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IMxOTAIMIiS F iituw u uJHJMDK}© 3. twwAzrr./r/zsr/Yor/xr. xw/rjwawm/nr 14 SYNOPSIS. The story opens with a scream from I>orothy March In the opera box of Mrs. MlBSioner, a wealthy widow. It is oc­ casioned when Mrs. Mlssioner's necklace breaks, scattering the diamonds all over the floor. Curtis Grlswold and Bruxton Bands, society men in love with Mrs. Mis­ sioner, gather up the gems. Oriswold steps on what is supposed to be the cele­ brated Maharanee and crushes it. A Hin­ doo declares it was not the genuine. AD expert later pronounces all the stones miDStitutes for the original. One of the missing' diamonds is found in the room of Elinor Holcomb, confidential compan­ ion of Mrs. Mlssloner. She is arrested, notwithstanding Mrs. Mlssioner's belief In her innocence. Meantime, in an up­ town mansion, two Hindoos, who are in America to recover the Maharanee, dis­ cuss the arrest. Detective Britz takes up the case. He asks the co-operation of I>r. Fitch, Elinor's flarce, in running down the real criminal. Britz learns that duplicates of Mrs. Missloner's diamonds were made, in Paris on. the order of Elinor Holcomb. While walking Britz is seized, bound and gagged by Hindoos. He Is imprisoned in a deserted house, but makes his escape. Brits discovers an in­ sane diamond expert whom he believes was employed by either Sands of Gris- wold to make counterfeits of the Mission- er gems. Grlswold intimates that Sands Is on the verge of failure. Two Hindoos burglarize the horn* of Sands and are captured by Brit*. On one of them he finds a note signed by "Millicent" and ad­ dressed to "Curtis." Brits locates a wo­ man named Millicent Delaroche. CHAPTER XX. Kananda's Mission. Kananda and the Swami, in the up­ town bachelor apartment whither they sped from the Fifth avenue ballroom, bent about a table on which were spread various diagrams. All, Mrs. Mlssioner's servant, stood at a re­ spectful distance. He wore a con­ cerned look that intimated he had been subjected to some pretty stiff questioning by his masters. The high- caste Orientals paid little attention to him. They leaned over the table un­ til their heads almost touched, study­ ing diligently the papers that lay upon It, occasionally following the lines with pcncils, and pausing to make hurried calculations on the margins of the sheets. At length the Swami leaned back and gazed fixedly at the prince. "It is evident we're on the right track at last," he said. "Chunda and Gazim could not have done their work thoroughly." "They didn't do it at all, when it comes to that," answered the prince. "Instead of finding only a loose end of the thread, they ought to have un­ tangled the whole skein." "However," said the Swami, "this note shows my original suppositions were accurate. The jewels were ta­ ken by the man who trod on the false diamond in the opera box." "It looks as if it were so," Kananda replied. "The question is, where are they now?" "The woman has them," returned the scholar. "Unless," sneered Nandy, "she |s beating our enterprising clubman at his own game. How do you know she hasn't sold them?" "This note--" "Oh, I know all about that," laughed the prince. "It is plain you have not given sufficient thought to the ways of these western women. If only you would take your head out of those esoteric clouds once in a while, and come to earth for a look around, you wouldn't be quite so ingenuous." "But she says in this note she will have to sell some of the jewels," the Swami persisted. "That certainly in­ dicates they are still in her posses­ sion." "On the surface it does," said Nandy. "But the woman when Bhe wrote It could not have supposed it was to be read by anyone save Griswold." "How do you know she didn't in­ tend to deceive him?" asked Kananda. "It's a good thing you chose the schol­ ar's life in early youth, my friend. As a society man, you'd make an ex­ ceedingly interesting, but distressing­ ly hopeless 'innocent abroad.' " Nandy had learned his philosophy of femininity in one of the swiftest sets of Cambridge town; in the most exclusive London clubs; in the Olymp­ ian gatherings of Heidelberg- stu­ dents, and in the most fln-de-slecle circles of the gay capital. Whatever his theory, there was nothing hesi­ tant about it. He held in regard to the sex only the most settled opin­ ions. "It seems to me," said the Swami. \ "that your conclusions are pretty far ^ fetched. But I bow to you, prince, in j Vhe matter of social law. Perhaps I \ know a little more a£out the higher J mysteries, but when it comes to cotil- J Ions, you take the baccalaureate de­ gree." There may have been a shade of Irony in his WOTSIS. If so, Kananda, for all his subtlety, failed to