MR. AMOS JARGE.
Two days previous to the mysterious robbery at the Lydecker home a slim,
black-eyed stranger, alighting from the local train at Hudson, inquired
of the cabman who drove him up to the business section the location of a
certain real-estate firm.
As the result of his visit there the stranger engaged an office in the
most prominent business building in the town, and upon the glass door,
so that all who passed might read, was lettered:
Amos Jarge.
Private Detective Agency.
On the Monday following the robbery the portly form of Mr. Lydecker
might have been seen entering the elevator of the same building. And
directly behind him, also entering the elevator, came hurrying another
man. Apparently preoccupied, this latter stepped upon Mr. Lydecker’s
heels. Instantly he drew back with profuse apologies.
“A thousand pardons, sir! I—I——” He broke off abruptly and held out his
hand. “Why, Mr. Lydecker! This is, indeed, a surprise.”
Mr. Lydecker’s brow cleared and he accepted the hand.
“Bless my soul! What are you doing in Hudson, Mr. Jarge?”
Jarge laughed. “I had quite forgotten that you lived in this city,” he
declared. “Let me see, the last time we met was——”
“On the Fall River boat,” interrupted Mr. Lydecker. “I can never forget
that incident! You returned my daughter’s jewels to me; don’t you
remember?”
“Quite so.” Jarge nodded slowly. “Of course, of course! That was during
the time of my employment with the Fall River Company. Since you have
recalled it, I remember the incident perfectly.”
They had stepped out of the elevator now and were standing in the hall.
“Then you are no longer in the services of the——” Mr. Lydecker began.
“I resigned a month ago,” Jarge interrupted. “I have since started in
business for myself. I have opened a chain of offices between Boston and
New York.”
“Is that so?” exclaimed Mr. Lydecker. “And where——”
“Straight ahead of you, sir.” Jarge waved indifferently toward a door at
the end of the hall. “That is my headquarters for Hudson and the
surrounding district.”
Mr. Lydecker followed the hand, and read the black letters on the glass
door of the office.
“Well, well,” he remarked, “this is pleasing news. I sincerely trust you
will find success in your new venture, Mr. Jarge.”
“Thank you. I believe I have made a good beginning.” He paused
reflectively, as if his thoughts were a thousand miles away. “And now,
if you will pardon me, Mr. Lydecker,” he announced, “I will be hurrying
back to my desk. There are so many details to arrange and so much——”
“Certainly, certainly,” broke in the other. “I understand, of course.
And—and possibly, later on, I might have a little work for you myself,
Mr. Jarge.”
The detective nodded in a disinterested manner. “I shall be pleased to
handle it. Good day, sir.”
Jarge swung briskly away, and Mr. Lydecker watched as the door closed
behind him. Then he walked down the hall.
“A very smart and intelligent man, this Jarge,” he told himself. “I
think I will make no mistake in hiring him.”
The next day Mr. Lydecker called at Jarge’s office, only to be met by a
curt and busy stenographer with the announcement that the detective was
out on an important case, and would not return before the next day.
On the following afternoon Mr. Lydecker was again unfortunate, and
learned from the same busy and curt stenographer that Mr. Jarge was
still engaged and was not expected in the office until Friday at the
very earliest.
So, on Friday, Mr. Lydecker called up Jarge on the telephone and asked
for an appointment.
The detective happened to be in his office at the time.
“I’m afraid I will have to disappoint you, Mr. Lydecker,” he said. “I’m
pressed with other business. Wouldn’t some day next week answer just as
well?”
“I must see you to-day,” insisted the other. “It is a very important
matter.”
“Perhaps one of my assistants can be of service to you,” Jarge went on
to say. “I can arrange to have——”
Mr. Lydecker demurred at once. “I must take this up with you personally,
Mr. Jarge. I am willing to pay extra for the favor. But it must be
arranged before to-morrow.”
“I don’t see just how——” Jarge began, only to be interrupted by:
“Let me see you for five minutes. I can explain my case and you can
judge for yourself. You can surely grant me that much time, Mr. Jarge.”
The detective hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Very well, Mr.
Lydecker,” he answered reluctantly. “I can allow you five minutes. I
will be in the office at eleven o’clock sharp.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Jarge. I shall be there on the hour. If you
only knew how——”
But the detective had already hung up his receiver. So the perturbed Mr.
Lydecker was forced to do the same.
Promptly at eleven o’clock Mr. Lydecker stepped nervously out of the
elevator on the sixth floor of the business block, and, walking to the
far end of the hall, entered the office of Mr. Amos Jarge, private
detective.
TO BE CONTINUED.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
The jury had retired for consultation prior to bringing in a verdict of
“Guilty,” which was expected of them. Retiring at all seemed little more
than a farce, for from the beginning to the end of the case the evidence
had gone so steadily against the defendant that by the time the last
witness had been called there was no manner of doubt in the public mind
that Robert Sullivan had deliberately and in cold blood murdered Jack
Wilder, and it needed not the vigorous speech of the prosecuting
attorney to convince any one to that effect.
The evidence, being briefly summed up, ran as follows: Robert, or, as he
was more familiarly called, Bob Sullivan, while in a state of
intoxication, quarreled with and lost his last cent to Jack Wilder, a
professional sharper. Awaking the morning after his debauch, to find
himself beggared, he had sworn, in the presence of several witnesses, to
get his money back or kill the man who had outwitted him. Accordingly,
he had set out to meet Wilder on his return from a neighboring town, and
next day the body of the latter was found in a lonely stretch of the
road, with a knife sticking in his heart.
Sullivan had been obliged to admit that he had met his enemy near this
spot, and that they had a stormy interview, but maintained that they
parted without blows, as Wilder promised him to restore his money. There
was no tittle of circumstantial evidence wanting to confirm the
appearance of Sullivan’s guilt, and even the attorney for the defense
was privately convinced of the falsity and absurdity of his client’s
plea of “Not guilty.”
The judge, a large, pompous man, having instructed the jury in his most
severe and autocratic manner, busied himself with some papers, and did
not deign a glance to the assemblage below. It was, as could readily be
observed, a gathering of small tradespeople and farmers. Here and there
the keen face of a lawyer or that of a stranger from the neighboring
city stood out boldly from the sea of honest vacuity which surrounded
it.
The prisoner sat with his face buried in his hands, which had lost their
former tan, and were pale and trembling. Near him was his wife, hugging
a sickly babe to her breast, and showing in her wild eyes, twitching
mouth, and every line of her meager, stooping figure, the terror which
held her in its grasp. A breathless silence was upon that audience in
the shabby courtroom; even the baby had ceased its fretful wailing, and
the buzz of a bluebottle fly entangled in a spider’s web in the window
was the only sound that broke the stillness.
