Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1916 — Page 2

The City of Numbered Days

SYNOPSIS. —ll ~—- Brouillard, chief engineer of the Nlquola Irrigation dam, meets J. Wesley Cortwright and explains the reclamation work to him. Cortwright organises a company and obtains government contracts to furnish power and material. Steve MassinSUe threatens to start a gold rush if rouillard does not use his influence to bring a railroad branch to the place, thus opening an easy market for the "Little Susan” mine ore. Brouillard tells Amy Massingale of his need for money to pay off his dead father’s debts. She tells him to be true to himself. He decides for the extension. Mirapolis, the city of numbered days, booms. Cortwright persuades Brouillard to become consulting engineer of the power company in return for SIOO,000 stock. Stoppage of work on the railroad threatens a panic. Brouillard spreads the Massingale story of placer gold in the river bed and starts a gold rush, which promises to stop the reclamation project. Amy tells Brouillard that her father is ' in Cartwright’s financial clutches. He tells her he has made SIOO,000 and declares his love. She loves him, but shows him that he has become demoralized. A real gold find Is made. Brouillard sells his stock but does not pay his father’s debts. Cortwright-s son shoots Dave Massingale. Brouillard threatens Cortwright with exposure if he pushes Massingale to the wall. The magnate promises to give the old man a free field. Stories of the dam’s abandonment revive. Foreclosure on the "Little Susan” is impending and Brouillard loans Dave Massingale his SIOO,OOO to clear him.

Old Man Masslngale is loath to put himself under financial obligations that will involve Amy’s marriage. Do you think that Brouillard will trick the father and salve his conscience with the saying, "All’s fair In love and war?”

CHAPTER XVl—Continued. * “There’s one thing—and I’ve got to spit it out before it’s everlastingly too late. See here, Victor Br’ulllard —Amy likes you—thinks a heap of you; a plumb blind man could see that. But say, that little girl o’ mine has just natchurly got to have a free hand when it comes to pairin’ up, and she won’t never have if she finds out about this. You ain’t allowin’ to use it on her, Victor?” Brouillard laughed. *7’ll make a hedging bet and break even with you, Mr. Massingale,” he said. “That check is drawn to my order, and I have indorsed it. Let me have it again and I’ll get the cash for -you. In that way only the two of us need know anything about the transaction; and if I promise to keep the secret from Miss Amy, you must promise to keep it from Mr. J. Wesley Cortwright. Will you saw it off with me thst way?—until ypu’ve made the turn on the ore sales-?” David Massingale shook hands on It with more gratitude, colored this time with a hearty Imprecation. "Dad burn you, Victor Br’ulllard, you’re a man—ever’ single mill-run of you!” he burst out But Brouillard shook his head gravely. “No, Mr. Massingale, I’m the little yellow dog you mentioned a while back,” he asserted, and then he went to get the money. ' Left alone in the small retiring room of the bank where the business had been transacted, David Massingale

"You Borrowed to Meet These Notes?"

took the sheaf of bank notes from his pocket with trembling hands, fondling It as a miser might. Twice the old man made as if he would turn toward the door of egress, and the light in his , gray-blue eyes was the rekindling flame of a passion long denied. But in the end he thrust the tempting aheaf back into the inner pocket and went resolutely to the cashier’s counter window, finding Schermerhorn, the president, sitting at the cashier’s desk. "I've come to take up them notes o' mine with John Wes.' name on ’em,” Massingale began, pulling out the thick sheaf of redemption money. "H'm, yes, here they are. Brought the cash, did you? The 'Little Susan' has begun to pan out, has It? I didn't know you had commenced shipping ore jet?” - i. “We haven't.** David Massingale

By Francis Lynde

Onia IcrfWw’z tai

made the admission and regretted it In one and the same breath. “You’ve borrowed to meet these notes?” queried the president, looking up quickly. “That won’t do, Mr. Massingale; that won’t do at all. We can’t afford to lose an old customer that way. What’s the matter with our money? Doesn’t it look good to you any more?” Massingale stammered out something about Cashier Hardwick’s peremptory demand of a few hours earlier, but he was not permitted to finish. “Of course, that is all right from Hardwick’s point of view. He was merely looking out for the maturing paper. How much more time will you need to enable you to get returns from your shipments? Sixty days? All right, you needn’t make out new notes; I’ll Indorse the extension on the back of these, and I’ll undertake to get Cortwright’s approval myself. No; not a word, Mr. Massingale. As long as you’re borrowing, you must be loyal and borrow of us. Good afternoon. Come again when we can help you out."

