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i for a lit -Oil,: '• &C'4: Cbpyriqhf- by EdwirvBalmer "FLESH 1 FLE8HI- •TTMOPSI8.--Waalthj and* hiaWy placod In the Chicago business world, Benjamin Corvet la something of a recluse and a mystery to his associates. After a stormy Interview with his partner, Henry Sp^arraan, Corvet seeks Constance Sherriil, daughter ol his oth«r business partner, Lawrence Sherriil, tnd secures frora lier a promise not to marry Spearman. He then disappears. Shtjrril! learns Corvet has written to a certain <Vl*n Conrad, It. Blue Rapids, Kansas, and exhibited strange agitation over the matter. Corvet's letter summons Conrad, % youth of unknown parentage, to Chicago. Alan arrives in Chicago. From a statement of Sherriil it seems probable Conrad la Corbet's illegitimate son. Corvet has deeded his house and Its contents to Alan. Mi . CHAPTER IV*--Continued. lH»at Sherriil bid told Alan of his father bad been Iterating Itself again and again In Alan's thoughts; now he recalled that Sherriil had said that his daughter believed that Corvet's disappearance bad had something to do with her. Alan had wondered at the moment how that could be; and as he watched her across the table and now and then exchanged a comment with bar, it puzzled him still more. He bad opportunity to ask her when she waited with him In the library, after dinner was finished and her mother had gone upstairs; but he did not see (hen how to go about it. "I'm sorry," she said to him, "that are cant be home tonight; but perhaps ' would rather be alone T He did not answer that. , "Have you a picture here, Miss Sherp. V *81, of--my father?" he asked. **Uncle Benny had had very few pictures taken; but there Is one here." She went into the study and came hack with a book open at a half-tone picture of Benjamin Corvet. Alan took it from her and carried it quickly closer to the light. The face that looked up to him from the heavily glazed page was regular of feature, handsome In a way, and forceful. v13>ere were imagination and vigor of thought in the broad, smooth forefcead; the eyes were strangely moody and brooding; the mouth was gentle, father kindly; It was a queerly im- ^pelling, haunting face. This was his father! But, as Alan held the' picture, gazing down upon it, the only emotiou which came to him was realization that be felt none. He had no emotion of any sort; he could not attach to this Man, because he bore the name which seme one had told him was his father's, the passions which, when r ^teaming of bis father, he had felt. ;Alan stood still a moment longer, then, remembering the book which he held, he drew a chair up to the light, •nd read the short, dry biography of his father printed on the page opposite the portrait. It summarized in a few hundred words bis father's life. Alan shut the book and sat thoughtful. The tall clock in the ball struck . Bine. He got up and went out into the hall and asked for his bat and coat. When they had been brought Mm, he put them on and went out. ••• He went down the steps and to the «Orner and turned west to Astor street. ^When he reached the bouse of his fatter he stopped under a street lamp, looking up at the big, stern old manflon questioningly. He could not call up an; sense that 4he house was his, any more than he had been able to when Sherriil had *>ld him of it. He own a house on that street I Yet was that in itself any more remarkable than that he ||iould be the guest, the friend of such FrIT* Could Not Call Up Any SWIM That T the House Waa His. people as the Sherrills? No one as Vfet, since Sherriil had told him he was JCorvet's son. liad^Ued him by name; when they did, What would they call 'him? Alan Conrad still? Or Alan JOorvet? Be noticed, up a street to the west, the l|«hted sign of a drag store and ^turned up that war; he had promised, •he had recollected now, to write to . . those in Kansas--he could not Ncall them "father" add "mother" any jmore--and tell them what he bad discovered a* soon a* he arrived. He ootid aat tell them that, but be <OMM write them at least that he had arrived safely and was well. He bought a postcard in the drug store, and wrote just, "Arrived safely; am well" to John Welton in Kansas. There was a little vending machine upon the counter, and he dropped in a penny and got a box of .matches and put them in his pocket He mailed the card and turned back to Astor street; and he walked mora swiftly now, having come to his decision, aad only shot one quick look up at the house as he approached it. With what had his father shut himself up within that house for twenty years? And was It there still? And was it from that that Benjamin Corvet bad fled? He saw no one In the street, and was certain no one was observing him as, taking the key from his pocket, he ran up the steps and unlocked the outer door. Holding this door open to get the light from the street lump, he fitted the key into the Inner door; thai be closed