Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 214, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1920 — Page 2

PyThe Century Co

-YOU’RE MAKING GOOD!"

Synopsis. ~ John Irvington, a poet, visionary and Unpractical, and Mary Martin, th® daughter of rich and worldly parents, hear the call of love and unite their lives. They go to a small Michigan city, where John finds work tn a stove factory and on Sundays writes verses. The Martins try in vain to get the happy wife to leave her husband. Mary begins to breathe for two. John loses his Job. He appeals In vain to the Martins. Mary goes to the hospital and never returns. Thus comes into the story Cornelius Irvington. The father leaves town and the city farms out the child. After two years the father returns and takes his little son with him on his worldwanderings. The father becomes the slave of a mysterious drug, koresh, with odors of wine and cinnamon, and returns with little Con to die on his wife's grave. Con is again farmed- out, grows up in the underworld and is saved for better things by Andrew March. So much by way of Introduction to the hero of the strange adventures of “Yellow Men Sleep.” These begin when Con takes by force a small leather sack from Chee Ming, the Chinese cook of an acquaintance. This sack contains a Chinese map of the Gobi desert, which is precious beyond price to Andrew March. Eighteen years before armed men in Gobi had taken March’s Wife ad# infant. daughter from him. NoMr he sends Con in search of them. On the voyage Con finds Chee Ming a fellow passenge'r. Chee Ming drugs Con and steals his map, but Con presses on toward Shan-sung. _

CHAPTER IV.—Continued. Coarse food, winter aft, and the long hours of camel-swaying had darkened Con’s cheeks. His mlttened hands helped with the wood-gathering at camp-time, or chopped the ice for teawater. but the men of the varavan regarded him as a stranger, if they noticed him at all. Friendliness was winter-bound. The Kalka partner alone made speech. Levington kept his feelings to himself, and set his teeth. He was lean as a Tartar, and constantly on the verge of a fever. Snow rose to the camels’ knees, and then, in the third week of travel, thawed generally over North China. The going was slow and monotonous. Here was said to be grazing country, but obviously the herdsmen had never prospered with their skinny flocks. At Sin-chen, through a welter of stained snow, the rear of the caravan, three parties, turned southward, heavy with rice and salt that grew more precious at each day’s, end. They were carrying on to the province of Origu, seat of wretchedness. Now at Sin-chen another party was waiting for the only remaining group with Con to join them. These two outfits, with that of the white man, continued over a northerly road, and the mud was a drag at every camel’s foot. “You take saints?” finally inquired the Kalka. He wanted to know whether or not Levington was a Christian missionary tto far Shan-sung. “No.” Con shook his head. Half an hour later, the Kalka retsumed: “You sell —no?” “Nothing to sell.” answered the ■white man. Here their talk ended for that day. Late in February the wind changed, and the snows were ended. The mud dried and lifted in dust Con realized 'that to-morrow morning his companions. the two outfits of gun-traders, would go oh northward, to find their customers !n\ those choking hills, but that he would not be with them. The Knika warned him a last time, being now quite fluent with “No good.” At daylight it became clear that both outfits considered him a fool. With his one servant. Con remained behind, ji nd not an arm was raised In farewell, ■not a face turned* toward the white madman. When their dust had blown away in the west wind and their little line was reduced by distance to a mere crawling thing along the edge of hills, Levington turned, to find his driver weeping. “Did you .want to go along?” The servant moAed, and hid his face. Cold weather made it appear that the clouds of heaven avoided this part of the world. The sky was always pale. Levington gambled on his final instructions. Twenty times his fingers stole into the bag to touch the torn edges of his packet, and withdrew Andrew March had him He had five pack-animals, and two saddled. There was grain to last until Koriku. which was a village in these yellow hills, a trading-point of olden days. Somewhere, at a distance beyond Koriku. westward and to the north lay Shan-sung. ft was necessary to be crisp to his dufflemaster. Tilts Celestial son of fifty bad never dreamed that the world wmrinned so far west He was awed at the reek underfoot, and the sand that swooped skyward, noting with fiafraw* fear how the soil thinned and «UM£ to yeUow chalk as the hours