David Massingale turned away, dazed and confused beyond the power of speech. When the mis*s of astoundment cleared he found himself in the street with the thick wad of bank notes still in his pocket. Suddenly, out of the limbo into which two years of laborious discipline and self-denial had pushed it stalked the demon of the ruling passion, mighty, overpowering, unconquerable. The familiar street sights danced before Massingale’s eyes, and there was a drumming in his ears like the fall of many waters. But above the clamor rose the insistent voice of the tempter, and the voice was at once a command and an entreaty, a gnawing hunger and a parching thirst. “By gash! I’d like to try that old system o’ mine jest one more time!" he muttered. “All it takes is money enough to toiler it up and stay. And I’ve got the money. Besides, didn’t Br’ulllard say I was to get an extension if I could ?” He grabbed at his coat to be sure that the packet was still there, took two steps toward the bank, stopped, turned as if in the grasp of an invisible but Irresistible captor, and moved away, like a man walking in his sleep, toward the lower avenue. It was the doorway of Haley’s place, the Monte Carlo of the Niquoia, that finally halted him. Here the struggle was so fierce that the bartender, who knew him, named it sickness and led the stricken one to a card table in the public bar-room and fetched him a drink. A single swallow of whisky turned the scale. Massingale rose, tossed a coin to the bar, and passed quickly to the rear, where a pair of baize doors opened silently and engulfed him.

It was at early candle-lighting in the evening of the day of renewed and unbridled speculation in Mirapolis "front feet” that Brouillard, riding the piebald range pony on which he had been making an inspection round of the nearer Buckskin ditchers’ camps, topped the hill in the new, high-pitched road over the Chigringo shoulder and looked down upon the valley electrics. Brouillard let the pony set its own pace on the down-hill lap to the finish, freshened himself at his rooms in the Niquoia building, and went to the Metropole to eat his dinner with Murray Grislow as his vis-a-vis. The buzzing throngs in the Metropole case and lobby annoyed him, and even Grislow’s quiet sarcasm as applied to the day’s bubble-blowing failed to clear the air. At the club there was the same atmosphere of unrest; an exacerbating overcharge of the suppressed activities impatiently waiting for another day of excitement and .opportunity. Corner lots and the astounding prices they

had commanded filled the air in the lounge, the billiard room and the buffet, and after a few minutes Brouillard turned Ips back on the hubbub and sought the quiet of the darkened building on the opposite side of the street. He was alone in his office on the sixth floor and was trying, half absently, to submerge himself in a- sea of desk work when as distinctly as if she were present and at his elbow, he heard, or seemed to hear, Amy Massingale say: "Victor, you said you would come if I needed you. I need you now." Without a moment’s hesitation he got up and made ready to go out.

The Massingale town house was one of a row of stuccoed villas fronting on the main residence street, which beyond the city limits became the highroad to the Quadjenai bend and the upper valley. Brouillard took a cab at the Metropole, dismissed it at the villa gate, and walked briskly up the path to the house, which was dark save for one lighted room on the second floor — the room in which Stephen Massingale was recovering from the effects of Van Bruce Cortwright’s pistol shot.

CHAPTER XVII [ The Abyss

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER, IND.