notice it. "I think you are clouding the ques­ tion needlessly when you take it for granted the woman who wrote this note is not true to Curtis Griswold's Interests." And the Swami tapped the table meditatively with the scrap of paper the man with the glistening eyes had filched from the camera btoard in Burlen's workshop. "Wouldn't It be a good deal more di rect," said the Swami, "to continue to take it for granted she is sincere--that she received the Jewels from Oris wold, that she still has them, and that she will not part with any of them until the clubman has refused to com ply with her request for money?" "Yes," Kananda admitted. "We'll work along that line for the present Now, then, where's the woman?" ' He turned to Ali with a piercing look. The servant salaamed. "Excellency," said he, "we have verified the address heading the sec­ ond note. She is there." "It is well," said the prince cjirtly. "Gol" He turned to the Swami and, stand­ ing with one foot on his chair, raised his elbow to his knee and lowered his chin to his hand. "I believe we're close to the end of our quest," he mused. "I have a feel­ ing we must get the Maharanee to­ night, if we are to recover it, at all. We have played a waiting game for many months, and It is time now to act. Are you prepared?" "I am prepared." "You will not stay your hand when it comes to the point?" The Swami did not answer. He sat with folded arms staring at the docu­ ments on the table. It was in an al­ tered voice that at length he spoke: "Prince," he said, "already the sa­ cred gem should be ruby red with the blood that has been spilled for it. There is something in the air of this strange land that makes it distaste­ ful to me--the thought of further bloodshed. Regain the Jewel we must; but I would it could be done without new sacrifice of life." An expression of demoniacal scorn overspread Kanada's features until he confronted the sage with the faoe of a gargoyle. "And the brethren?" he asked angri­ ly. "Can it be you have a thought for these western dogs when your own brothers of the faith are gutter­ ing the shame and pain in which we left them? Has your heart turned to water?" The Swami did not answer. Still with folded arms, he kept his gaze on the papers, his features set in quiet determination. "Are you afraid?" pursued the prince, "poes your soul shrink, your hand draw back, now that the ap­ pointed hour is nigh? Are you a true believer and master of the faith, or--" and he almost screamed, "an apos­ tate?" The Swami's copper face turned a darker shade. A flash of fury seared his eyes as he raised them to those of the prince. He lowered them again, however, and said, stolidly: "I am unable to conquer the feeling that it cannot be for the good of the brothers to wade through blood as did our fathers for possession of what, after all, Is simply a stone. I know w hat it means to the chosen ones--to have that stone taken back to the Temple. I feel more keenly than you can feel the yearning they send across the seas for the success of our mission. But, prince, the Maharanee diamond, in its Journey across the world, has been purged perhaps of the 6carlet stains that were upon it Can we not take it back in all its present purity? Are we not skilled enough In the ways of the East to recover our own without bearing death to the men of the West?" Kananda spurned the chair away and, gripping the table with both hands, leaned toward the scholar. "Listen to me, master!" he said savagely. "It was all these possibili­ ties my father anticipated when he sent me as your companion in this en­ terprise. He knew I was experienced in the wiles of these Western dogs. He was aware that in the English uni­ versity and the British capital, as well aa in the cities of the European conti­ nent, I had mingled with them in their pastimes and in their homes-- that I had seen and heard their puer­ ile philosophy--that I had studied their womanish religions, and that I had experienced all the soul poison by which their so-called civilization turns men to children. Can you guess the orders the Maharajah laid upon me when he bade me come with you?" The Swami still maintained a dig­ nified silence. "I will tell you," continued the prince. "My father said: 'The time may come, my son, when your friend, the great teacher, quails from that which is before him. If it comes, then when it comes, strike as swiftly and surely as you would strike to save your throne.' And I will strike, my master!" Kananda added grimly res­ olute. "If you flinch from any neces­ sity that arises in carrying out this task of ours, I will warn you once-- even as I am warning you now--and then, if you still stay your hand or seek to save the least of those who may