CHAPTER X.

IN THE NICK OF TIME.

It was after two o’clock that afternoon when Nancy Selig, following

instructions received from Andy Margate, rang the bell at the Deland

residence and prepared, with all the nerve and effrontery of one of her

class, to carry out the coercive design of her knavish confederate.

A butler answered the bell--but not the usual butler.

“I would like an interview with Lady Deland,” said Nancy, bowing and

smiling with affected gentility.

“I will take in your card, madame,” Nick replied, with blank

countenance. “Or if you will state what your business is, I will inform

her of your request.”

“She does not know me by name,” Nancy coolly announced. “I am soliciting

contributions to a very worthy cause, and I was sent here by a friend of

Lady Deland. Will you kindly tell her so, and say,” she added, quite

pointedly, “that she may hear something greatly to her advantage.”

Nick Carter needed to hear no more than that. He bowed and vanished.

Two minutes later he returned, saying a bit stiffly:

“Lady Deland will see you.”

“I thought she would,” remarked Nancy, with covert dryness.

Nick conducted her to the library and ushered her into the room.

Lady Deland arose to receive her and pointed to a chair.

Nancy Selig took it without the ghost of a suspicion.

Nick withdrew and closed the door, then stepped noiselessly through the

side hall and into the diplomat’s study.

The first words that fell upon his ears from the library told him that

Nancy Selig had lost no time in approaching the business engaging her.

“You can safely admit it to me, since you say there is no one to hear

us,” she was adding to what already had passed between them. “There is

nothing in mincing matters. The question is--do you want to recover it?”

“Assuming that you really know what you have stated, and that I have

lost such an article as you suggest, I naturally would be anxious to

recover it,” Lady Deland replied.

“There’s just one way you can do it,” said Nancy.

“How is that?”

“By paying for it.”

“Pay whom? Are you the person who has it?”

“No. A man has it who----”

“Send him here, then,” Lady Deland interrupted. “I will talk with him.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Nancy said curtly. “And don’t pretend that the paper

is of no great value to you. We know better than that, we who have it.

You listen to me for half a minute and I’ll tell you just where you

stand and what you must do.”

Lady Deland’s eyes drifted toward the mirror for an instant and she

received from the listening detective a signal of assent.

“Well, I will hear you,” she replied, gazing at the crafty, determined

face of her visitor.

What Nancy Selig had to say may easily be imagined, and she wound up her

threatening remarks with the announcement that Lady Deland must pay ten

thousand dollars for the return of the document and her letter to

Senator Barclay, or that both would be sent to her husband the moment he

returned to Washington.

Lady Deland played her part consistently, now and then receiving a

signal from Nick, and evincing apprehensions that soon convinced Nancy

Selig of her own ultimate success.

“All you need do is go with me and pay down the money,” she announced,

at length. “When you return home, you’ll have the two papers.”

“But I haven’t so much money in the house,” Lady Deland protested.

“Draw it from the bank,” said Nance curtly. “There still is time.”

“Where am I to go with you?”

“To a house a few miles from the city.”

Lady Deland demurred over that, pretending that she feared to do so, and

she wound up with insisting that she would go only in her own touring

car, in company with her maid and chauffeur.

Nancy Selig objected strongly to that, and for several minutes the

argument between the two women continued, but the outlook for success

finally overcame Nancy’s objections.

“Well, I agree to that, then,” she said, with a threatening frown. “But

you’re not to leave me, or have any talk with them that I cannot hear.

I’ll ride with you and go into the bank with you. I’ll not stand for any

monkey business, you can bet on that.”

“There will be no monkey business, whatever that is,” said Lady Deland

coldly.

“Call your maid here, then, and give her your directions,” snapped

Nancy. “Send for the chauffeur, too, so we can make a quick get-away.”

Lady Deland touched a bell on the library table.

Nick entered from the hall half a minute later.

“Send my maid, Hawley,” said Lady Deland; Nance constantly watching her.

“Yes, your ladyship,” bowed Nick.

Another half minute brought Patsy Garvan into the room, so cleverly made

up as a girl as to have deceived the most discerning observer.

“Put on your outside garments, Lucy, and bring mine to the front hall,”

said Lady Deland.

“Yes, madame,” said Patsy demurely.

“Also tell Hawley to send James to the front door with the touring car,”

added Lady Deland. “I want both of you to go with me for a few hours.”

“Yes, madame.”

Patsy bowed and withdrew.

Nick already was on his way to the garage.

Lady Deland opened her desk in the library and removed a bank book.

“Now, woman, I am ready,” she said coldly.

She was not more ready than Nancy Selig, who now felt sure that she was

not being tricked.

Five minutes later the touring car, driven by Nick, with Patsy on the

seat beside him and with Lady Deland and Nance in the tonneau, sped away

from the house and turned toward the business section of the city.

Nick had been quietly informed as to the bank and its location, at which

they arrived twenty minutes later, and into which Nancy accompanied Lady

Deland, leaving the supposed chauffeur and maid in the car.

“Gee! this looks like soft walking, chief, now,” remarked Patsy, while

they waited.

“Quite so,” Nick replied. “I think we shall land the goods and arrest

the gang. That woman hasn’t even the ghost of a suspicion.”

Nick was right.

With crafty foresight, bent upon not arriving at the road house until

just after dark, Nancy Selig directed the supposed chauffeur over a

roundabout course that thus served her purpose.

It was between five and six when the light from the touring car swerved

quickly from the woodland road, and the car itself ran noiselessly in

toward the shed and stable back of the road house.

“Come!” Nance said quietly, quickly alighting and addressing Lady

Deland. “You two servants stay here.”

Nick Carter bowed, standing at the door he had alighted to open.

Lady Deland started to get out of the car.

Then came a crash from within the house, the thud of a fallen body, and

then the fierce and furious shouts of Andy Margate, every word of which

reached the detective’s ears.

Nick turned like a flash and seized Nancy Selig by the throat.

“Handcuffs, Patsy,” he muttered. “Be quick. Chick is here before us.”

Patsy was out and at work before the last was said, and in thirty

seconds Nancy Selig was lying on the ground, manacled hand and foot.

Lady Deland was nearly fainting, but neither detective noticed her.

Both rushed to the back door, still ajar and showing a beam of light.

Nick was the first to reach and open it, dashing into the hall, revolver

in hand. He saw Chick on the floor, the four men above him, and the hand

of Andy Margate raised with a revolver to beat out the fallen

detective’s brains.

Nick fired on the instant, and the bullet went true.

Margate pitched forward in a heap, with an ounce of lead in his brain,

and instant consternation and dismay fell upon his three confederates.

“Hands up, you fellows, or there’ll be another corpse here,” Nick cried

sternly, with the rascals effectively covered. “Look after Chick, Patsy.

I can attend to these rats.”

The “rats” did not dare to show fight. They yielded with curses and

imprecations, and within ten more minutes the case was practically

ended. All were secured, followed later by Zeke Selig’s wife, and the

entire family went to prison for a term of years for their work of that

night.

Andy Margate did not revive from the dose Nick Carter had given him, as

he had from that taken from his own hand. This time, indeed, he was as

dead as a doornail.

The document, as well as the property stolen from Senator Barclay, were

easily found and restored to proper hands, and the circumstances were

never even dreamed of by Sir Edward Deland, much to the relief and

gratitude of the beautiful girl whom Nick had served so cleverly.

He went even farther than that, moreover, interceding with a local judge

for the medical students, with the result that their transgression was

never made public, and the Dabney Medical College escaped without a

smirch on its reputation.

So the strange case ended to the satisfaction of all--save the knaves

responsible for it.

THE END.

“The Mark of Cain; or, Nick Carter’s Air-line Case,” will be the title

of the long, complete story which you will find in the next issue, No.

148, of the NICK CARTER STORIES, out July 10th. You will also find

several other articles of interest, together with the usual installment

of the serial now running.

Sheridan of the U. S. Mail.

By RALPH BOSTON.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOSS DEFIED.

The man in the gray uniform of Uncle Sam’s postal service laughed

lightly. “Don’t talk like a boob,” he said. “I’m not defying any

organization, and I have no desire to make an enemy of Mr. Samuel J.

Coggswell or anybody else. If he’s petty and narrow-minded enough to get

sore on me just because I refuse to give up five dollars for a picnic

ticket for which I have no earthly use, well, I can’t help it.”

The smile upon his good-humored face suddenly gave place to a sterner

expression. “And let me tell you,” he went on, “I don’t like your method

of selling tickets. The way you go about it looks to me very much like

blackmail. I never had the pleasure of meeting your friend, Mr.

Coggswell, but if he instructed you to hold up strangers on the street,

and hand them that line of talk, I haven’t any use for him; and you can

tell him I said so.”

The stout, red-faced, flashily dressed young man who had accosted the

letter carrier on the street corner just as the latter was about to

enter Branch Post Office X Y, scowled at this utterance.

“Oh, I’ll tell him, all right,” he retorted. “You can bet he’s goin’ to

hear about your freshness. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Owen Sheridan,” was the prompt reply.

The other produced a pencil and memorandum book from his vest pocket and

ostentatiously made a note of the name.

“Very well, Mr. Sheridan,” he sneered, “we’ll see how you’ll feel when

you’re on Boss Coggswell’s black list. Guess he’ll make you lose that

cocky air before long.”

He turned on his heel and sauntered off up the street. Carrier Sheridan,

who had just returned from his delivery route, entered the post office

and went upstairs to the “swing room”--the place in which the carriers

lounge between tours--and joined a dozen of his gray-coated comrades who

were indulging in a few minutes of idle chatter.

“I had a funny experience just now,” he said; “a chap buttonholed me on

the corner and tried to sell me a ticket to the Samuel J. Coggswell

Association’s annual chowder and outing. When I refused to come across

with five dollars, and told him I had no desire to go to the outing, he

got sore and began to threaten me with the wrath of Mr. Coggswell. He

said it meant my finish in the postal service if I wouldn’t give up. Can

you beat that for cast-iron nerve?”

Instead of the loud laugh which he expected, some of the carriers smiled

sheepishly, and others looked grave.

“You don’t mean to say that you refused to take the ticket, son?”

exclaimed “Pop” Andrews, a grizzled carrier, whose coat sleeve bore two

gold stars, signifying that he had seen forty years’ service in the

department.