Five minutes passed, ten, twenty, and still the jury had not come. A
murmur of impatience began to be heard, and presently the judge beckoned
the sheriff to him, whispered a few words in his ear, and saw him depart
through the same door which apparently swallowed up the jurors. The
sheriff made his way through several gloomy passages into a large, light
room, where he inquired of the foreman if they were not yet agreed.
“No, we ain’t!” gruffly responded that functionary. “There’s eleven of
us for hangin’, but Conway, there, won’t hear to it. He wants to clear
the feller out an’ out, an’ says he’ll stay with us till kingdom come
before he’ll budge an inch.”
Giles Conway, the man whose obstinacy was causing such unnecessary
delay, was seated rather apart from the rest, and wore the brown jeans
and soft hat which marked him a farmer. Even had not the absence of any
attempt at foppishness proclaimed his caste, there was something about
him which insensibly connected itself in the observer’s mind with the
free winds and untrammeled sunshine of the country. He was much the same
color from his head to his feet, for eyes, skin, hair, and beard were
alike brown, and only the deep lines on his firm, squarely cut face
showed that he was no longer young. Just at present he seemed in no wise
disconcerted by the wrathful impatience of his associates, but pushing
his felt hat farther back on his head, and settling himself more
comfortably in his wooden chair, said slowly:
“No, friends, you won’t ever get me to hand over a man to the gallows on
such evidence as that, an’ there ain’t no special use of cussin’ about
it, for it won’t do a bit of good.”
“Oh, but that is such foolishness!” broke in one of the group. “Here’s
all this evidence, that no man in his senses could doubt, a-goin’ to
prove that Bob Sullivan killed Jack Wilder, and here you sit like a bump
on a log, and won’t listen to none of it.”
“That’s just it,” replied Conway. “You all think that evidence like that
orter hang a man, but if you’d seen as much of that sort of thing as I
have, you’d think different. I ain’t much of a talker, but maybe you
wouldn’t mind listenin’ to a case of this kind I happen to know about,
an’ maybe the time I’m done—an’ it won’t take me long to tell it—you’ll
see why I don’t want to hang a young fellow I’ve known nearly all my
life for somethin’ that very likely he didn’t do.
“You all know how when I wasn’t much over twenty I went West an’ put all
the money I could rake an’ scrape into a ranch an’ cattle. Well, the
place next to mine was owned by a young fellow—we’ll call him Jim
Saunders, although that isn’t his name—who’d come out, like me, to make
his fortune. We took to each other from the first, an’ pretty soon we
were more like brothers than a good many of the real article I’ve seen
since. After a while Jim told me he was goin’ to get married, an’ a few
weeks later he brought home the prettiest little thing you’d see in a
day’s ride. She had lots of yellow hair that was always tumblin’ down
over her shoulders, an’ big blue eyes, an’ a voice like a wild bird, an’
Jim—well, he thought there wasn’t nobody like Milly in all the country.
“She seemed fond of him, too, at first, but it wasn’t long before I
could see that it was a clear case of misfit all round. There was lots
of excuse for her, for of course it was a hard life, an’ she loved
finery an’ pretty things, an’ Jim didn’t have the money to give ’em to
her, though he worked early an’ late, an’ did his level best to make
somethin’ more than a livin’.
“Maybe it would have turned out all right in time if it hadn’t been that
one day Jim went to the nearest town to buy some farmin’ implements, an’
fell in there with a fellow he used to know back East, and nothin’ would
do him but he must go home with Jim to see how he was fixed. Well, he
come, an’ it was a black day for Jim when he set foot on his threshold,
for from the minute he saw Milly he hadn’t eyes for nothin’ else, and
she bein’ a woman, was mightily set up to think a city man would set
such store by her.
“He made himself so pleasant an’ so much at home that they begged him to
stay all night, an’ long about twelve o’clock he was, or pretended to
be, took awful sick. They worked with him till he got better, and
wouldn’t hear of his tryin’ to go away next mornin’; so he stayed on,
setting on the big rockin’-chair with a pillow behind him an’ talkin’ to
Milly while Jim was off at work. He didn’t seem in no particular hurry
about goin’, but Jim never ’spicioned for a minute that anything was
wrong, for he liked the fellow first-rate, an’ would no more have
thought of doubtin’ Milly than he would the Lord that made him.
“One evenin’ he came in late, tired an’ hungry, an’ foun’ that his
wife—his wife that he loved—had left him and gone away with that devil
that he thought was his friend! He went wild for a while. It seemed to
him like everything was black around him, an’ there was great splotches
of blood before his eyes, an’ he could hear voices that kept a-laughin’
at him an’ callin’ him a fool, an’ the only thing he held fast to was
that he must follow ’em to the world’s end and kill the man that had
took away all he had. So he tracked ’em, now here, now there, but always
they doubled on him, till at las’, when his money was gone, he lost ’em
altogether.
“Then he came to himself a little, an’ sold his ranch an’ went back to
his old home to wait—for he knowed somehow that one day, sooner or
later, the Lord would give him his revenge. He worked while he waited,
an’ made money an’ got well off, an’ nobody knew nothin’ ’bout his ever
bein’ married, so he had somethin’ like peace. But he never forgot, an’,
after a while, it seemed like he didn’t feel so hard toward Milly, for
he remembered how young she was, an’ how foolish, an’ what a devil she
had to deal with; an’ sometimes he could see her with the pretty color
all gone from her cheeks, an’ the laugh from her voice, heartbroken an’
deserted.
“At last, twenty years afterward, when he was gettin’ on in life, his
time came. He was ridin’ along, not thinkin’ about anything in
particular, when he happened to look up, an’ there, comin’ toward him
roun’ a bend in the road, an’ ridin’ on a big black horse, was the man
he’d waited for all these years. They knowed each other the minute their
eyes met, an’ the fellow got white as chalk an’ pulled his horse clean
back on his haunches, tryin’ to turn roun’ an’ make a run for it, but it
wasn’t no good, for Jim was off his horse in a minute an’ had him by the
throat, an’ in less time than it takes to tell it, he had pulled him
down, cursin’ an’ cuttin’ at him, to the ground. Then, holdin’ him
there, with his knee on his breast an’ his knife at his throat, he says:
“‘Where’s Milly? Tell me, or I’ll cut your devilish heart out!’
“The fellow glared back at him like a rat in a trap, an’ seein’ death in
his eyes, an’ knowing ’twas no use to lie, says:
“‘She’s dead; she got sick when we got to New York, an’ I left her, an’
she died in a week.’
