Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 271, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1914 — Page 2

The Last Shot

BY FREDERICK PALMER

SYNOPSIS. At their home on the frontier between the Browns and Grays Marta Galland and her mother, entertaining Colonel Westerling of the Grays, see Captain Lanstron of the Browns injured by a fall in his aeroplane. Ten years later. Westerling, nominal vice but real chief of staff, re-en-forces South La Tir and meditates on war. Marta tells him of her teaching children the follies of war and martial patriotism, and., begs him to prevent war while he is chief of staff. On the march with the 53d of the Browns Private Stransky, anarchist, is placed under arrest. Colonel Lanstron begs him off. Lanstron calls on Marta at her home. She tells Lanstron that she believes Feller, the gardener, to be a spy. Lanstron confesses it is true and phows her a telephone which Feller has concealed in a secret passage under the tower for use to benefit the Browns in war emergencies. Lanstron declares his love for Marta. •> Westerling and the Gray premier plan to use a trivial international affair to foment warlike patriotism in,army and people and strike before declaring war. Partow, Brown chief of staff, and Lanstron, made vice, discuss the trouble, and the Brown defenses. Partow reveals his plans to/Lanfitron. The Gray army crosses the bordw line and attacks. The Browns check them. Artillery, Infantry, aeroplanes and dirigibles engage. Stransky, rising to make the anarchist speech of his life, draws the Gray artillery fire. Nicked by a shrapnel splinter he goes to Berserk and fights—“all a man.*’ Marta has her first glimpse of war in its modern, cold, scientific, murderous brutality. The Browns fall back to the Galland house. Stransky forages. Marta sees a night Attack. The Grays attack in force. Feller leaves his secret telephone and goes back to his guns. Hand to hand fighting. The Browns fall back again. Marta asks Lanstron over the phone to appeal to Partow to stop the fighting. Vandalism in the Galland house. Westerling and his staff occupy the Galland house and he begins to woo Marta#

CHAPTER XlV—Continued. The subjective enjoyment of the declaration' kept him from any keen notice of the effect of his words. Lanny was right It had been a war of deliberate .conquest; a war to gratify personal ambition. All her life Marta would be able to live over again the feelings of this monuent. It was as if she were frozen, all except brain and nerves, which were on fire, while the rigidity of ice kept her from springing from her chair in contempt and-horror. But a purpose came on the wings of diabolical temptation which would pit the art of woman against the power of a man who set millions against millions in slaughter to gratify ipersonal ambition. She was thankful that she was looking down as she spoke; lor she could not bring herself to another compliment. Her throat was too chilled for that yet. “The one way to end the feud between the two nations was a war that would mean permanent peace,” he explained, seeing how quiet she was and realizing, with a recollection of her children’s oath, that he had gone a little too far. He wanted to retain her ■admiration. It had become as precious to him as a new delicacy to Lucullus. “Yes, I understand,” she managed to murmur; then she was able to look up. “It’s all so immense!” she added. “Your ideas about war seem to be a great deal changed,” he hinted casually.

“As I expressed them at the hotel, you mean!*' she exclaimed. “That seems ages ago—ages!” The perplexity and Indecision that, in a space of silence, brooded in the depths of her eyes came to the surface in wavering lights. “Yes, ages! ages!" The wavering lights grew dim with a kind of horTor and she looked away fixedly at a given point He was conscious of a thrill; the thrill that always presaged victory for ihlm. He realized her evident distress; he guessed that terrible pictures were moving before her vision. “You see, I have been very much stirred up,” she said half apologetically. “There are eome questions 1 want to ask —quite practical, selfish questions. You might call them questions of property and mercy. The longer the war lasts the greater will be the loss of life and the misery?” “Yes, for both sides; and the heavier the expense and the taxes.” “If you,win, then we shall be under your and pay taxes to you?” naturally." “The Browns do not increase in population; the Grays do rapidly. They are a great, powerful,/civilized race. They stand for civilization!" “Yes, facts and the world’s opinion agree,” he replied. Puzzled be might ■well be by this peculiar catechism. He could only continue .to reply until he should see where she was leading. “And your victory will inean a new frontier, a new order of international relations and a long peace, you think? {Peace —a long peace!” Was there ever a soldier who did not fight for peace? Was there ever a call for more army-corps or guns that was not made in the name of peace? He had bls ready argument, spoken with the forcible conviction of an exjpert “This war was made for peace—the only kind of peace that there can be,” he said. “My ambition, if any glory comes to me out of this war. is to have later generations say: ‘He brought peace!*” Though the could he have heard this, might have smiled, even jgrinned, he would have understood westerling’s unconsciousness of inconMtatency. The chief of staff had set {himself a task in victory which had