Amy Massingale was on the porch —waiting for him, as he fully believed until her greeting sufficiently proved her surprise at seeing him. “You, Victor?" she said, coming quickly to meet him. “Murray Grislow said you had gone-down to the Buckskin camps and Wouldn’t be back for two or three days!” “I changed my mind and came back. How is Steve this evening?" “He is quite comfortable, more comfortable than he has been at all since the wound began to heal. I have been reading him to sleep, and when the night nurse came I ran down to get a breath of fresh air in the open." "No, you didn’t come down for that reason,” Brouillard amended gravely. “You came to meet me." “Did I?" she asked. "What makes you think that?” "I know what happened,” said Brouillard, speaking as soberly as if he were stating a mathematical certainty. “You left that room upstairs and came to me. I didn’t see you, but I heard you as plainly as I can hear you now. You spoke to me and called me by name.” She shook her head, laughing lightly. “You have been overwrought about something, or maybe you are just piain tired." “You are standing me off,” he declared. “You are in trouble of some sort, and you are trying to hide it from me."

"No, not exactly trouble; only a lit--tle worry/’ "All right, call it worry if you like and share it with me. What is it?’ “I think you know without being told. lam afraid we have finally lost the ‘Little Susan.’ That is one of the worries and the other I’ve been trying to call silly. I don’t know what has become of father —as if he weren’t old enough to go and come without telling me every move he makes! ” ■ *■ “Your father isn’t at home?" gasped Brouillard. "No; he hasn’t been here since nine o’clock this morning. Murray Grislow saw him going into the Metropole about one o’clock, but nobody that I have been able to reach by phone seems to have seen him after that.” "I can bring the record down to two o’clock," was the quick reply. "He ate with me at Bongras’, and afterward I walked with him as far as the bank. And I can cure part of the first worry —all of It, in fact; he had the money to take up the Cortwright notes, and when I left him he was on his way to Hardwick’s window to do It."

‘Tie had the money? Where did he get it?" Brouillard put his back against a porch post, a change of position which kept the light of the street electric from shining squarely upon his face. “It has been another of the get-rich-quick days in Mirapolis,” he said evasively. "Somebody told me that the corner opposite Poodles’ was bought and sold three times within a single hour and that each time the price was doubled.”

“And you are trying to tell me that father made a hundred thousand dollars just in those few hours by buying and selling Mirapolis lots? You don’t know him, Victor. He is totally lacking the trading gift. He has often said that he couldn’t stand on a street corner and sell twenty-dollar gold pieces at nineteen dollars apiece—nobody would buy of him.” "Nevertheless. I am telling you that he had the money to take up those notes,” Brouillard insisted. “I saw it in his hands.”

She stood fairly in the beam of the street light. The violet eyes were misty, and in the low voice there was a note of deeper trouble. "You say you saw the money in father’s hands; tell me, Victor, did you sea him pay it into the bank?” “Why, no; not the final detail. But, as I say, when I left him he was on his way to Hardwick’s window.” Again she turned away, but this time it was to dart into the house. A minute later she had rejoined him, and the minute had sufficed for the donning of a coat and the pinning on of the quaint cowboy riding hat. "I must go and find him,” she said with quiet resolution. “Will you go with me, Victor? Perhaps that is why I —the subconscious I —called you a little while ago. Let’s not wait for the Quadjenai car. I’d rather walk, and we’ll save time.”

From the moment of outsetting the young woman’s purpose seemed clearly defined. By the shortest way she indicated the course to the avenue, and at the Metropole corner she turned unhesitatingly to the northward—toward theregion of degradation. As was to be expected after the day of frantic speculation and quick money changing, the lower avenue was ablaze with light, the sidewalks were passes of peril, and the saloons and dives were reaping a rich harvest. Luckily, Brouillard was well known, and his position as chief of the great army of government workmen purchased something like immunity for himself and his companion. But more than once he was on the point of begging the young woman to turn back for her own sake. The quest ended unerringly at the door of Haley’s place, and when David Massingale’s daughter made as if she would go in, Brouillard protested quickly. ■ < L ‘‘No, Amy,” he said firmly. "You mustn’t go in there. Let me take you around to the Metropole, and then I’ll come back alone." “I have been in worse places," she returned in low tones. And then, with her voice breaking tremulously: "Be my good friend just a little longer, Victor!" He took her arm and walked her into the garishly-lighted bar-room, bracing himself militantly for what

might happen. But nothing happened. | Dissipation of the western variety seldom sinks below the level of a certain rude gallantry, quick to recognize the good and pure in womankind. Instantly a hush fell upon the place. The quartets at the card tables held their hands, and a group of men drinking at the bar put down their glasses. One, a Trl’-Clrc’ cowboy with his back turned, let slip an oath, and in a single swift motion his nearest comrade garroted him with a hairy arm, strangling him to silence. As if guided by the same unerring instinct which had made her choose Haley's out of the dozen similar hells,

“It’s All Gone, Little Girt; It’s All Gone.”

