Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1918 — The Real Man [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Real Man

By Francis Lynde

CofayriqhT Ckasocribnerd Sent

IHusiraiionS by OlrwinMtjerA

SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I--J. Montague Smith, Lawrenceville bank cashier and society man, receives two letters. One warns him that a note which he has O. K.’d with consent Of Watrous Dunham, the bank’s president, is worthless. The other is a rumtnons from Dunham. He breaks an appointment with Vera Richlander, daughter of the local millionaire, and meets Dunham alone at night in the bank. CHAPTER n—Dunham threatens Smith with the police. Smith becomes aggressive. Dunham draws a pistol and is floored by a blow that apparently kills him. Smith escapes on an outgoing frslgnt train. CHAPTER TH—Near Brewster, Colo., Dexter Baldwin, president of the Tlmanyonl Ditch company, gets Smith an office job at the big dam the company is building. CHAPTER IV—Williams, chief engineer, finds the hobo Smith used to money In big chunks and to making it work. The company is fighting concealed opposition and is near ruin. Smith is jokingly suggested as a financial doctor. CHAPTER V—Williams talks business to Smith, who will tell nothing of his past. Smith pushes a stalled auto away from an oncoming train and saves the colonel's daughter Corona. CHAPTER Vl—While Corona looks on be drives off three bogus mining right claimants from the company’s land. CHAPTER Vll—The colonel takes Smith to his home and persuades him, in spite of Smith’s warning, to undertake the financial salvation of the company. CHAPTER Vlll—Crawford Stanton, tilred by eastern interests to kill oft the ditch company, sets his spies to work to And out who Smith is. v CHAPTER IX—Smith reorganizes the company and gets a loan from Kinzie, the local banker. CHAPTER X—ln the midst of a ••mira-cle-working” campaign Corona asks Amlth alarming questions. He reads that Dunham, still living, has doubled the refward for his capture. CHAPTER Xl—Smith gets encouragement in his fight from Corona, but realizes that he must stay away from her. Vera Richlander and her father come to Brewster. CHAPTER Xll—Smith tells Corona of bis danger. He hears the Richlanders have gone up to the mines. He hires a new stenographer, Shaw, who is a spy 4f Stanton’s. CHAPTER XIII—He meets Vera, who ■has not gone away with her father. She .exacts almost constant attendance from him as the price of her silence. CHAPTER XlV—Stanton and his wife fall to learn about Smith from Vera. ’Stanton makes some night visits and is v trailed. CHAPTER XV—Smith tells Starbuck Of the time limit on the dam. Starbuck cautionw him about Vera and tells him of a Dlot to kill him or blow up the dam. They* catch Shaw listening, but he escapes. CHAPTER XVl—Rumors that the dam i. unsafe cause a stock-selling panic. Smith tells the colonel of his entanglement with Vera and the colonel wants to Set her talk if she wants to. She tells Smith that Tucker Jibbey, another suitor, knows Smith, is doming to visits her. CHAPTER XVII—An abandoned railroad right-of-way is claimed across the dam. and Smith prepares for actual fighting. He buys options on all offered stock and stops the panic. CHAPTER XVIII—He tells Corona he -has locked up Jibbey in an old mine until the fight is over. She calls him a coward. CHAPTER XIX—He releases Jibbey, and after that rescues him from drowning. CHAPTER XX—Smith tells Starbuck of Stanton’s probable moves to get United States court interference.

CHAPTER XXII. , Witnesses. Driven by Starbuck in the brandpew car, Smith reached the dam at half-past ten and was in time to see the swarming carpenters begin the placing of forms tor the pouring of the final section of the great wall. Though the high water waft lafping at the foot timbers of the forming, and the weather reports were still portentous, Williams was In fine fettle. There had been no further interferences on the part of the railroad people, every man on the job was spurting for the finish, and the successful end was now fairly in sight. “We’ll be pouring this afternoon,” he told Smith, “and with a twenty-four-hour set for the concrete, and the forms left in place for additional security, we can shut the spillway gates and back the water into the main ditch. Instead of being a hindrance, then, the flood-tide will help. Under slack-water conditions, it would take a day or two to finish filling the reservoir lake, but now w r e’ll get the few feet rise needed to fill the sluices almost while you wait.” “You have your guards out, as we planned?” Smith inquired. “Twenty of the best men I could find. They are patrolling on both sides of the river, with Instructions to report if they see so much as a rabbit jump up.” » “Good. Tm going to let Starbuck drive me around the lake limits to see to it personally that your pickets are on the job. But, first, I’d like to use your phone for a minute or two,” and with that Smith shut himself’ up in the small field office and called Martin, the bookkeeper, at the town headquarters. The result of the brief talk with Martin seemed satisfactory, for when It was concluded, Smith rang off and asked for the Hophra House. Being riven the hotel exchange, he called thenumber of Miss Richlander’s suite, and the answer came promptly in her fulL throaty voice: ’