stand between us and the sacred jewel, by God I'll kill you!" The scholar's Imperturbability was proof against Kananda's violence of word and manner. The only sign he gave was a slight tightening of his fingers as they clasped his arms, and a lightning look straight into the eyes of the young man across the table. It was In a tone of perfect control that he replied: ' Death, when it comes to myself, is the least of my concerns. You may strike when you will, Your Highness. I am a master of the faith, but, none the less, a servant of the throne. My life belongs to your royal father to do with it as he* pleases. And since you tell me that you are the long arm of t f' t 8* a lii I KICKED 'GOON AND HIM OFF llrf Thrilling Night Hunt Which al Maine Man Will Not Forget for Some Time. "I Had No Thought of Qlvlng Up the Quest. the Maharajah, It Is at your disposal, too." His calmness reminded the Prince of his own Oriental origin. The ve­ hemence he had acquired in western lands slipped from him like a loosened robe. In an instant, under his out­ ward seeming of an English or Amer­ ican man-about-town, he repossessed the composure of his race. "Sorry," he said with a little forced laugh. "Rather bad, you know, to take things to heart that way, but this really is a 6erious proposition, and we mustn't fall down on it. As we are so near success, I will tell you it Is a question not only of piety, but of politics. There is a dash of mild statecraft in it. The Maharajah has a pretty well-rooted idea that the permanence of his reign depends on restoring the diamond to the Temple.'* The sage looked at him interroga­ tively. "Funny, I know," continued Nandy, "but, after all, it is the twentieth century, and the P. and O. boats take some pretty restless people to India. Those busy-bodies have stirred >up a good deal of discontent in our part of the world, and my father is an ob­ servant man." "I had no thought of giving up the quest," the Swami explained. "All I wished to do was to move more de­ liberately. I believe we can recover the stone without great violence, and I incline to these Westerner's views far enough to think it would be better for our religion, for your father, and for the brethren--to say nothing of ourselves--if we could do so. The easiest way sometimes really is the best." "I know all that," insisted the Prince, "but we have not the time. This hunt is drawing close to a hot finish. You forget that we have the cleverest detective In New York--one of the cleverest in the world-- to beat. If he got the diamond, he would not recognize our claim to it for an Instant. He'd turn it over to Mrs. Missioner, and we would not stand the ghost of a chance in any court of law. This is a case where we must help ourselves to our own. Besides, there is Grlswold. How do we know he is not getting ready to flee with the jewels tonight? They may be in his possession, or he may have given them to the woman who signs herself Millicent." The Prince paused, framed his fin­ gers tip to tip, and looked between them at the note as if peering into a crystal gazer's globe. "I am convinced the woman has the necklace," he went on. "Our men have had time to search Griswold's apartment from end to end, and the other men's, too. If they found the jewels in either place, we would know it by now. The whole question pre­ sents itself clearly enough to my mind The old French proverb holds good, cherchez la femme." The Swami arose. As he did so, All re-entered the room with more salaams, and extended toward his master a silver tray on which lay a tiny scroll, written in minute hiero­ glyphs of the Orient. The scholar broke the seal and scanned the paper swiftly. A slight exclatnation be­ trayed that the information contained in the little scroll broke through even his magnificent reserve. His hand trembled a little as he handed the paper to the Prince. A hurried read­ ing sufficed to destroy all of that young man's recently gained calm. He fairly hurled himself into a sealskin coat, and thrust his head into an opera hat. "Quick!" he said, 'we have not a mo­ ment to lose!" It would have been well for Britz if the young photographer had acquaint­ ed blm promptly with the fact of the disappearance of the Millicent note. The detective's acute intelligence would have argued from that Incident the need of «ven greater haste than he was making in pushing his pursuit of the Missioner diamond to a close. But Burlen, conscience-stricken though he was, was loath to Bend the Information to the Headquarters man until he could have time to make further and more exhaustive search of his shop, as well as of the courtyard in the rear of the building on which its windows gave. It was dark in the court, and the imper­ fect light of his candle made his search so slow that by the time he was sure the note was gone beyond possibility of its recovery, it was too late for him to find Detective Britz at Police Headquarters. When his mes­ senger returned with the report that the Central Office man had left his room, and that no one in the Mulberry street building knew where to find him, Burlen became so alarmed that he hastened to Headquarters to try to take up the hunt for Britz from that point. He was as unsuccessful as his emissary, and he spent many anxious hours in the waiting room hoping for the detective's return. The photo en­ graver tried to console himself with the thought that the negative had been spared, and he therefore had been able to send to Britz's office the hundred facsimiles of the "Curtis dear" missive his customer had ordered. But it was poor consolation when he recalled the earnestness with which the detective had enjoined upon him not to let the original leave his hands. Burlen was an exceedingly uncomfortable young man during all the time he awaited the sleuth's return. His discomfort did not decrease as the hours dragged by. But it would have been well for Britz to have that knowledge in re­ gard to the strange vanishment of the Grlswold note, it would have been bet­ ter for Curtis Griswold if Dorothy March had not become conscience- stricken in respect of him that same evening. For little Miss March, being of Puritan stock, as soon as she per* suaded herself that she might have made trouble for Mrs. Mlssioner's ad­ mirer by talking too freely to the bland man from Mulberry street in the cozy corner of the Forrest theater, resolved to repair the mischief as rap­ idly as possible. She, therefore, sent a little note to the clubman, asking that he make it a point to see her in the course of the evening; and in the note she gave him a list of the several functions she intended to take in= The ball Mrs. Missioner attended, and at which Grlswold scored what he re­ garded as a distinct gain in parading the wealthy widow before many of their acquaintances as a receptive re­ cipient of his attentions, was only one of the affairs on Dorothy's list. Gris­ wold received the note too late to come up with Miss March before the ball, so he decided to meet her at a later dance. That decision upset one of his plans--the most Important he had formed in many months, although he did not know its importance at the time. It had been his intention to go from the Fifth Avsnue ballroom to the Hotel Renaissance, and If he had not received the note from Miss March, he would have done so even though he might have escorted Mrs. Missioner to her home and passed a short time with her In the interval. Dorothy's request flattered the club­ man's vanity so greatly, however, that he did not hesitate to defer his visit to the Renaissance in order to keep the interesting appointment the debu­ tante, with more conscience than dis­ cretion, made for him. The conse­ quence was that by the time Gris­ wold's interview with little Dorothy March was at an end, the l?ours had passed beyond a point to which even his ingenuity could stretch conven­ tionality far enough to*make it practi­ cable for him to see Mrs. Delaroche that night. Dorothy was dancing abstractedly when Griswold found her. She was so impatient to adjust the harm she felt she had done him that she saw him from her partner's shoulder before he picked her out from a score of other comely young women on the floor. Miss March instantly wearied of the waltz, to the dismay of the youth whose arm encircled her, and who rather fancied himself as a dancer. She lost no time in having herself es­ corted to a small conservatory, where she dismissed her partner with scant ceremony, and where, a few moments afterward, she was joined by Grls­ wold. Even then the debutante's unwitting tangling of the threads of Griswold's fate might not have had such influence upon his future if she had approached her subject with directness. Had she told Griswold at once what she had said to tho detective concerning his skill as a draughtsman, the clubman's suspicions would have been aroused, and* he might have taken steps that would have had a marked effect upon the development of the great Mission­ er mystery. But Dorothy was too flut­ tered, too prettily remorseful, to go straight to the heart of the subject, and In her innocent endeavor to post Griswold In respect of her chat with Britz without making him think she was a gossiping little busybody, she protracted her interview with the club­ man through so many dances that when It ended Griswold persuaded him­ self the morning would be ample time to do that which he felt must be done to avert the probable consequences