Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 238, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1913 — Page 2

The Stalking of Pauguk

HIS story has been blamed (IJ| for its lack of a moral. H People seem to expect one so put to the rack the <7 facts in the case that they gk will shriek out some welltried message. Some Bf] have behaved as if they thought the moral here, but faulty. Colonel Loree of the Solar Selling Com-

pany, however .thinks the affair rich in the hic-fabuladocet element. So does Williamson, soliciting agent for the Mid-Continent Life; and bo— emphatically so —does the MidContinent itself. Trudeau, the “breed” guide, has had so few years in which „to turn it over in his slowmoving mind as he has lain rolled in his blankets while the snow sifted through the moaning pines, that he has not made up his mind. As for Foster Van Dorn and Gwendolyn, their opinions—but the story itself is not long.

Williamson says that when he left Van Dorn’s office with his application, he was as near walking on air as insurance men ever are. People had been so slow in writing their autographs on the dotted line —and here, was a six-figure application, with a check. These accompanied by the wide-eyed Williamson, exploded into the mid-December calm of the agency headquarters like the news of a Tonopah strike in the poker-playing ennui of a Poverty flat. “What’s that, Williamson?” ejaculated the cashier. “Five hundred —you don’t mean thousand?”

“Why, confound you,” sneered Williamson, “look at that application!” "Let me see it!” panted the manager, bursting In. “ ‘Foster G. Van Dorn;’ half a million! Holy cat, Williamson; hut this will put you and the agency in the lead, for— Is he good for it, Williamson?” “Why, don’t you see that check?” inquired the lofty solicitor. “I tell you, fellows, there's always a way to land any man. Why, for a yearfTve—by George! I’m forgetting to send Dr. Watson over to make the examination. Van Dorn’s going on a hunting trip, and we’ve got to hustle, and get him nailed before he goes!” The manager etood by Williamson during the telephoning. “Who is Mr. Van Dorn?” he asked, as the agent hung up the receiver.

“President of the Kosmos Chemical Company,” replied Williamson. “Son-in-law and enemy of Colonel Loree of the Solar Selling Company, you know,” said the cashier. “Oh-h-h-h!” replied the manager, as If recalling something. “I remember the ‘romance’ in the newspapers; but I thought the young fellow was poor. Fixed it up with the colonel, I suppose—the usual thing.” "Not on your life!” replied Williamson. “Loree would kill him if he dared —old aristocrat, you know; but Van Dorn’s too smart for him. You remember he was an engineer for Loree’s company, and met the daughter on some inspection trip. Love at first sight—moonlight on the mountains —runaway and wedding on the sly—father’s curse—turned out to starve, and all that” "I remember,” answered the manager; “but It doesn’t seem to lead logically up to this application.” "Well,” went .on Williamson, “Van Dorn turns up with a company formed to work a deposit of the sal-ammoniac, or asphaltum, or whatever the stuff the Solar Company had cornered may be, and began trust busting. The colonel swore the new deposit really belonged to his company, because Van Dorn found It while in Lis employ, and called him all sorts of a scoundrel. But the young man's gone on, all the same, floating his company, and flying high.”

"I heard that Loree was sure to ruin him,” Interposed the cashier. “Ruin nothing!” said Williamson. “It was a case of the whale and the swordfish. Van Dorn's got him licked —why, don’t you see that check!” “That does look -like success,” replied the manager. “I hope his strenuous life hasn’t hurt his health —Watson is fussy about hearts and lungs.” “That’s the least of my troubles,” replied Williamson. “Van Dorn’s an athlete, and a first-class risk. There’s nothing the matter with Van Dorn!” And yet, Trudeau the guide, far up in the Minnesota woods, looked at the young man and wondered If there wasn’t something the matter with Van Dorn. They had come by the old “toteroad” to the deserted lumber camp armed and equipped to hunt deer. Most young men in Van Dorn's situation Were keen-eyed, eager for the trail and the chase—at least until tamed by weariness. But Van Dorn was like a somnambulist Once Trudeau had left him behind on the road, and on retracing his steps to find him, had discovered him standing by the path, gating at nothing, his lips slowly moving as if repeating something under his breath—and he had started as if in fright at Trudeau’s hall. He had been careful to give Trudeau his card, aad admonished him to keep it; but ho seemed careless -of all opportunities of following up the acquaintance.

