Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1916 — Page 2

The Lead In the Ice

By H. M. Egbert

' (Copyright. 1916. by W. Q. Chapman.) \ At twenty-five Captain Truefltt had been in love and had been unsuccessful. He thought his heart was broken. But at forty he knew that this had been a fallacy. He loved Mabel Renton, and her heart was another’s. But this time It was an optimistic hope, a love that Is stronger than its recognition of Its impossibility. James Fawn bad Introduced him to Mabel, his fiancee, before he started north for the discovery of Baldwin Land. If he did not return two summers later Truefltt was to command the relief ship that would come after him. The summer had come, and it was middle July. The relief ship would have to start at once to reach the Arctic before the pack ice formed in September. Truefltt had called on Mabel to encourage her a few days before he sailed. “Listen, Captain Truefltt,” said Miss Renton. “I have been thinking and planning. I feel it is my duty to be with James, especially since there will be another long winter of suspense before me. I want you to take me with you." Captain Truefltt was appalled. "Miss Renton, you don’t understand the conditions,” he said. “It isn’t any picnic up in the North. The temperature drops below zero even in September. How can you go?” “My place is with Mr. Fawn,” answered Mabel gravely. “I have calculated what I shall have to face. I am prepared to go. And if he is dead” — tears came into her eyes—“l shall at least be spared the long agony of waiting.” Truefltt was thinking. He knew that the long agony would be his, in the continual presence of the woman he loved, whom he could never tell of his

Gaunt and Emaciated, His Eyes Blazing With Delirium.

lore. However, since she continued to beseech him, he would not refuse her. A week later Mabel Renton sailed aboard his ship for the Arctic. 11. They had reports of Fawn at last. He had lost his ship in the pack ice and was living with a tribe of Eskimos twenty miles distant from where Truefltt’s ship lay, already hemmed in by the thin ice of early September. The wreck of Fawn’s vessel lay alongshore. It had been looted and the report spoke of a subsequent mutiny, of a break-up of discipline and of sailors who had started southward in a wild attempt to fight their way to civilization. Truefitt left Miss Renton aboard and started out on his twenty-mile tramp along the coast until he reached the friendly village of the Eskimos. Two women and a dog came out to meet him. Their speech, so far as Tryefitt could understand it, told of horrors such as had never come upon the village before. Outside the encampment was—a mound of empty gin bottles! Eskimo graves were scattered everywhere. It was a village of the dead. A white man staggered toward Truefitt. Gaunt and emaciated, his eyes blazing with delirium, Truefitt recognized in him James Fawn. Fawn knew him, but only as a delirious man half recognizes a companion of old time. From his disjointed utterances Truefitt learned what had happened. Fawn had taken a cargo of gin to the north to exchange for walrus Ivory, in the Jtope of making a quick fortune. He had been the destruction of the settlement and had nearly killed himself during the long months, after he had abondoned hope of rescue. And round about his hut was heaped the ivory that had been gathered for him by the native hunters. For two days Tiyefltt attended

Fawn, until the light of reason came back into his eyes. On the third morning Truefltt told him of Mabel's presence on board. “Pull yourself together, man,” he said, “and she shall never know what has happened. Be a man. Make yourself worthy of her.” “You speak as if you were interested in her yourself," sneered Fawn. Truefltt, without replying, began to pack the sleigh. But before he had completed this task he saw another sleigh coming toward them over the ice. Presently Mabel and a sailor descended. “I couldn’t wait; I was so alarmed when you did not return,” she cried. "Where is he?” Truefltt pointed silently into the hut. Mabel went in. When she emerged, half an hour later, there was a grave look on her face. “We must take him aboard at once,” she said.