“I certainly did refuse,” replied young Sheridan indignantly. “Do you

suppose for a minute that I’d let any man blackmail me into giving up

money for something I don’t want?”

Pop Andrews shook his head deprecatingly. “That was foolish of you, very

foolish. If you want to get along in this business, you can’t afford to

antagonize ‘Boss’ Coggswell. You haven’t been in New York long, so

perhaps you don’t know who and what he is?”

“Oh, yes, I do,” replied Sheridan, with a smile. “I’ve heard of him, of

course. He’s a politician, and the leader of this assembly district; but

I don’t see what reason I’ve got to be afraid of him as long as I do my

duty. This is a civil-service job, and----”

Several of the men interrupted him with bitter laughter. Pop Andrews

undertook to explain the reason for their mirth.

“Civil service is all right as far as it goes, son,” he said gravely,

“but the trouble is, it don’t go very far--not nearly as far as the pull

of Samuel J. Coggswell.

“You see,” he went on, “the boss has got so much influence at Washington

that he can get pretty near anything he wants. If he wishes to boost a

postal employee’s salary, or land him a soft berth, he can do it with a

few strokes of his pen, or a few words on the long-distance wire. But if

he wishes to keep a man down, he only has to put in a knock at

headquarters, and the poor fellow’s goose is cooked. You can slave, and

study, and take all the civil-service exams you want, but you’ll never

get promotion while you’re on Samuel J. Coggswell’s black list.”

“You don’t mean it?” exclaimed Sheridan in astonishment. “Then that

fellow spoke the truth? I thought he was only trying to bluff me into

buying a ticket for the outing.”

“He gave it to you straight,” replied the veteran postman. “You

shouldn’t have refused to buy the ticket. I guess you’re the only

employee in this branch that hasn’t got one.”

“Is that right, boys?” demanded the astonished carrier, turning

incredulously to his comrades. “You don’t mean to say that you are all

going to the outing?”

The other carriers laughed. “I reckon there’s mighty few of us that’ll

be there,” said one. “I gave my ticket to a feller that keeps a

delicatessen shop on my route, this morning. It wasn’t any use to me.”

“Then why on earth did you buy it?” demanded Sheridan indignantly.

“For the reason that Pop has just given you--because I want to stand in

right with Coggswell,” was the candid reply. “That’s why we all buy ’em

each year. It’s Coggswell’s little graft. He knows that we haven’t any

use for the tickets, but it’s his pleasant little way of collecting five

dollars a year from each of us. Considerin’ the pull he’s got at

headquarters, we think it’s a mighty good investment.”

“I think it’s a dirty piece of blackmail,” declared Sheridan, his eyes

flashing. “Before I’d submit to it, I’d----”

“Don’t be rash, son,” broke in Pop Andrews. “That kind of talk sounds

good behind the footlights at a theater, but, take it from me, it won’t

carry you very far in the service. You’re young and ambitious, you want

to get ’way up in the department; take my advice, and win the friendship

of the man whose pull can put you there. You might begin by joining his

organization. That’s what a good many of the fellows in this branch are

doing. They’re wise enough to see the advantage of being a member of the

Samuel J. Coggswell Association.”

“But I’m on the other side of the fence,” protested Sheridan. “My

politics----”

“I don’t care what your politics are,” interrupted the grizzled carrier,

with a sly wink. “When Election Day comes you can vote whatever way you

want. We all do that. Coggswell has no way of telling in which column

you put the cross. But in between elections, belong to the organization

and whoop it up for Coggswell all you can. In that way you’re sure to

bring yourself to the boss’ attention.”

“I guess I’ve brought myself to his attention already,” said Sheridan,

with a whimsical smile. “You see, Pop, in addition to refusing to buy a

ticket, I sent him a message, telling him just what I think of him and

his blackmailing methods.”

“Phew!” exclaimed several of the carriers, looking at their comrade

commiseratingly. Owen Sheridan was very popular with the employees of

Branch X Y, and they would have been sorry to see him come to grief.

“What sort of a man was this fellow you were up against?” inquired Pop

Andrews gravely.

“A chap about my own age, I should judge; rather stout, with a red,

beefy face, and dressed to kill,” replied Owen. “He had a diamond in his

necktie so big that it almost blinded me, and he was smoking a big black

cigar that I guess only a politician could afford to buy.”

“That was Jake Hines,” declared one of the men. “He’s Coggswell’s

right-hand man.”

“Jake’s not a bad sort, if he’s handled right,” said Pop Andrews. “If I

were you, Owen, I’d go and see him this evening. You’ll find him at the

clubhouse. He hangs round there nearly every night.”

“Go and see him? What for?” demanded Sheridan in astonishment.

“To have a talk with him and straighten things out, of course. You don’t

want to lose any time rectifying the blunder you’ve made. Tell Jake that

you’ve been thinking things over, and you’ve decided that you’d like one

of those tickets, after all. If you can afford it, it would be a good

scheme to take two, to help smooth things over, you know.”

Owen Sheridan laughed heartily at this suggestion. “Say, if I could get

the job of postmaster general to-morrow merely by buying one of those

tickets, I wouldn’t buy one!” he declared resolutely.

CHAPTER II.

SUMMONED BY THE BOSS.

Owen Sheridan’s comrades had not been guilty of exaggeration in warning

the young man of the danger he ran in antagonizing Boss Coggswell. Great

reforms have been effected in the United States postal service since the

time when Sheridan entered the department, and politicians of Samuel J.

Coggswell’s ilk are no longer able to terrorize and corrupt the

employees by means of a “pull” at Washington.

A certain famous post-office investigation resulted in the indictment of

many big and little postal officials, and the laying bare of a startling

system of fraud, corruption, and official misconduct; and made it,

happily, a thing of the past; but before that big house-cleaning

occurred, the power of the political boss was a thing to be feared by

every carrier and clerk in the department.

Owen was not greatly disturbed by the warnings. Young, optimistic,

self-confident, he could scarcely bring himself to believe that the big

career he had mapped out for himself in the department could be checked

or affected merely by his refusal to buy a ticket to a political picnic.

The idea appeared preposterous. He would succeed, he told himself

confidently, in spite of the antagonism of Samuel J. Coggswell and his

lieutenant, Jake Hines. He was painstaking, a hustler, and keen of mind;

these qualities, he felt sure, were bound to win his promotion in

time--even without any politician’s pull.

“No, I’m not worrying much about Mr. Coggswell,” he said to himself,

with a smile, as he stood at his “case” in the post office, sorting the

mail for his delivery route, the morning after his encounter with Jake

Hines. “But what is worrying me a lot more,” he went on, with a frown,

“is this confounded---- By Jove! Here’s another one of ’em now!”

The cause of his emotion was an envelope which had just turned up in the

pile of mail he was sorting. For several minutes his long, nimble

fingers had been going through the heap of letters with such speed and

dexterity that it seemed impossible that he could be separating and

arranging them in rotation, according to the house numbers on his

delivery route. He seemed scarcely to glance at the addresses on the

envelopes; it appeared to be a purely mechanical operation.

Although there was nothing about this particular white envelope to make

it conspicuous, Owen recognized it as soon as it turned up. With a look

of deep disgust on his face he withdrew it from the pile.

“This is the fifth he has sent her in the past week,” he muttered. “I

wonder who the fellow is, and what he is to her. I wish I knew.

“But, of course, I wouldn’t do anything like that,” he added hastily,

ashamed of the unspoken thought. “It is mighty tough, though, to have to

deliver your rival’s letters to the girl you love. To suspect that there

is a rival is bad enough; but to have to be the bearer of his confounded

letters is certainly rubbing it in.”

Uncle Sam’s men in gray are supposed to be mere automatons when it comes

to delivering mail. One of the rules of the department is to the effect

that carriers must not indulge in any unnecessary conversation while

covering their routes; and, of course, they are not supposed to ask any

questions or betray any curiosity concerning the letters they carry.

Owen Sheridan was well up on the rules and regulations, but he vowed, as

he stepped out of the office to cover his route, that he was going to

find out the significance of that letter before another hour had passed.

For thirty minutes he went briskly from house to house, stuffing mail

into letter boxes, ringing each bell, blowing his whistle in every

vestibule he visited; then, having finished his row of flat houses and

private dwellings on the side street, he swung into the avenue and

stopped outside a store, on the window of which was the sign, in gilt

lettering: “Walter K. Sammis, Real Estate and Insurance.”

For a second he stood on the sidewalk as though afraid to go in. Then he

drew a long breath and entered, a half dozen letters in his hand, among

them the envelope which was causing him so much concern.

A young woman who sat at a typewriter behind the barrier which divided

the office in two, looked up from her machine, and greeted him with a

cordial smile.

“Good morning,” she said. “You’re a little late to-day, aren’t you? I’ve

been waiting impatiently for you--I mean the mail, for the past ten

minutes.”

She was a very pretty girl. Her hair was dark, her eyes were brown and

very large and bright, her cheeks bewitchingly pink. The young carrier

thrilled as he looked at her.

“Yes, the mail is kind of late this morning, Miss Worthington,” he said

awkwardly. “I’ve got an unusually big delivery to-day.” He held out the

bunch of letters in his hand. “Here are five for the boss and one for

you.”

He watched her face anxiously as she extended her hand for the mail. His

own grew dark as he saw her eyes light up at the sight of the

handwriting on the envelope addressed to her.

“You--you seem to be getting an awful lot of mail from Chicago lately,”

he remarked gloomily.

She nodded and smiled brightly. “Yes, I am very fortunate. This is the

fifth this week.”

“And all from the same fellow!” he exclaimed, with a bitter laugh.

“Why, how do you know that?” she demanded, looking at him quizzically

from under her long lashes.

“Oh, don’t you suppose I can recognize the handwriting?” was his sullen

reply.

“Really?” She laughed. “I didn’t think you letter carriers were so

smart. Considering the thousands of letters you must handle in the

course of a week, I should think it would be impossible for you to

remember the handwriting of each----”

“I’d like to know who he is!” Owen broke in impulsively.

“Why, really, Mr. Sheridan!” she exclaimed. “I think you are rather

impertinent. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the contents of the letters

you handle do not concern you at all. Your duty is to deliver mail, and

it ends there.”