“Is that you, Montague?” “Yes. I’m out at the dam. Nothing has been done yet. No telegraphing, I mean. You understand?” “Perfectly. But something is going to be done. Mr. K. has had Colonel B. with him in the bank. I saw the colonel go in while I was at breakfast. When are you coming back to town?” “Not for some time; I have a drive to make that will keep me out until afternoon.” “Very well; you’d better stay away as long as you can, and then you’d better communicate with me before you show yourself much in public. I’ll have Jibbey looking out for you.” Smith said “good-by” and hung up the receiver with a fresh twinge of dissatisfaction. Every step made his dependence upon Vera Richlander more complete. Corona Baldwin: what would she say to this newest alliance? Would she not say again, and this time with greater truth, that he was a coward of the basest sort; of the type that makes no scruple of hiding behind a woman’s skirts? Between the noon-hour and the one-o’clock Hophra House luncheon, Mr. David Kinzie, still halting between two opinions, left his desk and the bank and crossed the street to the hotel. He wrote his name on a card and let the clerk send it up. The boy came back almost immediately with word that Miss Richlander was waiting in the mezzanine parlors. The banker tipped the call-boy and went up alone. He had seen Miss Richlander, once when she was driving with Smith and again at the theater in the same company. So he knew what to expect when he tramped heavily into the parlor overlooking the street? None the less, the dazzling beauty of the young woman who rose to shake hands with him and call him by name rather took him off his feet. David Kinzie was a hopeless bachelor, from choice, but there are women, and women. “Do you know, Mr. Kinzie, I have been expecting you all day,” she said sweetly, making him sit down beside her on one of the flaming red monstrosities billed in the hotel inventories as “Louis Quinze sofas.” “My father sent me a note by one of your young men, and he said that perhaps you would—that perhaps you might want to —” Her rich voice was at its fruitiest, and the hesitation was of exactly the proper shade. Kinzie, cold-blooded as a fish with despondent debtors, felt himself sud-

denly warmed and moved to be gentle with this gracious young woman. “Er —yes, Miss Richlander —er —a disagreeable duty, you know. I wanted to ask about this young man, Smith. We don’t know him very well here in Brewster, and as he has considerable business dealings with the bank, we—that is, I thought your father might be able to tell us something about his standing in his home town.” “And my father did tell you?” “Well —yes; he —er —he says Smith Is a—a grand rascal; a fugitive from justice; and we thought—” David Kinzie, well hardened in all the processes of dealing with men, was making difficult weather of it with this all-too-beautiful young woman. Miss Richlander’s laugh was well restrained. She seemed to be struggling earnestly to make it appear so. “You business gentlemen are so funny I” she commented. “You know, of course, Mr. Kinzie, that this Mr. Smith and I are old friends; you’ve probably seen us together enough to be sure of that. Hasn’t it occurred to you that however well I might know the Mr. Smith my father has written you about, I should hardly care to be seen in public with him?” “Tfaen thpre are two of thenrt” Kinzie demanded. # The young woman was laughing again. “Wottld that be so very wonderful? —with so many Smiths in the world?”

“But —er —the middle name, Miss Richlander: that isn’t so infern —so very common, I’m sure.” “It is rather remarkable, isn’t it? But there are a good many Montagues in our part of the world, too. The man my father wjote you about always signed himself ‘J. Montague,’ as if he were a little ashamed of the ‘John.’” “Then this Brewster Smith isn’t the one who is wanted in Lawrenceville for embezzlement and attempted murder?” “Excuse me,” said the beauty, with another very palpable attempt to smother her amusement. “If you could only know this other Smith. J. Montague, as I remember him, was a typical society man—the kind of man who wears dress clothes even when he dines alone, and who wouldn’t let his beard grow overnight for a king’s ransom. But wait a moment. There is a young gentleman here who came last evening direct from Lawrenceville. Let me send for him.” She rose and pressed the bell push, and when the floor boy came, he was sent to the lobby to page Jibbey. During the little wait, David Kinzie was skillfully made to talk about other things. Jibbey was easily found, as it appeared, and he came at once. Miss Richlander did the honors graciously. “Mr. Kinzie, this is Mr. Tucker Jibbey, the son of one of our Lawrenceville bankers. Tucker —Mr. Kinzie; the president of the Brewster City National.” Then, before Kinzie could begin : “Tucker, I’ve sent for you in self-defense. You know both Mr. John Smith, at present of Brewster, and also J. Montague Smith, sometime of Lawrenceville and now of goodness only knows where. Mr. Kinzie is make out that they are one and the same.” Jibbey laughed broadly. He stood in no awe of banks, bankers, or stubbly mustaches. “I’ll tell John, when I see him again—and take a chance on being able to run faster than he can,” he chuckled. “Ripping good joke!” “Then you know both men?” said Kinzie, glancing at his watch and rising. “Like a book. They’re no more alike than black and white. Our man here is from Cincinnati; Isn’t that where you met him, Verda? I recollect you didn’t like him at first, because he wore a beard. They told me, the last time I was over in Cinci, that he’d gone West somewhere, but they say where. He was the first man I met when I lit down here. Little world, Isn’t it, Mr. Kinzie?” David Kinzie was backing away, watch in hand. Business was very pressing, he said, and he must get back to his desk. He was very much obliged to Miss Richlander, and was only sorry that he had troubled her. When her father should- return to Brewster he would be glad to meet him, and so on and so on, to and beyond the portieres which finally blotted him out, for the two who were left in the Louis Quinze parlor. “Is that about what you wanted me to say?” queried Jlbbey, when the click of the elevator door latch told them that Mr. Kinzie was descending. “Tucker, there are times when you are almost lovable,” said the beauty softly, with a hand on Jibbey’s shoulder. -