By HERBERT QUICK

Author of "Alladin A Co." "Virginia of the Air Lanes,** Etc.

Most of these city hunters were anxious to talk; but what troubled Trudeau, was the manner in which Van Dorn sat by the fire, wrote in a book from time to time, and gazed into the flames. Now that they had reached the old camp, Trudeau hoped that actual hunting would bring to his man’s eyes the fire of interest in the thing he had come so far to enjoy. “I’ll fix up camp,” said he. “If you like, you hunt. Big partie Cfiicageau men ove’ by lake —keep othe’ way.” “How far to their camp?” asked the fine-gazer. “ 'Bout two mile,” . answered Trudeau. “Chicago men?” queried Van Dorn, How many?” “Mebbe ten,” answered Trudeau; ‘mebbe six. She have car on track down at depot. Big man—come ev’ry wintaire. Jacques Lacroix guide heem, Colonel Lorie —Big man!” “Colonel Loree! From Chicago?” cried Van Dorn. “Oui, yes!” replied Trudeau. “You know heem?” “No,” said Van Dorn. The man who did not know Loree went to his knapsack and took out a jacket made of deerskin tanned with the hair on. It was lined with red flannel. He held it up and looked at it fixedly. Trudeau started as it met his gaze, and he came up to Van Dorn and pointed at the garment

“You wear zat?” asked he? “Yes,” said the other. “It’s a good warm jacket.” “A man w’at wear deerskin zhaquette,” said Trudeau, "in zese wood’, in shooting seasone, sartaine go home in wooden ove’coat —sure’s hell!” “Oh, I guess there’s no danger!” said Van Dorn, his lips parting with a mirthless smile. “Non?” queried Trudeau. You ben in zese woods before?” “Oh, yes!” replied Van Dorn. "Lots of times!” “Zen you know!” asserted Trudeau. “Zen,you are zhoking wiz me. Zese huntaire sink brown cloth coat, gray coat, black coat, anysing zat moves — she sink zerfi evfery time a deer. Las’ wintaire lots men deer. Pete St Cyr’s boy kill deer, hang heem in nex’ morning take heem on back an’ tote. A city huntaire see deer hide wiz hair on moving, an’ blm! sof’-nose bullet go throo deer, throo Pete St. Cyr’s boy’s head! Zat zhaquette damn-fool thing!” “It goes either side out,” said the hunter. “I can turn it, you know.”

“I turn heem! I turn heem!’’ said Trudeau, suiting the action to the word. “Red Is bettaire, by gosh—in zese wood’.” Trudeau watched his companion as he made his laborious way through the cutover chaos until he disappeared; but he did not see him pause when out of sight of camp, and turn toward the lake. “I .would rather It were any one else,” said Van Dorn, as if to something that walked by his side; “but what difference does it make? Why not let him finish his work?”

The sheer difficulty of the country brought back to Van Dorn something like the forester’s alertness. The lust for lumber had ravaged the spiry forest, and left, Inextricably tangled, the wrecks of the noble trees —forest maidens whose beauty had been their destruction; only the crooked and ugly having escaped. So deep and complex was the wreckage that it seemed like the spilikins of a giants’ game of jack-straws—gnarled logs, limbs like chevaux-de-frise, saplings and underbrush growing up through chaos. And spread over and sifted through all was the snow, as light as down. Van porn must have told the truth as to his former visits; for he went on like one used to this terrible maze. Nowhere could he take three steps straight forward: it was always climbing up, or leaping down, or going around, or crawling under. Here thick leaves upheld the snow, and in the dry pine straw on the ground he could hear the forest mice rustle and scurry. There a field was smoothed over by the snow, as a trap is hidden by sand, covering debris just high enough to ImperlP the limbs of the pedestrian. Yonder was a tamarack swamp too thick to be pierced: and everywhere it was over and under and up and down, and desperately bard, for miles and miles, with no place for repose. He gazed away over the strange abomination of desolation, blindly reflecting on man’s way of coming, doing his worst, and passing on with sated appetite, leaving ruin—as he had done here. He wondered why that tall tract of virgin pine over at the right bad been allowed to escape, standing against the sky like a black wall, spiked with tall rampikes. He stared fixedly at the snow, the blue shadows, the black pines, somnambulistic again. To the something that seemed to walk by his side, he spoke of these things, as if It bad been visible. Strange actions, strange thoughts for the president of the Kosmos Chemical Company, the great antagonist of Loree of the Solar Selling Company, the David to Loree’s Goliath, the