bellow Men Sleep

By Jeremy Lane

Tllurirai®<L hy InnbiNyeMr

passed. It was the beginning of the jiand desert, unhallowed Sha Mo. They came to a thin, fast river, and followed its banks, to find a solid fording. Unwittingly they reached the end of the stream, for it pitched downward Into the earth, swallowed up dry with metallic gurgling. The rock was cold everywhere around. Con stood at the base of these rushing waters, watching them plunge into the pit nt his feet, and a sudden emotion flitted over him. It was sea lightly touching. He strove to think of sane and ordinary things, it away, while his driver crept back to the beasts. But he was afraid. In Koriku were two fresh dromedaries, which Levington purchased, along with provision for man and beast, and a carbine for better luck. He was impatient to reach Shan-sung. He was not sure how-long he could hold out, for the condition of his body kept him from gaining strength. It was a slight matter, he told himself, compared to the possibility that Chee Ming had written into Shan-sung ahead of him, and passed on. a grave necessity for an interview with that Chinese, if only for a moment. There would need be a quicker hand than his own, If Chee Ming were to go on without him. A land that flattened Into emptiness, dun and gray, with vacant sky. permitted settlement named Shansung to exist upon, its dry bosom. In a past age an Independent state, it was now a lordless and unwalled hundred of human beings, whose emaciated progency moved solemnly in play with the starving days. Days were hot, and nights cold, and the air a sucking invisible thing that blotted the moisture from one’s bones. Levington was stiff. His camels straggled in from their own particular direction, since there was no street or path by which to -enter the “state.” Many houses had long ago crumbled down into so much gray rubbish, but there was a score of huts made habitable

He Read This Final Instruction Again and Again.

by mud-patches and reeds from the water-hole, which was a spring of sulphltic ooze in the center of the village. Dust had wiped out every color. Sand flew in the air, but the wind was steady and silent The seven women who emerged from their dwellings to look upon Levington, were wasted of body and blank of face. It wAs distressing to remember that once, about eighteen years ago, Andrew March had traveled Into this borderland with his Eithna, and that in some such unholy quartets off to the southwest her child had been born. These Mongoloid youngsters did not seem human. They stared at him without uttering a sound, and flung mud. Con felt no triumph in his arrivaL No traveler had passed this way for sixteen moons. Levington spent the afternoon in learning this fag-end of information. The last had gone the other way, eastward, probably Chee Ming on his way to America, but by no possible combination of sound and sign could Con make sure of this. Eagerly, now, he opened the envelop given him In the March house. He never knew how much pure fiber he had gained by his difficult honesty in this matter- The documdtat was: “You have passed all the places in which the truth might have burdened you, and. as the prime uncertainties are just ahead, you will burn this as soon as you have read. “You share a federal commission with me. and our country does not lightly choose her agents. “Chee Ming brought large quantities of the drug koresh to San Francisco