111. Fawn would not leave until his ivory was all packed. That meant that Mabel and Truefltt had to walk the entire distance. Mabel continued to look in strange surmise upon Truefltt. It was plain that Fawn had not attempted to conceal the moral degeneration that had overtaken him. Hours passed. The sleigh had left the land and was proceeding slowly across the ice. They were forced to encamp for the night by a violent snowstorm. An icehut was constructed, and they shivered air the night through in their sleepingbags. At midnight Fawn began an altercation with Truefltt in a low voice. The lack of his accustomed stimulant had made him querulous, almost insane. “You love her,” he mumbled fiercely. “Hush!” said Truefltt, looking across toward the girl. “Miss Henton will hear you.” Toward dawn Fawn subsided and watched, the others craftily. There was something in his mind which Truefitt could not devine. They harnessed in the dogs and proceeded across the pack ice. Fawn left Mabel and proceeded with the leading sleigh that contained the ivory. He seemed unwilling to leave his treasure. He sent the sailor back to the others and walked alone, guiding the dogs. This was the sleigh that found the course among the hummocks. The second Bleigh had nothing to do but follow in its tracks. Presently it seemed to Truefltt that Fawn was going a little out of the way. The ship was visible now, lying offshore, and Fawn was steering a course directly out to sea. Suddenly he swerved, as if he had made a wrong

course, and started immediately toward the vessel, after a little delay. Fawn changed again. Ho was doubling upon his track. The second sleigh was quite near him now. Fawn shouted something. Suddenly Truefitt saw a wide lead open in the ice. and the dark water beneath the sleigh. A second later he went slipping down, and the icy water numbed his hands as he struggled to regain his footing. Mabel screamed out. At the same instant Fawn ran up with a sleigh-hook and began deliberately hammering Truefltt’s fingers. He was shouting like a maniac, ard Truefltt perceived that he was, iD fact, insane. Mabel cried out and tried to catch at him, but Fawn, with an oath, turned on her and sent her spinning across the ice. Then he drove the sieighhook into Truefitt’s body. As he did so he lost his balance on the slippery ice and fell. He went head first into the water. And Truefitt, who was fast growing numbed and helpless, roused himself for a supreme effort. He grabbed the hook that lay across the ice and hoisted himself out of the water. Then he attempted to raise Fawn.

Fawn whirled round and round in the center of the open place. He shrieked in terror and clutched at Truefitt’s fingers. But the lead was widening; the sleigh went toppling down. Truefitt’had just time to cut the harness and free the straining dogs before it sank like a stone, with all the ivory. With a last cry Fawn threw up his hands and sank beneath the water. There was no chance of rescue now. Truefitt stared into Mabel’s frightened face. Presently she looked up at him. “Let us go on,” she said in a low voice. IV. The return voyage was a quick one. Truefitt got his ship out ot the ice and got back to the United States by the middle of October. No word about Fawn’s death passed between him and Mabel. He did not know whether she knew of Fawn’s treachery or whether she held him guilty for his death. It was not until their final parting, at her home, that she spoke of the subject. “Tell me everything, now,” she said. Truefitt hesitated; then, as kindly as he could, he told her. He felt that it would be. unfair to her to let her live in the belief that Fawn was what she had believed him. She was silent when he had ended. Then: “I have thought it all out and come to that conclusion,” she said. “I am going to be frank now. Do you know why I'asked you to take me north?” “Because you loved him,” Bald Truefitt miserably. “No,” she replied. “Because I wanted to know—just why—l had ceased to care for him.” .Then Truefitt knew that his first love had been a worse fallacy than he had ever suspected.

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

FIRST ARMORED MOTOR BATTERY OF NEW YORK

The First Armored Motor battery of the New York National Guard. The cur is equipped with machine guns as well as loopholes for rifle fire. The driver of the car is afforded almost complete protection. The entire car is covered with armor, even the wheels.