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

swordfish to the colonel’s** whale! Think, however, of David, with all the stones spent against the giant’s buckler, and cowering within the lethal reach of that spear like a weaver’s beam; or of the swordfish, with broken weapon, hunted to the uttermost black depths by the oncoming silent yawning destruction. And in Van Dorn’s case, the enemy was an avenger as well as a natural foe. Poor little Kosmos Chemical Company with its big name, its great deposits of “a prime commercial necessity”—see prospectus—its dependence on railways with which Loree was on terms, of which Van Dorn never dreamed, its old and Wily foe, skilled to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, raging for the loss of nis ewe lamb, whom, notwithstanding his giantship, he had Idved for twenty years to Dorn’s two, and had dreamed dreams and committed crimes for! Not very strange, after all, perhaps, that the man went on muttering somnambulistically. They say that one gripped in the lion’s mouth is numb and filled with delusions.

Suddenly, putting life into the dead scene, a bounding form came into view past a thicket —a noble buck with many pointed antlers, moving with great deliberate leaps among the giants’ spillikns. The delicate glossy hoofs, the slendef brittle limbs and horns, fragile as china, seemed courting destruction in these terrible entanglements. Yet the beautiful animal, as if by some magic levitation, rose lightly from a perilous crevice between two logs, turned smoothly in mid-leap, struck the four pipe-stem limbs into the only safe landing-place, shot thence with arrowy spring between bayonet-like branches to another foothold, and so on and on, every rod of progress a npracle. He stepped, snuffing the air. Instinctively the hunter leveled his rifle; and then came into view the buck’s retinue, two does, one large and matronly, the other a last summer’s fawn. The sleep-walker’s eyes softened, the rifle swung downward from the point-blank aim, snapping a twig in its descent, add with swift mighty bounds, the deer vanished, putting a clump of bushes between themselves and the foe with unerring strategy. . “Toward the lake,” said the hunter. “I’ll follow.” Then came the report of a distant rifle from the direction of the deer’s flight, then another and another. Some one was working a repeater rapidly. The hunter stopped, took off his deer-

skin jacket, turned its hair side out, and like a soldier making for the fir-ing-line, pressed forward after the deer. Trudeau saw his man halt on the edge of the firelight that evening, turn his jacket, and come wearily into camp. Trudeau sat and thought that night, while the other slept heavily. Next morning there was a raging storm, and the guide was puzzled that the hunter refused to brave its dangers. It was not sure then that the monsieur desired the wooden overcoat? He told Van Dorn many stories of death in these storms, and watched for the effect.

“Wen man is lost in blizzard,” said Trudeau, “ze vidow mus’ wait an’ wait, an’ mebbe nevaire know if he is vidow or not” “It would be better,” said the other reflectively, “to have the proof ample —ample!” Trudeau, pondering over this, watched his charge putting names in a book opposite amounts in figures; but he did not know that here was the lost fortune of an old aunt, there the savings of a college chum. Van Dorn looked them over calmly as if it had been a bills-payable sheet to be paid in the morning. Then the strange pleasure-hunter began writing a letter to a sweetheart to whom he seemed to be able to say only that be loved her better than life, that she must try to love his memory, and to train up the baby to respect his name, that the right thing is not always easy to discern, that sometimes one has only a choice of evils, that when a man has made a mess of It which he can straighten out by stepping ’ off the stage, he might as well do it—and that he had had his share of happiness since she had been with him, anyhow, and ahead of the game! Trudeau could not know what a foolish.

silly, tragic letter it was, this product of insane commercialism- He thought life and the woods enough, and wondered at the shaking of the man’s shoulders, and was amazed to see the tears dropping through his fingers as he bowed his head upon his hands—a man with a flfty-dollar sleepingbag!

