Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 128, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1920 — The MAN NOBODY KNEW [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The MAN NOBODY KNEW

by HOLWORTHY HALL

CHAPTER Xl—Continued. “I don’t deny,” said Armstrong ■lowly, “that at first sight this is a gueer thing for me to do —to check up yoar property, I mean —when you and I have had such an intimate relationship as opponents. And I wouldn’t for the world have agreed to it if it could have had the slightest connection with ... . with your own private affairs. It hasn’t —It can’t have. I give you anyword on that; it’s been settled without the slightest reference to anyehfng else. But since it hasn't, and since Rufus asked me as a favor — and promised to tell you about it — and it’s absolutely commercial —’’ “That’s enough. I’m glad you’re going to do it," Hilliard’s voice was gruff; it was a tribute to his companion’s code of ethics. “Know anything about mining T" “Not a thing. But Fm to go to a law firm in Butte—and of course it’s only a formality, anyway. I’ll probably find it’s better than you ever claimed. But Rufe asked me.” "I see. Well —now about this other matter . . .” Armstrong was watching the westbound express as it felt its cautious way through Railroad avenue to the station. - T - - - “Yes?” Hilliard was suddenly ashamed of himself; he was forced to concede that his rival had the advantage of him in poifoci and altruism. He shook himself free of the savage resentment which was stealing upon him. « “We’re only human—both of us. Perhaps—under the circumstances — the best thing we can say is to say nothing . . . except that I wish you all the luck In the world. I don’t, pretend It isn’t a hard thing to say—4>ut Pm trying to mean It. And you certainly deserve it" “And to you,” said Armstrong cheerfully. “And no bad feelings on either aide, And I hope yous mine makes a million dollars for you.” “Thanks,” said Hilliard, grimly. “Fil seed it But don’t be afraid to send Rufus your honest opinion—will you?” “No—end Hl send It to you, too. That's only fair. . . . Td better be

starting.” They shook hands again across the “You're a good sport, Armstrong . . . don’t think Eve got any resentment left . . . except a bit that I can t quite swallow on short notice. . . . “I know. But you don’t need to worry, old man. Your future’s bright enough—as I hope to wire Rufus about Saturday.” Too late, Hilliard perceived that they were talking at cross-purposes— Armstrong was evidently thinking •bout the mine. But there was time only for a last gesture of farewell; and Armstrong had disappeared in the depths of the trainshed. Armstrong ..- . the victor, and the inquisit ioner . , , was on the road to Butte I Wort, hard wort, the panacea and the salvation of those who are sore distressed, even this cheapest relief was denied Hilliard. He was left alone with his problem, wrestling with it once more In the black darkness of despondency, and knowing neither a means of simplifying It nor a counMior to whom be could turn for aid. He conceded that there was only one thing for him to do, and he Intended to do it. but he was harassed because he had so much time to think about It Not since the first sickening shock of Hermon’* revelation had he doubted his own purpose; it was merely the machinery of it which perplexed him. Hl* confidence in himself gradually returned; he was abnormally calm and determined; he had no more idea of ywrfsting his impulses than he would have had. In Flanders, of disobeying his orders. The thing wa.s there to be done, and he, regardless of his own future, was there to do it. Overnight he had occupied himself with some elementary accounting. With Harmon’s check, his outstanding balance for expenses, and what money he could raise by selling his ’ runabout and a few personal possessions, he had on hand a matter of ninety-six hundred dollars; Syracuse | had entrusted him with sixty-two thon•and. To compromise pro rata with his creditors—this was apparently his only resource, and yet how insufficient £ a reparation it was I He knew that it | had been his duty to investigate the Montana property before he began to exploit ft; he knew that his self-lntro-r duction to Syracuse had been blatantly inexcusable, and that not even the fact that he had been carried away by the drams of ft could «*er be excused. His Intricate fabric of deception, now that he Inspected It from this different viewpoint, was flimsy—shoddy. He could be traced—ls anyone cared to •pend the time, and W enety, g to spend it, for example. Of cow

