Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1912 — THE GIRL from HIS TOWN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE GIRL from HIS TOWN

By MARIE VAN VORST

Dhutratioiu by M. G. KETTNER

(Copyright, 1910, by The Bobbe-Merrlll Oo.) SYNOPSIS. Dan Blair, the B-year-old eon of th* Ilfty-mill lon-dollar copper king of Blalrtown. Mont., la a gueat at the English bonne ot Lady Galorey. Dan’s father had been courteous to Lord Galorey during his visit to the United States and the courtesy Is now being returned to the young man. The youth has an Ideal girl In his mind. He meets Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, a beautiful widow, who Is attracted' by his Immense fortune and takes a liking to her. When Dan was a boy. a girl sang a solo at a church, and be had never forgotten her. The Galoreys. Lily and Dan attend a London theater where one Letty Lane Is the star. Dan recognises her as the girl from hts town, and suing behind the scenes Introduces himself and she remembers him. He learns that Prince Ponlotowsky Is suitor and escort to Letty. Lord Galorey and a friend named Buggies determine to protect the westerner from Lily and other fortune hunters. Toung Blair goes to see Uly, he can talk of nothing but Letty and tnls angers the Duchess. The westerner finds Letty U 1 from hard work, but she recovers and Buggies and ■ ' Dan invite her to supper. She asks Dan to build a home for disappointed theatrical people. Dan visits Lily, for the time forgetting Letty, and later announces his engagement to the duchess. Letty refuses to sing for an entertainment given by Lily. Galorey tells Dan that all Lily cares for is his money, and It is disclosed that he and the duchess have been mutually in love for years. Letty sings at an aristocratic function, Dan escorting her home. Dan confronts Galorey and Lily together. Later he informs' Letty that his engagement with Lily Is broken, asks the singer to marry him, and they become engaged. Ruggles thinks the westerner should not marry a public singer, and endeavors to induce Letty to give him up. She runs away, fearing she Is not good enough for Dan, and Ruggles makes the tatter believe she has abandoned his love. Finally Dan finds Letty In Paris, where he Is persistent in pressing his suit. The westerner meets Ponlotowsky at Letty’s rooms and a challenge results. Dan, with his mind In a turmoil, arranges for the duel.

CHAPTER XXlX.—Continued. One of his companions offered Blair a cigar. . He. refused, the idea sickened him. Here rthe gentlemen exchanged glances, and one murmured: lls he afraid?” The other Shrugged. “Not astonishing—he's a child.” At this Dan glanced up and smiled —what Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, had called his divine young smile. The two secretly were ashamed —he was charming. As they got out of the motor Dan said: “I want to ask a question of Prince Poniotowsky—if it is allowed. 11l write it on my. card.” . - * ;. - After a conference between Prince Poniotowsky's seconds and Dan’s, the slip was handed the prince. “If you get out all right, will you marry Mlsb Lane? I shall be glad to know.” „ cz Tfco.. Hungarian, who read it under the tree, half smiled. The naivete of It the touching youth of it the crude lack of form —was perfect enough to touch his sense of humor. On the back of Dan’s card Poniotowsky scrawled: "Yes.” It was a haughty inclination, a salute of honor before the fight The meeting place was within sight of the little rustic pavilion of Les Trois Agneaux, celebrated for its pre sale and beiguets; the advertisements had confronted Dan everywhere during bis wanderings these miserable days. Under a group of chestnut trees in bright feathery flower Prince Poniotowsky and his seconds waited, their frock coats buttoned up and their gloves and silk hats in their hands. As Blair and his companions came up the others stood uncovered, grim and formal, according to the code. Twenty-five paces. They were measured off by the four seconds, and at their signal Dan Blair and the prince took their positions, the revolvers raised perpendicularly in their right hands. Still more indistinctly the boy saw the sharp-cut picture of it all . . . the diving bell was sinking deeper—deeper—into the sea. “If I- aim,” he said to himself. “I shall kill sure—sure.” Blair heard the command: “Fire!” and supposed that after that he fired.

CHAPTER XXX. Sodawater Fountain Girl. Sis next sensation was that a warm stream flowed about his heart “My life’s blood.” be could dimly think, “my heart's blood." Redder than coral, more precious, more costly than any gift his ihllllons could have bought her. “I've spent it for the girl I love." The stream pervaded him. carossed biro, folded his limbs about became an enchanted sea on which he floated, and its color changed from crimson to coral pale, and then to white, and became a cold, cold polar sea—and he fay on it like a frozen man, whose exploration had been in vain, and above him Greenland’s icy mountains rose like emerald, on every

