Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1916 — CHAPTER XIV The Feast of Hurrahs [ARTICLE]

CHAPTER XIV The Feast of Hurrahs

Mirapolis the marvelous was a hustling, roaring, wide-open mining camp of twenty thousand souls by the time the railroad, straining every nerve and crowding three shifts into the 2t-hour day, pushed its rails along the foothill bench of Chigringo, tossed up its temporary station buildings, and signaled its opening for business by running a mammoth excursion frcm the cities of the immediate East.

Busy as it was, the city took time to celebrate fittingly the event which linked it to the outer world. By proclamation Mayor Cortwright declared a holiday. There were lavish displays of bunting, an impromptu trades parade, speeches from the plaza bandstand, free lunches and free liquor a day of boisterous, hilarious triumphings, with, incidental, much buying and selling and many transfers of the precious “front foot” or choice “corner.” Yielding to pressure, which was no less imperative from below than from above, Brouillard had consented to suspend work on the great dam during the day of. triumphs, apd the reclamation service force, smaller now than at any time since the beginning of the undertaking, went to swell the crowds on Chigringo avenue. Mr. Cortwright had “been inexorable, and Brouillard found himself discomfortingly emphasized as chairman of the civic reception committee. It was after his part of the speechmaking, and while the plaza crowds were still bellowing their approval of the modest forensic effort, that he went to sit beside Miss Cortwright<jln the temporary grand stand, mopping his face and otherwise exhibiting the after effects of the unfamiliar strain.

Victor Brouillard knows that he cannot win Amy Massingale until .he pulls from his feet the mire of this financial trickery. How will he extricate himself with a clean conscience and a pocketful of money—or can he do It?

(TO BE CONTINUED.)