the outer door. For fully a minute, with fast-beating heart and a sense of expectation of he knew not what, he kept his hand upon the key before he turned it; then he opened the door and stepped Into the dark and silent house. CHAPTER V * An Encounter. Alas, standing, In the darkness of the hall, felt In his pocket for his matches and struck one on the box. The light showed the hall In front of him, reaching back into some vague, distant darkness, and great rooms with wide portiered doorways gaping on both sides. He turned Into the room Upon his right, glanced to see that the •hades were drawn on the windows toward the street, then found the switch and turned on the electric light. Alan had the feeling which so often comes to one In an unfamiliar and vacant bouse that there was some one In the house with him. He listened and seemed to hear another sound In the upper hall, a footstep. He went out quickly to the foot of the stalri and looked up them. "Is any one here?" he called. *1a any one here?" His voice brought no response. Be went half way up the curve of the wide stairway and called again, and lis-, tened; then he fought down the feeling he had bad; Sherriil bad said there would be no one In the house, and Alan was certain there was no one. So he went back to the room where he had left the light. The center of this room, like the room next to it, was occupied by a library table-desk. He pulled open some drawers in It; one or two had blueprints and technical drawings In them; the others had only the miscellany which accumulates in a room much used. There were drawers also under the bookcases all around the room; they appeared, when Allan opened some of them, to contain pamphlets of various societies, and the scientific correspondence of which Sherriil had told him'. Alan felt that seeing these things was bringing his father closer to hlni; they gave him a little of the feeling he had been unable to get when he looked at his father's picture. He could realize better now the lonely, restless man, pursued by some ghost he could not kill, taking up for distraction one subject of study after another, exhausting each In turn until he could no longer make it engross him, and then absorbing himself in the next. On the top of a chest of high drawers in a corner near the dressing tablfe were some . papers. Alan went over to look at them; they were invitations, notices of concerts and of plays twenty years old--the mall, probably, of the morning when Corvet's wife had gone away, left where her maid or she herself had laid them, and only picked up and put back there at the times since when the room was dusted. As Alan touched them, he saw that his fingers left marks in the dust on the smooth top of the chest; he noticed that some one elle had touched the things and made marks of the same sort as he had made The freshness of these other marks startled him; they had been made within a day or so. They could not have been made by Sherriil, for Alan had noticed that Sherrill's hands were slender and delicately formed; Corvet, too, was not a large man; Alan's own hand was of good size and powerful. but when he put his fingers over the marks the other man had made, he found that the other hand must have been larger and more powerful than lils own. Had It been Corvet's servant? It might have been, though the marks seemed too fresh for that; for the servant, Sherriil had said, had left the day Corvet's disappearance waa discovered. This proof that some one had been prying about in the house before himself and since Corvet had gone, startled Alan and angered him. Who had been searching In Benjamin Corvet's --In Alan's house? He pushed the drawers shut hastily and hurried across the hall to the room opposite.. In this room--plainly Benjamin Corvetrs bedroom--were no signs of intrusion. He went to the door of the room connecting with It, turned on the light, and looked in. It was a smaller room than the others and contained a roll-top desk and a cabinet. The cover of the desk was closed, and the drawers of the cabinet were Miggt Ugh the two tang screws vrhlch had hsM it Ha mnilmrn the look, iurprtsed, and saw that the scr»*gMtt have been merely set Into the holes; scan showed where a chisel or some metal Implement had been thrust In under the top to force It up. The pigeonholes and little drawers In the upper part of the desk, as he swiftly opened them, he found entirely empty. He hurried to the cabinet; the drawers of the cabinet too had been forced, and very recently; for the scars aad the splinters of wood were clean and fresh. These drawers and the drawers In the lower part of the desk either were empty, or the papers In them had been disarranged and tumbled In confusion, as though some one had examined them hastily and tossed them back. To Alan, the marks of violence and roughness were unmistakably the work of the man with the big hands who had left marks upon the top of the chest of drawers; and the