of Dorothy's girlish frankness. His van­ ity again played its part, too, for when he htfd thanked little Miss March for what he pleased to consider her inter­ est in him, and when Dorothy, having signally failed to impress upon him the Impersonal nature of her conscience stroke, found herself in a further flut­ ter of bewilderment, Curtis Grlswold proceeded to parade her up and down the dancing floor as effectively as he had shown off the rich and beautiful widow in the larger ballroom a little farther up the avenue. Griswold prided himself on his versatility. He argued that it was as easy for him, as he would have expressed It to his club intimates, "to put a filly through her paces" as it had been to advertise the fact before the whole ballroom that Doris Missioner, the fastidious beauty and worshiped possessor of many millions, apparently was on the point, of accepting him as her second matrimonial venture. All of which resulted in Griswold's long stay at the dance, in his ride with Dorothy to her home In an automobile otherwise occupied only by a satisfac­ torily self-centered chaperon; and In his waste of further time at one of his clubs after parting with Miss March and her duenna--a waste of hours any one of which might have been made as useful to him as a year of ordinary time. He was further disposed to pro­ crastinate in this crucial moment by the success of the Headquarters man in throwing all suspected persons off their guard by keeping Elinor Hol­ comb in the Tombs. Through all his work on the Missioner case, Britz had been beset with requests from Mrs. Missioner, Sands and other friends of the widow's secretary, to permit them to give bail for her. Sands and Mrs. Missioner were particularly insistent in their desire to see Elinor at liberty. Fitch, though normally his wish to see his fiancee free must have been stronger than that of anyone else, was partly reconciled to her protracted im­ prisonment by the detective's frequent assurance of her ultimate vindication. Moreover, the doctor, in consequence of his work on the case with Britz, had direct knowledge of the importance that the suspicions of others should not be alarmed. He had been with the detective when the card of Bruxton Sands was discovered in the posses­ sion of the old curiosity shop man; he knew of the note addressed to "Curtis dear" aod signed "Millicent," and also of the desperate attempts made by the Hindoos to find the diamonds. So Fitch did not bother the sleuth as much as did other friends of Elinor's, and It was well; for Britz several times was at his wits' ends to dissuade Mrs. Mis­ sioner and Sands from going to the District Attorney and offering a heavy security for Miss Holcomb's appear­ ance in the trial court However, Britz had held them off, and It fol­ lowed that Griswold nursed the delu­ sion that Elinor and Fitch and Sands were suspected so strongly by the Central Office men that no search for evidence against anybody else was in progress. Donnelly an<4 Carson also had fostered that misconception on the clubman's part by their unabated ac­ tivity in hunting proofs of the girl sec­ retary's guilt. Those worthies spent every day of their work on the case in tracing Elinor's past, and in efforts to couple Fitch with her suspicious theft of the Jewels. Furthermore, be­ ing the sort of men who would rather win credit for detective work than do anything quietly In ths way of real detection of crime or criminals, they could not refrain from expressing their belief in Elinor's dishonesty at every turn. They talked liberally to the sea­ soned reporters in the newspaper rookeries opposite Police Headquar­ ters, to the newspaper men In the po­ lice stations/ and the magistrates' courts, and to the several star repor­ ters of the more enterprising papers who had been assigned especially on the case. Every word they uttered hinged on their evidence In the return of a verdict against Miss Holcomb, and, with the exception of two or three unusually sapient newspaper men who discounted the opinions of Donnelly and Carson because they knew Britz was doing the real work, and because Britz had as yet made no revelations, the reporters quoted them at great length. Therefore, practically all the New York papers published stories In which Elinor Holcomb was tried, convicted, and sentenced in advance of her ar­ raignment for the theft of the Mission­ er necklace. Over-enterprising Sunday papers went so far as to publish page stories, purporting to be psychological studies of the mental bent that made the trusted secretary of a multimil­ lionaire society woman, with a com­ fortable career In expectation, throw all chances to the winds by yielding to a momentary feminine impulse to