there was always the refuge of flight, but in Flanders, men learn not to desert their posts, and Hilliard had learned that lesson among the first. Loyalty to the cause of fighting had grown automatic; flight was simply inconceivable to him. Yes. he could gather his resources and place them, together with himself, in the hands of his subscribers, and their vengeance would be twofold; once sot their loss out of pocket, once for the loss out of faith. He had deserved no leniency, and he expected none. But as for those who, without the financial entanglement, had respected him, and honored him, as for Carol Durant and Angela . . . Well, as for Carol, he was at least relieved of the terrific mental convulsion which would surely have fallen upon him if he had had reason to believe that she loved him. As it was, her shock at his‘'disaster would be tempered by Armstrong’s sane philosophy; at most, she would lose in Hilliard a friend of only a few months —a man she had wanted to retain as a friend, but —by her own admission —as that, and no more. This was a consolation . . . trifling and fragile, to be sure, but something saved out of the wreck. As to Armstrong—Hilliard, marveling somewhat at his own tolerance, wished him joy. Armstrong was fine and clean and manly; he had well merited his victory. As to Mr. Cullen —Hilliard was torn with regret, but after all, Cullen’s gullibility was what had made the campaign so childishly simple. As to Angela . ; . who had really loved him . . •*

“Oh. the poor little kid L’tsaidHU-. Hard softly. “The poor little kid. J \ — —-—. —— ——— : And perhaps he had never loved Carol Durant so much as when, at ten o’clock that sunny morning, he went up the steps of Angela’s house to destroy a little girl’s regard for him before It could be destroyed by others. On the doorstep, he found strength in the memory of poor Pierre Dutout. In a way, Hilliard felt that he, too, was giving up his life as Dutouthad given bls, . .' . with a smile for the fate, and a blessing for the future. Because he was afraid, unnervedly afraid, that Angela, after all, was in love witir him —and when he put a stop to that, it was the beginning of the end.

CHAPTER XII As he crossed the threshold of the long, overdecorated drawing-room, h? knew intuitively that he had blundered upon a climax. This he sensed from the attitude of the three who turned toward him as he entered — sensed it before he saw what was in their eyes. . . . The atmosphere was vibrant, as though from sound waves which had passed beyond, and yet left traces df the swell behind them. The room was silent; but of a silence more confounding than a deafening turmoil. _ was himself the center of this atmosphere; he felt it partly because his mood was s<f flexible and partly because the three who faced him had simultaneously thrown their fixed attention on him, thrown it directly and challenglngly. Including him in the finale of the climax, while they stood motionless as statues. He looked at Waring, whose expression was defensively acute; he looked at Angela, flushed, palpitant, and ; he looked at Mr. Cullen, tight-lipped and frowning; and Hilliard caught his breath, as a swimmer who launches himself to a high dive, and walked composedly Into the drawing-room. “I hope,” he said gravely, ‘Tm not Intruding. Am I?" The trio was galvanized into action; Cullen fairly leaped at him. “Hilliard 1" he said, “thank the Lord I You’re the very man we want!” Hilliard smiled straight into Cullen’s eyes.

“That’s why Em here,” he said. Waring laughed loudly—too loudly; and the laugh stopped short, for Cullen was towering over him —Cullen blazing with indignant wrath, and with a hand resting on Hilliard’s shoulder. “Now go on,” said Cullen commandingly. “We don’t want any underhanded work around here. Rufus. Eve told you that once already. Go on! say ft to his face! You’re conversational enough behind his back' —say it to his face! Either you tell him or I willl" The boy wiped his forehead. Beads of sweat stood out on it. ' “Mr. Oullen . j . it isn’t ... it isn’t fair ...” “Fair!” Angela’s soppmo had risen to a half-scream. “Rufe Waring, after what you’ve been saying, you talk about being fair! Why if you— n “Hush! Angela I” Her father’s ad- | 1 monition was peremptory enough to I quell her instantly. He wheeled back I 1 to Waring. "We’re going to get at the 1

