Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 160, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1912 — The FLYING MERCURY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The FLYING MERCURY

Br Eleanor. Ingram

Antfaar of M Tbe Game and the Candle ” nhwtntiona By~ RjlY WJIL TERS

<Ooßyrt*ht. ISO#, Ur BobbUtorrlU O*.) ** BYNOPBIB. The story opens on Long Island, near New York city, where Miss Emily Ffrench, a relative of Ethan Ffrench. manufacturer of the celebrated “Mercury” automobile, loses her way. The car has stopped and her cousin, Dick Ffrench, Is too muddied with drink' to direct it aright. They meet another car which Is run by a professional racer named Lestrange. The latter fixes up the Ffrench car and directs Miss Ffrench how to proceed homeward. Ethan Ffrench has disinherited his son, who has disappeared. He informs Emily plainly that he would like to have her marry Dick, who is a good-natured but irresponsible fellow. It appears that a partner of Ethan Ffrench wanting an expert to race with the "Mercury” at auto events, has engaged Lestrange, and at the Ffrench factory Emily encounters the young man. They refer pleasantly to their meeting when Dick comes along and recognises the young racer. Dick likes the way Lestrange ignores their first meeting when he appeared to a. disadvantage. Lestrange tells Emily that he will try to educate her Indifferent cousin as an automobile expert. Dick underfimflces his business schooling under the tutelage of Lestrange. Dick is sheer grit, and In making a test race meets with an accident. lestrange meets Emily In the moonlit garden of the Ffrench home. Under art Impulse he cannot control he kisses her and she leaves him, confessing in her own heart that she returns his love. The uncle of Emily, learning of her attachment to Lestrange, informs her that the man is his disbarred son, whom she has never seen before being adopted by him. He claims that his son ran away with a dissolute actress, refuses to acknowledge him, and orders Emily to think of Dick as her future husband. A big race Is on in the south and Ethan French takes Emily to see it. The fame of the “Mercury’ is Involved in the success of Lestrange and Dick running the race.

, CHAPTER IX.—(Continued). The hours passed. One more car went owt of the race under the grinding test; there were the usual incidents of blown-out tires and temporary withdrawals for repairs. Twice Mr. Ffrench sent his partner and Emily to the restaurant below, tolerating his seat Perfectly composed, his expression perfectly self-contained, he watched his si^n. The day grew unbearably hot toward afternoon, a heat rather of July than June. After a visit to his camp Lestrange reappeared without the suffocating mask and cap, driving bareheaded, with only the narrow goggles crossing his face. The change left risible the drawn pallor of exhaustion under stains of dust and oil, his rolled-back sleeves disclosed the crimson badge on his right arm and the fact that his left wrist was tightly wound with linen where swollen and strained muscles rebelled at the long trial. l “He’s been driving for nineteen hours,'’ said Dick, climbing up to his party through the excited crowd. “Two hours more to six o’clock. Listen to the mob when he passes!”,. The injunction was unnecessary. Aa the sun slanted low ' the enthusiasm grew to fever. This was a crowd of connoisseurs—motorists, chauffeurs, automobile lovers and drivers —they knew what was being done before them. The word passed that Lestrange was in his twentieth hour; people climbed on Seats to cheer him as he passed by. When one of his tires olew out, in the opening of the first hour of his driving and the twen-ty-fourth of the race, the great shout of sympathy and encouragement that went up shook the grand-stand to its cement foundations. Neither Lestrange nor Rupert left his seat while that tire was changed. “If we did I ain’t sure we’d get back,” Rupert explained to Dick, who hovered around them agitatedly. “If I’d thought Darling’s mechanician would get in for this, I’d have taken In sewing for a living. How much longer?" “Half an hour." "Well, watch us finish." A renewed burst of applause greeted the Mercury car’s return to the track. |§Men were standing watch in hand to count the last momenta, their eyes on the bulletin board where the reeled-off miles were being registered. Two of the other machines were fighting desperately for second place, hopeless of rivaHng LeHttange. and after them sped the rest # “The finish!” some one suddenly called. “The last lap!” Dick was hanging over the paddock fence when the car shot by amidst braying, klaxons, motor boms, cheers, : and the clashing music of the band. Frantic, the people hailed Lestrange as the black and white checked flag dropped before him in proclamation of his victory and the ended race, r* Rupert raised his anas above his head in the Signal of acknowledg-, ment, as they flew across the line and Swept on to complete the circle to their camp. Lestrange slackened speed to take the dangerous, deeply! furrowed turn for the last time, his j car poised for the curving flight un-1