MAY YET RAISE SUNKEN TREASURE

Work of Navy Divers Shows What Can Be Cone at Great Depths. MAKES SALVAGE POSSIBLE Projects for Raising Long-Lost Rich Galleys and Warships Now More Favorably Considered Than Ever Before. Washington.—Must all the millions of dollars that now lie at the bottom of the sea in the form of ships and their sunken treasure be forever lost to the world? Most of the vessels that have been sunk, whether by accident or in the course of war, lie in comparatively shallow waters, many of them at a depth of less than 300 feet, and the problem of their recovery does not seem entirely hopeless in the light of recent improvements in deep-sea diving and the feats accomplished by the expert divers of the United States navy. The matter is the subject of an article in the bulletin of the Pan-Amer-ican Union at Washington. lirdiscussing the organization of companies in the United States whose purpose is the recovery of some of the wealth now lying in the ocean’s depth, the writer .of this bulletin says: “Certain it is that the project of recovering sunken ships or the most valuable of the treasures that have gone down with them is more feasible now than it was onlyjour or five years ago. S.uch great improvements In diving apparatus have recently been made that it is now possible for a diver to operate for a limited time even at the great depth of 300 feet below the surface. These improvements are largely due to the remarkable experiments in deep-sea diving conducted under the auspices of the Bureau of Construction and Repair of the Navy Department of the United States in 1914. Prior to that time the greatest depth reached by divers was 210 feet, two English officers having accomplished that feat during a series of tests carried on by the British admiralty In 1907. For the benefit of those who do not appreciate the difficulty of diving to such depths it may be stated that at a depth of ten feet below the surface the pressure is 4.33 pounds per square inch of surface of the body submerged. This pressure increases proportionately and at a depth of 100 feet it has Increased to 43.3 pounds and at a depth of 300 feet to 129.9 pounds. Makes Salvage Possible;

“Notwithstanding this tremendous pressure, the expert divers of the United States navy,” this bulletin declares, “have succeeded in not only reaching a depth of 300 to 350 feet, but In remaining at that depth for from five to twenty minutes at a time, making examinations and observations in regard to a sunken vessel that made Its subsequent salvage possible. This work was done in connection with the raising of the United States submarine F-4, which, it will be remembered, plunged to the bottom of the sea just off the harbor of Honolulu on March 25, 1915. Not only did the divers establish a new world’s record for deep-sea diving upon that occasion, but the subsequent raising and recovery of the F-4 is the only instance in history where a sunken vessel was recovered from a depth of 300 feet.” The bulletin writer thereupon gives a brief sketch of the history of diving as a useful art from the time of Aristotle down to the present, and after describing a modern diving out* fit and explaining in some detail the matter jof the diver’s being subjected to two pressures, viz., the pressure of the air inside the helmet and suit and the external pressure of the water, continues as follows: ■ “The necessity of having the air pressure within the diving dress compensate the external water pressure, thus subjecting the diver to pressure directly proportioned to the depth to which he descends, is the dangerous element in deep sea diving. At a depth, for instance.of 100 feet, a diver must be subjtgted" to a pressure of four atmospheres, or GO pounds per

square Inch, in order to compensate the external water pressure. Exposure to such pressure is apt to be followed by dungerous physiological effects, commonly known as ‘caisson disease,’ the symptoms of which Include pains in the muscles and joints, commonly called ‘bends,’ embarrassed breathing, vomiting, fainting, etc., sometimes resuiting In death. Danger in Removing Pressure. "" “These symptoms,” the bulletin says, “do not appear while the pressure is being raised nor so long as It is continued, but only after It has been removed; and the view now accepted Is that they are due to the rapid effervescence of the gases which are absorbed in the body fluids during exposure to pressure. Experiment has proved that when the pressure is suddenly relieved the gas is liberated in bubbles within the body and that these do the harm. Set free in the spinal cord, for Instance, they may cause partial paralysis, or in the heart lead to stoppage of the circulation. It has been found, however, that if the pressure Is relieved gradually the bubbles are not formed, because the gas comes out of solution slowly and Is got rid of by the heart and lungs. To prevent these effects the withdrawal of the air pressure—in other words, the decompression—should be slow. Hence the diver’s ascent must be regulated accordingly, rand the deeper he has been the slower and longer must be the periods of decompression. It was particularly in regard to this matter of decompression that the experiments of the United States navy department in 1914 led to the Improved methods enabling the divers to descend to 300 feet below the surface. Being able to safely observe and direct the work of rescue at such a depth and with modern lifting apparatus, who can say that, the recovery of ancient treasures of sunken Spanish galleons, or hundreds of more recent wrecks of merchant vessels, and finally of many of the magnificent war vessels that have been sent to the bottom during the present war, is an idle dream?” •

KING OF RAT CATCHERS BUSY

Has Contract to Kill All Rodents in All Army Camps in England. London. —William Dalton of Southwark, who is known as the king of rat catchers, has been given the job of killing the rats In all the army camps in England. “This year,” says the “king,” “I am fighting almost single handed, and the menace Is really serious. In less than six months I have caught over 12,000 rats, and cries for help are coming from all quarters. “The government has come to realize the necessity for killing the rats. At one camp I have already visited we caught 1,085 rats and over 70 of them weighed more than a pound and a half each.”