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

and sold ft He ta to be traced, and your findings reported, so that our chief can make Arrangements to check this evil at its source. He can do very little until you have something definite :o report its actual starting-point etch, and that means the starting-point of Chee Ming. Upon your success will rest the honor of ridding the world of a deep gray curse. I wish you Godspeed. “A. M.” Levington knew that his hands were trembling. He read this final instruction again and again, until every phrase was unforgetable. Much of his friend came to him from the page, the world-wide significance of his errand in this treacherous land. Con was humble before the trust of Great America. He burned to do well. The matter of koresh. the deep gray curse, was not at all clear to him. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that he knew the stuff. Afternoon was frightful with dust and sun-glare. Night came cold, yet not .in the nature of a relief. Con drank a bowl of brownish goat’s milk, and cracked like a chip between his teeth a native biscuit. He brushed the ashes from his Ups, .and found himself staring at nothing, while the meaning of his mission grew larger within him. Something had come at last to steady him. The under-world had always trusted him —something not granted to many—but now he was honored by the government. Authority believed in him, tested him, and sent him to unravel a poisonous web. He recalled certain things he had told Andrew March, almost amounting to confessions. Now that he knew his friend to be a federal officer, he wondered what March must have thought of those recountings. It made Con smile. He was more keenly aware now of the intimate ways in which the elder man had studied him before trying him in the present task. He planned to wait a week. If need be. In the hope that Chee Ming would come. He speculated that the Chinese had probably returned to Tien-tsin to regain his troublesome trunks, so accounting for delay in reaching Shansung. If the week passed and brought no traveler, Levington meant to enter the Gobi without a map. Having given orders that his servant should have the day to himself, he turned over and napped again. For the remainder of the day there were pleasant matter, to think over, until he discovered that his “boy” had gone, taking the two fresh beasts. Doubtless with the aid of the villagers, the old devil had fled back eastward, away from the devils of the unknown. The fact that the village was against him did not depress Levington, as it must formerly have done. Now he had to sustain him the assurance of his own country that he had been chosen, that men of power trusted him. The second day he found himself quite generally ignored in the stony ghost of a city, although the old woman and her two sons continued to accept his silver for food and a roof - Late in the-afternoon of the third day, when his patience was waning, a camel outfit appeared to eastward. It could not be his- prodigal driver. Con went forth to show himself. He was done with subterfuge, and the village offered no concealment, had he wished to hide. There were half a dozen men in the approaching party, or, on a closer look, two men and their servants, all bobbing nearer on camels. Chee Ming was heading the outfit. He sat under a flapping sunshade. His dry face was unchanged, although his soul became a curse against the western youth who had persisted. He hated the steadiness of Levington’s eyes and the half-smile, remembering the brutality of his muscular equipment, but most of all he longed to blight the power and penetration of Con’s brain. Yet, so far as the countenance indicated, when he regarded his white enemy below him, Chee Ming might have, been in the act of serving coffee at Cecil Wedger’s elbow, instead of riding a shaggy beast in these outlands of Mongolia. But the master of the other outfit was a white man. Beneath a sloping Chinese straw hat. the face was gray and strong and touched with sadness. Con answered the greeting of Andrew March. ’ CHAPTER V On the Right Foot. It was impossible to guess what Chee Ming thought. If he had been holding any suspicion against thq white man who had ridden with him from the Yang-gun gate, it was now insured by March’s hand-clasp with Levington. “I’ve been waiting for our friend Ming, but I hardly expected to see you," said Con. “So I should judge,” replied March, smiling. “But why waiting?” “He was on the ship coming over," said Con. “He put me under with a blow-needle, and got my map. I beat him this far by two days, just to have a talk with him about it" “Ah, yes,” said March. “Or I figured I might ride on with him,” added Levington. “That was all right. But you will not need the map, and we can allow him to go his way alone. I did not expect to pick you up so soon.” There was a shadow over Levington, and the ‘elder man felt it quickly. He hastened to add: “Nothing wrong boy. Only I could not tell you that I should be just a few days behind you all the way. It was planned. It would be just plain murder to send one man alone, out into —that But we wanted you to think you were going alone. You’re all right I wanted you to lead out, to draw all the attention. Oh. I guess