der his guidanoe—then the watching hundreds saw the driver's hand* slip from the steering-wheel as he reached tor the brake. Straight across the track the machine dashed, instead of following Hie bend, crashed thfeiftr the harrier, and rolled over on Its side In the green meadow grass. “The steering-knuckle!” Bailey groaned, e> the Tdaoe hurst tHtcruiF roar around them. "The wheel—l eaw it turn uselessly In his hands!” "They're up!” cried a dozen voices. "No. one’s up and one’s under.” “Who’s caught In the wreck —Left trange or his man?” But before the people who surged over the track, breaking all restraint, before the electric ambulance, Dick Ffrench reached the marred thing that had been the Mercury car. It was Lestrange who had painfully struggled to one knee beside the machine, fighting hard for breath to speak. “Take the car off Rupert,” he panted, at Dick's cry of relief on seeing him. 'Tm all right—take the car off Rupert." The next instant they were surrounded, overwhelmed with eager aid. The ambulance came up and a surgeon precipitated himself toward Lestrange. “Stand back," the surgeon commanded generally. "Are you trying to smother him? Stand back.” But It was he who halted before a gesture from Lestrange, who leaned on Dick and a comrade from the camp. “Go over there, to Rupert.” "You first—” “No.” There was nothing to do except yield. Shrugging his shoulders, the surgeon paused the necessary momentr A monrent oniyjr there was a no protests, but he himself never left scattering of the hushed workers, a. metallic crash. - ■ : - From the Bpace the car had covered a small figure uncoiled, lizardlike, and staggered unsteadily erect. “Where’s Darling Lestrange?” was hurled viciously across the silence. “Gee, you’re a slow bunch of workers! Where’s Lestrange?” The tumult that broke loose swept all to confusion. And after all It was Lestrange who was put in the surgeon’s care, while Rupert rode back to the camp on the driver’s seat of the ambulance.. 'V ~ : . ■■■•■’/ ; “Tell Emily I’ll come over to her as soon as I’m fit to look at,” was the message Lestrange gave Dick. “And when you go back to the factory, have your steering-knuckles strengthened.” Dick exceeded his commission by transmitting the speech entire; repeating the first part to Emily with all affectionate solicitude, and flinging the second cuttingly at his uncle and Bailey. “The doctors say he ought to be In

bed, but he won’t go,” he concluded. “No, you can’t see him until they get through patching him up at the hospital tent; they put every one out except Rupert. He hasn’t a scratch, after having a ninety Mercury on top of him. You’re to come over to our camp, Emily, and wait for Lestrange. I suppose everybody had» better come.” It was a curious and an elevating thing to see Dickie assume command of his family, but no one demurred. An official, recognizing in him Lestrange’s manager, cleared a way for the pasty through the noisy press of departing people and automobiles. The sunset had long faded, night had settled over the motordrome and the electric lamps had been lit in the tents, before there came a stir and murmur in the Mercury camp. “Don’t skid, the ground’s wet,” cautioned a voice outside the door. "Steady!” ; JT Emily started up, Dick sprang” to open the canvas, and Lestrange crossfed the threshold. Lestrange, colorless, his right arm in a sling, his ieft wound with linen from wrist to elbow, and bearing a heavy pnrple bruise above his temple, but with the brightness of victory flashing above all weariness like a dancing flame.„ “SweetLcart!” he laughed, as Emily ran to meet him, heedless of ajl things except that he stood within touch once more. “My dear, I told them not to frighten you. Why. Emily—” , For as he put his one available arm abou( her, she hid her wet eyes on “I am so happy," she explained breathlessly. “It is only that" . “Yon should not have been here at all, my dear. But it is good to see yon. Who brought you? Bailey?” catching sight of the man beside Dick. “Good, I wanted some one to help me;