“‘I’d orter kill you like a snake, but I’ve always lived square, an’ the
Lord helpin’ me, I’ll die that way, so I’ll give you an even chance. Get
out your knife an’ fight, an’ remember that one of us has got to die
right here.’
“Then he let him up, and they went at it. They was pretty evenly matched
to look at ’em, but Jim thought of Milly dyin’ all alone, an’ fought
like a tiger, an’ pretty soon he left the man that had come between ’em
stiff an’ stark with a knife in his heart, an’ his white face a-glarin’
up at the sky.
“Then comes in the part of the story that I want you all to take for a
warnin’, before you’ll be so quick to find any man guilty on nothin’ but
circumstantial evidence. When the body was found, nobody ever thought of
’spicionin’ Jim, but everything pointed to another man as the one who
had done the killin’. He’d sworn to kill the dead man; he was on the
hunt for him when last seen, an’ he couldn’t prove no alibi. So they
arrested him, and the first Jim heard of it he was summonsed on the jury
that was to try him. Jim hadn’t never thought of giving himself up for a
murder, for he knowed he’d fought and killed his enemy fair an’ square,
an’ he was glad he done it. He didn’t see that it was any business of
the law’s to interfere between ’em, and he didn’t like to drag in
Milly’s name before the judge an’ jury an’ all the people who wouldn’t
remember, like he did, when he was young an’ innocent. Even when he was
summonsed, he didn’t have any notion but he would be cleared when they’d
look into things some, an’ he made up his mind not to say nothin’ if he
could help it.
“But when he got there, everything went so dead against the prisoner
that if he hadn’t knowed he’d done the killin’ himself, he’d ’a’ thought
sure he was guilty. He got kind of dazed at last, and didn’t seem to
know nothin’ till he found himself in a room with the rest of the jury,
an’ all eleven of ’em wanting to hang the man that he knowed was
innocent. Then he came to his senses and voted against ’em, an’ when
they asked him for his reasons, he told ’em the story I’ve been tellin’
you.”
Giles Conway stopped and gazed stolidly into the eyes of his audience,
who had gathered around him till they hemmed him in on every side.
“An’ what did they do with him?” asked the foreman at last.
“I don’t know,” he answered slowly. “It ain’t decided yet, for Jack
Wilder was the man that run off with Milly, an’ it was me that killed
him.”
NOT TO BE OUTDONE IN POLITENESS.
A rich old man lying on his deathbed had assembled his three nephews to
acquaint them with the manner in which he intended to dispose of his
property.
“To you, my dear John, as you have always been a steady and dutiful
nephew, I have left the sum of twenty thousand dollars.”
“Thank you, my dear uncle,” said John, burying his face in his pocket
handkerchief to conceal his emotion. “I only hope you may live to enjoy
it yourself.”
“You, also, Thomas, have been a good lad. I have, therefore, left you
the sum of fifteen thousand dollars.”
“Thank you, my dear uncle. I only hope you may live to enjoy it
yourself.”
“As for you, Frank, you have been a sad dog; to you, therefore, I have
left the sum of twenty-five cents to buy a rope to hang yourself with.”
“Thank you, my dear uncle,” said the dutiful nephew. “I only hope you
may live to enjoy it yourself!”
THE NEW WEATHER SYSTEM.
By MAX ADELER.
Cooley is the inventor of an improved system of foretelling the weather.
He has a lot of barometers, hygrometers, and such things, in his house,
and he claims that by reading these intelligently, and watching the
clouds in accordance with his theory, a man can prophesy what kind of
weather there will be three days ahead. They were getting up a
Sunday-school picnic in town in May, and as Cooley ascertained that
there would be no rain on a certain Thursday, they selected that day for
the purpose. The sky looked gloomy when they started, but as Cooley
declared that it absolutely couldn’t rain on Thursday, everybody felt
that it was safe to go. About two hours after the party reached the
grounds, however, a shower came up, and it rained so hard that it ruined
all the provisions, wet everybody to the skin, and washed all the cake
to dough. Besides, Peter Marks was struck by lightning. On the following
Monday the agricultural exhibition was to be held, but as Mr. Cooley
foresaw that there would be a terrible northeast storm on that day, he
suggested to the president of the society that it had better be
postponed. So they put it off, and that was the only clear Monday we had
during May. About the first of June, Mr. Cooley announced that there
would not be any rain until the fifteenth, and consequently we had
showers every day, right straight along up to that time, with the
exception of the tenth day, when there was a slight spit of snow. So on
the fifteenth, Cooley foresaw that the rest of the month would be wet,
and by an odd coincidence, a drought set in, and it only rained once
during the two weeks, and that was on the day which Cooley informed the
baseball club that it could play a match, because it would be clear.
On toward the first of July, he began to have some doubts if his
improved weather system were correct; he was convinced that it must work
by contraries; so when Professor Jones asked him if it would be safe to
attempt to have a display of fireworks on the night of the fifth, Cooley
brought the improved system into play, and discovered that it promised
rainy weather on that night. So then he was certain it would be clear,
and he told Professor Jones to go ahead.
On the night of the fifth, just as the professor got his Catherine
wheels and skyrockets all in position, it began to rain, and that was
the most awful storm we have had this year. It raised the river nearly
three feet. As soon as it began, Cooley got the ax, and went upstairs
and smashed his hydrometers, hygrometers, barometers, and thermometers.
Then he cut down the pole that upheld the weathercock, and burned the
manuscript of the book which he was writing in explanation of his
system. He leans on “Old Probs” now when he wants to ascertain the
probable state of the weather.
THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.
Scale Ounce Over Forty Years.
Sealer of Weights and Measures Robert J. Hongen, of Weissport, Pa., in
testing a scale used by one of the leading merchants for the past forty
years, found that it allowed seventeen instead of sixteen ounces to the
pound.
The merchant says he must have lost considerably through this scale, but
is glad that it operated in favor of his customers.
Family of Twenty Children.
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Anstine, natives of the Pigeon Mountains, near Spring
Grove, Pa., are the parents of twenty children—eight boys and twelve
girls. There are no twins or triplets among them.
Mr. Anstine is fifty years old and his wife is forty-five. They live in
the remotest part of the Pigeon Mountains, in a small hut having but
four rooms. The oldest child is twenty-four years old. The whole family
is hale and hearty despite the limited accommodations of their little
house. They live mostly by money earned from wood-cutting in the
forests.
Famous “Houn’ Dawg” in Bad.
The “houn’ dawg” is doomed. The hills that now resound with his throaty
bellow are to be dotted with sheep and subside in silence, believes
Doctor A. J. Hill, who has assisted in preparing a legislative “tin can”
to tie to the sagging tail of the kicked-around hound. The dogs are
blamed for the high price of mutton and the low price of sheep in the
State of Missouri.