Amy Massingale led Broulllard swiftly to the green baize doors at the rear of the bar-room. At her touch the swinging doors gave inward, and her goal was reached. Three faro games, each with its inlaid table, its impassive dealer, its armed “lookout," and its ring of silent players, lay beyond the baize doors. At the nearest of the tables there was a stir, and the dealer stopped running the cards. Somebody said, “Let him get out,” and then an old man, bearded, white-haired, wild-eyed, and haggard almost beyond recognition, pushed his chair away from the table and stumbled to his feet, his hands clutching the air like those of a swimmer sinking for the last time. With a low cry the girl darted across the intervening space to clasp the staggering old man in her arms and draw him away. Broulllard stood aside as they came slowly toward the doors which he was holding open for them. He saw the distorted face-mask of a soul in torment and heard the mumbling repetition of the despairing words, “It’s all gone, little girl; it’s all gone!” and then he removed himself quickly beyond the range of the staring, unseeing eyes. For in the lightning flash of revealment he realized that once again the good he would have done had turned to hideous evil in the doing, and that this time the sword thrust of the blind passion impulse had gone straight to the heart of love itself.

CHAPTER XVIII The Setting of the Ebb

Contrary to the most sanguine expectations of the speculators—contrary, perhaps, even to those of Mr. J. Wesley Cortwright—the upward surge in Mirapolis values, following the visit of the “distinguished citizens,” proved to be more than a tidal wave; it was a series of them. Day after day the “curb” markets were reopened, with prices mounting skyward; and when the news of how fortunes could be made in a day In the Miracle city of the Niquoia got abroad in the press dispatches there was a fresh influx of mad money hunters from the East. Now, if never before, the croaker was wrathfully shouted down and silenced. No one admitted, or seemed to admit, the possible impermanence of the city.

To the observer, anxious or casual, there appeared to be reasonable grounds for the optimistic assertion, it was an indubitable fact that Brouillard’s force had been cut down, first to one-half, and later to barely enough men to keep the crushers and mixers moving and to add fresh layers of concrete to the huge wall of sufficient quantities to prevent the material—in technical phrase—from “dying.” The Navajos had been sent home to their reservation, the tepees were gone, and two-thirds of the camp shacks were empty. Past these material facts It was known to everybody in the frenzied market place that Brouillard himself was, according to his means, one of the most reckless of the plungers, buying, borrowing, and biiying again as if the future held no threat of a possible debacle. It was an object lesson for the timid. Those who did not themselves know certainly argued - that there must be a few who did know, and among these few the chief of the reclamation service must be in the very foremost rank.

Brouillard ought to know what's what. Does his action indicate that he is aware th© dam never will be finished, or that the wonder city will never be abandoned and destroyed?

(TO &Q CQMTINUfiDJ

HANDICRAFT FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

By A. NEELY HALL and DOROTHY PERKINS

A TOY MOTOR BOAT. The toy motor-boat shown in the illustrations is propelled by a tin propeller run by a rubber-band motor. First cut out the hull from a piece of wood 1 inch thick, making it of the shape r.nd dimensions shown in Fig. 3. Be careful to curve the side edges the same. The stern end should be sawed oft on a bevel as shown in Fig. 4. The sides of the boat (B, Figs. 4 and 6) are thin strips 2% inches wide. Nail one to one edge of the hull, then