bottom of this sooner or later —and the sooner the better. I’m waiting for you to repeat what you Just told us, Rufua.” « There were tears of anger ’in the law student's eyes—of anger and of Impotence. He gave Angela a look of ■uperb disdain, shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that settles that!” he, said, and as Angela gave a gasp of understanding, and turned angrily white, he laughed metallically. Cullen moved nearer to him. “Are you going to speak up or not? Because if you aren't . . ." Waring folded his jyms;but he still failed of the pose he planned, because his eyes and his muscles were traitor to hhn. “No, I'm not! Not until I'm ready to! I’m not afraid of the whole crowd of you! I’m not going to be bullied and bulldozed into —” He attempted to brush past Cullen, the older man caught him by the arm. “Take your hands off me!” “You stay where you are!” stormed Cullen. “Until you can—” “If you lay your hands on me once more, Mr. Cullen, I’ll . . . don't you forget I know what this means! I’ll have you—” “Oh. your law!” Cullen snorted it contemptuously. “For God’s sake, don’t snivel about It . . . stand up and take It like a man, if you’ve got any manhood in you! For a law student you’re . . . well, don’t try to run away from it, then. . . . Are you going to tell him, or am I?” The answer was delayed; Cullen swung around to Hilliard. “Then I’ll tel! you myself. Know what this boy’s been saying about you? Coming up to us when you’re not here, and trying to knife you when you’re not looking?” Hilliard, who had been standing paralyzed, found voice. “Why, I can guess,” he said, curiously calm. “And don’t be harsh with him, Mr. Cullen. As a matter of fact—” Angela had sprung between them; Hilliard saw that her cheeks were tearstained. “It’s nothing but jealousy!” she cried vehemently. “He’s said horrible things about you! He’s always saying things about you ! He said —" “Angela!” Cullen almost fairly shouted It. “I tell you, this is my house, and I won’t have any more of this Infernal nonsense in it!. Hear me? I’ve had all the nonsense Fm going to stand from anybody! Rufus, you stay right there! Angela, you

keep quiet!” He turned to Hilliard. -“Tf-ynfdcome fn a half minute sooner, you’d have heard this young whip-per-snapper trying to make you out a swindler! Trying to class you with fake promoters and mining sharks! look at him! Look at him! I want to. that’s what he did! You! And tell you, Hilliard, it’ll take more than his say-so to start anything around here! Don’t you open your mouth, Rufus . . . you had your chance and you wouldn’t take it! And I want to tell you right here and right now—” “Walt a minute.” Hilliard was deadly quiet; the only quiet member of the quartette.— “There’s no use in telling all the neighbors just yet.” He regarded Waring kindly. “Do you mind repeating precisely what you did say, Rufus? Don’t you think I’m entitled to that much?” The boy flushed agonlzedly; he was the accuser, and yet he couldn’t meet Hilliard’s eyes. It wasn’t guilt; it was mere Intellectual Inferiority; and yet It gave exactly the opposite impression. ’•Well,” he said desperately, “I know hearsay evidence is no good, so I got it first hand—in your own room in the Onondaga, didn’t I? You won’t deny that, will you? I didn’t jpst pick up rumors —I got it from you. Didn’t I

go there and ask you questions, and didn’t you give me the data? Show me figures and everything? And I told Mr. Cullen the very next day, it didn’t look good to me.” His voice rose Stridently. “All right. Ell say to him, and TU say it to you, and Ell say it to anybody that’ll listen to me! It didn’t look good to me then, and it doesn’t now. I told him you acted darned funny about it And Just now Eve been telling him I don’t believe it’s straight You’re too blamed'sketchy about it and it’s got all the earmarks of a'bum promotion! There . . . Cullen!” The omission of the prefix to the father of his idol was the worst insult he could conceive. „ ~ Oullen’s hand was still on Hilliard's / •