possess herself of glittering babbles. Those psychological studies were In­ teresting to the multitude, and might have been worth publishing had they been based on either psychoolgy or truth. They had their effect on Gris­ wold, though, and a consequence of that fact was that the clubman's mind waB at ease so far as the possibility that he would be connected with the disappearance of the gems was con­ cerned. So Griswold did not go to the Renaissance that night, nor did he dis­ turb Mrs. Delaroche with a telephone message, although an instrument stood on a convenient desk In her boudoir, and an extension wire connected it with a duplicate device that rested on a 4'ttle Russian table beside her bed. It would have been the work of a moment for Griswold to get into conversational touch with Mrs. Dela­ roche, and he would have had the ex­ cuse of replying to her urgent and Boraewhat petulant note--if he had received it; unfortunately for him, he never had seen that missive. Kanan­ da's guess in regard to the activity of his followers, Chunda and Gazim, was accurate, for these adroit Orientals had stolen the missing note from Gris­ wold's apartment before It came un­ der the observation of "Curtis dear," to whom it was addressed. Altogeth­ er, once more, as he would have ex­ pressed it, things were not "breaking" for the suave secretary of the Iroquois Tru6t Company. (TO BE CONTINUED.) mHMSBSM Strategy of Cecil Rhodes How He Got Ahead of His Brother In Matter of Boiled 8hlrt. The late Sir William Butler, In his autobiography, which has just been published posthumously, tells the fol­ lowing story of Cecil Rhodes, which Cecil's brother, Frank Rhodes, told him : "My brother," said Frank Rhodes, "is a strange man. We were young chaps together, and there wasn't too much money or too many things among us. "One day Cecil came and asked me to let him have one of my shirts, as he wanted to go to an evening party in London. Well, I wanted the shirt myself that evening and I told him he couldn't have it. He said nothing, but I knew he didn't like losing a chance, so I watched him. "I saw him off to the train. He had neither the shirt on him nor had he bag and baggage with him: but I thought that I'd go to the drawer and just make sure of my shirt. It was gone! Cecil came back that night. " 'Well, Cecil,' I said, 'you won over that shirt of mine; but just tell me how you did it, for it wasn't on you when you left here and you h<ad no parcel with you. What did you do with it?' "He chuckled a little and said, dry­ ly, 'I put it on under the old one' Now, that's Cecil." Surfeited. "Can't I persuade you to subscribe for a copy of our latest book on north polar exploration?" "No, sir; you couldn't persuade me to take it as a gift. I spent four years carrying mails in North Dakota, two years driving a cab in Minneapolis, and I've Just escaped from Duluth. Got a book on hunting in central Af­ rica?" Is Secret of Everglades Once a Volcano Top, the Place Is Now Remarkable for Its Fertility. One of the strange facts about the Everglades region of Florida is that i: Is really a decayed mountain top. The crest is formed of massive limestone, usually covered by a mantle at sand In this formation are numberless pot­ hole* which vary in sise from a Um feet to thousands of acres; also count­ less lakes of fre^h water, springs and frequent subterranean streams and pools. A few miles north of Cape Sable is an outcrop of limestone which projects to Lake Okeechobee. In this outcrop Is an extensive shallow basin extend­ ing 130 miles north and «outh and about 70 miles east and w&t, while ths altitude of its rim is 13 feet above mean level low tide in Biscayne bay and a little less above the Gulf of Mex­ ico. As a result of the weather and flow­ ing water the rim ^as been worn into fantastic shapes. The depth of the basin varies from cne foot at the rim to twelve feet in places, but generally the rock floor is from a depth of one to six feet. And there is the secret of the fertility of the Everglades. Above the entire rock floor rises a lay­ er of muck, formed of an alluvial de­ posit and of decayed vegetable matter. This deposit varies from a few inches to several feet In thickness. The wa­ ter covering this deposit comes from springs that in turn have their source In the lake.--D. A. Willey, in Cassler's Magazine. Bookseller 'Felled With a Book. Tom Osborne, the bookseller, was one of "that mercantile rugged race to which the delicacy of the poet is some­ times exposed." Osborne, irritated by what he thought an unnecessary delay on the part of Johnson, went one day into the room where Johnson was sitting and abused him in the moat illiberal manner. Johnson heard him some time un­ moved; but at last losing all patience, he seized a huge folio and, aiming a blow at the booksellers head, suc­ ceeded in sending him sprawling to the floor. Osborne alarmed the family by his cries; but Johnson, placing his foot on his breast, would not let him stft- till he bad exposed him in that situation; and then left him with this triumphant expression: "Lie there, thou son of dullness. Ignorance and obscurity."