Her tone was one of great indignation, but there was a merry twinkle in

her eye. He was so dejected, however, that he did not notice the

twinkle.

“The contents of that particular letter do concern me very much, Miss

Worthington,” he returned doggedly. “As a letter carrier, I admit I have

no right to ask you any questions; but as a man--well, I’ve got to know

what that fellow is to you. I’ve got to know what chance I stand against

him. I’ve been suffering the whole week--ever since the first of those

confounded letters made its appearance, and I can’t stand it any

longer.”

Then, before he realized what he was doing, Owen Sheridan was blurting

out a proposal of marriage. The words came impulsively from his lips.

When he entered the real-estate office five minutes previously, he

hadn’t the slightest intention of taking such a decisive step.

He was in love with the girl, to be sure, and for several weeks past had

been telling himself that some day he would ask her to be his wife. But

he had also told himself that the day was far off. He was not in a

position to think of marrying as yet. He had been in the postal service

for less than a year, and consequently was receiving only six hundred

dollars per year.

To marry on six hundred a year--less than twelve dollars per

week--looked much too difficult. And out of this modest wage, too, he

had to buy his uniforms--complete outfits for both summer and winter

wear. He would have to work for at least five years more before he

attained the rank of fifth-grade carrier and a salary of eleven hundred

dollars, on which he could support a wife.

For this reason he had hesitated to speak out before; but now jealousy,

aroused by those letters from Chicago, forced the words from his lips.

The blood rushed to Dallas Worthington’s cheeks as she listened to him.

“You--you want me to marry you?” she gasped. “You can’t mean it. Why,

you scarcely know me at all!”

“Scarcely know you?” he protested. “Haven’t I been seeing you every day

for the past six months?”

“Yes; but only when you’ve come in here to bring the mail. You can’t

learn enough about a girl to make up your mind that----”

“Well, it isn’t my fault that I haven’t seen you after office hours,” he

protested. “I’ve asked you often enough to let me take you out or call

at your boarding house, but you’ve always turned me down.

“But, anyway,” he went on earnestly, “I know you well enough to feel

sure that you’re the only girl for me. Why, I’m so crazy about you, that

on deliveries when there hasn’t been any mail for this address, I’ve

delivered the wrong letters here on purpose, just so as to have an

excuse for dropping in and seeing you.”

The girl laughed. “Oh! So that’s why this office is always getting other

people’s mail. I’ve often wondered how you could be so careless.”

“Isn’t there any chance for me, Miss Worthington?” the young carrier

asked pleadingly, as he glanced at the clock on the wall of the

real-estate office, and suddenly realized that if he dallied there much

longer there would be complaints all along his route; for the bag

suspended from his shoulder was still half full of undelivered mail, and

people in New York City are very particular about getting their letters

on time.

“I don’t ask you to marry me now,” he went on hastily. “I couldn’t do it

even if you were willing, for I’m not making enough money. The United

States government pays its postal employees poorly at the start. I guess

there isn’t another branch of the Federal civil service where a fellow

has to do so much for so little pay.”

“Why don’t you get out and go into something else?” she asked. “I’ve

often wondered why a bright fellow like you should be satisfied with

such a small job.”

“I want to be a post-office inspector,” he answered. “That’s the goal

which tempted me into entering the service. Those fellows earn good

money, and I’ve always had a liking for detective work. You can rest

assured that I don’t intend to remain a carrier very long. To be

promoted to the secret-service branch of the department is my ambition,

and I feel confident that I’ll be able to realize it.”

“I feel sure you will,” the girl said softly, with a quick glance at his

earnest face. “And--and I’ll wait for you, Owen--until you’re in a

position to get married.”

“You will?” he exclaimed joyously. “I didn’t expect such luck. Then,

those letters from Chicago----”

“Were from my brother,” she answered, with a laugh. “He’s two years

younger than I, and he’s always getting into scrapes. He’s in another

one now, and he needs money; that’s why he’s been writing so frequently

the past week.”

CHAPTER III.

THE WIGGLING EAR.

Owen finished his deliveries and returned to the post office with a much

lighter heart than when he had started out.

“She’s promised to wait for me, and I’m the happiest man in the world,”

he said to himself with a smile. “And she won’t have to wait so very

long, either. I’m going after that post-office inspector job hammer and

tongs--and nothing can stop me from getting it.”

“Are you Carrier Owen Sheridan?” inquired a voice, suddenly breaking in

upon his happy meditations.

“Yes,” answered Owen to the young man who addressed him.

“Well, you’re to come around to the club at nine-thirty this evening,”

went on the latter, in a peremptory manner.

“The club! What club?” demanded Owen, staring hard at the speaker, whom

he had never seen before.

“The district organization, of course,” replied the young man

impatiently. “You didn’t suppose I meant the Elks or the Knights of

Pythias, did you? You’re to come around to the headquarters of the

Samuel J. Coggswell Association at nine-thirty sharp. The boss wants to

see you.”

Having delivered this laconic message, the young man hurried away, and

Owen stood on the threshold of the post-office entrance looking after

him in great astonishment.

“Boss Coggswell wants to see me!” he muttered to himself. “I wonder what

on earth for.”

Then a ray of enlightenment came to him, and he grinned broadly. “I

guess Jake Hines has reported to him what I said about those tickets,

and his majesty has sent for me to demand an explanation and an

apology.”

A frown displaced the grin upon his countenance. “I’d like to see myself

going,” he muttered. “If Coggswell wants any explanation, he’ll have to

come to me; and, at that, I guess he won’t get a lot of satisfaction.”

But, after a half hour’s reflection, he changed his mind and decided

that it might be just as well for him to heed the summons, insultingly

peremptory as its delivery had been.

“If I don’t go he may think I’m afraid to face him,” he told himself;

“and, besides, I’m mighty anxious to hear what he has to say.”

So, at nine-thirty that evening, Owen, being through with his day’s

work, proceeded to the headquarters of the Samuel J. Coggswell

Association, a four-story brownstone structure on a quiet residence

street.

The quarters of the district organization were luxurious for a political

club. Handsome oil paintings in big gilt frames lined the walls of the

reception hall into which the letter carrier stepped.

One painting, which hung on the wall opposite the entrance, so that a

visitor’s eye was bound to strike it as soon as he stepped through the

door, was the full-length portrait of a dark, rather stout gentleman,

who stood with his arms folded and his chin sunk upon his chest--a pose

made famous by the late Napoleon Bonaparte, and since copied by many

others.

A brass plate attached to the massive gilt frame of this portrait in

oils bore the legend: “Honorable Samuel J. Coggswell.” By this token

Owen knew that he was gazing upon the likeness of the man whom he had

come to see. He had never before met or seen Boss Coggswell, and had no

idea what he looked like; so, while he waited to be announced, he

studied the picture with great interest.

He was greatly astonished at what he saw. From what he had heard and

read of political bosses in general, he had formed the impression that

they were all rough, thick-necked, illiterate men of a rough type.

He had imagined that Coggswell would be like this; but the face which

looked at him from the painting was one of refinement; the forehead was

broad and high, the features were regular, the mouth was curved in a

kind, almost benevolent, smile. Unless the artist had unduly flattered

him, Boss Coggswell looked very much like a gentleman, and a very

pleasant sort of gentleman at that.

The young man who had gone to announce Owen’s arrival to the boss soon

returned and beckoned to the letter carrier to follow him. He led the

way through a billiard room, and among the men playing at the tables

Owen recognized Jake Hines, the man who had tried in vain to intimidate

him into buying a ticket to the club outing.

Although the carrier was not now wearing his gray uniform, the

recognition was mutual. Owen could tell that by the scowl which came to

Hines’ face at the sight of him, and, as he passed the table at which

the politician was playing, he heard him mutter something under his

breath which sounded like “fresh young Aleck.”

Up a flight of stairs which led to a door marked “Director’s

Office--Private.” Owen’s guide conducted him.

In response to a knock on this door, a deep, pleasant voice cried, “Come

in!” and Owen found himself in a luxuriously furnished room, facing a

rotund, smiling, middle-aged man who sat at a mahogany roll-top desk.

One glance at Boss Coggswell convinced the letter carrier that the oil

painting downstairs was an excellent portrait. The district leader

certainly appeared to be a very pleasant man. It seemed hard to believe

that he could be the kind of fellow who would persecute a humble

post-office employee for refusing to give up five dollars for a ticket

to a club outing.

“Sit down, young man,” said Mr. Coggswell, motioning to a chair beside

his desk. “You are Carrier Sheridan, I believe, and you have route

number forty-eight?”

“Yes,” answered Owen, inwardly wondering why the political leader should

have taken the trouble to familiarize himself with the number of his

delivery route.

“I am informed,” went on Mr. Coggswell, with a gentle smile, “that you

refused to buy a ticket to the annual chowder and outing of our

association.”

“Yes,” replied Owen, meeting his questioner’s gaze boldly. To himself he

thought: “He certainly isn’t losing any time in getting down to

business.”

“And I am informed, also,” Boss Coggswell went on, still with the same

gentle smile, “that you expressed an opinion that my method of selling

tickets was closely akin to blackmail?”

“I didn’t say exactly that,” returned Owen. “I don’t know what _your_

method of selling tickets may be; but I did say that if you instructed

or sanctioned your followers to hold up government employees and

threaten them with all sorts of dire disaster if they refused to buy

those tickets, you were a blackmailer, and I had no use for you.”

He looked Coggswell squarely in the eye. “And, moreover, I am still of

the same opinion,” he added quietly.

For a few seconds the two men sat eyeing each other; then the political

boss suddenly leaned forward in his chair and placed his plump hand upon

Owen’s shoulder.

“Young man,” he said, “I like you for that. You make a hit with me. A

fellow who is not afraid to speak out always has my admiration. I

despise a man who will submit to injustice and tyranny for fear of

losing his job, or the hope of getting a better one.”

To say that Owen was astonished by this unlooked-for treatment would be

to put it mildly. He looked at the speaker incredulously. The suspicion

entered his head that, perhaps, Coggswell was merely playing with him as

a cat plays with a mouse--handing him these verbal bouquets first of all

in order to give the more force to the abuse and threats which were

about to follow.

“Yes,” the boss went on, “as soon as I heard that there was a young man

at Branch X Y who had the courage to defy me, I made up my mind to send

for him. I wanted to see what you looked like. I wished to find out

whether you would have backbone enough to stand by what you had said to

Jake Hines, or whether you would cringe and back water as soon as I put

it up to you.”