Rupert and I have got to find a hotel and we’re not very active.” Emily would have slipped away from the clasp, ic&rlet with returning recollection, but Lestrange detained Mr tip atffit' ttaehlulßgSyas. - i “The race Ift over,” he reminded, for her ears alone. “I’m going to keep you, If you’ll stay.” : He turned to take a limping step. offering his hand cordially to the speechless Bailey, and faced for the first time the other man present “I think,” said Ethan Ffrenfeh, “that there need be no question of hotels. We have not understood each other, but you have the right to Ffrenchwood'b hospitality. If you can travel, we'will go there.” “No,” answered David Ffrench, as quietly. "Never. You owe me nothing, sir. If I have worked In your factory, I took the workman’s wages for It; If I have won honors for your car, 1 also won the prize-money given to the driver. I never meant so to establish any claim upon Ffrenchwood or you. I believe we stand even. Dick has taken my place, happily; Emily and I will go on our own road.” They looked at each other, the like-

ness between them most apparent, in the similar determination of mood which wiped laughter and warmth from the younger man’s face. However coldly phrased and dictatorially spoken, it was an apology which Mr. Ffrench had offered and which had been declined. But —he had watched Lestrange all day; he did not lift the gauntlet. “You are perfectly free,” he conceded, “which gives you the opportunTty“ of being generous.” His son moved, flushing through his pallor. “I wish you would not put It that way, sir,” he objected. “There is no other way. I have been wrong and I have no control over you; will you come, home?” There was no other argument but that that could have succeeded, and the three who knew Lestrange knew that could not fail. “You want me because I am a Ffrench,” David rebelled in the final protest.- “You have a. substitute.” “Perhaps I want you otherwise. And we will not speak in passion; there can be no substitute for you.” “Ffrench and Ffrench,” murmured Dick coaxingly. “We can run that factory, Lestrange!” \ “There’s more than steeringknuckles needing your eye on them. And you love the place, Mr. David,” said Bailey from his corner. From one to the other David’s glance went, to rest on Emily’s delicate, earnest face in its setting of yellow-bronze curls. Full and straight her dark eyes answered his, the con-vent-bred Emily’s answer to his pride and old resentment and new reluctance to yield his liberty. “After all, you were born a Ffrench,” she reminded, her soft accents just audible. “If that is your work?” Very slowly David turned to his father. “I never learned to do things by halves,” he said. ‘Tf you want me, sir—” And Ethan Ffrench understood, and first offered his hand. Rupert was discovered asleep in a camp-chair outside the tent, a few minutes- later, when Dick went in search of him. “The limousine’s waiting," his awakener informed him. “You don’t feel bad, do you?” The mechanician rose cautiously, wincing. “Well, i| every joint in my chassis wasn’t sore, I’d feel better,” he admitted grimly. “But I’m still running. What did you kiss me awake for, when I need my sleeps?” “Did you suppose we could get Lestrange home without you, Jack Rupert?” “I ain’t supposing you could. I’m ready.” The rest of the party were already in the big car, with one exception. “Take a last look. Rupert,” bade David, as he stood in the dark paddock. “We’re retired; come help me get used to it.” Rupert passed a glance over the deserted track. “I guess my sentiment-tank has given out," he sweetly acknowledged. “The Mercury factory sounds pretty good to me, Darling. And I guess we can make a joy ride out of living, on any track, if we enter for it." “I guess we can.” laughed David Ffrench. “Get in opposite Emily. We’re yninghrime to try." : “ . . - . THE END. i' H'Y...

Reappeared Without the Suffocating Mask and Cap.

"I Am So Happy.”