--Kearsley's "Anecdotes." Thought He Was Dreaming. "John," said the fweman.unexpected- ly, "we have decided to raise you five dollars a week." John made no an­ swer, but appeased to be tooking for something on his desk. "Why don't you say something--a|tn'* you satif; (led?" demanded th# foreman. trying to see if there's an alarm dicte here." said John. SUSPENDED IN SPACE! Crawled Out on Limb to Dislodge* Game--Unaware That He Was Di­ rectly Over a Chasm Which Wa» 300 Feet Deep. Portland, Me.--"If there Is another, region anywhere better cut and fitted! to suit the tastes of the night prowl­ ing, ring-tailed coon than the country round about Lake Keuka, up in old; Steuben," said Packy Griswold of Hammondsport, "then I would he pleased to have a look at it. "Ordinarily fhere isnt anything about a coon hunt up In the Lake Keuka country that Is calculated to terrify the hunter, but I came just as near being scared to death by a coon one night as anyone could come and yet live. And I'm scared yet when­ ever I think of that coon hunt. "I was hunting with a friend of mine from Bath. I had a good coon dog, and we weren't long in starting a coon. He took a bee line up the steepest and highest hill there was within five miles, but my dog was up to the tricks of the coon and followed this one so close that the ring-tailed thief of the vineyards was forced to climb a tree. "We had managed to get to the very highest point of the hill, though, more than 300 feet above the lake. The night was dark, but when we got to the foot of the tree in which the dog had treed the coon I soon discovered him, all in a bunch, on a good-sized limb ten feet from the ground, and I got ready to climb the tree and kick y * / Saved Myself From a Tumble. the coon off the limb down to the dog. "I shinned up the trunk and soon reached the branch on which the ooon was perching. Then he ran out to the end of the limb and made his stand, for he couldn't go any further. "I crept along the limb until I came within kicking distance of the coon. The limb was too big for me to shake him off. I reached up and grabbed it with one hand and aimed a tremen­ dous kick at the coon.- The kick landed all right and knocked the coon from his hold and off the limb. But the force of the kick broke my hold on the limb above and my feet slipped off the lower limb, so that I was following the coon In his tumble. I caught one arm on the 16wer limb as I went down and quick­ ly grabbed the limb with my other and saved myself from the tumble. The limb being only ten feet from the ground, I had only a oouple of feet to drop as I hung, but I hung on and listened to hear the coon hit the ground and the dog pitch into him. •'1 didn't hear the coon hit the ground, but after a quarter of a min­ ute or so I heard a sound as if some- tl ing were crashing through a tree a good way down the hill. Pretty soon a similar soon came up from some­ where a good deal farther away. Then, after an interval, another further down than the second, and at last & distant, dull thump, as of some object striking the ground. I felt myself turning cold. I worked my way along the limb back to the trunk of the tree and slid to the ground, v "That chestnut tree stood a few feet from the edge of one of the deepest ravines along the lake. We knew the ravine was there all right, but it never occurred to me that the limbs of that tree grew away out over it- They did, though, and when I kicked myself and that coon off of the limb we were on I wasn't hanging almost within reach of the ground as I sup­ posed, but was suspended in the air, with nothing under me but 300 feet or so of vacancy! "I have never hunted coons much j, since that night. I don't say that thafc.*^ is the reason there are more coons in the Lake Keuka country now than there used to be, but I have my optn* .. ions about it." Carries Dead Son Five Daya. Ottawa, Ont --Thomas Taylor fcaa just reached New Linkeard after car­ rying the dead body of his 21-year-old son for five days, bringing it from a northern region where there waa no train. The son was drowned. Gets 30 Dtyt on Typewriter. Anaconda, Mont.--"You are sea* tenced to practice 30 days upon a type* .:wi:t,^l^aid a district court judg* after 'trpng to decipher a bill of <a* ceptions an attorney admitted lie iHtft .jwreyar.ed ..ftithout assistance.