you’ve learned by now that your travels are not so private m you’d like, perhaps.” Con was relieved. He smiled and offered bls hand again. “I never had a real job before. I like IL Thanks.” The old pride came into Andrew March’s eyes. But he merely said, in tiie businesslike tone of a United States Investigator. “You’re making good.” It appeared that March had arrived in Peking about fourteen hours after Levlngton’s departure by the Western gate. Con asked: “How did you find Chee Ming?” “I saw him In Tien-tsin, at the bag* gage rooms. lam sure he did not notice me, for I believe he never had a glimpse of me in America when I was shadowing him, but It’s never wise to be too sure of anything about a Chinese. I kept out of his sight until we had come as far as the Yang-gun gate, and there met him openly, like a stranger. It was natural to talk, after finding that he knew English. He told me he was a wool-merchant “I never gave you the details, but my acquaintance with Chee Ming really began one evening in Dory street several weeks before I met you in Cincinnati. You know the Dory street district in San Francisco. I had found that it was the distributing point for koresh. I managed to connect with-Chee Ming the night he received his money for all he had brought in, fresh from somewhere." “I am honored by your confidence,” said the younger man. “At one time my father and I lived on Dory street. “Then you know koresh.” “I can’t say that I do. I was very young then.” “There are twelve thousand recorded users of. it in the United States, and that is but a fraction of those who enter secretly the bliss and the agony of it.” Con felt again the Importance of his mission. But he occupied his hands in attending to the smaller personal luggage of his friend. “I’ve been staying in that. Will you come in?” He indicated a hut, and the sight of the low misshapen structure seemed to bring back to him the taste and smell of that tan-colored goat’s milk which they had given him there, in their mistaken idea of nourishment. Chee Ming and servants spread their camp just beyond the gropp of kennels, and there was no further communication between them and the white men. March made a desert veteran’s final preparations for a journey of many weeks. He included with the usual stores several hunches of dried meat, hard as bone; also leather sacks to go over the Lead when the hail of gravel in the wind should cut too keenly across their faces. At present he filled these bags with cheese. His weapons were of the finest, and this seemed odd to Levington, who knew his mild ways. Andrew March seemed changed, older, more stern, in these preparations. The dart that had drugged Levington on seaboard seemed to have struck an unhealed spot in March’s soul. This border-land held bitter memories. v His eyes had narrowed, as though he felt from a. distance the biting dust. He resisted the emotions that preyed upon him, and the only sign was an eagerness to be near Levington, to have Con talk to him. The old magnetism by which he held the younger man was unconsciously renewed, a vital current of more than friendship.

Next morning the two servants of Chee Ming were seen to ride eastward upon a single camel, taking leave of a master who needed them no further. At noon the Chinese, with pack-beasts in tow, set forth alone into the west. “He wants, us to follow him,” said March, “and if we did, all.the maps in the world wouldn’t help. Time enough for us this evening.” So when the western sky was spattered with flame, and long violet shadows stretched out upon the sands, Commissioner March and Commissioner Con Levington laid their course according to map, and proceeded into the sunset. The camels had taken their last long gurgle at the waterhole .in the village, trampling the rushes and all was well. The two drivers muttered, or held silence, with none of the usual talk. The broken city fell into the distance behind them, and the shadow of the camels extended out through the dust. The purple shafts melting into twilight, and the Sha Mo became an indefinite number of sandy knobs, still bright, seeming to rise up from the desert floor. Levington heard the story of the subtle drug, how it fired and gripped and soothed Its devotees, unlike opium or hashish or betel, and more difficult to trace than heroin of the “snowbirds.” Science had not thus far defined koresh. The trade often handled It unwittingly. Its effect was in part a drowsy joy, a pleasantly complete madness, a lasting devastation and curse. It was in form a bluish oil, to be rubbed on the eyelids and sensitive tissue. It rotted the veins and the heart.

Robbed and left to perish in the desert sands.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

That Left-Arm Swing.

“What’s the matter! Been in * fight?” “No. Asked a friend the time the other day and he hit me tn the eye when he swung out his left arm so that he could get' a look at his wrist watch."

Fall Modes as Seen in Paris

From Paris, the source of fashion Inspiration, there come at this season little talek filled with significance. They are pertinent signs, observes a Paris fashion correspondent, to be regarded with due attention and all seriousness if one would know the general fashion tendencies for the season to come. Now Is the psychological moment to think of gowns that will develop by the time cold weather sets in. The original scheme may be changed and juggled, but in that way It becomes perfected and one’s wardrobe, Instead of being d matter of chance, becomes

Evening gown showing manner in which lace is being used, Callot putting her own particular stamp upon the design. , ——