saw off the bow end on a line with the bow of the hull, and the stern end on the same slant as the bevel cut on the stern of the hull. With one side in place, nail on the second side and trim off its ends. The stern piece (C, Figs. 5 and 6) should be cut next to fit the slanted ends of the sides. The propeller (E, Fig. 6) is cut from the side of a tin can. Cut a piece 3 inches long and % inch wide, round its ends, and with the point of a nail pierce a hole through It each side of the center of the length of the piece (Fig. 7). To finish the propeller, it is only necessary to take hold of the two ends and twist the piece into the shape shown in Fig. 8. The propeller

| is mounted upon a short wire shaft, one end of which is bent into a hook (F, Fig. 8). Stick the long end of this shaft through one hole in the propeller, and the hooked end through the other hole, then twist the hooked end over on to the main part of the shaft, as shown in Fig. 9. The propeller is supported upon the bearing plate G (Figs. 6 and 10). Cut this out of a piece of tin 1% inches wide by 3 inches long, bend it in half crosswise to give it stiffness, and then bend it lengthwise to the angle shown so it will fit over the slanted stern cf the boat. Punch two holes through the upper end for nailing to the stern, and a hole at the lower end for' the propeller shaft to run through. A couple of beads must be slipped over the shaft between the propeller and plate G, to act as a bearing” (H, Figs. 9 and 11). Probably you can find a couple of glass beads in your mother’s button bag.

After slipping the beads on to the &haft, and sticking the shaft end through the hole in bearing plate G. bend the end of- the shaft into a hook; then screw a small screw-hook into the bottom of the hull of the boat, at the bow end (I, Fig. 6), and you will bq, ready for the rubber-band motor. Rubber bands about 1% inches in length are best for the purpose. Loop these together end to end (Fig. 12) to form a strand that will reach from hook I to the hook on the pro-peller-shaft; then form three more strands of this same length, and slip the end loops of all four strands over the hooks. .

(Copyright, by A. Neely Hall.)

MINIATURE GREENHOUSE FOR STARTING SEEDS INDOORS. Small boxes are better than large ones, because the earth makes the boxes heavy and the smaller they are the easier they are to handle. Starch boxes are of a good size. Fig. 1 shows the simpler form of miniature greenhouse Cut the tops of the starch box ends slanted so that the front edge is about 2Vi

inches high and the rear edge 5 Inches high, and cut down the front and back even with the edges of the ends, as Indicated by dotted lines in Fig. 2. Many of you girls will find it no trick at all to cut down the starch box in this way, but. if you think you cannot do it, ask father or brother to lend a hand. With the cutting done, get a piece of glass large enough to fit over the top and project a trifle over the front and ends. Possibly you can find an unused picture frame with a glass of the right size, or several camera plates that can be fastened together with passepartout paper to make a piece large enqgjgh to cover the box; if not, a painter will sell you a piece for a nickel. The model shown in Fig. 4 looks more like a florist’s nursery greenhouse. The starch box which forms

the foundation must be cut down as indicated by dotted lines in Fig. 5, so the remaining depth will be about two ’and one-half Inches (Fig. 6). With the box thus prepared, cut two end pieces out of thick cardboard (A, Fig. 7), and tack these to the box ends. Make the peak of each 8 inches above the bottom edge. The box may 'be 'stood on end upon the cardboard for the purpose of marking out the lower portion of end pieces A. When the cardboard ends have been marked out, cut, and tacked to the box ends, procure two pieces of glass of the right size to project over the ends A and sides of the box, as shown in Fig. 4. Join these two pieces (B and C, Fig. 8) at the peak with a strip of tape lapped over them (D, Fig. 8). Unless the boxe- are lined with metal they are likely to leak after you water the planted seeds, so <t is a good idea to place a cake tin or something of the sort beneath to catch the drippings, and to attach spool feel to keep the bottoms high and dry.

Give the outside of the boxes a couple of coats of white enamel. Select the loamlest soil that you can find in last summer’s garden for filling your miniature greenhouses; also, get some pebbles or broken stone. Scatter a layer of the stone over th * box bottom, then spread the soil to a depth of 6 or 6 inches on top o* the stone. Plant your seeds not closer than 2 inches apart, and not deeper than four diameters of the seeds. Water frequently to keep the soil continuously moist, .-Jid allow plenty of sunlight to enter through the glass roofs.