TAKES UP AVIATION

Miss Marie Peary, daughter of Admiral and Mrs. Robert E. Peary, has engaged in the study of aviation as a summer pastime. She and her mother are spending the hot months on the Maine const, and Miss Peary Is absorbing everything she can find on the subject of flying witfi the intent of taking a course in actual flying as soon as she has finished her perlimInary work. Her interest in the study is inspired by her father’s absorption in It

“DEAD” SOLDIER IS REVIVED

British Surgeon Massages a Man’s Heart and Thus Restores Its Action. London. —A wonderful case of restoring the dead to life has Just come to light in the case of Lance Corporal Mayes of the Queen’s Westminsters, who had part of his right arm blown off by a shell In the fighting at Ypres. The Injury. was so bad that after the first-aid dressings the limb had to be amputated. He qame to England and was in a hospital In the Midlands for some time. A short time ago he recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital and came to London apparently quite well. But from some reason infection again appeared In the amputated arm and a further operation was deemed necessary to stop the danger of poisoning;. Corporal Mayes was put under an anesthetic, but the heart collapsed and ceased to beat. The case seemed to be.hopeless and the waiting relatives in a few mlnntes would have been Informed of his death. But. Dr. Lionel E. C. Norbury, the distinguished surgeon who handled the case, was not beaten. He made an Incision in the side of the patient and, inserting hia hand and lifting the diaphragm, reached the heart and gently massaged the organ with his fingers. The heart responded to the action and began to beat again. The patient had been restored to life when all other means would have failed. • Lance Corporal Mayes is now on the high road to complete recovery.

BIRD SINGS AT WRONG TIME

Detroit Girl Who Loves Canaries Is Arrested for Stealing Songster. Detroit. —Miss Nina Plock of No. 96 Adams avenue east, loves canary birds. If she were rich, she would have an aviary full of them. Her idea of bliss Is to have just as many canary birds as she can find room for In her house. The sweetest musiff in the world to her Is the canary’s song. But a canary’s solo, piped at the wrong moment, landed her in the police court. She had been arrested at the behest of Royce & Passmore, bird dealers. They told Justice Sellers that she entered their store recently and asked to look at some birds. When the clerk’s back was turned she put one of the feathered songsters in her waist and then told the man that she guessed she would not buy any. Just as she was leaving the canary began to sing. He sang loudly. The clerk barred the way to the door and sent another clerk to the corner for a policeman. Miss Plock was arrested. Twice before the woman has been in court for the larceny of canary birds, say. the officers. This time she was fined $lO, 'with the alternative of 30 days in the house of correction. And she had to give back the yellow soloist.

ARGENTINA HAS IRON FIELD

Discovery in Province of Aires Is Expected to Be of Great Value. Buenos Aires. —Iron has been discovered near Necochea, In the southern part of the province of Buenos Aires, in such quantities that government officials say a proper exploitation of the field will free the Argentine republic from dependence on other countries for Its Iron supply. The iron was found along the coast in the sand dunes that extend from the south of Patagones to Cape San Antonio. This is the same region in which petroleum indications were found recently,’ and concessions have been asked for the working of both the iron and oil fields. Jose M. Chueco, geologist, after patient examination and long study, has found a high proportion of iron In the sand In an almost pure state.

Husband Keeps Dog.