feeling that he had been In the house very recently waa stronger than ever. Alan ran out into the hall and listened ; he heard no sound; but he went back to the little room more excited out of jMfc Alan crept 4pt-Jfrgwn as jjjar as 't#%rdoor to the Vbracy; the wan ha# arts on into tha JHsar room, and Alan went far enough Into tha library so be could see him* He had pulledgpen one of the drawers in the big- table in the rear room and with his light held so high as to show what was In ft, he was tumbling over Its contents and examining them. He went through one after another of the drawers of the table like this; after examining them, he rose and kicked the last one shut disgustedly; he stood looking about the room questioning^, then he started toward the frost room. He had, as yet, neither seen nor heard anything to alarm him, and as be went to the desk. In the front room and peered impatiently into the drawers, he slammed them shut, one after another. He straightened and stared about. "D--n Ben! D--n Ben!" be ejaculated violently and returned to the rear room. Alan, again following him, found him on his knees In front of one of the drawers under the bookcases. As he continued searching through the drawers, bis Irrttatiou became greater and gre&ter, Ee Jerked than before. For what bad the other j one drawer entirely out of its case, ne and air of ' tfaHl way beside the h<j direction *o the" other to a He. ran fd mrnid : which led In ons It and in tha on the alley, to the street and mac been searching? For the same things which Alan was looking for? And had the other man got them? Who might the other be, and what might be his connection with Benjamin Corvet? Alan had no doubt that everything of importance must have been taken away, but he would make sure of that. He took some of the papers from the drawers and began to examine them; after nearly an hour of this, he had found only one article which appeared connected in any way with what Sherriil had told him or with Alan himself. In one of the little drawers of the desk he found several book% much' worn as though from a Somewhere Within the House, Unmistakably on the Floor Below Him, a Door Had Slammed. being carried in a pocket, and one of these contained a series of entries stretching over several years. These listed an amount--$150--opposite a series of dates with only the year and the month given, and there was an entry for every second month. Alan felt his fingers trembling as he turned the pages of the little book and found at the end of the list a blank, and below, in the same hand but in writing which had changed slightly with the passage of years, another date and the confirming entry of $1,500. Alan looked through the little book again and put It in his 'pocket. It was, beyond doubt, his father's memorandum of the sums sent to Blue Rapids for Alan; It told him that here he had been In his father's thoughts. He grew warm at the thought as he began putting the other things back Into the drawers. He started and straightened suddenly; then he listened attentively, and his skin, warm an Instant before, turned cold and prickled. Somewhere within the house, unmistakably on the floor below him, a door had slammed. Some one--it was beyond question now, for the realization was quite different from the feeling be had had about that before--was In the house with him. Was ft . . . his father who had come back? That, though not impossible, seemed improbable. Alan stooped quickly, unlaced and stripped ofT his shoes, and ran out Into the hall to the head of the stairs, where he looked down and listened. From here the sound of some one moving about came to him distinctly; he could see no light below, but when he ran down to the turn of the stairs. It became plain that there was a very dim and flickering light In the library. He crept on farther down the staircase. His hands were cold and moist from his excitement, and his body was hot and trembling. Whoever it was that was moving about downstairs, even If he was not one who had a right to -be there, at least felt secure from interruption. He was going with heavy step from window to window; where he found a shade up, he pulled It down brusquely and with a violence which suggested great strength under a nervous strain; a shade, which had been pulled down, flew up, and the man damned It as though It had startled him; then, after an Instant, he pulled It down again. Alan crept still farther down and at last caught sight of him. He was h big. young-looking man. with broad shoulders and very evident vigor; Alan guessed his age at thirty-five; he was handsome--he had a straight forehead over daring, deep-set eyes; his nose, lips and chin were power fully formed; and he was expensively and very carefully dressed. The light by which Alan saw these things came from a flat little pocket searchlight that the man carried In one hand, which threw a little brtlllant circle of light as he directed It; and