■boulder and It was Hilliard whom he addressed, explosively, and with that particular sort of muffled fury which rises best from a set of circumstances not thoroughly understood. “What this Is all about is-teyond me! Only, if this law minnow has gone as far as this . . . We’ve got to get at the bottom of It . . . You know that as well as I do, Hilliard, naturally. The boy’s as wild as a hawk. Heaven knows how far he’d go outside. This has got to be cleared up! We’ve got to pound some sense into him. We—" - Hilliard was smiling vacuously; now that the blow had actually fallen, and the complaint officially lodged, he felt deliciously relaxed, content. Before he could contrive a reply Waring was strident apaln. / “Yes." The student’s voice was thin with acerbity. “Yes, you think you’re pretty smart —all of you. Don’t you? I come in here to do yon a kindness that anybody else, it seems to ipe would take as a favop, and you and Angela jump all over me—why. doesn’t he deny it? That’s what I want to know! Why doesn’t he say something?” Cullen looked at Hilliard and made a swift deduction, and spoke it. “He’s waiting for the rest of it. Go on—you’re only half through the yarn you told us.” \ “Oh. very well.” Waring gathered courage. “You can have all you want —maybe more than you want. You’d have had it sooner if you hadn’t started yelling at me. I know what I’m talking about; you people don’t seem to realize I’m in the law! I don’t go off half-cocked. I wrote to a law firm In Butte, Montana, that’s what I did. I found out what was the biggest firm there, and I wrote ’em a letter. They answered it, too. I got my information right from the ground. I’ve got a letter that says—” Cullen swayed forward, his hand outstretched, palm-upward, in a direct challenge of Waring’s truthfulness. “Where is it?” The boy withdrew a step and stammered: “I left it home.”

“Oh, you did!” Cullen’s laugh was stinging. “That’s likely!” “Yes, that’s exactly what I did! Think I’d bring an original letter out of my office —let it out of my hands until it’s time k to make it of record? Not on your life! I’ve got it all right. It says the Silverbow Mining corporation owns some acreage, fast enough, but there isn’t a mine on it —” Cullen vented his abandon of rage on . the empty air, —— “Well, who in the devil ever said there was?” “Why . . . didn’t you?” The appeal was to Hilliard; and it was made in a tone of astonishnlent which would have been ludicrous If there hadn’t been tragedy behind it. “No.” Hilliard shook his head. “You can’t accuse me of that, at least. . . . The only mine we ever mentioned was one in prospect. I always said it was a prospect, with an old shaft on it it, didn’t I? And so it is! But an old shaft isn’t a producing mine, necessarily,And—please let him finish, Mr. Cullen !” “We 11... The boy had twin disks of hectic flame in his cheeks. “That’s only a detail, anyway . . . they said it was . . . undeveloped . . . they said the shaft had been abandoned more than two years ago, because it wasn’t worth much of anything—” Cullen’s hands were closing and unclosing apoplectically. “For Heaven’s sake, who ever said it'wasn’t! two years ago! We all know that! Give us some news young man, give us some news!” Waring was breathing hard, and his interest had switched to Angela, who stood adamant. Indeed, he was suddenly transformed to the status of a suppliant rather than that of a prosecuting witness.

' “Well . . . they said it was offered . . . two years ago ... to anybody who’d take it . . . for ten thousand dollars . . . and nobody'dtake it as a gift . . “Oh, good Lord!” Cullen was near to bursting. “Doesn’t the fool know what a prospect is? Hasn’t he seen the reports? And still he —” “And . . . and the land next to it was . . . had a mine on it, the XLNC mine, that’s in pretty fair shape, but that didn’t signify anything. . . .” He paused for a moment. “And there hasn’t been any work done on it, to speak of, for two years. . . . And the corporation report I got shows that a fellow named Martin Harmon’s the president of it, and Harmon’s a cheap Wall street man in New York. The Butte people don’t consider him reliable. And Fve written to him four times —and he won’t answer.” “Ah !” said Hilliard, startled. “Well?" Cullen repeated his challenge. “That’s all." He gazed beseechingly at Angela, who sniffed and turned her head away. “All!” Cullen breathed stertorbusly. “And with a flimsy lot of rot-like that you’ve got the unmitigated gall to start a slanderous story like this about Henry Hilliard! You’ve got the nerve to — “The astonishing part of it,” interposed Hilliard, with coolness astonished even himself, “is that every single item of it is true! Don’t blame him, Mr. Cullen. It’s true—every word.” « Cullen shook himself.” “Of course it’s true! Isn’t it what you’ve told us yourself, in a different way! It’s the telling of it that counts!” “Now listen to me a moment!” Hilliard was impassively serious: the way to the denouement was opening dear before him. He need only offer himself for Judgment, and the future would take care of itself. “My purpose