Owen, not knowing what answer to make to these amazing words, smiled

lightly and remained silent.

After a slight pause Boss Coggswell went on:

“I am pretty good at sizing up men, Mr. Sheridan, and I like your style.

I should be pleased to have you join my organization. We need young men

of your caliber in this district.”

“Thank you,” replied Owen, “but I don’t care to go into politics. And,

besides, I am of the opposite party.”

“I like you for saying that, too,” declared the district leader warmly.

“It is refreshing to meet a young man who is so loyal to his party that

he won’t desert it even to advance himself. I am sorry that we can’t

have you in our organization, Mr. Sheridan, but I am going to help you,

nevertheless; I have taken a great fancy to you, and I am going to see

that you get ahead.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” he went on. “How long have you been

in the postal service?”

“Nine months,” answered Owen.

“And what is your ambition? Surely, a bright young chap like you doesn’t

intend to remain a carrier all his life?”

“Not if I can help it,” replied Owen, with a smile. “I am looking for

the job of post-office inspector. That’s what caused me to enter the

service.”

“Ah!” murmured Coggswell; “a post-office inspector, eh? You know a good

thing when you see it, don’t you? Got any pull?”

“No, I haven’t. But I’m studying hard, and I think I shall soon be able

to take the examinations, and----”

A loud laugh from Boss Coggswell interrupted him. “The examinations?

Pshaw! They won’t get you very far unless you’ve got a pretty strong

pull, besides.”

He looked keenly at the young man, and lowered his voice a trifle as he

went on:

“Now, as I presume you are aware, I have considerable influence at

Washington. I think I shall use that influence to get you what you want,

Mr. Sheridan.”

Owen stared at him incredulously. “Are you joking with me?” he demanded.

“Not at all. I am perfectly serious. As I said before, you have made a

big hit with me, and I want to help you. To get you the post you are

looking for will not be difficult. You may have to wait a little while,

for there are no vacancies at present, but I give you my word that as

soon as one occurs you shall be made an inspector.”

He rose from his chair and held out his hand to Owen to indicate that

the interview was at an end.

“Well, good-by. I am very glad to have met you,” he said heartily.

“Stick to your job as carrier for the present, and rest assured that it

won’t be very long before you will be in the department’s secret

service.”

Feeling as if he were in a dream, Owen rose and walked toward the door;

but just as he was about to turn the handle, Coggswell’s voice halted

him.

“Oh, by the way,” said the politician, in a careless tone, “there is one

little point that I had almost forgotten. I think you cover route number

forty-eight, do you not?”

“Yes, that is my regular route.”

Coggswell drew nearer to Owen and lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

“Well, Sheridan, suppose there was somebody residing on your route whose

mail I happened to be interested in? Suppose I had good reasons for

wishing to examine this man’s letters, without his knowledge, of course.

Suppose I asked you not to deliver anything to him until after it had

first passed through my hands, or the hands of a trusted agent? What

would you say to that, Sheridan?”

“I would tell you to go to blazes!” replied Owen promptly. “I am not a

crook, Mr. Coggswell.”

So here was the nigger in the woodpile, at last. This was the meaning of

all the soft words that had gone before, and the glittering promise

which the politician had made to him.

“You are quite sure that you wouldn’t do me a little favor like that?”

the boss went on, looking searchingly into the young man’s face.

“Quite,” answered Owen shortly.

“Not even if your promotion to the job of post-office inspector depended

upon it? One good turn deserves another, you know.”

“I would rather remain a carrier all my life than stoop to such dirty

work,” declared the carrier hotly.

“Better think it over, Sheridan. Don’t be rash. It would be a pity for a

bright young fellow like you to have his career ruined for a little

thing like this. You understand, of course, that there wouldn’t be the

slightest danger of this man finding out that his mail had been tampered

with? He would receive every letter in perfect shape. You wouldn’t be

running any possible risk of discovery.”

“That doesn’t make any difference,” retorted Owen. “Whether it’s safe to

do so or not, nobody is going to tamper with any mail that’s in my

charge.”

“You really mean that? You’re not making any grandstand play, eh?”

“I never meant anything more in my life, Mr. Coggswell.”

For several seconds the two men stood staring fixedly into each other’s

eyes. Then, suddenly, Boss Coggswell once more placed his hand upon the

carrier’s shoulder.

“It was only a joke, my boy. Or, rather, I should say, it was a little

test. I wanted to determine your strength of character, and I must say

that you have met the test remarkably well. I know now, for sure, that

you are honest, and not to be tempted. Good-by.”

With a paternal pat on the shoulder the politician dismissed his

visitor.

Owen was very thoughtful as he walked out of the clubhouse. He was not

by any means convinced that the sinister proposition which had been made

to him was nothing more than a harmless ruse to test his character.

In spite of the politician’s reassuring words, he felt sure that

Coggswell had been very much in earnest about wanting him to hand over

the mail of somebody on his route--that was the real reason he had been

summoned to the clubhouse.

Owen recalled something which he had once heard somebody say regarding

Samuel J. Coggswell--a very queer remark which had been made in his

presence one day by a man who knew the boss well: “When you are talking

with Sammy,” this man had said, “watch his ears carefully. If they begin

to wiggle, look out for a crooked deal. Most men can’t move their ears

without moving the rest of their heads besides, but Boss Coggswell can

wiggle either ear at will. And, whenever he’s up to to some low trick,

those ears of his always begin to move. He can keep the rest of his face

as straight as a poker player; he can smile on you as sweetly as if he

loved you like a brother, when all the time he hates you like poison; he

can keep his voice as smooth as velvet; but he can’t make his ears

behave when there’s anything crooked going on inside his head.”

Owen recalled these words now, as he stepped out of the clubhouse. And

he recalled, too, that all the while Samuel J. Coggswell had been

talking to him about that scheme to tamper with the United States mail,

his ears had been moving up and down as if on springs. Therefore, Owen

felt sure that there was mischief brewing.

TO BE CONTINUED.

UNEXPECTED.

He had been trying to impress upon the children in the school, in the

capacity of a temperance lecturer, that though it was right and proper

to relieve suffering and poverty, it was much better to find out the

cause of it all--drink, of course--and remove that; and so with

everything.

“Now,” he said, “suppose your father some morning came downstairs, and,

on going to the cellar, found it flooded; what would he do first? Would

he begin bailing the water out?”

“No, of course not.”

“Now, what would be the first thing he’d do?”

After a short silence, a shrill, piping voice cried out:

“Why, he’d carry on awful!”

SUMMERTIME IN THE COUNTRY.

By MAX ADELER.

We have moved into the country to stay for a few weeks with some of our

relations. They gave us such very warm and repeated invitations that we

concluded to make some sacrifice to go, to oblige them, and I had no

idea how much they appreciated our company until the end of the first

week, when they handed me a bill for fifty dollars for board for three

of us.

Life in the country is very charming in summertime. We sleep in the

spare room in the garret, where the temperature gets up to one hundred

and four degrees. The roof has not been repaired since Columbus landed,

and consequently it is full of apertures. For any one who wants to study

astronomy while lying in bed, our garret offers phenomenal advantages;

but whenever it rains at night there is nothing to be done but to make a

raft out of the clothes horse and some bed slats, and float the family

until daylight. It is sometimes an exciting apartment. A few nights ago,

while hitting at a mosquito with a shuck pillow, I knocked a wasps’ nest

off of one of the rafters, and in the morning we had knobs as big as

hickory nuts all over our faces and legs.

It is a good thing to live out here in the country, because the

early-morning air is so healthful. We get our morning air very early.

The family is routed out at four o’clock, so that the men may go to the

harvest field, and if we lie abed, there will be nothing to eat until

dinnertime. To be sure, that would not make any very great difference,

if we could live without food, for country diet is not as attractive as

I hoped it would be.

We always have salt ham and fried potatoes for breakfast; then we have

boiled ham and potatoes for dinner, and cold potatoes and sliced ham for

supper. On Sundays we have two kinds of ham and stewed potatoes, and

potato pudding for dessert. When I asked for milk for the children, they

said they were using all the milk to fatten the calves.

They apologized for not having butter because the hucksters who supplied

it hadn’t come. I threw out a hint about raspberries, but they said the

man at the store was expecting them every day from the city, and I would

have to wait. They get their potatoes from the city, too, and the ham

was cured in Cincinnati.

The only vegetable that grows here is cabbage, but we are not allowed to

eat it, because they trade it off at the store for potatoes, and they

swap their chickens to the huckster for butter--that is, their young

chickens. We had for dinner one day a hen that cackled during the War of

1812. She ate like a piece of india-rubber boot.

One of the finest things about living in the country is that you can

wander off to some shady spot and lie in luxurious ease upon the grass,

dreaming away the hours. And while you are dreaming away the hours,

straddle bugs will probably crawl up your pantaloons and bite you, and

caterpillars will insert themselves between your shirt collar and neck.

When you get home you find that you have caught a frightful cold from

lying on the damp grass, and while you are sneezing, you learn that one

of the children has fallen out of the haymow and run a pitchfork

through his calf, and that the other one has been pitched over the fence

by the Durham bull.

Then, we like to sit out in the cool of the evening and enjoy the calm,

quiet solitude of the place. There is a canal at the end of the lawn,

and when we get enough of the quiet solitude, the _Mary Jane, of

Pencader_, will come along, and we will be entertained by the captain,

who swears violently at the boy because he does not stimulate the mules

to sufficient activity. As he wakes the echoes with his abnormal

profanity, we suddenly put the children to bed to protect them from

demoralization; and then, when the hind mule has kicked at the boy three

or four times, the boat passes upstream, and silence once more returns.

We sit there until bedtime, beating off the mosquitoes with one hand and

scratching the bites with the other. And as soon as we get into our

garret with a candle the atmosphere is filled with bugs, which dance

around the room and beat against the walls until we go to sleep.

It is a good thing to live in the country, because the children have

such a chance to obtain vigorous health. They begin the summer in the

country with prickly heat. Before that is cured they get cholera morbus

from eating green apples.