Over at the Loree headquarters there were roaring fires, fresh venison, a skilful chef, jolly companions, and the perfection of camp life. The storm cleared. /That strong old hunter, Loree, declaring that his business was to stalk deer, marched off in the solitary quest which is the only thing that brings the haunch to the spit in the Minnesota cutover forest. He was briskly bearded, keen of eye and vigorous, handled his gun cannily, and craftily negotiated the fallen and tangled timbers, his glance sweeping every open vista for game. There wap no time to think of anything but the making of his way, and of the chase. Troubles and triumphs retired to the outer verge of consciousness. Primeval problems claimed his thoughts, and the primeval man rose to meet them. It was in this ancient and effective wise that he had sharpened his weapons, set his snares, and hunted down Foster Van Dorn and left him in the money-jungle, apparently unhurt, but really smitten to the heart and staggering to his fall. It was the Loree way. As an old hunter, he knew just where his shaft had struck, and how long the quarry could endure the hemorrhage. Had he not said that the fellow should be made to rile the Loree displeasure? ( Like a flash these half-thoughts became no droughts, as a dark blotch caught his eye, far off on the snow, beyond a little thicket. “What is that?” he said to himself. It is a little hard to say, but the matter is worth looking into. Just the color of a deer! Just where a deer would rest! We must work up the wind a little closer, for some men are so foolish as to wear those duns and browns; but that! —that is a deer’s coat. It won’t do to jump him and trust a shot as he goes—those firs will hide him at the»first leap. A longshot at a standing target—there! He moved! There’s not a second to lose! A long shot, truly; but that graceful rifle thinks nothing of half a mile. There are many intervening bushes and saplings; but the steel-jacketed bullet would kill on the farther side of the thickest pine, and even a softnosed one will cut cleanly to this mark. The colonel’s practised left

hand immovably supported the barrel; the colonel’s keen eye through the carefully adjusted sights saw plainly the blotch of deerskin down the little glade; and the colonel’s steady forefinger confidently pressed the lightlyset trigger. Spat! The colonel felt the rifleman’s delicious certitude that his bullet had found its mark, threw in another shell, and stood tensely ready to try the bisecting of the smitten deer’s first agonized bound —but the blur of fur just stirred a little, and slipped down out of sight Panting in the killer’s frenzy, Loree struggled over the debris to reach his game. How oddly the deer had fallen! Heart, or brain, likely; as it went down like a log. Here was the thicket, and on the other side —yes, a patch of reddened snow, and the body of—no, not a deer, but a man, dead, it seemed, clad in a deerskin jacket, a rifle by his side, and in his band a note-book full of figures, its pages ail stained and crumpled! >

There was a shout in the far distance, but Loree heard it not He knew his solitude, and never looked for aid' The white strangeness of the face of the man be had shot overcame the sense of something familiar in it; and the colonel, after a moment’s scrutiny, addressed himself frantically to the stanching of the blood. A deep groan seemed to warrant hope; and stooping beneoth the body, Loree took it up and began bearing it toward the camp. He had an overwhelming consciousness of the terrible task before him; but the realization of the human life dashed out, some home blasted, some infinity of woe, and the bare chance of rescue rolled sickeningly over him, and he set his teeth and attacked the task like an incarnate win. Logs and boughs and dead-wood held him back; countless obstacles

exhausted him. He felt like crying out in agony as he realized that his age was telling against blip. He felt strangely tender at this meeting with death in its simple and most merciful form. He clenched his teeth hard, felt his heart swell as if to burst, hfs lungs labor in agonized heavings—and when Trudeau the guide overtook him, he fouiid him a frenzied man, covered with dark streaks and splashes' of blood, unconquerably hurling upon, his impossible task his last reserves of strength, with all that iron resolution with which he had beaten down resistance in his long battle with a relentless world.