Doctor Hill and other interested landowners have drafted a law which
provides that all dogs in the State shall be taxed, and that the tax
money shall constitute an insurance fund to reimburse sheep owners for
their losses by dogs.
Wisdom Teeth; Why so Called.
The so-called wisdom teeth are the last two molars to grow, and they
have no real connection with the possession of wisdom. They take their
name from the time of their arrival, from twenty to twenty-five years,
at which age the average person is supposed to have reached years of
discretion.
Cutting one’s wisdom teeth means simply arriving at the point of
completeness in physical equipment, and has no direct relation to mental
equipment. The possession of these teeth is no guarantee of wisdom. They
grow at about the same age in people whether they are wise or not.
Walnut Tree Forty-six Years Old.
Colusa, Cal., is laying claim to having the largest California black
walnut in the world, but the dimensions of the Colusa tree do not come
up to those of a tree that is growing on F. W. Schutz’s farm on Sycamore
Slough, six miles northeast of Arbuckle, also in Colusa County.
Some time ago an account in newspapers first brought this monster tree
before the reading public, and it received much attention throughout the
State. The agricultural department of the State University wrote Schutz
about it, stating that information sent by him would be used in a book
that the department is compiling.
In answer to the request of the university authorities Mr. Schutz has
taken accurate measurements of the tree, which are as follows:
Circumference one foot from the ground, twenty-two feet, eight
inches—below this the roots appear above the surface of the ground,
making the tree about twenty-six feet; circumference nine feet from the
ground, nineteen feet nine inches; height, 102 feet; width of shadow at
noon, 120 feet.
The big tree is forty-six years old, having been planted in 1868 by D.
Arnold, a Colusa County pioneer.
Virginia’s Oldest Cow Dies.
“Old Nancy,” said to be the oldest cow in Virginia, is dead. This cow
was fifty-two years old when she expired with the old year, thus turning
the recent holiday into a day of gloom for her owner and others. When
young, the cow’s color had been a blood-red, but for more than twenty
years her hair had been turning white, until at the time of her death
her hair was as white as the snow that covered the ground.
Her owner, John Adkins, of Big Laurel, Va., was only one day older than
Nancy, and at his marriage the cow—then being over twenty—was a wedding
gift from his father, who said: “Keep Nancy until she dies, John, for
she’s a good old cow.”
In recent years her owner has been offered good round sums for the aged
animal, but he invariably refused, with the remark: “No, no; I’d just as
soon think of parting with Martha—his wife—as to allow old Nancy to be
toted around the country with a show.”
Emigrant from Erin Dies a Millionaire.
The story of the hunt for gold is ever a story of toil and privation,
often a tragedy. For the one who strikes it rich, thousands are lost in
the oblivion of poverty and ill fate.
Colonel Thomas Cruse, who died at the age of seventy-nine, in Helena,
Mont., recently, was one of the lucky few who leaped from poverty to
affluence thirty years ago. He discovered the Drum Lummon Gold Mine,
north of Helena, sold it to an English syndicate for $1,500,000,
retaining one-sixth interest, and shared in the profits of $30,000,000
which the mine has produced.
Mr. Cruse was twenty years old when he left County Cavan, Ireland, to
seek his fortune in the mining camps of the West. He roamed around
various diggings in California, Nevada, and Idaho, blew into Virginia
City, Mont., in 1865, when Alder Gulch was at the height of its glory,
and later struck the placers around Helena, where fortune smiled upon
him.
Drum Lummon drew its name from the locality in Ireland where Cruse was
born. Before it had a name it had a romance redolent with the ill luck
of the original finder. He was a little, wiry Frenchman named L. F.
Hilderbrand, who drove an express wagon to Deadwood long after Tommy
Cruse put Drum Lummon on the mining map. In the very early days
Hilderbrand prospected in Montana. A stumble on the mountain side caused
him to chip off a piece of a bowlder which was so rich in gold quartz
that his eyes popped in the excitement of riches in sight. He and his
partner began to look for the lead from which the bowlder sloughed off.
Unfortunately, Hilderbrand and his partner undertook to roll out of the
way the great bowlder which gave them a clew to wealth. By one of those
queer capers of blasted luck which prospectors fear, the bowlder moved
too quickly and rolled over and crushed the arm of Hilderbrand’s
partner. Being without money and needing medical attention, they left
the place, trudged to Helena, where the partner was under the care of a
doctor, and Hilderbrand went to work in near-by places to earn money to
pay the bill.
Some ten years later, Hilderbrand, still at outs with his luck, and
weary of roaming, reached the spot where the bowlder sent his hopes
skyward. The bowlder had the appearance of an old acquaintance, but the
surroundings were changed to a bewildering extent. Before his eyes was a
monster hoisting plant raising rich ore from a shaft hundreds of feet in
depth, while in the gulch a huge stamp mill was at work. The bowlder
occupied a place of honor in front of a building. Hilderbrand touched
it, patted it affectionately, and tears filled his eyes. Presently
through the mist of his tears he read the sign: “Drum Lummon Mine,
discovered by Thomas Cruse.”
During the period of development, when hard luck pressed Cruse to the
verge of abandonment, some one advised him to strike Sam Ashby for a
couple of hundred. Ashby was a money lender in Helena who knew how to
sweat the coin when put at work on good security. Cruse put the matter
of a loan up to Ashby. All he got, however, was a fine line of free
advice, coupled with the money lender’s assurance that he would rather
throw paper money into the furnaces of his satanic majesty than loan it
to such a “shiftless fellow.”
Years after, when Cruse’s day of prosperity came, one of the early
visitors to the “Thomas Cruse Savings Bank,” just started in Helena, was
Sam Ashby. The fortunes of Cruse and Ashby had been reversed. Cruse was
flush, Ashby empty of pocket. Cruse led his would-be customer to the
door, and, in the underscored language of the West, assured the customer
that he would rather throw his money into the furnaces of his satanic
majesty than to loan it to such “a shiftless fellow” as Sam Ashby.
Soon after his bank was started, at the age of fifty, Cruse decided that
he had enough capital to support a wife. Miss Margaret Carter, sister of
the later United States Senator Carter, became Mrs. Cruse. The wedding,
in 1886, was the greatest social event in the history of Montana’s
capital. It was a celebration for all the population.
Cruse arranged for an open house and free drinks with every saloon in
Helena. Tradition has it that the whole male population of the town got
drunk at the bridegroom’s expense, and it took a week to sober the
people into a working condition. The jamboree was the greatest ever
pulled off in the treasure State; no one attempted to rival the score.