Wichita, Kan.—Mrs. Afina Morris, the young wife of a wealthy and mid-dle-aged real estate man here, who was sued for divorce several weeks ago, wants her pet dog. - It- Is a bull pup and since the divorce proceedings Mr. Morrlswon’tlet his wife into the house. He restricts the dog, and In a suit filed recently Mrs. Morris asks for the dog and one pillow, * pair of portieres, two stewpans and two geranium plants? m

MAN'S DUTY PLAIN

God Has Bestowed on All the Privilege of Helping Souls to Him. "And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone.”—l Kings 20:40. These words are taken from an Old < Testament parable. The prophet who used them had disguised both himself and his purpose. . He appeared before the monarch with a mask of ashes upon his face and with a mask of uncertainty upon his words. Indeed the prophet disguised himself so thoroughly that the world has never found out who he was; he also disguised his words so that their first import is by no means plain. But, lifting them out of their Immediate connection, we shall quickly find some application for ourselves and for our present work. There are several things that appear at once on the surface of the story. A man had been made responsible for the keeping of another; this responsibility had been imposed by a high authority; for a reason plainly stated he had failed of his trust; when he came to himself he looked about and found that his prisoner had fled; certain disasters and penalties followed upon his negligence. All these points, which do no violence to the ancient meaning, ffiay well be fitted into a parable of the Christian life. Without further explanation we shall seek for the lessons of the simple word. “First, then, we ' have been made responsible for the reaching and keeping of the souls of men for a higher authority—God himself. It is difficult for us to realize the full Import of such a suggestion. Perhaps at times we have wished that God had put us In a world of relations and had still left us without responsibility for others. But in our better moments we feel the goodness' of the ties that bind us to men, and we glory In the divine partnership that our human help fairly implies. In his ways God has put us in each other’s keeping.

Bringing Men to God, It may not always be easy to say just where human influence ends and the divine calling comes in; not possible to say just where the free will of the other man takes up our work and completes it by his own loving surrender; but that God gives'us the fearful privilege of bringing men to him there can be no doubt. In the Christian view, every man must appear to us as a candidate for the divine grace; nor do we dare to set limit to that responsibility. Vast as is the task of bringing about a universal discipleship, it is just this duty that the Lord has set before us. The rest of the world is in our charge. What can the Master say if we fail of our very reason for being and come home at the end of our season of harvesting without any sheaves for the heavenly garner? The truth is that we do not want any person to be lost. We do not deliberately allow men to be lost. The greatest thing Is simply crowded out. We are “busy here and there.” Our carelessness in reference to souls grows out of our busy-ness in reference to things. It .is this matter of commerce; it is that party; It Is the reading of this book; it is that lecture; it is this social call ; it is that committee meeting. Life Is so complex. We are so busy—God help us! —that ere we know it our spiritual chance is gone. But One Poor Answer. Is not all this the transcript of your feelings? You are not heartless ; you are merely busy. Some day the king of the kingdom eternal stands before you and says: “Where is that one that was your special eharge?” Your j?oor answer comes up to him, the best and only answer you can give, and yet a shameful answer, “As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." And this brings us to the thought that the result of carelessness through busy-ness is the same as that of deliberate neglect. The prisoner has gone, Just as surely as if the guard had broken the chains, pointed the path of escape, and said: “Go; I will not molest you.” The result is one; the man is gone in either case.

Evil Is wrought for want of thought As well as want of heart. The lesson may be applied also to each individual. God has put Into your charge one person whom he requires that you shall hold for himself. That person Is you. It may be well to ask if you are not escaping from yourself, if the fine, sweet nature that loved God in childhood, prayed to him each day, believed in him and rejoiced in the story of his love, is not Slipping away from yourself. It is possible for a man to be so busy “here and there” that his very best self shall escape and go off into the far country. "• Call back that best of self powi It is a trust from God. Let it not be that in the end you shall have to say of yourself: “As I was busy here and there, he was gone.” —Bishop Edwin IL Hughes.

Christian's Duty to Comfort.

Close beside us in this sad world, perhaps under our own roof, are sorrowful hearts needing the glance ot sympathy, the word of chew. Wrapt In our own- selfishness; we pass them by. Let us pray that our understanding may be opened and we may be enabled to minister to their need.