“For God’s sake,” he panted hoarsely, “help me get him to camp! We’ve got a doctor there!” “How’s the colonel?” said the doctor, when he had done all he could for the colonel’s victim. “Knocked all to pieces," answered a young man. “Wants to know if we’ve found out who the man is.” Colonel Loree was interrogating Trudeau: surprised that he did not know the name of the wounded man. "Non,” answered Trudeau, “she tell me his name, and give me carte, but I lose heem an’ forgets firs’ day. Kemember wood’, remember trail, remember face ver’ well—but nhme; she I forget She write lettaire an’ cry, an’ all time put fig’ in book. Zis is heem; mebbe she tell name!”

• he smutched names were strange to the colonel; but. on another page were some inexplicable references to Kosmoa-Chemical affairs; and on the cover'w er e\ dim initials that looked Cetffnel.’y “I is wrong,” went on Trudeau; for I tell her it ben tres dangereuse to wear deerskin zhaquette in zese wood’ in shooting seasone. I turn zhaquqette red out. She go toward your camp. I watch. I see her turn teem hair out I tell you, messieurs, zat man want to go home in wooden ove’-coat. She have hungaire to die.” —r —'• “Here’s a letter we found in his pocket,” said the young man. “Look at it, Colonel.” The colonel looked, saw his daughter’s name, remembered the familiar look in the white, agonized, pitiful face; and saw the whole situation as by some baleful flash-light.

“Good God! Good God!” he cried. "It’s Van Dorn!’ Get things ready to carry him in his bed to the car—quick, Johnson! And get the wire as soon as you can. Have TabbaLi bring Gwennie —Mrs. Van Dorn — to Duluth. Wire the hospital there! You know what’s needed —look after things right, Johnson, for I think —I think —I’m going mad, old man!” ' Mrs. Van Dorn ran into her father’s arms in the hospital anteroom. Through mazes of frenzied anxiety she felt an epoch open in her life with that embrace from the father who had put her out of his life forever, as they thought. “Dear, dear papa!” she whispered, “let me go to Foster, quick!” . “Not just now, Gwennie, little girl,” he said, patting her shoulder. “He’s asleep. Did you bring the —the baby?” “No, no! I thought—but Foster?” cried Gwendolyn. “Will he —will

“He’ll live, by heaven!” cried the colonel. “I fired one fool for hinting that he wouldn’t; and now they’re all sure he’ll pull through. Why, he’s got to live, Gwennie!” ,The colonel reached for his handkerchief, much hampered by Gwendolyn’s arms. ' “And when he’s well,” said he, "I want your help—in a business way. I’m too old to fight a man like Foster. He’s got me down, Gwennie —beaten me to earth. If he won’t come in with me, it’s all up with the Solar. He’s a fine fellow, Gwen —I —like him, you know—but he doesn’t know ho’v hard he hits. You’ll help your old dad, won’t you, Gwennie?” To this point had the appeal of concrete piteous need brought Colonel Loree, the ferocious, whose heart had never once softened while he did so much more cruel things than the mere shooting of Van Dorn. It broke Gwendolyn’s heart afresh, , “Oh, don’t, papa!” she cried. "I can’t sta-stand it! He sha’n’t use his strength against you! I’ll be on your side. He’s generous, papa—he wanted to name baby Loree—and, oh, I must go to him, papa! I can’t wait!”

Woman’s Day in Austria.

The women of the Social Democratic party held lately a “woman’s day” in Austria. The Vienna town hall was filled to overflowing with women bearing banners. The speakers at the meeting said that women must organize themselves with the object of getting the law, which forbids them to hold political meetings or to form political organizations, repealed. During the meeting, it was pointed out that when the men had been called away from their daily avocations, without warning, to spend weeks and months on the frontier, the women at home had been obliged to work for the support of their families, as the allowance made by the government to the wives and families of reservists was ridiculously Inadequate.

Horizontal Wireless.