(Copyright, 1914. by Charles Scribner's Sons)

She did not appear to see the sudden, uncontrolled gleam of victory in his eyes. By this time it had become a habit for Westerling to wait silently for her to come out of her abstractions. To disturb on*- might make it unproductive. “Then if I want to help the cause of peace I should help the Grays!” The exclamation was more to* herself than to him. He was silent. This girl in a veranda chair desiring to aid him and his five million bayonets and four thousand guns! Quixote and the windmills —but it was amazing; it was fine!. The golden glow of the sunset was running in his veins in a paean of personal triumph. The profile turned ever so llttl'e. Now it wae looking at the point where Dellarme had lain dying. Westerling noted the smile playing on the Ijps. It had the quality of a smile over a task completed—Dellanne’s smile. She started; she was trembling all over in the resistance of-some impulse—some impulse that gradually gained headway and at, last broke its bonds. "For I can help—l-pan help!” she cried out, turning to him in wild indecision which seemed to plead for guidance. "It’s so terrible —yet if it would hasten peaces—l—l know much of the Browns’ plan of defense! I know where they are .strong in the first line and—and one place where they are weak there—and a place where they are weak in the main line!”

no military connection. Without knowing why, he wanted to win ascendancy over her mind. “The man of action!” exclaimed Marta, her eyes .opening very wide, as they would to let in the light when she heard something new that pleased her or gave food for thought. “The man of action, who thinks of an ideal as a thing not of words but as the end of action!” “Exactly!” said Westerling, sensible of another of her gifts. She could get the essence of a thing in a few words. “When we have won and set another frontier, the power of our nation will be such in the world that the Browns can never afford to attack us," he went on. “Indeed, no two of the big nations of Europe can afford to make-war without our consent. We shall be the arbiters of international dissensions. We shall command peace —yes, the peace of force, of fact! If it could be won in any other way I should not De here on this veranda in command of an army of invaeion. That was my idea—for that I planned.” He was making up for having overshot himself in his confession that he had brought on the war as a final step for his ambition. • ( “You mean that you can gain peace by propaganda and education only when human nature has so changed that we can have law and order and houses* are safe from burglary and pedestrians from pickpockets without policemen? Is that it?” she asked. “Yes, yes! You have it! You have found the wheat in the chaff.” "Perhaps because I have been seeing something of human nature —the of both the Browns and the Grays at war. I have seen the Browns throwing hand-grenades and the Grays in wanton disorder in our dining-room directly they were out of touch with their officers!” she said sadly, as one who hates to accept disillusionment but must in the face of logic. i Westerling made nofeply except to nod, for a movement on her part* preoccupied him. She leaned forward, as she had when she had told him he would become chief of staff, her hands clasped over her knee, her eyes burning with a question. It was the attitude of the prophecy. But with the prophecy she had been a little mystical; the fire in her eyes had precipitated an idea. Now it forged another question. ‘ ..»■ “And you think that you will win?” she asked. "You think that you will win?” she repeated with the slow emphasis which demands "a careful answer.