in coming up here this afternoon wan to talk to you about this same property, Mr. Cullen. I ... I had some rather Important things to tell you about it. But in view of this new atr titude of Waring’s, Pm going to act differently. This won’t stop here, and I prefer to have somebody look Into it before it’s any worse. I’m going to put myself in your hands. Rufus and Angela, I want you both to witness this. . . . Mr. CuHen, I’m going to give you a check for eight thousand dollars; it’s my whole balance at the Trust and Deposit company, less what I’ll need to live on for a few days. Pm going to turn over to you twenty thousand shares In the Sflvearbow Mining corporation to keep for me—it’s my own personal holding. Fm going to turn over to you my contrdPt with the mining corporation, which calls for the delivery of all the rest of the corporate stock on payment of a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, of which we’ve already paid sixty-two. Til give you the corporation’s receipt to me for that amount And I give you my word

of honor not to step foot outside of the city of Syracuse, nor to be for one single hour out of your reach untili you’ve investigated the whole proposl-' tion from beginning to end. I Insist that you make that investigation. That’s on condition that Rufus won’t mention this again, either here or anyVhere else, until he’s collected the facts L And I’ll tell you right now Rufus has given you the truth!” “My dear man!” Cullen’s tone was conciliating. “We know all that! We’ve gone into this with our eyes open. We’re not buying a productive mine; we’re buying a good prospect.” “Since I saw you last,” Hilliard’s voice broke, “I’ve reason to fear that it Isn’t as good as we hoped.” “There!” Waring was jubilant “Listen to that now! What did I tell you?”

“We went into it with our eyes open,” said Cullen, after a pause. “You told us from the very first it wasn’t an absolute certainty —good Lord, what business proposition ever is? Besides —” He sent a flash of scorn to Waring. “I don’t care who knows where I stand on this deal or any other. I don’t buy properties; I back men. Fm banking on you, Hilliard. I’m putting my money back of you. I’m counting on you to make good—if that Montana thing falls down cold, I know you’d make it right with me—if Td let you. But 1 wouldn’t When I’m sold, Tm sold for keeps, and I’m sold on you. Tm taking the risk Just as you are. So . . .” “Thank you.” Hilliard’s appreciation was' in the nature of a stiff bow. ■Tm afraid you’re exaggerating a little, though. . . ." “Not one syllable!”

Hilliard was patently grateful. “At any rate, Fm going to do as I said . . . you’ll keep those things as a favor to me, won’t you? As security, or evidence of good faith, ’or whatever you want to call it?” “Nonsense! For a flare-up like this? Ridiculous!” “But I insist,” said Hilliard. “And I want you to make an investigation—a thorough one.” He smiled grimly* Dicky Morgan was safe fprever. “I know in advance what you’ll find.” “So do I. Oh, well, I know how you feel. If you want to be whitewashed, I suppose Fil have to act as a sort of trustee for you—it’s tommyrot, but if you want it, I won’t refuse. Send me the stuff and I’ll put it away for yon where it’ll be safe; And Rufus here —” Theyturned together to the law who was defiantly abject “Rufus, we’re going to give you every chance in the world to back up what: you’ve said, but if you can’t —” He paused significantly. “You let me do the investigating,” said Waring doggedly. “Til get at th* foundation for you.” “Do it and welcome!” This front Hilliard.. “I’ll take Armstrong’s report if you will—or you can go Just as much further as you like.” • ’; . J Cullen had detected Waring’s start of astonishment and chagrin, and* his interest quickened at the by-play. “What's Jack Armstrong got to d* with itT’ ■ ’ (TOBE CONTINUED.*

“It's Nothing but Jealousy! He’s Said Horrible Things About You!”

“It’s True—Every Word."