now, as end the contents flew In every direction; swearing at it, he gathered up the letters. One suddenly caught his attention; he began reading It closely, then snapped it back into the drawer, crammed the rest on top of it, and went on to the next of the files. He searched In this manner through half a dozen drawers, plainly finding nothing at all he wanted; he dragged some of the books from their cases, felt behind them and shoved back some of the books but dropped others on the floor and blasphemy burst from him. The beam of light from the torch in his hand swayed aside and back and forth. Without warning, suddenly it caught Alan as he stood In the dark of the front room; and as the dim white circle of light gleamed into Alan's face, the man looked that way and saw him. The effect of this upon the man was so strange and so bewildering to Atan that Alan could only stare at him. The big man seemed to shrink into himself and to shrink back and away from Alan. He roared out something In a bellow thick with fear and horror; he seemed to choke with terror. There was nothing in his look akin to mere surprise or alarm at realizing that another was there and had been seeing and overhearing him. The light which he still gripped swayed back and forth and showed him Alan again, and he raised his arm before his face as he recoiled. The consternation of the man was so complete that It checked Alan's rush toward him; he halted, then advanced silently and watchfully. As he went forward, and the light shone upon his face again, tha big man, cried out 'hoarsely; "D--n you, d--n you, with the hole above your eye! The bullet got you! And now you've got Ben! But you can't get me! Go back to hell! You can't get me! I'll get you--111 get you! You--can't save the Miwaka!" He drew back his arm and with all his might hurled the flashlight at Alan. It missed and crashed somewhere behind him, bu* did not go out; the beam of light shot back and wavered and flickered over both of them, as the torch rolled on the floor. Alan rushed forward and, thrusting through the dark, his hand struck the man's chest and seized his coat. The man caught at and seized Alan's arm; he seemed to feel of It and assure himself of its reality. Flesh! Flesh!" he roared In relief; and his big arms grappled Alan. As they struggled, they stumbled and fell to the floor, the big man underneath. His hand shifted its hold and caught Alan's throat; Alan got an arm free and, with all his force, struck the man's face. The man struck back-- a heavy blow on the side of Alan's bead which dizzied him but left him strength to strike again, and his knuckles reached the man's face once more, but he got another heavy blow In return. The man was grappling no longer; he swung Alan to one side and off of him, and rolled himself away. He scrambled to his feet and dafthed out through the library, across the ball, and Into the service room. Alan got to his feet; dizzied and not yet familiar with the house, he blundered against a wall and had to feel his way along It to the service room; as he slipped and stumbled down the stairway, a door closed loudly at the end of the corridor he had seen at the foot of the stairs. He ran along the corridor to the door; it had closed looked up and dawn, but foundjt empty ; .then he raft' back to the alley. At the end of the alley, where it lntav sected the cross street, the figure of the man running away appeared suddenly out of the shadows, then dla» appeared; Alan, following as far as the street, could see nothing more at him; this street too was empty. He ran a little farther and looked, then he went back to the house. Tha side door had swung shut again and latched. He let himself In at the front door and turned on the light In tha reading lamp in the library. The electric torch still was burning on tha floor and he picked It up and extinguished it; he went upstairs aad brought down his shoes. He had seen a wood fire set ready for lighting In the library, and now he lighted it and sat before It drying his wet socks before he put on his shoes. He was still shaking and breathing fast from Ma struggle with the man and his chase after him, and by the strangeness at what had taken place. When the shaft of light from, tha torch had flashed across Alan's face in the dark library, the man had oat taken him for what he was--a living person; he had taken him for a spec* ter. His terror and the things he had cried out could mean only that. Tha specter of whom? Not of Benjamin Corvet; for ope of the things Alan had remarked when he saw Benjamin Corvet's picture was that he himself did not look at all like his father. Besides, what the man had said made It certain that he did not think the specter was "Ben"; for the specter had "got Ben." Did Alan look like soma one else, then? Like whom? Evidently like the man--now dead, for he had a ghost--who had "got" Ben, In the big man's opinion. Who could that be? Alan got np and went to look