The joys of wedded life were of short duration, however. Mrs. Cruse died
within a year, leaving a baby daughter, on which the father lavished his
affections and means.
What Count John A. Creighton was to Omaha, Thomas Cruse was to Helena.
Every public enterprise, every promising industry, drew his support;
benevolent and charitable movements commanded assistance from his purse.
He was the chief contributor to the building of the Catholic Cathedral
of Helena, which was dedicated on Christmas Day, the Methodist Hospital,
the Young Men’s Christian Association, and the Young Women’s Christian
Association shared in his bounty, and his liberality in supporting the
local club kept Helena on the baseball map.
The career of Mr. Cruse was linked in many ways with the active lives of
several former Omaha residents. A year or two before Cruse struck Alder
Gulch, Patrick Gurnett, Mrs. Gurnett, and three young children started
from Omaha with a bull team in a caravan which occupied six months in
covering the distance to Virginia City, Mont. Cruse and the Gurnetts
probably became acquainted there.
In subsequent years, when the Gurnetts became ranchers in the Missoula
valley, south of Helena, Cruse’s poverty as a prospector was frequently
relieved by the food reserves of the Gurnett homestead.
Frank J. Lange, son of an Omaha family of pioneer grocers, is the active
manager of Cruse’s Savings Bank, and has been confidential associate and
adviser of the millionaire for years past.
Another man, Harry Cotter, married Cruse’s daughter, Mary, who died a
year ago last November. Cruse and Cotter did not pull together, and the
death of the daughter widened the breach, which continued to the gold
miner’s end.
Put Nickle in Slot, Get Paper Raincoat.
Have you ever arrived in your old home town in a pelting rainstorm, all
dolled up in your Sunday best, and been compelled to pass up a quarter
to the local bus man or linger around the depot until some good
Samaritan with an umbrella is kind enough to escort you to the abode of
your family or friends?
Have you ever noticed a flock of pretty but scolding maidens in a
downtown doorway or the post-office entrance, or the vestibule of a
movie-picture place wildly calling for umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers,
brother’s, or best beau’s silk handkerchief, or anything to prevent that
lovely seven or ten-dollar hat from being ruined by the sudden shower?
If you are a masculine reader, have you ever been compelled to “cough
up” from three to six dollars in order to get your fair Dulcinea home
from play or dance when it is raining pitchforks and black cats and the
rubber-coated man on the box has suddenly become so stiff and lofty—in
his price, at least—that occasionally one doubts if he can be touched
even with a ten-spot bill or a ten-foot pole?
If you have ever passed through any of the above-enumerated
experiences—and what man or woman has not—forget it; deliverance is at
hand. The hour of the hastily impressed newspaper, the borrowed
umbrella, or the painfully extracted cash loan from the hotel clerk or
elevator boy is to bob up unserenely no more, for the paper raincoat has
taken its place alongside the egg sandwich, chewing gum, and insurance
policies placed before the public in vending machines.
The man or woman who drops a nickel for a package of gum to aid in the
digestion of his nickel-in-the-slot meal, and then pays a quarter to
another machine for a policy insuring him or her against the
consequences, may soon get a raincoat from an adjacent machine as a
result of the ingenuity of a woman, who has obtained a patent on a paper
raincoat, said to be waterproof. She plans to manufacture the coats in
large quantities and distribute them in specially devised vending
devices.
It is to be presumed that the feminine raincoat will be provided with a
cute little hood, or capote, as they say in French, and possibly the
masculine garment will have some attachment that will be quite eskimo
and save the wearer’s two-dollar derby from gaining an inch or two in
circumference. All hail, hoch, also hear-hear to the paper raincoat! Bah
to the never-present, disappearing, eye-destroying, pestiferous
umbrella.
“Corpse” Smokes in Hearse.
Panic was caused along the road between Jefferson and Chapel, Ohio, by
the spectacle of what apparently was a corpse sitting upright in the
middle of a hearse and serenely puffing a cigar.
The “remains” which had indulged in this unseemly performance were Will
Hodge, of Jefferson. Hodge had attended the funeral of an aunt at
Chapel. On the long trip home after the interment, Hodge started riding
beside the driver of the hearse.
The intense cold soon chilled him to the bone, and he obtained
permission from the driver to get inside the glass case. Here he soon
got warm, and, to add to the comfort of his journey, he lighted a cigar.
Rural folks along the way were terrified.
Toss on Raft Four Days at Sea.
Twelve of them, ten men and two women, were out there on the Atlantic
for four days, tossing on a sea-made raft, and no one in New York knew
of it until Charles Olsen, the mate, a six-foot, fair-haired Swede, came
in on the ward liner _Monterey_ and told the story.
It was some story, too, this simple chronological narrative of the
breaking up of the American barkentine _Ethel V. Boynton_ some sixty
miles east of Wilmington, N. C. Olsen said it was God alone who saved
him and his mates. None of them ever expected to see land again.
“I won’t tell all we went through,” he said, half smiling, “because, in
the first place, it would take too long, and then, when I get through,
you’d think I was thinking things, especially when I told you how the
sharks swam round waiting for us and we beat them off, hitting them on
their heads with our paddles.
“Maybe I’d better begin at the beginning like I was reading from the
log. So I don’t forget it, take it down right here now that the twelve
of us lived for six days on a two-pound can of tripe and three cans of
blueberries.”
The barkentine left Mobile December 26th, with lumber for Genoa, Italy,
in command of Captain G. W. Waldemar and a crew of nine men. On board
was Mrs. Waldemar and her young niece, Miss Gladys Larrock.
“Just at sunrise,” said Olsen, “we ran into a hurricane that came up
from the south. It got so bad that we hove to at eight a. m. until
midnight. It eased up a little, but came up again strong by seven
o’clock next morning. We fired the deck load overboard—had to do it, and
do it quick; she was leaking pretty badly.
“About ten-fifteen a. m. up came one of those racers—you know what I
mean, three waves chasing one right behind another. It came full at us
and swept clean over. It seemed to curl up about forty feet above the
deck.
“That wave tore out about thirty feet of our quarterdeck and carried it
over. At midnight we were completely water-logged. Next morning, at
two-thirty, we shipped another of those racers, and it carried off the
forrid house and the fo’c’s’le deck.
“We got kind of uneasy about the two women. They never said a word. If
they were scared, they didn’t let anybody know it, and we didn’t let
them know we were worried about ’em. At six a. m. we cut away the main
and mizzen sticks, and thought for a while we were going to stay above
water, but at nine a. m. we knew it was all off.
“About nine-fifteen a. m. we launched the yawl. But what was the use? We
just did it on a chance, anyway. That yawl had hardly hit the water when
she was smashed to pieces against the side.
