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'By CHARLES EDMONDS WALK | " Seal | Author of "The Silver Blade," "The Paternoster Ruby," "The Time CHAPTER XXVIIL Cont'dy. His alliance with my father came _ about in the most natural way im- aginable. Both men were young and enterprising; Strang had a knack of Lock," ete. was said to be somewhere up in the, Kham country. It was kept as a sort! o' fetish in one ©' their Jamaseries. | It was a rough stone, but worth the pickings of a province. Never got whole country at this time w: fester with Tao-fuism; an' aside getting within reaching distance the diamond, the idea o' trying to ap propriate any o' their sacred rclies 'didn't just exactly fill me with en thusiasm. 2 "There'd ben copsiderable talk abou the English Government ' sei 3 an exploring party into Tibet, an' to that end negotiations had been under way at Pekin for several months. Lao said he had it straight that if the ex- pedition ever started, Sylvester woul a 4 die, nd on the bac the character on pen Fed Mes Gh of an envelope drew the ring with with a ' 'death.'" He quickly drew an- "In the ancient Chinese: writings,"| he explained, "that means 'dead,' 'to ver seeds, A take care to ascer- t the seed is free from weed| especially the more trouble-| di Kinds, 'If an analysis has not obtained, then it is a good plan to submit 4 sample to the Seed De-| i Ottawa, and ascertain its|' ty 'other and quite dissimilar character, i "In modern Chinese this means the same thing. But any Tao-fu man would recognize the other soon enough." anything very definite, y' understand, pe in command. He an' his wife had nor din't often hear the thing,men-| hig reputations as explorers, an' in tioned at all--just word here an' @ the nature o' things they were hound, word there while I. was trading to get somewhere close to Tao-fu. round at different places. But after| «what is it you want?' I by an' by, a while I got to noticing that every| asked Lao. i bk time a caravan came down from Li-| «qt jig like this, illustrious One, kiang or Ching-too, somebody from it he says: ¢ when the expedition starts sooner or later would drift into Can- J want to go with it. Your friendship ton with fresh stories o' this wonder- "with Kam Ferris can get me a bil- ful diamond, or else I'd stumble across' fet as interpreter. I know the Lh'as-: b * sowing.--Canadian Countryman. ' Sa _. Grain Saved by Feeding Floors. Those who have used feeding floors for their hogs have found them to be good grain savers, and concrete feed- ing floors are coming into favor. +] Such a floor should be six inches thick, and, if not laid against the barnyard pavement, should have a digging up opportunities for financial profit, and he had the time; my father's time was pretty well taken up by his business, but he had some capital which Strang lacked, Besides, father never learned to speak Chinese, - which, Strang told us, "Steve and I picked up as easy as swearin'." Lao Wing Fu the two learned to know through various business deals: before (To be Continued.) terest rn however; then leveled straight edge, and ~~ "We trusted him more than. most = Chinks," Strang explained. "You mustn't get the idea that he's an out "an' out crook, because he isn't. He simply goes according to the Chink way o' looking at things, which isn't a white man's by a whole lot. "For several years, while I was making Honk-Kong my headquarters, I was still Samuel Wellets. But like the bad penny he was, Steve turned up an' about the first thing he does is land me in a peck o' trouble with the British authorities. It was a mat- ter o' opium running that I needn't go into here more than to say it was) the first lot I ever shipped to old Beef Harwick at Honolulu. He used to run it into Frisco in the hold of his' old schooner, the Mary Kenton. That was a good many. years ago, but see; how all these things are all mixed up! togethér. Mary was the daughter oy Beef's partner, Anthony J. Kenton, an| old-time Frisco merchant and pillar o' the church, an' she married Beef.'She 'was Meyer Harwick's mother. Anth- ony J. an' Beef founded what it now | illustrious ancestors for a thousand otir heads together in my room at someone who'd recently heard about it from someone else. ¥So it went on until it came to' me that there must be fire where there wds so much smoke, an' I went to inévstigating in earnest on my own hook. kFor a time I could dig up nothing more definite than the fairy stories I'd already heard over an' over again. T was still under cover for the Hong- kong now an' then without worrying much over whether I was due to be nabbed. > "One night Luey came to my room -- to tell me there was a man in the shop who might tell me something about my diamond. What does he want?' was my first question. It's not for nothing that a Chink comes voluteering.even a little thing like in- formation. 