The deliberateness of his reply was in keeping with her mood. He was detached; he was a referee. “Yes, I know that we shall. Numbers make it so, though there be no choice of skill between the two sides.” His tone had the confidence of the flow of a mighty river in its destination on its way to the sea. There was nothing in it of prayer, bf hope, of desperation, as there had been in Lanstron’s “We shall win!” spoken to her in the arbor at their last interview. She drew forward slightly in her chair. Her eyes seemed much larger and nearer to him. They were sweeping him up and down as if she were seeing the slim figure of Lanstron in contrast to sturdiness; as if she were measuring the might of the five millions behind him and the three millions behind Lanstron. She let go a half-whispered “Yes!” which seemed to reflect the conclusion gained from the power of his presence. “Then my mother’s and my own interests are with you—the Interests of peace are with you!" she declared.

THE EVENING REPGIiILICAN. RENSSELAER, IND. V

“You do!” Westerling exploded. The plans of the enemy! The plans that neither Bouchard’s saturnine cunning, nor*bribes, nor spies could ascertain! It was like the bugle-call to the hunter. But he controlled himself. “Yes, yes!” He was thoughtful and guarded. “Do you think it is right to tell?" Marta gasped half inarticulately. “Right? Yes, to hasten the inevltable—to save lives!" declared W.esterling with ’deliberate assurance. "I—l want tosee an end of the killing f I—” She sprang to her feet as if about tp break away tumultuously, but paused, swaying unsteadily, and passed her hand across her eyes. "We intend a general attack on the first line of defense tonight!” he exclaimed, his supreme thought leaping into words.. • "And you would want the information about the first line to-night if —if it is to be of service?” “Yes, to-night!” . Marta brought her hands together in a tight clasp. Her gaze fluttered for a minute over the tea-table. When she looked up her eyes were'calm. "It'is a big thing, isn’t it?" she eaid. “A thing not to be done in an impulse. I try never to do big things in an impulse. When I see that Lam in danger of it I always say: ‘Go by yourself and think for half an hour!’ So I must now. In a little while I will let you know my decision.” Without further formality she started across the lawn to the terrace steps. Westerling watched her sharply, passing along the path of the second terrace,, pacing slowly, head bbnt, until she was out of sight. Then he stood for a time getting a grip on his own emotions before he went into the house.

CHAPTER *XV. In Feller’s Place. What am I? What have I done? What am I about to do? shot as forked shadows over the hot lava-flow of Mar-, ta’s impulse. The vitality that Westerling had felt by suggestion from a still profile rejoiced in a quickening of pace directly she was nut of sight of the veranda. All the thinking she had done that afternoon had been in pictures; some saying, some cry, some, groan, or some smile went with every picture. y *■, The sitting-room of the tower was empty To other eyes but not to hers. The lantern was in the corner at hand. After her hastening steps had carried her along the tunnel to the telephone, she set down the lantern and pressed the spring that opened the panel door. Another moment and she would fie embarked oh her great adventure in the finality of action. That little ear-piece became a specter of conscience. She drew back convulsively and her hands flew to her face; she was a rocking shadow in the thin, reddish light of the lantern. Conscious mind had trim off the mask from subconscious mind, reveal-

“I Want to See an End of the Killing."

Ing the true nature.pf the change that war had wrought in her. She who had resented Feller’s part—what a part she had been playing! Every word, every shade of expression, every telling pause of abstraction after Westerling confessed that he had made war for his own ends had been subtly prompted by a,purpose whose actuality terrified her. Her hypocrisy, she realized, was as black as the wall of darkness beyond the lantern's gleam. Then this demoralization passed, as a nightmare passes, with Westerling’s boast again in her ears. When war’s principles, enacted by men, were based on sinister trickery called strategy and tactics, should not women, using such weapons as they had, also fight for their homes? Marta’s hands swept down from her eyes; she was on fire with resolution. .Forty miles away a-bell In ,Lanstron’s bedroom and at his desk rang simultaneously. At the time he and Partow were seated facing each other across a map on the table of the room where they worked together. No persuasion of the young vice-chief, no edict of the doctors, cpuld make the old chief take exercise or shorten his hours. “I know. I know myself!" he Mid.