“Big sticks of lumber from our jettisoned cargo now slammed the
barkentine hard. At ten a. m. the starboard side opened up. That was
some day. At eight-thirty p. m. the foremast jammed itself through the
bottom; a big part of the foredeck drifted away with it. We were just
simply going to pieces. We didn’t know where to lash the women, because
we couldn’t say what part would go away next.
“The lumber in the hold was just raising hell. The morning of the next
day, at three-thirty o’clock, the stern broke off entirely. At
five-thirty a. m. the main deck splintered and so did the after house. A
half hour later we made a raft out of the roof of it. We all got onto
it, lashing the women. They lay flat and had a hard job to keep from
choking, because the waves were hitting us hard.
“At seven-thirty a. m. we sighted the main deck, and started out for it.
It took us two hours to paddle. We used pieces of the lumber that
drifted to us. When we all climbed on board, we made fast the raft to
it. That was the last thing we did, because at eleven p. m., after three
days and nights on the drifting main deck, the thing bu’sted to pieces.
“That was the only time the women showed excitement. They didn’t want to
get back on that raft. The little gal, Miss Larrock, she lives in
Boston, like I do. She said to me: ‘Mate, we will never see Boston
again.’ I said: ‘Oh, yes. Don’t you give up, little gal, not much.’ She
laughed—it sounded like she was laughing—and she said something she read
some time out of a book. ‘Well, mate, we will die with good and true
hearts.’
“Well, we didn’t die. The Ward steamer _Manzanillo_ came along at
ten-thirty o’clock the morning after the main deck bu’sted to pieces,
and we can thank Warner, the cook, that she saw us. He grabbed the code
flag R when we left the vessel, and we stuck it up on a piece of lumber
on the raft. It is a red flag, with a yellow cross, and they could see
it better than most any flag.”
Olsen turned to the cook and slapped him hard between the shoulders.
“Freddy, old boy, we never missed a meal, did we?”
Warner winced and acquiesced.
“Yes, sir,” continued the mate, “the twelve of us lived for six days on
that measly two-pound can of tripe and three tins of blueberries.
Freddie, here, opened the can of tripe with his teeth and an old fork.
Then he speared a piece at a time on a wire and handed it around three
times a day.
“And, by gosh, the skipper looked at every piece that was swallowed. He
said: ‘I caution you fellas to go light on that tripe, because we might
be a long time here. One of the three cans of berries was given to four
of us. We had a three-gallon keg of dirty fresh water with us on the
raft, and it tasted fine.”
The _Manzanillo_ landed the Boynton’s crew at Santiago, Cuba, where they
were cared for in a hospital. The skipper and his wife and niece later
went by steamer to Mobile.
How “Long” is a Kiss? “Long” Meant, Not “Why.”
How long is a kiss? No, not “why?”—nobody so foolish as to ask that—but
“how long?”
“As long as you can hold your breath,” somebody has said, but the
question which moving-picture censors and actors and actresses are
debating now is, how much film a kiss may, with propriety, fill.
“Three feet is the limit,” said a recent ruling of the Chicago board of
censors.
“That’s too much,” said Miss Ruth Stonehouse, one of the favorites of
the “movie fans.” “No kiss has a right to more than one foot of film.
“You see, when an actress is kissed on the stage, it isn’t because she
wants to be kissed, but because the artistry of the play demands it, to
indicate emotion on the part of the stage characters. It is utterly
impersonal, you know.”
“It is?” ventured the interviewer.
“Why, of course. It isn’t really the actress who is being kissed, but
the character she represents. Sometimes an unskilled actress uses the
prolonged kiss to convey her idea of a love scene, but if she
understands the art of expression, it is unnecessary.”
“But would you limit the real, honest-to-goodness love kiss to one
foot?” asked the “cub” reporter anxiously.
“We were talking of the stage,” she replied gracefully. “The kind you
mean, my dear boy, are a quite different affair.”
Oklahomans Plan Second Wolf Drive.
A wolf drive on a large scale occurred in the hills west of Greenfield,
Okla., a few weeks ago. The ground covered was about twenty-five square
miles. The lines were formed at ten a. m. and at the signal shot
thousands of hunters began to move in toward the center.
When within a mile of the center, all lines were halted and orders were
given by the captains to cease firing until the encircling line could be
formed solid, but before this could be accomplished, many wolves
escaped. When the hunters closed in, eight wolves were discovered, but
five of the eight managed to get away. Many rabbits were killed,
however.
There will be another hunt over the same ground and considerable added
territory. The circular sent out to all residents of the vicinity says
the recent drive was not satisfactory, as several wolves were allowed to
make their escape. It is now proposed to have a big wolf drive and
barbecue dinner after the round-up to all that go into the lines and
help make the drive a success. It has been decided that the captains
issue tickets to all men in their respective lines, all able-bodied to
take part in some line. The committee asks the hearty coöperation of
every man within the adjoining territory to make this drive a success,
as it is not a matter of sport only, but an effort to rid the country of
wolves.
The drive will cover forty-nine square miles, making each line seven
miles in length. “We want to make this drive the most successful of any
held in Oklahoma, and ask that you leave all booze at home to prevent
accidents.
“All firearms are barred except shotguns, and no shot to be used larger
than No. 4.”
The circular further says:
“Each captain will be entitled to four sergeants to help him with his
mile. There will be no shot fired from nine a. m. to ten a. m., the time
of starting. The signal to start will be given at the southeast corner
promptly at ten a. m., each captain to fire his gun, and the sergeants
to fire their guns in turn until the signal is carried entirely around
the lines.
“All wolves are to be sold at auction, and the proceeds to go to pay for
coffee and bread. The meat is to be donated and barbecued on the ground
for all who hold tickets. So be sure that you are in one of the lines in
order to get a ticket. Ladies are invited to the round-up ground and
will get their dinner free.
“No quail to be shot, and all rabbits to be saved and sent to Oklahoma
City, to be distributed among the poor.
“Also please remember, no shooting in the center at round-up ground. The
drive will be held immediately west of Greenfield.”
Is Champion Hose Knitter.
Without doubt “Aunt Sallie” Hardly, of Big Laurel, Va., is the champion
hose knitter in the world. She has just celebrated her eighty-fifth
birthday by knitting a pair of men’s hose. Her hobby has always been
knitting. She could knit a pair of men’s hose in two days when she was
nine years old. Aunt Sallie thirty years ago began keeping a record of
hose knit, and since that time has completed 10,005 pairs, she says. “I
believe that in all I have knitted over fifteen thousand pairs, and have
hopes of making it twenty thousand before I reach one hundred, which age
I believe I will live to see,” she said.