an individual achievement. That is the way to be really well dressed. The lessons to be learned from the French women in this respect are numerous. A French woman .regards primarily the lines of her own figure, the shape of her own head and the setup of her own personality. A certain line suits her figure. She looks upon that as a fixed point and around it revolves the building of the clothes of a new season. She does not see styles as things in themselves, she sees them only as possible adaptations to herself. And if she finds a new thing that fits in with her ideas of herself she bites at it like a trout at a fly. She never buys a gown solely because it Is beautiful. She never allows herself to stay out of the picture long enough to consider the dress as a separate entity, and, what is 'more, she accomplishes her end with cleverness and thought and usually with great artistic success. Importance of the Lines. The general lines are the first to be considered, and all signs point to certain changes in silhouette. For instance, the fullness over the hips is gradually declining. That seems to be a certainty, for all the reports from the English and French races say that the lines of the silhouette are straight and uncompromising. They - say the chemise dress is still in favor. For that fact many will give thanks, for this dress has come to be greatly loved. So much can be done with it In the way of variations. It is so vastly becoming to many figures and its possibilities of adaptation are too wonderful to be lightly cast aside. Proof of its desirability lies In the fact that it returns repeatedly to the fore ranks of fashion. There is a heated discussion going on about the ever-variable length of sleeves and skirts. Last year at this time our skirts in America very nearly touched the ground and clung about the feet. Now they have sprung sky high, and everybody—even those who swore they could not do It —is pleased as can be over the change. Will the short skirt stay with us for another season? French and English society women predicted that skirts would lengthen, but, as a matter of fact, they do not seem to be one whit longer. All the photographs which are being sent from the races show skirts that well nitfi touch Hie knees by way of length, for the French always have worn them much shorter than ours. American women, too, have become used to the more abbreviated skirt lengths, and common sense would lead one to suppose that the skirt would remain short for the coming season. However, the only fault in that heavy rerunning is that common sense does not always rule the ways of Cashion, and for the actual decision one will have to wait until the fall styles have

actually been • created and imported. All that can be said Is that skirts are still short. Not a long one has been seen upon the landscape. The Sleeve Lengths. Sleeve lengths are almost as important. In fact, just at this season they are really more important, for sleeves have taken on such a tendency to fluctuate that one scarcely knows what is right and what is wrong about themAnything goes as long as It is well done, and whether the long sleeve or the short sleeve or the three-quarter sleeve is the most fashionable is a fact that is hard to establish. Many of the latest Parisian reports tell of sleeves which are longer than they have been, but then, Parisian sleeves have always been extremely shortshorter, in fact, than most of ours. They ate showing and wearing sleeves of three-quarter length and sleeves that end below the elbow, having there a wide arid flowing opening. There are some very chic new things, too,That show lofig and tightly fitting sleeves clasping snugly over the hands. They look beautiful, after so great a quantity of abbreviation an has been our portion during the last couple of years. But here, as with the skirts, there is no telling what will be the wild popularity after the fall openings have actually been held and gfter the winter modes have' been Only, a change is, due, and just how iiwflWcome or what form It will take is hard to foretell exactly. At present any length of sleeve is a good length, and there is ample opportunity to adapt the length and the shape of the sleeve to the proportions of the individual arm and figure. In playing with the lengths and the general tightness much that is beautiful can be and has been accomplished this last season. Also much that is execrable has been allowed to live because not enough conscientious thought and attention has been applied to the problem in hand. Plaits have had a wonderful run of popularity, but upon many of the new models plaits . are seen revived in many ways. * Evening Gowns in Paris. The between-season evening gown's that are being created in Paris, mostly for the Parisian trade, are extremely simple In outline. Many of them, a report says, are made of heavy crepes in solid colors. The skirts are draped and the bodices are made quite simply, with little or no sleeves about them. Since lace is so extremely popular one finds additions of lace on othefwlse quite simple frocks —as an edging for an underskirt (this is an extremely good fashion) or as a trifling addition to a bodice. The whole lace gown is certainly popular. It is seen, everywhere, and every day the leading designers are adding new lace frocks to their collections. At the fashionable evening gatherings in Paris many lace frocks are seen, many

Between-season creation by Cheruit, illustrating afternoon gown of orange crepe de chine, with embroidery In Silver threads.

of them being of black chantilly draped over cream-colored satin. One lace frock was made in chemise fashion and had a train square in shape set on at the shoulders and allowed te sweep over the fldor after the gown, which was quite short as to Skirt. Thio was of black lace over white, and ths train was also built from the lace laid over the satin. 4

Braid on Two Sides.

Braid appears la bolero suits, but used in a very novel fashion, betaf* arranged on the two aMea,