That is it—" Greenland's Icy mountains.” How she sang it —down — down. Her voice fell on him like magic halm. He was a little boy in church, sitting small and shy in the pew. The tune was deep and low and heavenly sweet. What a pretty mouth thesoda-fotrntain gtrl had—-ttfce-coral; and her eyes like gray seas. The flies buzzed, they droned so loudly that he couldn’t hear her. Ah, that was terrible —he couldn’t bear her. No —no, tt wouldn't do. He must hear the hymn out before he died. Buzz —buzz—drone—drone. Way down he almost heard the soft note. It was ecstasy. Sky-high up—too faint. Ah, Soda water Fountain Qirl —sing—sing —with all your heart so that it may reach his ears and charm him to those strands toward which he floats. The expression of anguish on the young fellow's face Was so heartbreaking that the doctor, his ear at Dan’s lips, tried to learn what thing his poor, fading mind longed for. From the bed’s foot, where he stood, Dan’s chauffeur came to the gentleman’s side, and nodded: “Right, sir, right, sir—l’ll fetch Miss Lane —I’ll ’ave ’er ’ere, sir—keep up, Mr. Blair.” - He wAs going barefoot, a boy still following the plow through the mountain fields. Miles and miles stretched away before him of dark, loamy land* He saw the plow tear up the waving furrows, tossing the earth In sprinkling lines. He heard the shrill note of the phoebe bird, and looking heavenward saw it darting into the pale sky, “What a dandy shot!” he thought, “What a bully shot!” Prince Ponlotowsky had made a good shot. . . , Ah, there was the smell of the hayfields —no —violets that' sweetly laid

their petals on his lips and face. He was back again in church, lying prone before an altar. If she would only sing, he would rise again—that he knew—and her coral shoes would not dance over his grave. He opened his eyes wide and looked ” into Letty Lane’s. She bent over him, crying. “Sing,” he whispered. She didn't understand. “Sodawater Fountain Girl —if , you only knew how . . . the flies buzzed, and how the droning was a living pain. . . .” She said to Ruggles: “He wants something so heartbreakingly—what can we do?” She saw his hands stir rhythmically on the counterpane —he didn’t look to her more than ten sears old. . . What a, cruel thing—he

was a boy just of age—a boy—. Ruggles remembered the nights he had spent before the footlights of the Gaiety, and that the pale woman trembling there weeping was a great singer. “I guess he wants to hear you sing.” She kneeled down by him; she trembled so she couldn’t Stand. The others, the doctor and Ruggles, the waiters and porters gathered in the hall, heard. No one of them understood the Gaiety girl’s English words. • t •'From Greenland’s Icy mountains, From India's coral strands . . .” They were merciful and let him listen in peace. Through the blur in his brain, oyer the beat of his young ardent heart, above the short breaths the notes reached his failing senses, and lifted him —lifted him. There wasn’T a very long distance between Ms boyhood and his twenty-two years to go, and he was not so weak but that be could travel so far. He sat ..there by his father again—and heard. The files buzzed, and be didn’t mind them. The smell of the fields came In through the windows and the Sodawater Fountain Girl sang •—and sang; mid m she sang her fees’

grew holy to his eyes—radiant with a beauty he had not dreamed a woman’s face could wear. Above the choir rail she stood and sang peerlessly, ' and the church began to fade and fade, and still she stood there in a shaft of light, and her face was like arr angers,- and sheTieia her artnsdutto him as the waters rose to his Ups. She bent and lifted him—lifted him high upon the strands. . . . CHAPTER XXXI. in Reality. Dan awoke from his dream, and sat suddenly up in bed in his shirt sleeves, and stared at the people in his room — a hotel boy and two strangers, not unlike the men In his dream. He brushed his hand across bis eyes. •"‘Sit down, will you? Do you speak English?”. They were foreigners, Rut they did speak English, no doubt far more perfectly than did Dan Blair. “Look here,” the boy said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me —I must have had a ripping jag on last night—let me put my head in a basin , of water, will you?” He dived Into the dressing-room, and came out In another second, bis blond head wet, wiping his face and hair furiously with a towel. He hadn’t beamed as he did now on these two strange men—for weeks. “Well,” he asked slowly, “I expect you’ve come to ask me to fight with Prince Ponlotowsky yes? It’s against our principles, you know, In the States —we don’t do that way. Personally, I’d throw anything at him I could lay my hands on, but I don’t care to have him let daylight through me, and I don’t care to kill your friend. See? I’m an American —yes, I know, I know,” he nodded sagely,

“but we don’t have your kind of fights out our way. It means business when we go out to shoot." He threw the towel down on the table, soaking wet as it was, put his hands in the pockets of his evening clothes, which he still wore, for he had not undressed, threw his young, blond head back and frankly told his visitors: “I’m not up on them in pictures and read about them, but I’ll be darned, if I’ve ever had one in my hand.” His expression changed at the quiet response of Poniotowsky’s seconds. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Dan Blair and the Prince Took Their Positions, the Revolvers Raised Perpendicularly in Their Right Hands.