Surprisingly successful results have been attained in making use of horizontal antenna for the purpose of wireless telegraphy. One thousand feet of wire stretched across the ground at a height of three feet was found to equal an antenna forty feet in height, and messages were very satisfactorily received from several stations located in various directions. The wire consisted of several lengths stretched out in different directions and crossing in the center, at which point connection was made with the receiving instrument

Her Unappreciated! Efforts

“Men,” said Mrs. Wittance emphatically, “haven’t the remotest idea of economy! They are naturally extravagant!” Wittance snapped at the bait like a terrier at a rat. “There you go!” he cried. “With one of your offhand judgments that have no sensible foundation! Rank nonsense! I have just as good an idea of economy as you have]" “You may have the idea,” said Mrs. Wittance, with the crushing sweetness that is the privilege of wives, “but you have it tied up in pink ribbons and laid away in your safe if you have! That’s all the-good it does you!” Wittance began to turn purple and clinch the chair arms. “Just specify!” he insisted. “Just name one example —you can’t do it!” ‘T can,” insisted Mrs. Wittance. “Any time you feel like hearing me run off a list of several dozen perfectly good examples, and I have the time, don’t hesitate to ask me to oblige you, because being agreeable is about the best thing I do.

“For instance,” she went on, “a few minutes ago you made the remark that you must remember to buy yourself a new straw hat. You never stopped to wonder whether or not you had a straw hat left from last summer which would do to start out the season, did you? “Now, a woman’s first instinct when she needs anything Is to wonder whether or not she has something laid away that would do, and so would save her from making a fresh purchase. What is past is past to a man, whether It is his last summer’s clothes or a presidential election. Now, as it happens, you bought a new straw hat just a few weeks 'before the season closed last year, and it is all right to wear. It may be necessary to have it cleaned —” “There you are!” cried Wittance. “Do you think I’m going to travel downtown with a hat in a paper bag and waste good time hunting up a cleaner’s and meantime lose a customer or so? That’s a woman’s idea of economy, all right!” “If you’re so fussy,” said Mrs. Wittance, “I’ll clean it for you myself. I can do it perfectly well with some acid. I used to do it when I wore sailor hats myself.” Wittance groaned. “It’ll look homemade,” he complained, “Something on the order of knitted wristlets and mitts! I don’t like the idea!”

“You leave it to me!” said Mrs. Wittance sternly. ‘‘lf you are so anxious to get rid of $5 just hand it over to me!” So Mrs. Wittance scrubbed last summer’s hat with acid. She was rather in a hurry because she wanted to get to a club meeting, and so she did not remove the band before she scrubbed it. She left it to dry with the consciousness of a deed well done, but when she got home she found tcF ’ her horror that the black band was all splotched ’with dull orange where the acid had touched it Wittance’s arrival was simultaneous with hei;B, so he, too, saw the tragedy. “I hope,” he said severely, "that you now see the folly of trying to do the work of a professional who knows what he is about! I shall buy a new hat, for I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this thing!” "You’ll do nothing of the sort!” declared his wife. “There ie my economy theory demonstrated again! I can buy a new carded ribbon for 50 cents or less and sew it on just like this one. Don’t be so silly!” Mrs. Wittance was determined to prove that she was sensible. So she went downtown the next day to buy the ribbon. When she got it sewed on she found it was a shade narrower than the old one, but the black was sufficient to display a little line of satin, black and orange, on the straw. / Wittance refused to argue the matter. “I will not wear that hat!” he stormed. “I shall buy a new one!” “Nobody can see that little mark,” persisted Mrs. Wittance. “You are extravagant, that’s what you are!” She laid the hat tenderly away in its box and put it on the shelf in the coat closet downstairs.

The next day Wlttance paid |5 for a new hat and when he arrived home that afternoon and saw the box he jerked it down and grabbed out the old straw hat In a desperate fury. Tenderly depositing the new one In the box, for he is a neat man and dislikes dust, Wlttance jammed the old straw Into the ash can and raked ashes over It to bide IL The next day the temperature had fallen 40 degrees and it was early for straw hats, anyhow, so Wlttance wore his derby when he went downtown. , Mrs. Wlttance had a resigned and Injured expression at dinner that night “You made such a fuss over that straw hat I cleaned and fixed up for you,” she Informed him, “that I gave J it away today. The collector for charity clothes called and I handed the box over to him —so you needn’t be troubled by It any longer. You didn’t seem to appreciate my trying to save money—so the hat is gone.” “I should say it is gone!” yelled Wlttance.

Esprit du Corps. "And why do you wish to call two other physicians In consultation? I did not know the case was so serious.” “Professional ethics, madam. We doctors ’"ust stand together.”