Girl Rifle Team Gets “Defi.”
The girl’s rifle team of the Iowa City High School, Iowa City, Ia., has
been challenged by a girls’ rifle team of Washington, D. C., and
probably will accept the “defi.” The coach is Professor C. E. Williams,
a member of the Iowa university national championship team of other
days, and now coach of the national high-school champion five of Iowa
City.
Small Pitching Staff Best, Says Old-timer.
Jimmy Ryan, veteran player and one of the best of the famous Chicago
Colts, believes baseball is going back to the old days, when five
pitchers were all the biggest club would carry.
“At present,” he says, “we find big-league clubs with ten or more
pitchers on the pay roll, when three or four are actually doing the
work. What is the result? Why, these regulars are liable to be fretty
because they have to perform the heavy tasks and at the same time see
six or seven men sitting on the bench drawing pay and performing no
actual labor in championship games.
“‘Why do I have to do so much and wear myself out, when those guys are
having it so soft?’ they frequently say to themselves. And you can’t
blame them.
“Instead of a dozen high-priced men stepping on each others’ toes, I
believe that the day is coming when six will be the limit any club
carries. Manager Stallings, of the Boston Braves, has shown to the
present generation that it can be done.
“Back in the eighties, when I was pitching, John Clarkson, another
fellow, and myself would do the bulk of the work. And it didn’t hurt us
any, either. We were in shape, and had to keep so.
“It was seldom one heard a pitcher say he was feeling bad then, or had a
kink in the arm. He had to get out and work or lose his job.
“They can talk all they want to about baseball’s improving. But I fail
to see it that way. We could teach the present-day players a lot about
the game, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
“Hard work never hurt any ball player. You see what it did for the
Boston Braves! It won them a world’s championship.”
Catches Coyotes in an Original Manner.
A coyote likes to have a newspaper clipping to read before it puts its
foot in a trap. This is according to the philosophy of John Harvey, of
Riverside County, California, who has about two hundred animals to his
credit—by traps, shotgun, and poison.
Harvey’s favorite trap is one of the familiar steel-jawed type with a
strong spring at each end. He sets it with his knees, by bringing almost
his whole weight on the springs. The spot chosen is usually on plowed or
cultivated ground. The flat pan, or trigger, of the trap is covered
skillfully with a piece of newspaper about four inches square, and all
is carefully covered with earth. Even the six-foot chain and drag are
concealed. Then over the place spread a lot of chicken or bird feathers,
and any other available animal or fowl trash, such as entrails and
pieces of pelt. This proves the undoing of Mr. Coyote when he comes
prowling about in the night.
The trapping is generally done in the fall or winter, after the buzzards
have migrated, as the bait is also tempting to that kind of “health”
birds.
Bars Men Who Drink Liquor.
The Milton Manufacturing Company, an ironworking concern which has the
largest plant in Milton, Pa., with hundreds of employees, has posted
notices in the plant, barring all men who use intoxicating drinks.
Employees who have signed saloon applications for the establishing of
saloons, now before the Northumberland County court, must have their
names withdrawn from the applications if they desire to continue in the
company’s service.
Lost Diamond Mine Discoverer is Found.
The lost locator of Kimberley lost diamond mines has been found. Joseph
H. Meyers, for whom a world-wide search was started three months ago by
men whom he had interested in a South African diamond-mining
proposition, has written to the stockholders of his company explaining
his long silence and giving a report on the prospects of the
undertaking.
Meyers had been missing since July 5, 1910, and Doctor Fred C. Wheat, of
Minneapolis, Minn., last November asked members of the Iowa Alumni
Association to “comb all the quarters of the earth” in an effort to find
him. Meyers was a graduate at the class of 1888, University of Iowa.
Meyers is a mining engineer, and his wife is said to be an expert in
minerals. In 1904 he was in charge of a large mine at San José, Cal.,
where he befriended an old Scotchman named Sandy McDonald. When the old
man died, he showed Meyers a map giving the location of a valuable
diamond mine near Kimberley. This map, he said, he had secured from
another Scotchman.
Meyers, at first skeptical, finally went to Kimberley, found the mine,
and returned with the report that in a few days he had dug out five
hundred carat weight of gems. He interested his friends in the United
States and secured $25,000 to buy the land. If he had taken it as a
diamond claim, he would have had to split the diamonds with the
government.
Returning to South Africa, he found that the price of the land had gone
up as a result of the discovery of other mines near, and he was forced
to return to this country and raise $10,000 more. He was last seen in
San Francisco.
In a letter to J. L. McLaury, of Glenwood, Minn., Meyers, writing from
Fresno, says he is still blocked in his effort to secure title to the
diamond property, but that the obstacle may be removed any day.
Doctor Wheat refuses to discuss the details of the venture, although he
said that he was satisfied that Meyers was absolutely honest, and that
eventually the proposition would be a success.
King of the Rabbit Hunters.
Stephen Osborn, seventy-eight years old, who lives five miles southwest
of Gentry, Mo., claims the distinction of being the champion rabbit
hunter—for his age, at least—of northwestern Missouri. He has killed 500
rabbits so far this winter, and is not through yet.
Osborn, who is an expert shot, does his hunting in a buggy which is
drawn by a twenty-one-year-old horse. He is accompanied by two dogs. The
dogs scare the rabbits from their hiding places; then, after the fatal
shot is fired, they bring the dead animals to the hunter, who is not
compelled to leave his buggy. Osborn says his best day’s work was
forty-nine rabbits out of fifty shots.
Modern Lumberjack a Real Aristocrat.
Should an old-time lumberjack wander back into the neighborhood of
Mellen, Wis., searching for old, familiar scenes, and with the possible
desire to once again, for a brief time, enter into the old calling for
pastime or physical improvement, he would be apt to make a hasty survey
of present conditions, and, with a voice softened by disappointment,
declare: “No, this is not the same—not at all the same. This may be all
right for a minister’s son, but not for me—not for me. Too much like
Chicago.”
Last week residents of Mellen had an opportunity to watch a train of new
boarding cars switched out into the woods over the logging railroad of
the Foster-Latimer Lumber Company. The cars were built in the local car
shops of that concern and are the last word in quarters for woodsmen.
The outfit comprises a “kitchen car,” equipped with the most modern
kitchen appliances, such as can only be found in the culinary
departments in hotels of large cities; two “sleepers,” equipped with
steel double-deck beds, springs, and mattresses, there being no bunks,
but regular upper and lower berths, each for two persons and provided
with individual ventilating windows; in the roof are also eight patent
ventilator stacks. The two diners are provided with individual tables
for setting four persons each.