Afterward they catch mumps from the children on the next farm, and at

intermediate periods they get bitten by the dog, they come near drowning

in the creek, they are sunstruck, they rub against poison vine in the

woods and swell up, they are tangled in the mower and lose fingers in

the feed cutter, they are run over by the ox cart and ground up in the

threshing machine.

Then they cry all night in our garret, and eat so much at meals that the

owner of the house looks sour at them and growls out something about

raising the price of board; and they wear out clothes enough to run an

orphan asylum for a couple of years.

One of the best things about the country is that it gives you a chance

to go a-fishing. We fish in the creek. After digging for a couple of

hours in search of worms, we go to the water and throw in. I get a bite

and pull up, and the line winds tightly around the limb of a tree. Then

I shin up the tree and undo it, and throw in again. After several more

ineffectual bites, I pull up an eel, and find that he has swallowed the

hook.

Everybody knows how it is with an eel. You might as well try to hold a

streak of lightning. When he has covered your boots with slime, he bites

the line off and wriggles back into the water. When you have put on a

new hook, you get a bite, and jerk out a muddy snag, and then you catch

one small minnow and find that you have been sitting in a puddle of

water, waiting for him to nibble.

As your bait is exhausted, you conclude to go home, where you can put

some ointment on your blistered hands and face, and pick the ticks out

of your skin and have sewed up the rents made in your trousers by the

blackberry bushes, and get ready for the mosquitoes in the evening.

There are some very peculiar charms about rural life, and the farmer is

the noblest man on earth. But as for me, I believe I prefer existence in

an alley in the city to even temporary residence among the agricultural

population.

THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.

Failed to Get Guinea Eggs.

Last autumn Clinton B. Struble, of Penn Yan, N. Y., bought one hundred

guinea fowls of a dealer in North Carolina, with the intention of

raising guineas on his Esperanza estate for the Rochester market. The

flock has had the best of care and has been fed with every variety of

supposedly egg-producing concoctions known to Yates County poultrymen.

Notwithstanding this treatment, which has been kept up for over six

months, not one egg was received.

Recently Mr. Struble took a poultry expert home with him in the hope

that he might find out what the trouble has been. The expert found the

flock in a splendidly healthy condition, but all male birds.

“Dead Man” High, Not Dry.

“There is a dead man on the roof of City Hall,” was the telephone

message to Mayor Mitchel’s office, in New York City, the other

afternoon. Like alarms followed from tenants of skyscrapers around City

Hall Park. Peter Chieffo, the janitor, was sent aloft to investigate.

The janitor found a man stretched out asleep on the sunny side of the

clock tower. There was an aroma of rum about him and a spirit of

rebellion in his heart. He protested volubly at being awakened.

“’Snice’n’ warm up here,” he said; “lemme ’lone.”

Chieffo helped him down, first by the ladder which leads from the attic

to the skylight on the roof, then down two flights of spiral stairs, and

lastly down the three remaining marble flights to City Hall Park. How he

got up there with the bundle he was carrying is a question which puzzles

the members of the board of estimate. The visitor was unable to explain

or even to give his name.

Sudden Finish of a “Bad Man’s” Reign.

In the early spring of 1877 the then wild-and-woolly little mining city

of Joplin, Mo., began to hear rumors of a great find of shallow lead on

the banks of Creek, just across the State line in Kansas. Short is a

little stream that rises in the western part of Jasper County, Missouri,

and, after meandering around a few miles, empties into Spring River, in

the eastern part of Cherokee County, Kansas.

The new discovery of lead was on this stream some nine miles from

Joplin. At that time zinc mining was still in its infancy. In fact,

there were thousands of tons of high-grade zinc ore, which, under the

name of “black jack,” had been thrown out from the lead with which it

mingled and lay in the old dumps of the region. But the new strike was

of lead only, and shallow lead was the one thing sought after by the

miners of those days.

Then there followed a “stampede” worthy to be classed with those we have

read about as occurring in the gold fields. One year from that day there

was on that ground a thriving little city that claimed a population of

5,000 people.

There flocked in every blackleg and professional “bad man” from a wide

section of country. Gambling of all grades flourished unchecked in the

broad light of day. Half the buildings were saloons, and a large share

of the other half were brothels. The crooked little trail along which

the buildings of the place were scattered was very appropriately dubbed

“Red-hot Street” by the miners, and it played fully up to its name for

many weeks.

Naturally, such surroundings and conditions bred crime. There was

quarreling, fighting, and bloodshed. One or two men dropped out of

sight, but their disappearance caused hardly a ripple of inquiry. They

were mostly of that sort who “die with their boots on,” and no one

mourned their loss. Gradually the evil elements grew bolder, and under

the lead of the bolder spirits among them, took advantage of the general

disorder to rob and plunder at every opportunity.

At the head of these plunderers was one of those characters of whom we

read in stories of wild Western life, and whose likeness we may still

see exploited upon the screen of the moving pictures. He was a typical

“bad man” of the Western mining country. A tall, finely formed fellow,

with a handsome, dare-devil face. He wore his hair well down onto his

shoulders, sported high-heeled, red-topped boots, “toted” a pair of big

revolvers, and when under the influence of liquor, which was practically

all the time, he was a dangerous man. The respectable element feared him

and the coterie which followed his lead. But there was no organized

authority to appeal to for protection, and nothing was done, while the

gang went on their way unchecked and grew in insolence and outrage day

by day.

This wild leader of a wild band called himself “Tiger Bill” and boasted

loudly of the men he had killed in other places and as to the valiant

things he proposed to do on Short Creek. But the men of the place were

mostly too busy to pay any attention to the vaporings of Tiger Bill, and

as time went on he waxed more truculent and boastful than ever.

But he was destined to meet disaster at the moment when his prestige was

greatest, and from a source the very last that either the desperado

himself or any one else would have thought capable of resistance to his

will. Among the dozen or so plank sheds along Red-hot Street, that had

up the name of “Restaurant,” was a rough box of a place presided over by

a little German.

He was a meek-looking, pink-and-white little man, with weak eyes

sheltered behind a pair of large spectacles. He was an industrious

fellow, who attended strictly to his business, and whose only name, so

far as we knew, was Gus.

One morning Tiger Bill rose in an unusually ferocious frame of mind. The

luck had been against him at cards the night before, and his morning

potations had not sufficed to soothe his ruffled spirits. Walking along

Red-hot Street, he spied little Gus hard at work in his shed. The sight

seemed to fire Bill’s soul with a desire to exploit his fame in the

place. He felt assured that the inoffensive little German was a

tenderfoot ready to his hand, on whom he could demonstrate his valor

and satisfy his desire for blood and fame in perfect safety to himself.

“It’s a long time,” he remarked to the henchman at his side; “it’s a

long time since I had a man for breakfast. Watch me get the little

Dutchman.”

So saying, he strode into the place, with his revolver held

ostentatiously in his right hand. Walking up to the rough board counter,

he said:

“Here, you little, sore-eyed cuss, give me half a dozen raw oysters. Do

it pretty quick, too, if you know what is good for yourself.”

Gus hastened to fill the order. Not a sign did he show of fear, but some

remarked later that he served the oysters with his left hand.

“Here,” shouted Bill. “What do you mean sticking such oysters as them

under my nose?”

And at the word he dashed the contents of the dish full in the face of

the German. As he did so, he threw up his hand holding the revolver.

Beyond question he meant to kill Gus.

But Tiger Bill never fired that shot. Quicker than even his trained and

murderous hand, quick as a flash, indeed, the little German’s hand came

up, and it held a big, old-fashioned Colt revolver, and in an instant

the desperado was as dead as he could reasonably expect to be, with a

bullet hole drilled neatly through his head.

A great crowd instantly rushed in. Bill lay dead upon the floor, his

right hand still holding the revolver; behind the counter stood Gus,

quietly wiping off the mess of oysters from his face and the counter.

“Good Lord, Gus, what have you done?” shouted one.

“Mine Gott,” replied Gus. “Vat must I do? He vas schlapped me mit der

oysters of der face already, und he vas his gun have ready to shoot.

Next time maybe he takes a tenderfoot, maybe! Eh?”

There was nothing further to be said. Gus had stated the question

perfectly. So they picked up what was left of Tiger Bill, and, clad as

he was, and “with his boots on,” they thrust him into a hole in the

woods. Then the decent element, always in a large majority, rallied, and

elected men to serve as a committee to control the town until such time

as a regular government could be established.

One of the first duties that committee discharged was to send forth

notice that if any of the Tiger Bill crowd or their sympathizers were

caught in Short Creek that night there would be one of the largest and

liveliest hangings in history. That notice was enough; without Tiger

Bill, the courage of the bunch was wholly a minus quantity, and they

stayed not upon the order of their going, but went.

Silent Workers of the “Black Cabinet.”

“Headwork and legwork are more important than green goggles and false

whiskers” for the modern sleuth, according to William J. Flynn, chief of

the United States Secret Service, better known as Uncle Sam’s “Black

Cabinet.”

As a rule, disguises are not used by those in the service. If the matter

in hand, for instance, requires the collection of information from

workmen, a man is chosen who looks the part without a disguise. He

simply wears such clothes as workmen wear and affects the manners and

speech of the men with whom he mingles. On the other hand, if the work

requires contact with people in a better-dressed walk of life, or with

foreigners or negroes, an operative of the same class is chosen.

The United States Secret Service is under the direct supervision of the

secretary of the treasury. The only thing that can land a man in its

employ is passing the preliminary examination, submitting to a personal

interview with Chief Flynn, and showing one’s nerve and ability during a

month of testing out in the real business of detective work for Uncle

Sam. If a man makes good after this preliminary test, he goes on the

roll permanently.

The men are gathered from greatly different sources. There are college

graduates, mostly sons of criminal lawyers; musicians, stenographers,

linguists, bank clerks, identification experts, telegraph operators,

commissioned and noncommissioned officers of the army or navy, newspaper

men, a couple of sheriffs, one or two wardens, and an ex-mayor.

Some of the best work of secret-service operatives in recent years has

been accomplished by men formerly in the claims department of a railroad

or life-insurance companies.

The secret-service headquarters in Washington occupies a very

unpretentious suite of offices on the first floor of the treasury

department. Here are the private offices of Chief Flynn, whose salary is

$4,000 a year, and the assistant chief, William Moran, regarded as the

greatest expert in the detection of counterfeits and counterfeiters.