“I’m glad it’s what you wanted, because it’s what I was going to say, anyway,” returned the ne’er-do-weel soberly, thus showing that he, too, had not yet outlived the Influence of the overnight hand-grip. Since Brewster was a full-fledged city, its banks closed at three o’clock. Ten minutes after the hour, which happened also to be about the same length of time after Starbuck and Smith had reached town, Mr. Crawford Stanton got himself admitted by the janitor at the side door of the Brewster City National. President Kinzie was still at his desk in his private room, and the promoter entered unannounced. “I thought I’d Iffing off and give you the limit—-all the time there was,” he said, dropping inter flic debtor’s chair at the desk-end. And. then, with a quarrelsome rasp in his tone: “Are you getting ready to switch again?” Though his victims often cursed the banker for his shrewd caution and his ruthless profit-takings, no one had ever accused him of timidity in a stand-up encounter. “You’ve taken that tone with me before, Stanton, and I don’t like it,” he returned brusquely. “You may as well keep It in mind that neither you, nor the people you represent, own the Brewster City National, or any part of it, in fee simple.” “We can buy you out any minute we think we need you,” retorted Stanton. “But never mind about that. Your man came back from the Topaz last night. You’ve let the better nart of the day go by without saying a word, and I’ve drawn the only conclusion there is to draw.” Kinzie frowned his impatience. “If I have to do business with your people much longer, Mr. Stanton, I shall certainly suggest that they put a man in charge out here who can control his temper. Here is Mr. Richlander’s letter.” Stanton read the letter through hastily, punctuating its final sentence with a brittle oath. “And you’ve muddled over this all day, when every hour is worth more to us than your one-horse bank could earn in a year?” he rapped out "What have you,done? Have you telegraphed this, sheriff?” “No; and neither will you when I tell you the facts. You see wfiat Mr. Richlander says. We had nothing to go on unless we could identify our man* definitely, so I took the straight-

forward course and went to Miss Richlander.” Stanton’s laugh was a derisive shout. u You need a guardian, Kinzie; you do, for a fact!” he sneered. “Of

course, the girl pulled the wool over your efes; any <vonran could do that !” “You are not gaining anything by being abusive, Stanton. This man of Baldwin's is not the one Mr. Richlander is trying to describe in that letter.” Stanton bit the tip from a cigar and struck a light. “Kinzie,” he said, “you think we’re going to lose out, and you are trying to throw me off the scent. You had a long talk with Colonel Baldwin this morning-—I kept cases on that, too—and you figured that you'd make money by seesawing again. I’m glad to be able to tell you that you are just about twenty-four hours too late.” The round-bodied banker righted his pivot chair with a snap and his lips were puffed out-like the lips of a swimmer who sees the saving plank drifting out of reach. “You are wrong, Stanton; altogether wrong!” he protested. “Baldwin was here because I sent for him to make a final attempt to swing him over to the compromise. You are doing me the greatest possible injustice!” Stanton rose and made ready to go. “I think that would be rather hard to do, Kinzie,” he flung back. “Nobody loves a trimmer. But in the present case you are not going to lose anything. We’ll take your stock at par, as I promised you we would.” It was at this crisis that David Kinzie showed himself as the exponent of the saying that every man has his modicum of saving -grace, by smiting upon the arm of his chair and glaring up at the promoter. “There’s another promise of yours that you’ve got to remember, too, Stanton,” he argued hoarsely. “You’ve got to hold Dexter Baldwin harmless!” Stanton’s smile was a mask of pure malice. “I’ve made you no definite promise as to that; but you shall have one now. I’ll promise to break Baldwin in two and throw him and his ranchmen backers out of the Timanyoni. That’s what you get for playing fast and loose with two people at the same time. When you look over your paying teller’s statement for the day, •ou’ll see that I have withdrawn our ••(•count from your tin-horn money shop. Good-day.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“He Says Smith Is a Grand Rascal.”

"—Pulled the Wool Over Your Eyes."