The entire train is comfortably heated by steam heat. The cars are
provided with hard-wood floors, neatly painted inside and out, well
lighted, and also provided with the latest model gasoline-lighting
system.
Set New Roller-skate Mark.
Frank Bryant, of Duluth, and Raymond Kelly, of St. Paul, lowered the
world’s record for relay roller skating when they finished their
twenty-four-hour grind in Duluth, Minn. The team skated 348 miles and
eight laps.
Fred Martin, of Milwaukee, and Frank Bacon, of Detroit, made the former
record two weeks ago at the Madison Square Garden, when they rolled off
293 miles.
Bryant and Kelly showed wonderful endurance, by sprinting the last two
hours. They are professionals, Bryant being Northwestern champion on the
wheels.
Two Days Under Felled Tree.
A Mexican living three miles southwest of Binger, Okla., was chopping
wood, when a tree fell on him and held him fast from Friday until Sunday
morning. An Indian chief, “Big Snow,” discovered the Mexican’s plight
and succeeded in releasing him. There were no bones broken, but the
Mexican was badly bruised and suffered much from his long exposure to
the cold.
Hero Gives His Life to Save Little Child.
This is a story of a brave and heroic youth who sacrificed his own life
that a little child might live. The tragedy marked the close of a merry
coasting party, and the death toll might have been greater but for the
unfortunate hero, Edward Schumacher, aged seventeen years.
Near Dundee, Ill., a fine hill stretches, invitingly long and white in
the winter days and nights. For long it has been a favorite spot for
coasters, and it was not unusual that the fatal evening found a gay
party spinning down the shimmering course. Schumacher sat at the
steering lever of the big coasting “bob,” with a small child in his lap.
Behind were three other boys and four girls.
“Don’t be afraid, little fellow,” he said to the timid child. “I’ll take
good care of you, all right.”
The sled shot down the incline at a furious speed. Half-way to the
bottom it encountered a sharp grade and became unmanageable. The
steersman lost control for a moment, and the “bob” darted to the side
just as a post loomed up a few paces ahead. Collision was inevitable.
Schumacher’s mind worked quickly, and then, without a thought of
consequences to himself, he flung the child from him into a deep
snowbank. The next instant the sled hurled itself upon the post, with
the steersman still at his place.
The child was picked up, unhurt, and of the seven young persons who sat
behind, none were injured beyond a severe shaking up, but the boy in
whose hands, for a moment, were the lives of all in the sled lived only
a few minutes after the crash. But he had kept his promise to the child,
even at the cost of his own life.
Is Seventy-five and “Spry as a Cricket.”
There is an old lady living in Harrogate, Tenn., Taylor by name, who, at
the age of seventy-five years, is the mother of fifteen children, 108
grandchildren, ninety-six great-grandchildren, and 25
great-great-grandchildren, and she is still as spry as a cricket.
New Line Over Continent.
Work on the latest American transcontinental railroad is nearing
completion. “Only a few miles remain to link the Canadian Northern
railroad from ocean to ocean,” said R. Creelman, general passenger agent
of the Canadian Northern, when on a visit in Chicago the other day. “The
last gap, north of Kamloops, in British Columbia, is being closed at the
rate of nearly three miles a day, and the final linking of the unbroken
line of steel from the Atlantic to the Pacific should take place before
the end of this month. It still lacks more than four years of a half
century since the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific linked the two
oceans, forming the first continuous all-rail route across the
continent. In 1885 the Canadian Pacific was completed. The Canadian
Northern is the latest of the transcontinentals. The line extends from
Quebec through Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Port Arthur, Winnipeg, Regina,
Edmonton, Calgary, to Vancouver. While the main line is approximately
3,100 miles long, from Quebec to Vancouver, feeders increase the mileage
of the system to slightly over 9,000, nearly two-thirds of which has
been in operation for a number of years.
“The completed road will be a monument to the enterprise of two famous
railroad builders—Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann. Their first
experience in railroad building came with the construction of the
Canadian Pacific thirty years ago. Since 1896 they have been engaged on
the Canadian Northern system.”
GREENBACKS!
Pack of $1,000 Stage Bills, 10c; 3 packs 25c. Send for a pack and show
the boys what a WAD you carry. C. A. NICHOLS, Jr., BOX 59, CHILI, N. Y.
CACHOO!
Make the whole family and all your friends “just sneeze their heads off”
without knowing why, with CACHOO, the new long distance harmless snuff.
Sent anywhere for 10c. 3 for 25c. C. A. NICHOLS, Jr., Box 59, CHILI, N.
Y.
Tobacco Habit
Easily Conquered
A New Yorker of wide experience, has written a book telling how the
tobacco or snuff habit may be easily and completely banished in three
days with delightful benefit. The author, Edward J. Woods, 230 G,
Station E, New York City, will mail his book free on request.
The health improves wonderfully after the nicotine poison is out of the
system. Calmness, tranquil sleep, clear eyes, normal appetite, good
digestion, manly vigor, strong memory and a general gain in efficiency
are among the many benefits reported. Get rid of that nervous feeling;
no more need of pipe, cigar, cigarette, snuff or chewing tobacco to
pacify morbid desire.
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.
700—The Garnet Gauntlet.
701—The Silver Hair Mystery.
702—The Cloak of Guilt.
703—A Battle for a Million.
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.
715—The Knife Thrower.
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.
737—The Mark of a Circle.
738—A Plot Within a Plot.
739—The Dead Accomplice.
741—The Green Scarab.
743—A Shot in the Dark.
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.
778—A Six-word Puzzle.
782—A Woman’s Stratagem.
783—The Cliff Castle Affair.
784—A Prisoner of the Tomb.
785—A Resourceful Foe.
786—The Heir of Dr. Quartz.
787—Dr. Quartz, the Second.
789—The Great Hotel Tragedies.
790—Zanoni, the Witch.
791—A Vengeful Sorceress.
794—Doctor Quartz’s Last Play.
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.
806—Nick Carter and the Broken Dagger.
807—Nick Carter’s Advertisement.
808—The Kregoff Necklace.
809—The Footprints on the Rug.
810—The Copper Cylinder.
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.
817—In the Canadian Wilds.
818—The Niagara Smugglers.
819—The Man Hunt.
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—The Death Plot.
115—The Evil Formula.
116—The Blue Button.
117—The 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.
Dated January 30, 1915.
125—The Pirate Yacht.
Dated February 6, 1915.
126—The Crime of the White Hand.
Dated February 13, 1915.
127—Found in the Jungle.
Dated February 20, 1915.
128—Six Men in a Loop.
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
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
—Created a Table of Contents based on the chapter headings.
—Note that this was published as a periodical and contains incomplete or
continued stories.