s Still Hunt.
29--Nick Carter’s Electric Shock.
30--Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess.
31--The Purple Spot.
32--The Stolen Groom.
33--The Inverted Cross.
34--Nick Carter and Keno McCall.
35--Nick Carter’s Death Trap.
36--Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle.
37--The Man Outside.
38--The Death Chamber.
39--The Wind and the Wire.
40--Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase.
41--Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend.
42--The Queen of the Seven.
43--Crossed Wires.
44--A Crimson Clew.
45--The Third Man.
46--The Sign of the Dagger.
47--The Devil Worshipers.
48--The Cross of Daggers.
49--At Risk of Life.
50--The Deeper Game.
51--The Code Message.
52--The Last of the Seven.
53--Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful.
54--The Secret Order of Associated Crooks.
55--The Golden Hair Clew.
56--Back From the Dead.
57--Through Dark Ways.
58--When Aces Were Trumps.
59--The Gambler’s Last Hand.
60--The Murder at Linden Fells.
61--A Game for Millions.
62--Under Cover.
63--The Last Call.
64--Mercedes Danton’s Double.
65--The Millionaire’s Nemesis.
66--A Princess of the Underworld.
67--The Crook’s Blind.
68--The Fatal Hour.
69--Blood Money.
70--A Queen of Her Kind.
71--Isabel Benton’s Trump Card.
72--A Princess of Hades.
73--A Prince of Plotters.
74--The Crook’s Double.
75--For Life and Honor.
76--A Compact With Dazaar.
77--In the Shadow of Dazaar.
78--The Crime of a Money King.
79--Birds of Prey.
80--The Unknown Dead.
81--The Severed Hand.
82--The Terrible Game of Millions.
83--A Dead Man’s Power.
84--The Secrets of an Old House.
85--The Wolf Within.
86--The Yellow Coupon.
87--In the Toils.
88--The Stolen Radium.
89--A Crime in Paradise.
90--Behind Prison Bars.
91--The Blind Man’s Daughter.
92--On the Brink of Ruin.
93--Letter of Fire.
94--The $100,000 Kiss.
95--Outlaws of the Militia.
96--The Opium-Runners.
97--In Record Time.
98--The Wag-Nuk Clew.
99--The Middle Link.
100--The Crystal Maze.
101--A New Serpent in Eden.
102--The Auburn Sensation.
103--A Dying Chance.
104--The Gargoni Girdle.
105--Twice in Jeopardy.
106--The Ghost Launch.
107--Up in the Air.
108--The Girl Prisoner.
109--The Red Plague.
110--The Arson Trust.
111--The King of the Firebugs.
112--“Lifter’s” of the Lofts.
113--French Jimmie and His Forty Thieves.
114--The Death Plot.
115--The Evil Formula.
116--The Blue Button.
117--The Deadly Parallel.
118--The Vivisectionists.
119--The Stolen Brain.
120--An Uncanny Revenge.
121--The Call of Death.
122--The Suicide.
123--Half a Million Ransom.
124--The Girl Kidnapper.
125--The Pirate Yacht.
126--The Crime of the White Hand.
127--Found in the Jungle.
128--Six Men in a Loop.
129--The Jewels of Wat Chang.
130--The Crime in the Tower.
131--The Fatal Message.
132--Broken Bars.
133--Won by Magic.
134--The Secret of Shangore.
135--Straight to the Goal.
136--The Man They Held Back.
137--The Seal of Gijon.
138--The Traitors of the Tropics.
139--The Pressing Peril.
140--The Melting-Pot.
141--The Duplicate Night.
142--The Edge of a Crime.
143--The Sultan’s Pearls.
144--The Clew of the White Collar.

Dated June 19th, 1915.

145--An Unsolved Mystery.

Dated June 26th, 1915.

146--Paying the Price.

Dated July 3d, 1915.

147--On Death’s Trail.

Dated July 10th, 1915.

148--The Mark of Cain.

=Price, Five Cents Per Copy.= If you want any back numbers of our
weeklies and cannot procure them from your news dealer, they can be
obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken the same as
money.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK CITY