“I know my duty. And you are learning, my boy, leading!" Every day the flabby cheeks grew pastier and the pouchds under the eyebrows heavier. But there was no dimming of the eagle flashes of the eyes, no weakening of the will. Last night Lanstron had turned as white as chalk when Partow staggered on rising from The table, the veins on his tern Vies knotted blue whip-cords. Yet after a few hours’ sleep he reappeared with firm step, fresh for the fray. The paraphernalia around these two was the samd as that around Westerling. Only the atmosphere of .the staff was different. Each man was performing the part set for film. No man knew much of any other man’s part. Partow alone knew all, and Lanstron was trying to grasp all and praying that Par-, tow’s old body should still feed his mind with eneYgy. Lanstron was thinner and paler, a new and glittering intensity in his eyes. When word of Feller’s defection came, Lanstron realized for the first time by Partow’s manner that the old chief of staff, with all his deprecation of the telephone scheme as chimerical, had grounded a hope on it “There was the chance that we might know—so vital to the defense — what they were going to do before and not after the attack," he said. Yet the story of how Feller yielded to the temptation of the automatic had made the nostrils of tjfie old war-horse quiver with a dramatic breath, and instead of the command of a battery of guns, which Lanstron had promised, the chief made it a battalion. He had drawn down his brows when he heard that Marta had asked that the wire be left intact; he had shot a shrewd, questioning glance at Lanstron and then beat a tattoo on the table and half grinned sis he grumbled under his breHthrx • “She is afraid of being lonesome! No harm done!” A week had passed since the Grays had taken the Galland house, and still no word from Marta. The ring of the bell brought Lanstron to his feet with a startled, boyish bound. “Very springy, that tendon of Achilles!” muttered Partow. “And, my boy, take care, take care!” he called suddenly in his sonorous voice, as' vast and billowy as his body. It was Marta’s voice and yet not Marta’s, this voice that beat in nervous waves over the wire. "Lanny—Yes, I, Lanny! You were right. Westerling planned to make war deliberately -to satisfy'his ambition. He told me so. The first general attack on the first line of defense is tonight. Westerling says so!” She had to pause for breath. “And, Lanny, I want to know some position of the Browns which is weak —not actually weak, maybe, but some position where the Grays expect terrible resistance and will not find it —where you will let them In!” "In the name of—Marta! Marta, 1 what—” -

“I am going to‘fight for the Browns —for my home! ” _ In the sheer satisfaction of explaining herself to herself, of voicing her sentiments, she sent the pictures which had wrought the change moving across the screen before Lanstron’s amazed vision. There was no room for interruption on his part, no question or need of one. The wire seemed to quiver with the militant tension of her spirit. It was Marta aflame who was talking at the other end; not aflame for him, but with a purpose that revealed all the latent strength of her personality and daring. “I shall have to ask Partow. It’s a pretty big thing.” “Yes—only that is not all my plan, my littje plan. After they have taken the first line of defense —and they will get it, won’t they?” “Yes, we ehall yield in the end, yield rather than suffer too great losses there that will weaken the defense on the main line.” . “Then I want to know where It Is that you want'Westerling to attack on the main line, so that we can get him to attack there. That —that will help, won’t it?” “Yes." “Of course, all the while I shall be getting news from him —when I have proved my loyalty and have his complete confidence—and I’ll telephone it to you. lam sure I can get something worth while with you to direct me; don’t you think so, Lanny? I’ll hold the wire, Lanny. Ask Partow!” she concluded. Of the two she was the steadier.