'He come seeking you,' says ley. Says I: 'If he's not a bloody ~ British bent on persecuting an honest trader, show him in' "Luey. swore by the shades of his an an' Drupa dialects. | # "That ought to make it easy, then,': I told him, 'But why you want to. go, at all,' I says, 'is beyond me.' "He sat studying a bit; then his answer made me sit up an* pay striet attention. Says he: 'There are things in this world greater than diamonds; the greatest of them lies at the la-| masery o' Tao-fu. I want jt.' "'Not unless you're a pretty big: gun among the Tao-fus,' I said, 'can you ever hope to succeed in such a crazy undertaking.' You see, I wanted to make sure of an idea he'd given o A " "There is much,' he says, 'that must remain unspoken between me an' you. : Tao-fu-is far out o' the world to be the source o' spiritual guidance for the Thrice-blessed One's children. 1 hold a commission. But this mus remain a secret between us. " 'Enough, I says. 'I'll get word to Kwan Ferris at once. "Six days later Peter B. Ferris, Lao Wing Fu an' I were sitting with the Kenton-Hardwick Company, the' generations back that he could vouch Luey Chang's. biggest importing concern of Chinese an' other Oriental products in the U.S. Beef an' old, Anthony's both cashed in long ago; but I own nearly half o'|o' the Goyerpment an' had his Pro-|,, ty tell me how centuries: before la king of Nepal had sent the diamond the Kenton-Hardwick stock, besides + looking after the Eastern end o' the - business. "But the point's this"--he chuckled: "Meyer Hardwick's fortune smells o' opium, an' he'd sooner have anybody for his 'cousin' 'We are of noble blood, Luey told me. His father, i gathered, was a kwan who'd run afoul | perty confiscated. " 'What's | the chap's name?' I} asked." 'Loa; King Fu,' says Luey.! 'Why didn't yeu say so at first?' says, I. 'Show him in. «y' gee, 1 already knew Lao as a " 'Funny thing,' says your father, 'but Syl an' I've had some: talk about this same diamond.' Then he went, "Get Rid of That Little Oat." Smith and Jones were neighboring farniers in one 'of Ontario's banner oat-growing townships, who 'had en- tered their fields in the standing grain competition. A dozen others were contestants 'along with them, but by early harvest it was generally con- ceded that these two competitors were so far in the lead that the prizes were sure to be awarded their fields. - In- terest was keen, and finally it was agreed that Jones was to be the win- ner' of first money, writes Mr. John Kyle in Canadian Farm. Imagine the consternation when the judge gave the award to Smith! An indignation meeting was held, a letter expressive of the popular indignation sent off to the Department of Agri- culture, declaring that that particular neighborhood was done with all simi-|- lar competitions, The Department immediately sent a "copy of this letter to the judge. The judge knew: that he had done his simple duty. There was no doubt in his own mind that he i had given a just decision, and he r i solved to investigate. Accordingly, he asked the farmers to have the fields threshed, at his ex- pense, and to have the actual yield of grain and straw decide the matter. To the surprise of everyone except to a dalailama of some kind o' offer- ing, but it had only caused trouble because it'd been stolen from a 'Budd-' hist temple somewhere in India, an' think his father'd been a pirate than| pretty shrewd young chap who'd had! to have that found out. But, pshaw! some dealings with your father as well | That used to be the proper way o'!as me; but I supposed him to be in making money quick; it only needed Nanking or Shanghai, which, I want a little nerve. Why, your father an' to say, is a long ways from Canton. 1, now--But we haven't time to go into, Lao told me he'd been on my trail for that, "I had to light out o" Kongkong, an', it was a good many months before I was free to come 'an' go.there openly. There's some. parts o' China where I'm still remembered as Sam Willets; but for the most part I'm Jim Strang, ©' Johore Bahru. : "Major Hector Sylvester was a crony o' your father's, though I'd never got acquainted with him till the time o' the Tibet expedition. Peter B. Ferris an' Major Sylvester were in a set that a rough beach-comber like me din't have anything in common with, though o' course Peter B, an' 1 were together a whole lot in a business way. The time came, though, when the two o' them together had use for me---you can bet your sweet life they did! "It came about in this way: For years, off an' on, I'd been hearing "about a whale of a big diamond that months. An' then he gave me the first real, simon-pure information about the diamond I'd so far stumbled across--made it at last seem real. "He told me he'd heard in one way an' another about my interest in the stone, an' that circumstances were such that he might help me to it--if I'd help him to something hé wanted. | « Where is this amazing diamond?' I asked him. I hadn't an idea he'd tell me, but when he answered up prompt I saw why there was no reason to keep the place secret. 