at himself In the mirror he had seen in the hall. He was white, now that the flush , of the fighting was going; ha probably had been pale before with excitement, and over his right eye there was a round black mark. Alan looked down at his hands; a little skin was off one knuckle, where he 'had struck the man, and his fingers were smudged with a black and sotty dust. He had smudged them on the papers upstairs or else In feeling his way about the dark house, and at some .time he had touched his forehead and left the black mark. That had been the "bullet hole." The rest that the mah had said had been a reference to some name; Alan had no trouble to recollect the name, and, while he did not understand It at all, it stirred him queerly--"the Miwaka." What was that? The queer excitement and questioning that tha name brought, when he repeated It to himself, was not recollection; for he could not recall ever having heard the name before; but It was not completely strange to him. He could dafine the excitement It stirred only In that way. Sherriil had believed that here In this house Benjamin Corvet had left-- or might have left--a memorandum, a record, or an account of some sort which would explain to Alan, his son, the blight which hung over his life. Sherriil had said that it could have been no mere intrigue, no vulgar personal sin; and the events of the night had made that very certain; for, plainly, whatever was hidden in that house Involved some one else seriously, desperately. There was no other way to explain the Intrusion of the sort of man whom Alan had surprised there an hour ago. The fact that thia other sun searched also did not prove that Benjamin Corvet had left a record in the' house, as Sherriil believed; but it certainly showed that another person believed--or feared--it. Whether or not guilt had sent Benjamin Corvet away four days ago, whether or not there had been guilt behind the ghost which had "got Ben," there was guilt in the big man's superstitious terror when he had seen Alan. A bold, powerful man like that one, when his conscience Is clear, does not see a ghost. And the ghost which he had seen had a bullet bole above the brows! "For this was the man whom b* had fought ia Benjamhs Corvet's ksuM tha night b*> fore." (TO BE CONTINUED.) Mil l l l l l l l l tHfi I I I I > I 1 11 Hill »H I I 111111 j HI 1 j lll l l THEY REFUSE TO ACCEPT "SMITH" Members of That Family Have Hard Walk Convincing 8tr*na«rs That tha Name Is Real. % isn't the fact that 8n.lth ts swfc a common name that l dislike it," said Miss Smith, according to a New York Sun writer, "but the fact that every one who wants to give a fictitious name Just says she's Miss Smith. Every time 1 have to introduce myself somebody sort of snickers about It and supposes my name Is Gugenbelmer or Cafferey or something else. Take my sister and myself, for Inttance. We often go out together to the dnk or down In the village for supper. "There's always some nice boys around who want to dance with us or skate around a couple of times. Of course, you dont need any official Introduction tbeae days, and the boys know it. So they come over and in a little while they're telling us where they work and their telephone number and how we look like their sisters, and all that. It's all right, too. because you get used to that way of getting acquainted, and It's much better than some funny guys, who try to hand you a line that they're tn tha movies or doing fiction writing. "Well, anyway, pretty soon. If they _ like us, they say, 'You're a pretty tried thereover of the desk, but U ap-1 --Alan recollected the look and size i nifty little dancer. I'd lHce to see you pearad ta^Jta loc^ed; attar looktaa.of tha flfijar prints an tha cheat af j agate. tm know all about so •3*~ •*". • . -4' hara'sV t - my •Idaaj eooldaoc nsovaei TsLhuefsleia wli aMaM hWs- aij UIWWMUI MJ WW tioebtaa. w* aaid battlaalialt Hwaa novlia mabla ftade •yvuttipoaiMlwtB be gtadftr than to read ft nar VTaaggaatatajcbulaa i may appear White Plains. Nc Y.--"Ihadsceha tihatleou.d , wa&aaioa that I naaSecl an op«»> tioo. I waa Hek for a yaw before I wt amrm* had prsvant mors sesi Mahw yteltetmttnlia vabasa from women who have been to bavth by Lydla 2. Pink started taking: your «affidtaa and I could rot work. I gawytara&rertfeelaant in a Httle book and that is bow I came to take IdrdttaE. Pinkham'a maodnes. I have been Vegetable to the Ifdia ELPlnkham This book contains valuable tafonuatioia. BIBLE ASCRIBED TO SATAN •vll One Declared to Have AsalsM Hank to Perform Wortt for a Fearful Price. Oaa if the most famous eopiaa of Che Scriptures In existence is tha one which bears the curteos title, "The Devil's Bible.