“Well?” said Partow, looking up at the sound of Lanstron’s step. Then he half raised himself from his ehair at sight of a Lanstron with eyes in a daze of brilliancy; a Lanstrpn with his maimed hand twitching in an outstretched gesture; a Lanstron in the dilemma of being at the same time lover and chief of intelligence.-Should he let her -make the sacrifice of everything that be held to be sacred to a woman's delicacy? Should he not return to the telephone and tell her that he would not permit her to play such a part? Partow’s voice cut in on his demoralization with the sharpness of a blade. “Well, what, man, what?” he demanded. He feared that the girl might be dead. Anything that could upset Lanstron In this fashion struck a chord of sympathy and apprehension. Lanstron advanced to the .table, pressed hie hands on the edge, and. now master of himself, began an account of Marta’s offer. Partow’s formless arms lay inert on the table, his soft, pudgy fingers outspread on the map and his bulk settled deep In the chair, while his eagle eyes-were seeing through Lanstron, throiigh a mountain range, into the eyes of a woman and a general on the veranda of an

enemy’s headquarters. The plan meant giving, giving In the hope of receiving much in return. Would he get the return? , “A woman was the Ideal one for the task we Intrusted to Feller,” he mused, "a gentlewoman, big enough,. adroit enough, with her soul in the work as no paid woman’s could be! There seemed no such one in the world!” "But to let her do It!” gasped Lanstron. « “It is her suggestion, not yours? She offers herself? She wants no persuasion?” Partow asked sharply. “Entirely her suggestion,” said Lanstron. '"She offers herself for her country—for the cause for which our soldiers will give their lives by the thousands. It is a time of sacrifice.” Partow raised his arms. They were not formless as he brought them down with sledge-hammer force .to the table. "Your tendon of Achilles? My boy, she is your sword-arm!” His sturdy forefinger ran along the line of fron-

“I’m Going to Fight For the Browns For My Home!”

tier under his eye with little staccato leaps. “Eh?” he chuckled significantly, finger poised. “Let them up the Bordir road and on to redoubts 36 and 37, you mean?” asked Lanstron. “You have it! The position looks important, but so well do we command that it is not really vital. .Yes, the Bordir road is her bait for Westerling!” Partow waved his hand as if the affair were settled. "But,” interjected Lanstron, “we have also to decide on the point’ of the main defense which she is to make Westerling think is weak.” "Hm-m!” grumbled Partow. “That is not necessary to start with. We can give that to her Ihter over the telephone, can’t we, eh?” “She asked for it now.” “Why?” demanded Partow with one of his shrewd, piercing looks. /‘She did not say, but I can guess,” explained Lanstron. “She must put all her cards on the table; she must tell Westerling all she knows at once. If she tells him piecemeal it might lead to the supposition that she still had some means of communication withthe Browns.” “Of course, of course!” Partow spatted the fiat of his hand resoundingly ou the map. “As I decided the first time I met her, she has a head, and when a woman has a head for that sort of thing there is no beating her. Well—” he was looking straight into Lanstron’s eyes, “Well, I think we know the point where we could draw them in on the main line, eh?” . '“Up the apron of the approach from the Engadir valley. We yield the advance redoubts on either side.", “Meanwhile, we have biassed heavily behind the redoubt. We retake the advance redoubts in a counter-attack and —" Partow brought his fist into his palm with a smack. “Yes, if we could do that! If we could get them to expend their attack there!” put in Lanstron very excitedly for him. “We must! She shall help!” Partow was on his feet. He had reached across the table and seized Lanstron’s shoulders in a powerful if flesh-pad-ded grip. Then he turned Lanstron around toward the door of his bedroom and gave him a* mighty slap of affection. “My boy, the brightest hope of victory we have is holding the wire for you. Tell her that a bearded old. behemoth, who can kneel as gracefully as a rheumatic rhinoceros, Is on both knees at her feet, kissing her hands and trying his in the name of mercy, to - keep from breaking into verse of his own composition." Back at the telephone, Lanstron, in the fervor of the cheer and the enthusiasm that had transported bis chief, gave Marta Partow’s message. “You, Marta, are our brightest hdpp of victory!” > , ‘ e (TO BE CONTINUED.) Great Luck. “Well, how-did your camping trip turn out?" ' "I had great luck about that camping trip.” “How was that?" “I got sick at the last moment and couldn’t go.”—Louisville Courier-Jour nal.

THE HOUR AHO MINUTE

By GEORGE MUNSON.