There is a clerical division employing not more than a dozen persons; an

identification bureau, where are kept on file the records of all known

counterfeiters and other undesirable citizens, and a large storeroom,

where confiscated counterfeiting outfits seized in raids are allowed to

accumulate pending their destruction according to law. There is a saying

in the service that “once a counterfeiter always a counterfeiter.”

The secret service was created primarily to catch counterfeiters and

protect the person of the president. In 1861 there was carried in one of

the appropriation acts $10,000 for suppressing the counterfeiting of

coin. Annually thereafter provision was made for the same purpose, and

embracing the counterfeiting of paper currency.

The United States is divided into secret-service districts, each

district having headquarters conveniently located in charge of a skilled

operative, who has under his direction from time to time as many

assistants as the criminal activities in his locality demand.

Perhaps the most picturesque work of the secret service is performed by

its “flying squadron”--the free-lance field workers, who may be sent to

any place at any time. Most of these men are not much above thirty years

of age; the average age of all secret-service men is under thirty-five.

They are alert, energetic, resourceful, and capable of assuming almost

any part of a sleuth demanded.

A new recruit in the service starts in as an assistant operative at

three dollars a day--if he proves worthy, he is promoted to the rank of

operative at five dollars a day. As an operative his pay may increase to

seven dollars a day, but before he can obtain the top-notch salary, he

must have made good and have acquired a considerable fund of practical

experience valuable to the service.

One of the most mysterious phases of the secret-service work concerns

the maintenance of communication between the central office in

Washington and its field operatives. A message, even in cipher is never

dispatched openly to his chief, but to some private individual,

previously agreed upon, who in turn places the message in the hands of

Chief Flynn.

Secret-service men are at work all the time. When there is no particular

case on hand, they are getting a line on the habits, haunts, and byways

of certain people who seem to be living without apparent effort. The

shadowed party does not suspect it, and he may never know.

Some years ago there was a notorious counterfeiter named Emanuel Ninger,

who for seventeen years kept the secret-service men of the whole country

chasing him. When they finally landed him, they had enough evidence

against him to convict him on a dozen counts.

Ninger was a manufacturer of hand-painted paper money. Being a skillful

artist, he was able to paint on white paper an all-but-perfect

reproduction of a ten or twenty-dollar bill. But the wet finger of a

bartender coming in contact with one of Ninger’s hand-painted bills

caused the color to “run.” Ninger had passed this particular bill

himself, and through it he was traced, arrested, and convicted.

At the time of his arrest the Washington bureau had on hand a large

collection of “Ninger notes,” but Ninger, until apprehended, had been

unknown to the secret service, and the notes were credited to “Jim the

Penman.”

An Indiana preacher, William K. Wade, turned counterfeiter, but confined

himself to twenty-five-cent pieces. The secret-service men were never

able to discover the location of his factory nor find his apparatus, but

the evidence against him was conclusive, and he was convicted. He served

his term in the penitentiary.

During the fiscal year ended June 30th last, there were 368 arrests by

the secret service, with seizure of $44,412 of counterfeit and altered

notes, $22,319 of counterfeit coins, 154 plates, four dies, and 162

molds.

This Goose Lays Big Eggs.

George Motter, of Nova, Ohio, reports that he has a remarkable goose.

This goose doesn’t lay golden eggs, but it does lay eggs which are five

inches long, two and seven-eighths inches in diameter, and which weigh

three-quarters of a pound each. And Mr. Motter’s goose continues to lay

in spite of the fact that she has passed her thirteenth birthday.

“Rings in Noses and Bells on Their Toes.”

Fashions of men and women frequently jump from one extreme to another,

but, according to a general all-around prophet, America is soon to

witness a series of transformations that will make plain, old-fashioned

people simply gasp with amazement. Society maids are to wear rings in

their noses and bells on their toes; the fair sex will become entirely

bald, and perhaps have cute little landscape scenes done in oil here and

there on their shining pates; men may adopt skirts, wear bracelets and

earrings, and possibly carry fans instead of canes, the walking sticks

being permissible to women alone.

This old world is fast approaching its great upheaval stage, this

wonderful prognostigator tells us. The great war of nations shows

it--the Scriptures show it, he declares. We have been in preparation for

this upheaval for nearly eighty years. He gets this from Peter’s saying

that an hour of God’s time is a thousand years. An hour of our time

would be eighty-three and one-third years of the Lord’s. This is our

eleventh hour of dispensation. It began in 1829 or thereabouts. He also

figures it out that the European war will end one year, one month, one

day, and one hour from the date of its inception--that--that--oh, well,

that lots of things are about to happen, including the customary rise in

beef prices.

James Henry Tate is fifty years old, is a pleasant little man, with a

great deal of personality and knowledge of events, past, present,

and--possibly--the future. Born in America of wealthy parents, educated

in the East, and possessing the “gift of tongues” and the power of

healing, he went to Denver five years ago after a revelation that Denver

is to be the central city of the great upheaval, religious and

otherwise.

“Present-day fashions are bearing out the Scriptures. In a very few

years women will be wearing bells on their shoes,” he predicts. “Skirts

will become tighter, and women will become old at early ages. Then women

will wear rings in their noses and will become bald, totally bald. For

the Scriptures read in the third chapter of Isaiah, 16th, 17th, and 18th

verses:

“‘Moreover, the Lord said because the daughters of Zion are haughty and

walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as

they go and making a tinkling with their feet, therefore the Lord will

smite with a scab the crown of the heads of the daughters of Zion.’

“I was called by the spirit when I was but seven years old. I have

received many calls since. I have the power of healing by the laying on

of hands. I carry a bottle of olive oil with me with which I anoint any

one who wishes to be healed, after the devils are cast out of the body.

I have a good constitution and have never had a doctor.

“My father is eighty-five years old, has served as a State senator in

Wisconsin, and he is rugged and strong. I eat no pork or fish that do

not have scales. I bar catfish, for catfish are scavengers and unclean.

I eat coarse bread and drink pure water.

“Latter-day churches are ignorant in their evils, and that is what is

causing so much backsliding. I have telegraphed President Wilson and

Secretary of State Bryan many times, and they have always followed my

advice, especially in the maintaining of strict neutrality. I have

received personal notes from our president, thanking me for my advice

and prayers.”

Interesting New Inventions.

J. B. Deidrich, of Streator, Ill., has invented a bread slicer which he

believes will be especially valuable for restaurants and boarding

houses. The knife is not much different from the ordinary bread knife,

but it is suspended from a frame which causes it to come down in the

same place each time it is swung for a cut. There is also a gauge which

insures every slice being of the same thickness. With its use there is

no danger of bread more than an eighth of an inch thick getting by the

censor.

Two Wisconsin inventors have patented a kerosene lamp that is

automatically extinguished if upset or even lifted from a support.

A screen has been patented that is raised and lowered with a window so

as not to interfere with the light when the window is shut.

The latest aëroplane invention is the use of a recording phonograph by

which the operator may make notes of his observations.

A conveyer belt has been recently made for an Ohio stone quarry which

cost $6,000, weighs 12,000 pounds, is 839 feet long, and 26 inches in

width--one of the largest ever made, if not the record breaker itself.

For carrying baskets that lack handles of their own, a folding wire

handle has been invented.

A cane that can be taken apart and converted into a stool is a French

invention.

Odd Texas Chicken Prodigy.

A four-legged chicken is the latest poultry prodigy to appear in Sulphur

Springs, Texas. Mrs. Neal Stribbling found this odd chicken in a brood

of twelve Rhode Island Reds. The baby chicken has two legs on its back,

directly above its two lower legs. It seems to be able to get about

quite as easily as the others of the hatch.

While sitting down it looks as if it were lying on its back, especially

when it stretches its upper legs, but generally they lie flat. When

walking the upper legs keep in motion, as if they helped the little

chick to get over the ground. It is now five days old, seems healthy,

and there is every indication that it will live.

Mrs. Stribbling thinks that possibly, later on, the chicken will be able

to flop over and use its upper legs for walking. Should this prove true,

she will try to sell it to a circus.

Egg in Contribution Plate.

When Reverend J. George Betzle, pastor of the First Baptist Church, in

Fremont, Neb., entered the church on a mission, he was surprised to see

a hen flutter out from under the pulpit. In his chase after the startled

biddy Mr. Betzle found an egg in the collection plate. The hen entered

the church through an open window and evidently wanted to contribute her

mite to the cause by laying an egg.

Stayed in One Room Thirty-seven Years.

After spending thirty-seven years in solitary confinement in a

dungeonlike room that knew no ray of sunshine, Monroe Eoff, sixty-eight

years old, Confederate veteran, died in Union, Ark. Thirty-seven years

ago he became blind, and immediately shut himself in his room, from

which he never left alive. His wife and daughter were the only persons

permitted to enter the room.

Gopher-trail Swindle Mulcts the Country.

Following the discovery that Teodoro Rosas, a Mexican youth, of Phoenix,

Ariz., had been conducting a gopher farm and mulcting the county out of

fifty to one hundred dollars a month, the supervisors abolished the

bounty of five cents which they had long paid on each gopher tail.

Farmers regard gophers as pests, and at their request the bounty was

made. Bounty claimants were required only to present the tails of

rodents, it being presumed that the animals the tails had belonged to

were killed. Young Rosas presented several hundred tails a month.

One of the supervisors chanced to pass by the Rosas farm and saw that it

was honeycombed with gophers’ burrows. He saw a number of gophers

without tails, and questioned Fosas, who admitted that he had never

killed a gopher, but, after removing their tails, turned them loose for

breeding purposes.

Centipedes Moving North.

The department of agriculture has made a study of the house centipede

which of late has spread from the Southern States to a number of

Northern States, and has issued a bulletin in which some of its

characteristics are set forth. It thrives in most places and devours

various house pests, such as moths, roaches, flies, probably even

bedbugs, and others. It does not injure household goods, woolens, et

cetera, as is commonly supposed. Its bite is somewhat poisonous, but it

seldom bites human beings except in self-defense. Prompt dressing with

ammonia is recommended as the best remedy for the bites.

Biggest Lemon Is in Jersey.

Mrs. Henry H. Bull, of Sparta, N. J., is exhibiting a lemon said to be

the largest ever raised in a hothouse in this section of the country.