** It Is an exquisite place of workmanships Inscribed on 800 asses' skins, and waa taken to Stockholm at the conclusion of the Thirty Years' war. According to tradition 'this Bible was the work of a poor monk who was condemned to death for some defection, but waa told that the sentence would be commuted if he -would copy out. on asses' skins the entire Bible In a~ single night. He agreed to try to do It but, finding the task too great, made a compact with the devil to exchange his soul for the required transcript. The devil kept his part of the bargain, and the work was finished on time. The monk's life was spared by his marveling judges, but tradition is silent as to how be kept his end of the agreement The man who has mora than the other fellow should do mora. A man who has no sense af la naturally short of sense. Babe and Beba. . A teacher was giving a lesson !w grammar. On the blackboard placed the words "he" and "she." Shi then wild, " 'He' Is masculine and *shtf ui feminine. Now can any of yofl pupils give me a similar example?" Soon a hand shot up, and she no ded to the boy and said: Come ts the blackboard and write your ample." lie wrote "Babe Ruth" and Daniels," and then ha explained. u 'Babe' la masculine and Settf Iff homi datioi For Women of Fame. There will be a hall in the new of the Women's National Foundatl In Washington, where on columns, ons for each state, will be inscribed tha names of those women of the stateg whose memory is most worthy of pe% petuation. The hall, which is the su ' gestlon of Mrs. George Barnett, of Maj. Gen. Barnett, United Stat marine corps, will be called "The Ha of Remembrance." The choice dt names will be left to the people oil each state, and will be passed on bp a l6cal board. Living women are art eluded. ^4" Some women show their age cause of their strenuous efforts conceal it the light chanced to fall on his other shut and apparently undisturbed. He ! hand--powerful and heavily muscled tell me your name, will you?* Then when I say Miss Smith, they say: •Come on, quit your kidding. That doesn't mean anythiug to me. Tell j me your real name.' "When I insist my name la Smith, they say, "What's the matter? You're married or something.' "So we don't tell our real names any more. We say we're Miss Oooper or Stuyvesant or something else, and since we don't look like sisters we each have to use different apnea- to be believed. Funny, lant lt*» r; j Walking. - If a man Is walking. It la the 0r%t principle of philosophy to say that he is not walking, the first principle of science to say that he is placing one foot before the other and bringing tha hinder one In turn to the fore, the first principle of art to say that the man is more than walking, he is yearning; then there are times when scientist, philosopher and poet all discover of a sudden that-by heavens! ttj^e man is walking and none other.--Kenneth Burke, tn the Dial. I should be made' artistic, sanitary and livable. These walls should be Alabastined in the latest, up-to-the-minut© nature color tints. Each room should reflect your own individuality and the treatment throughout be a complete perfect harmony in colors. Tha walls of die old home, whether mansion or cottage, can be just as attractive, just a* sanitary, through die intelligent ma of Instead of kaUomine or wallpaper || It is absolutely necessary if JW npwt AUbaudM remits 4* ytm ask for and secure Ala&uiku. Avoid kalsomines under various names and insist on die paclof* with the crdss and circle printed in red. That is die only way to ba •lira you are getting the genuine Alabastine. Alabastine it easy to mix and appfer, ktfinc ia to aai absolutely sanitary. * ^ ^ Akbeadae U a dry powder, put up in five-pouad pscksges, *.hhs sad b--» tihd ready to m" use by the addition of cokl water, ana wim rail tioM on each package. Every fmtkag* mmmtm* Alabastint haa CIOM aad circle priated ia red. Better write as lor hand-made eolor deligaaandipecialatiggeftiona. Give us your decoratire problem* aad let u* help you work them out. Alabastine Company laSS CreedvOle Ave. Crand Waalds. Mich 7 •4* Jud Tunkina. Jud Tu&kias says there's a big 'advantage In using long words. Any body would rather take what you say for granted than be put to the trouhii ot looking in tha dMitkmaiy. < I - ., •- r i f-jvSSi EXCURSIONS TO WESTERN CANADA Beand Trip for Sfogle Fare Plas Two Dollars OmS IM and Wrd Twiiiyi fc Back Mien A splendid opportunity is now offered those who Pi' to make a trip of inspection to look over Western Canada's Fanatag ftaMMIw laoaH advanesa in the price of farm products and the poesibiHty of farther increases will warrant an increase ia the price of Western Canada jr*nn Landa, now exceptionally low considering their producing value. The depression ia now over, and normal times are at hand. Western Canada came throogh the late trying period with a atnut heart and a prepetedneafc te take advantage of the better times that we are approaching, To take advantage of the low ratea now in forocb and for other infonnatkm, apply to C. J. Broufhton, R. 412, 113 W. Adatna St., Cldcagoi J. M. MacLachlan, 10 Jeffora--i Ave., Detroit* Midi, Authorised Canadian Government Ag«ata 1 % » t % I '<4 ?' • i • ' Airs- ,> »• •IV"