'It's at Tao- fu,' says he; an' as far as getting at it. was concerned, he might as well've said the North Pole, or the Tower o' London along with the crown jewels. "In. them days nobody knew any- thing about the Tibet country to speak of--an' they know blamed little now. The country's sprinkled over' with lamaserjes--homes o' the Bugdhist monks an' nuns, y'know. ese Mange | "| the Silent Death," and whenever a | victim was marked for punishment a the king o' Nepal had no more right to it than any o' us had. Major Syl- vester got it all out o' some old re- cord. ; "Well, the upshot o' the whole thing! was that when the expedition started, Lao an' I wen with it. If he got the diamond, the four of us are to have equal shares in it." CHAPTER XXIX. Strang's narrative of the exepdi-! tion 'into Tibet would fill a volume} Recounted to us from time to time be- fore his return to the Far East, inj the matter-of-fact tone one might em-: ploy in describing the most ordinary of 'everyday events, it grew into a wonderful chronicle of a stupendous; undertaking; but I am obliged to con~ fine myself to those details that are; necessary to make everything clear. For centuries the Tao-ful lamasery had been the shrine of the sect's most sacred relic. This was a ring great antiquity, which in rtality wai nothing more than an ingenious strument for making assassinatio safe and easy. It was venerated in a phrase that signified "The Kiss of, "Bedrer of the Kiss" was chosen by weeks, or perhaps months, .a con- spicuous figure in the nation's govern- the judge, Smith's field was the win- ner by several bushels. Apologies were made and another letter mailed to the Department, making amends for the injustice done to an efficient public servant. : bi "But how did you detect the differ- ence in the yields?" was the puzzled query put to the judge. " "Simplest thing in the world," he! explained. "I noticed that in Jones' field that there were a number of ads that had few light kernels in em, but the rest of the head con- sisted of something that while it re- sembled grain was really chaff. e were scarcely any of these the way of looking for these heads." And how do you account for them ?" ext on. en will tell you. of | Jones when you cleaned your grain but they able them to Tot and sent forth to carry out the de-; 20." cree of the order." In the course of |™ curb extending from twelve to eight- een inches below the surface of the grou d. 'This will prevent the hogs 'rooting under the floor. The floor should slope slightly toward one cor- ner in order to carry off rain or water used in washing. A rim around the outside edge will prevent grain from being pushed off into the mud. For feeding floors concrete should be mixed in the 'proportion of one sack of Portland cement, two cubic feet of clean coarse sand, graded up to one fourth of an inch, and three cubic feet of hard durable gravel or broken stone from one fourth of an inch to one inch in diameter, Eleven sacks of cement will make enough con- crete for 100, square feet of feeding floor. The concrete should be. thoroughly mixed and should contain enough water to make the mass quaky so that the concrete will flattén out of its own weight. It should be lightly tamped, wooden float." The floor mi slabs each six feet square, lumber being used for f Feeding floors sl be enough to give each hog ei square feet of space. - ° . Not to Blame. = ""Customer (indignantly)---That par rot you sold us-hadn't been in 'the house a day before it began to swéar; dreadfully. i a Dealer--You asked me for one that, would be quick to learn, mum.* =. It is a long time since Peter dar, wrote: "Cate. to our go nail; no doubt," and eve merry, draws one out." When a young fellow teen. Hel bre. RRR ROR RRR RR 'o Mothers! x ¥ ~~ Your cares in comfort- ing the aches and pains of the family from youth to: old age, are lessened when you use this old and trust-worthy remedy-- Sloan's Liniment % Bruises Rheumat Neuralgia } Mothers: "Keep a bottle in your home"