The lemon measures thirteen inches in circumference, is eight inches in

length, and weighs four pounds. It took one year from the time the tree

blossomed until the lemon was ripe. The trees is five years old.

Fat Girl Passenger Stops Railway Traffic.

Traffic on the New York Central line was delayed twenty minutes when

Anna Chelton, Oil City’s fat girl, weighing more than 700 pounds,

departed to join a circus.

Half a dozen men transported her in a specially made wheel chair to the

baggage car, and when a transfer was made at Andover, Pa., the car was

detached and shifted to the freight depot. Later the baggage car of the

second train was shifted to the depot, and the weighty damsel placed in

it. The train was held until the crew made the transfer.

Carnegie Medal Is Well Won by Boy.

The stuff they mold heroes of cropped out at Dothan, Ala., one spring

morning. Now Henry T. Matthews, a youngster of that city, is wearing a

bronze medal presented by Andrew Carnegie for a remarkable deed of valor

committed with such modesty as would almost suggest indifference.

Newspapers throughout the State are now presenting the youth’s name as a

new representative of Alabama in the select few the Carnegie commission

chooses to call heroes. It all came about something like this:

Little Benjamin Grant, son of B. J. Grant, Dothan banker, and several

other playmates, whose ages averaged about the three-year mark, had

slipped from their nurses who chatted in the sunshine and were enjoying

the fine spring morning away up under the Grant residence, digging

trenches, making frog houses, tunnels, and such things and getting their

fresh linen just as dirty as they shouldn’t. Suddenly Benjamin

disappeared, right before the eyes of his mystified young friends. It

was as if the earth had swallowed him up.

The fair-haired tot had slipped into a deserted bored well, hid up under

the house for so long that no one ever remembered when it had been dug,

when it had been used, or when it had been deserted and covered up by

the building. Moreover, no one happened to know how deep it was, as was

later learned, and with these thoughts rushing through her frightened

brain the nurse girl in charge of little Ben prepared to inform the

child’s mother that her son was somewhere below earth, in a darkened,

unknown hole.

The alarm spread with a swiftness hardly believable. Within a few

minutes every woman in the neighborhood and every man who might be

located sitting about home during the busy part of the morning had

rushed to the scene.

The hole into which the boy had fallen was not large enough to carry

light more than a few feet; no man in a thousand could squeeze his

shoulders into the opening. To be exact, it measured thirteen inches in

diameter, as a later measurement showed.

Several men gazed into the blackness of the hole and gazed back again,

their faces pale, their eyes wide with a helplessness that brought on an

uncanny fright, even in the hearts of the strongest.

Some suggested a rope, others thought of hooks, and some said dig a

tunnel. All soon agreed, however, that none of the plans of rescue could

be carried out, for a three-year-old boy would never be expected to grab

a rope to be pulled through yards and yards of a bored well; iron hooks

might tear the baby to pieces while rescuers knelt and heard his cries

in vain, and a tunnel to the distance where his cries indicated he had

fallen would certainly mean a fatal cave-in.

Suggestions that some person be lowered had, of course, been advanced

long before, but had proven useless, for not one person in the great

crowd could enter the small opening.

“Send out and get some boys,” shouted one of the directors of the work.

The schools and their numerous offerings of all sizes and ages of lads

came first into the minds of the volunteer hunters. Two automobiles

rushed to a school less than three blocks away.

“We want the nerviest, bravest kids you’ve got in the building,” said a

member of the party to the superintendent. “Give us some small ones, who

are not afraid.”

The boys arrived. One by one they crept under the house; one by one they

looked into the blackness of the hole, and one by one they drew back

again. Their eyes glared and they soon became members of the back row of

spectators.

Then Henry Matthews came up. He rode into the edge of the crowd on his

bicycle, upon which he carried clothes for a tailor, to support his

widowed mother.

“What’s the matter?” he inquired meekly. Some one broke the uncanny

quietness for a moment and told him.

“Here’s another kid; try him,” whispered a man to the would-be rescuers

who had grown despondent. Henry walked forward. They told him what it

meant to go headfirst for perhaps twenty or thirty feet downward.

“Let me down,” said the frail boy quietly.

His feet were securely tied with a heavy rope. An electric light with an

extension cord was placed in his hand. The boy gazed slowly about the

peering faces and shoved his pale face into the blackness. Down he went,

inch by inch, and then foot by foot. The rope disappeared, behind him

for one yard, two yards, then three, four, five, and six yards. He was

still going down, and the light had disappeared in the blackness. The

rope must have gone forty feet, thought the men at the other end of the

line. Then:

“Pull,” came the faint command from down in the ground. The men at the

other end smiled with eagerness as they carefully drew on the line. Then

they looked at each other in excited expectation, for the load on the

rope was heavier than when Harry descended.

Ten feet of the rope had been pulled to the surface, when the men’s

faces changed. Their eyes again filled with fright. Quickly they drew on

the line, and soon Henry, his body covered with mud, sticks, and

rubbish, appeared alone. They gave him water, fanned him for a second,

and his pale face began to show faint color again. Then he spoke.

“I pulled him about ten feet,” he panted, “but his hands--his

hands--were so slick--the mud came off and he dropped back. He was on

some sticks--sticks caught in the well--when I found him--I’m afraid he

fell back through them. If he did, we can’t get him.”

Bennie’s mother fainted and was carried away. Other women, screamed and

rushed about blindly. Bennie’s voice was getting fainter. Old men

cried--men whose hearts had faced everything from the trials of the

Civil War to modern troubles.

“Let me down again,” said the brave young rescuer, as he rubbed his

face, as if to awaken to his undertaking.

Again his face disappeared, then his body, and then his feet. On and on

he went down. Thirty-five feet of the grass rope had disappeared when

the order to “pull” was heard far off. Anxiously, and with, less hope

than before, the men pulled. The line was heavier as they pulled, foot

after foot, above the surface.

The crying of a baby was heard down in the ground. The larger boy’s feet

appeared at the top; then his body, and then his face.

Then--little Bennie, clasped by each wrist by a pair of muddy hands,

appeared on earth again.

The women screamed and cried for the hundredth time that morning. The

men, or rather, most of them, wept and then cheered. Now everybody

cheered, and hundreds of voices let everybody within a block know that

the romper-clad boy was in his mother’s arms. They also let those about

know that Henry had emerged from beneath the house with eyes, hair,

hands, and clothing covered with mud. They grabbed him; women kissed

him, and men crowded about the boy.

“Haven’t got time to stop now,” said Henry. “Got to get back to the

shop.” And he hurriedly washed the dirt from his face. But they wouldn’t

let him go. They surged about the wondering lad and held him for a

while, or at least until the praising crowds could press fifty dollars

into his bread-earning little hands. Then he turned, jumped upon his

bicycle, and rode speedily away, to deliver the clothes for the tailor,

for the support of himself and his widowed mother.

Two Years on Their Honeymoon Walk.

Journeys across the continent twice on foot within a period of two years

marked the unique honeymoon trip taken by Mr. and Mrs. John Broxman, of

near Harrisburg, Pa., who arrived in Baltimore, Md., a few days ago,

and who, for just two hours, were the guests of Mrs. C. C. Webber, wife

of the pastor of the Emmanuel Evangelical Church, Greene Street, near

Lombard.

In the twenty-four months that they have been away the young married

couple have traversed the parched sands of the semitropical countries of

the South, the fertile valleys of the Middle West, and the rugged

mountain paths of the Far Western States. They are happy, and have

returned to their homes without reporting a mishap.

In making their long journey on foot, Mr. and Mrs. Broxman have won both

fame and fortune, for not only were they cordially welcomed in all the

towns and cities through which they passed, but as the result of their

long hike they have been presented with a huge sum of money by a

brother-in-law of Mrs. Broxman in California, and henceforth they will

make their home on a farm which has been purchased by the bridegroom

near Harrisburg.

Mr. and Mrs. Broxman strolled into Baltimore unnoticed, and sought

acquaintances whom they had known years ago. In their search for their

friends they drifted into the neighborhood of Greene and Lombard Streets

and dropped into the parsonage of the Emmanuel Evangelical Church in

order to get directions as to streets and house numbers. Mrs. Webber

happened to be at home, and invited the strangers in. She could not aid

them in their quest for the Baltimore friends, but she did entertain

them the greater part of the afternoon, and while enjoying the

hospitality of her home, the young people told of their unique honeymoon

trip.

Mr. and Mrs. Broxman were married two years ago, and had planned to

spend their honeymoon quietly in the East. But Mrs. Broxman’s

brother-in-law in Santa Ana, Cal., told them that he would present them

with a substantial sum of money if they would take as their honeymoon

trip a “stroll” from Harrisburg to California and back again. They

decided to try and win the prize held out to them, so immediately after

the wedding ceremony was performed, they started on their long hike.

From Baltimore the young couple went to Harrisburg.

Dogs Have Acquired the Art of Speech.

In a previous issue we briefly described a dog named Woodrow Wilson that

was said to be able to utter sounds which distinctly resemble words. The

dog is a bull terrier and was named Woodrow Wilson because on the day of

President Wilson’s inauguration he wandered into the home of Miss Rose

Bonn, of Scottsdale, Pa., his present owner.

He does such feats in “talking” that he is the wonder of the town. He

answers questions promptly and correctly. For instance, when he is asked

“Whom do you love?” he promptly replies, “My mamma.”

Woodrow Wilson may be a remarkable dog, but there have been other

talking dogs brought to the attention of the public during the last

decade, says a writer who has made note of them. There was Cutey! Did

you ever hear of her? Well, her owner was positive she could speak, and

many of his friends were willing to corroborate his enthusiastic

statements.

Cutey’s ability as a talking dog was brought to the attention of the

public in a peculiar way. A small boy was playing with a ball in East

Fourteenth Street, New York, one afternoon when a fox terrier strolled

along and stopped to watch the boy. Greatly to the boy’s astonishment

the dog suddenly said: “I want my rights.”

It did not take long for the boy to spread the news about the talking

dog, and finally it reached the newspapers. A reporter was sent to see

the owner of the dog, Fred Jackson, of 241 East Fourteenth Street.

Although the reporter was skeptical when he entered Cutey’s home, he

emerged convinced that if the dog did not speak, she made a pretty good

attempt.