Singleton’s- was the acutest mind not connected with any regular police bureau, as everyone knew. But Mary Harrington <Bd not believe that he could save hw husband, Charles, from dying an atrocious death. This was the situation, as she outlined it to him in the parlor of the lonely little country house: There were three brothers, Henry, James and Charles. The two elder ones were unmarried. The father had left his money equally among the three, but, after the two elder ones were dead, it was all to vest in the youngest, Charles. If he died childless, it was to be divided equally between the widow and Stephen Barnes, a step-brother by a second marriage. Whom old Harrington had hated. Stephen was a ne’er-dp-well, and held 'a position as a jeweler’s assistant .in the little nearby town. Three months previously, at 7:87, the body of the eldest brother had been found, blown- to pieces, upon the footpath, of a field leading from the town to his home. The time of his death was indicated by his watch, which .was found fairly intact beside him. Whether he had been the victim of an assassin’s bomb or what had happened nobody could ascertain. After some weeks of investigation the matter ceased to be one of immediate public interest. Exactly two months later the second brother died. A violent explosion shook the house in which the family lived. The body'bf James was found In his bed, with a gaping wound in the abdomen. The evidence given ,by Mary Harrington at the inquest showed that he died at five minutes past one. That was all, except that Charles was momentarily expecting the same fate. -Singleton thought for about eight minutes, resting motionless in his chair.

“Will you let me see your watch?” he asked of Chfirles at the end of that period. Charles Harrington gave him his watch. Singleton took off the case and examined it under a microscope. “You haven’t had it regulated lately?” he asked. “No. It is strange you should ask me that, because my step-brother Stephen Is always anxious to regulate It for nothing when I go into the shop.” “Ah! You don’t suspect him of complicity in this affair?" “Good ? heavens, no!” answered Charles Harrington. “He had regulated your brothers* watches before the murder of each?” "Now, that Is odd?’ answered Charles. “He certainly had, but —you don’t suggest there was a bomb inside the watch of Henry or James?" “Hardly,” answered Singleton. “However —suppose you take your ’watch* to Stephen and let him regulate It Arrange to call for It at 5:15 —the store doesn’t close till six, I suppose?” The day arranged was five ahead. At the appointed hour Charles Harrington duly met Singletori outside the jeweler’s shop. He accosted him, but Singleton only stared at him blankly. “I am afraid you have the advantage of me, sir,” he answered. Charles remembered and went in. Singleton, following, saw a pale-faced, meager-looking man, with a furtive expression, standing behind the counter. “Well, I’ve got your watch ready, Charley,” he said, and, opening a drawer, he handed It to him. "What can I do for you, sir?” he continued to the detective. The detective took the watch from Charles Harrington’s hands. "Charley/’ burst out Stephen, "I forgot something. .Will you let me keep your watch till tomorrow? I —er —’’ The clocks in the shop pointed to 20 minutes past the hour. Singleton laid the watch down on the counter, but kept his hand over it. Stephen, grabbed at It, and Singleton grabbed Stephen by the collar. "Game’s up,” he said briefly. With the other hand he turned the watch over. v“Hold him, Mr. Harrington, until I stop thajnfernal thing,” fie said. He opened the case and stopped the watch, twisting the hairspring into a mass of tangled wire. Then he opened the glass. “Look at? the minute hand,” he said to the jeweler. “It looks kind of dirty,” said the old man. “But what —what—" "What Is It? Fulminate of iodide, and the most violent explosive known. In four minutes this tiny mass pasted under the minute hand would, have caught the hour hand, and then—well, you can guess what would have happened. But the cunningest murderer always leaves a’trail, and he left his —in the fact that his two victims died when the hands were together. I’ll take this as evidence—” "He lies! He said he was a collector,”'gasped the trembling man. “Precisely,”” answered ■ Singleton, opening hip coat and displaying an officer’s badge. "I have just been made a special police officer in this town for today. You see, I am collecting so’methlng—-you!" (Copyright, 1914. by W. G. ChapmanJ Still to Be Heard From. Many women have attempted to ■cold affection into the’hearts of men, but we have never heard of one who succeeded.