It took Cutey’s owner three months to teach her how to say “I want my

rights.” He got the idea from observing the dog trying to repeat things

that were said to her. It was also asserted by neighbors that Cutey was

able to say “I will not” and “Good night, everybody.”

A dog named Rolf attracted much attention in Berlin because of his power

to utter sounds which could be distinguished as words. This dog not only

could speak, but he could spell. In fact, he attracted so much attention

that Professor Claparede, of the department of experimental psychology

of the University of Geneva examined the dog and pronounced him a

wonder.

The professor, in order to avoid collusion between the dog and his

mistress, brought a set of pictures along with him which the dog had

never seen. One of the pictures showed four mice nibbling at cheese.

Without any hesitation the dog spelled out words which convinced

Professor Claparede that Rolf knew what the picture was.

Not long ago the police of Philadelphia made what they considered an

important capture in the form of a dog who was in league with a band of

thieves. While this animal did some petty thieving on his own account,

he was valuable to the thieves because of his ability to “talk” to them

whenever he saw policemen approaching. His “talk” consisted of short

barks, which the thieves understood perfectly.

Although the police were suspicious of the owners of the dog, they could

never catch them in the act. Finally it dawned on them that the dog had

been trained to run up and down before places which were being robbed.

The police then decided to watch the dog, and, swooping down suddenly

one night on the four-footed “lookout,” they caught the thieves at work.

There lived in Cranford, N. J., a dog which could not only “talk” but

read a newspaper as well. The dog, whose name was Throgs, was the

property of Miss Alice Lakey, of the New Jersey State Food Commission,

and had the regular job of going to the newspaper store every morning

for the family paper. He carried the coin wrapped up in a paper, gave it

to the news dealer, got his paper, and returned home with it in his

mouth.

One morning the regular news dealer was not present at the stand, but

another person in the store slipped a paper into Throgs’ mouth. The dog

walked slowly out of the store to the other side of the street, where he

dropped the paper and then thoroughly scrutinized it. Convinced that it

was not the paper he was in the habit of getting, he sat down and waited

until the news dealer returned. Then he walked back to the store, got

his regular paper, and trotted home with it.

The Nick Carter Stories

ISSUED EVERY SATURDAY BEAUTIFUL COLORED COVERS

When it comes to detective stories worth while, the =Nick Carter Stories=

contain the only ones that should be considered. They are not overdrawn

tales of bloodshed. They rather show the working of one of the finest

minds ever conceived by a writer. The name of Nick Carter is familiar

all over the world, for the stories of his adventures may be read in

twenty languages. No other stories have withstood the severe test of

time so well as those contained in the =Nick Carter Stories=. It proves

conclusively that they are the best. We give herewith a list of some of

the back numbers in print. You can have your news dealer order them, or

they will be sent direct by the publishers to any address upon receipt

of the price in money or postage stamps.

704--Written in Red.

707--Rogues of the Air.

709--The Bolt from the Blue.

710--The Stockbridge Affair.

711--A Secret from the Past.

712--Playing the Last Hand.

713--A Slick Article.

714--The Taxicab Riddle.

717--The Master Rogue’s Alibi.

719--The Dead Letter.

720--The Allerton Millions.

728--The Mummy’s Head.

729--The Statue Clue.

730--The Torn Card.

731--Under Desperation’s Spur.

732--The Connecting Link.

733--The Abduction Syndicate.

736--The Toils of a Siren.

738--A Plot Within a Plot.

739--The Dead Accomplice.

741--The Green Scarab.

746--The Secret Entrance.

747--The Cavern Mystery.

748--The Disappearing Fortune.

749--A Voice from the Past.

752--The Spider’s Web.

753--The Man With a Crutch.

754--The Rajah’s Regalia.

755--Saved from Death.

756--The Man Inside.

757--Out for Vengeance.

758--The Poisons of Exili.

759--The Antique Vial.

760--The House of Slumber.

761--A Double Identity.

762--“The Mocker’s” Stratagem.

763--The Man that Came Back.

764--The Tracks in the Snow.

765--The Babbington Case.

766--The Masters of Millions.

767--The Blue Stain.

768--The Lost Clew.

770--The Turn of a Card.

771--A Message in the Dust.

772--A Royal Flush.

774--The Great Buddha Beryl.

775--The Vanishing Heiress.

776--The Unfinished Letter.

777--A Difficult Trail.

782--A Woman’s Stratagem.

783--The Cliff Castle Affair.

784--A Prisoner of the Tomb.

785--A Resourceful Foe.

789--The Great Hotel Tragedies.

795--Zanoni, the Transfigured.

796--The Lure of Gold.

797--The Man With a Chest.

798--A Shadowed Life.

799--The Secret Agent.

800--A Plot for a Crown.

801--The Red Button.

802--Up Against It.

803--The Gold Certificate.

804--Jack Wise’s Hurry Call.

805--Nick Carter’s Ocean Chase.

807--Nick Carter’s Advertisement.

808--The Kregoff Necklace.

811--Nick Carter and the Nihilists.

812--Nick Carter and the Convict Gang.

813--Nick Carter and the Guilty Governor.

814--The Triangled Coin.

815--Ninety-nine--and One.

816--Coin Number 77.

NEW SERIES

NICK CARTER STORIES

1--The Man from Nowhere.

2--The Face at the Window.

3--A Fight for a Million.

4--Nick Carter’s Land Office.

5--Nick Carter and the Professor.

6--Nick Carter as a Mill Hand.

7--A Single Clew.

8--The Emerald Snake.

9--The Currie Outfit.

10--Nick Carter and the Kidnaped Heiress.

11--Nick Carter Strikes Oil.

12--Nick Carter’s Hunt for a Treasure.

13--A Mystery of the Highway.

14--The Silent Passenger.

15--Jack Dreen’s Secret.

16--Nick Carter’s Pipe Line Case.

17--Nick Carter and the Gold Thieves.

18--Nick Carter’s Auto Chase.

19--The Corrigan Inheritance.

20--The Keen Eye of Denton.

21--The Spider’s Parlor.

22--Nick Carter’s Quick Guess.

23--Nick Carter and the Murderess.

24--Nick Carter and the Pay Car.

25--The Stolen Antique.

26--The Crook League.

27--An English Cracksman.

28--Nick Carter’s Still Hunt.

29--Nick Carter’s Electric Shock.

30--Nick Carter and the Stolen Duchess.

31--The Purple Spot.

32--The Stolen Groom.

33--The Inverted Cross.

34--Nick Carter and Keno McCall.

35--Nick Carter’s Death Trap.

36--Nick Carter’s Siamese Puzzle.

37--The Man Outside.

38--The Death Chamber.

39--The Wind and the Wire.

40--Nick Carter’s Three Cornered Chase.

41--Dazaar, the Arch-Fiend.

42--The Queen of the Seven.

43--Crossed Wires.

44--A Crimson Clew.

45--The Third Man.

46--The Sign of the Dagger.

47--The Devil Worshipers.

48--The Cross of Daggers.

49--At Risk of Life.

50--The Deeper Game.

51--The Code Message.

52--The Last of the Seven.

53--Ten-Ichi, the Wonderful.

54--The Secret Order of Associated Crooks.

55--The Golden Hair Clew.

56--Back From the Dead.

57--Through Dark Ways.

58--When Aces Were Trumps.

59--The Gambler’s Last Hand.

60--The Murder at Linden Fells.

61--A Game for Millions.

62--Under Cover.

63--The Last Call.

64--Mercedes Danton’s Double.

65--The Millionaire’s Nemesis.

66--A Princess of the Underworld.

67--The Crook’s Blind.

68--The Fatal Hour.

69--Blood Money.

70--A Queen of Her Kind.

71--Isabel Benton’s Trump Card.

72--A Princess of Hades.

73--A Prince of Plotters.

74--The Crook’s Double.

75--For Life and Honor.

76--A Compact With Dazaar.

77--In the Shadow of Dazaar.

78--The Crime of a Money King.

79--Birds of Prey.

80--The Unknown Dead.

81--The Severed Hand.

82--The Terrible Game of Millions.

83--A Dead Man’s Power.

84--The Secrets of an Old House.

85--The Wolf Within.

86--The Yellow Coupon.

87--In the Toils.

88--The Stolen Radium.

89--A Crime in Paradise.

90--Behind Prison Bars.

91--The Blind Man’s Daughter.

92--On the Brink of Ruin.

93--Letter of Fire.

94--The $100,000 Kiss.

95--Outlaws of the Militia.

96--The Opium-Runners.

97--In Record Time.

98--The Wag-Nuk Clew.

99--The Middle Link.

100--The Crystal Maze.

101--A New Serpent in Eden.

102--The Auburn Sensation.

103--A Dying Chance.

104--The Gargoni Girdle.

105--Twice in Jeopardy.

106--The Ghost Launch.

107--Up in the Air.

108--The Girl Prisoner.

109--The Red Plague.

110--The Arson Trust.

111--The King of the Firebugs.

112--“Lifter’s” of the Lofts.

113--French Jimmie and His Forty Thieves.

114--Death Plot.

115--Evil Formula.

116--Blue Button.

117--Deadly Parallel.

118--The Vivisectionists.

119--The Stolen Brain.

120--An Uncanny Revenge.

121--The Call of Death.

122--The Suicide.

123--Half a Million Ransom.

124--The Girl Kidnaper.

125--The Pirate Yacht.

126--The Crime of the White Hand.

127--Found in the Jungle.

128--Six Men in a Loop.

129--The Jewels of Wat Chang.

130--The Crime in the Tower.

131--The Fatal Message.

132--Broken Bars.

133--Won by Magic.

134--The Secret of Shangore.

135--Straight to the Goal.

136--The Man They Held Back.

137--The Seal of Gijon.

138--The Traitors of the Tropics.

139--The Pressing Peril.

140--The Melting-Pot.

Dated May 22d, 1915.

141--The Duplicate Night.

Dated May 29th. 1915.

142--The Edge of a Crime.

Dated June 5th, 1915.

143--The Sultan’s Pearls.

Dated June 12th, 1915.

144--The Clew of the White Collar.

=PRICE, FIVE CENTS PER COPY.= If you want any back numbers of our

weeklies and cannot procure them from your news dealer, they can be

obtained direct from this office. Postage stamps taken the same as

money.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 79-89 Seventh Ave., NEW YORK CITY