THE CITY OF ♦
NUMBERED DAYS
6/ FRANCO LYNDE - • -
ILLUSTRATIONS by C.D.RhQDES • • •
COPYRIGHT BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S 5OHS
SYNOPSIS.
f’WAPT^.R T-—Brouillard, chlpf ongineei
on the Niquoia irrigation dam. goes om
froi11cCe,np tf> Investigate a strange hglo
and finds an automobile partv camped ai
the canyon portal.
CHAPTER TI -Brouillard meets J Wes
ley C ert weight and his daughter Gene
vieve of Uie auto party and explains tin
reclamation work to them.
CHAPTER III— Oort Wright sees in tlif
proje t a bip - hanee to make money “ami
no cnanee fur a man to «et In anywhere.*
Brouillard Is Impervious to hints from the
financier, who tells Genevieve the en^
neer ‘will come down and hook himself
if the bait is well covered.”
CHAPTER IV—Cortwright organizes a
company ami obtains government con
tracts to furnish power arid material fot
the dam construction. A busy ritv
springs up about the site. Steve Massln
gale threatens to start a gold rush If
Brouillard does not influence President
r ord to build a railroad branch to the
place, thus opening an eAsy market fot
the ore from the “I.lttle Susan” mine.
CHAPTER V Brouillard and the com
P/Jn ’’ s promoter clash, but on orders from
Washington Brouillard turns over the
plans for the power installation.
CHAPTER VT—On a visit to Amy Mas
slngale at her father's mine Brouillard
finds she understands him better than he
had thought.
CHAPTER VTT—He tells her of his need
for money to pay oft his dead father's
debts and that tr> be free he would sacri
fice anything sa e his love for one wom
an. Though his Influence Is vital to the
building of the railroad extension she
tells hlin to be true to himself. He de
cides for it.
CHAPTER VIII—Mlrapolls, the city of
numbered days, booms. Cortwright per
suades Brouillard to become consulting
engineer of the consolidated electric pow
er company in return for $100,000 stock.
CHAPTER IX—Rumors that the govern
ment will call a halt on the dam cause
Grlslow to tell Brouillard that he is lean
ing to the Cortwright side to make the
city permanent. Brouillard denies It.
CHAPTER X—Permanent building In
Mlrapolls and a real estate boom are In
full swing when the stoppage of work on
the railroad threatens a panic. Brouillard
spreads the Masslngale storv of placer
gold In the rivet bed and starts a gold
rush.
CHAPTER XI—The gold rush promises
to stop the reclamation project.
"That is another thing—a thing I
haven’t dared tell father and Stevie.
When I was in Mirapolis this morn
ing I heard that the railroad wasn't
coming, after all; or. rather, Tig had
heard it and he told me. We were dlg
r ging for facta when you met us on
Chigringo avenue—trying to find out if
the rumor were true.”
“It means a great deal to you,
doesn’t it7” he said evasively.
“It means everything—a thousand
, times more now than it did before."
His quick glance up into the. sud
denly sobered eyes of the girl stand
ing on the step above him was a voice
less query and she answered it.
“We had no working capital, as I
think you must have known. Once a
month father or Stevie would make up
a few pack-saddle loads of the rich
est ore and freight them over the
mountains to Red Butte. That was
how we got along. But when you sent
me word by Tig that the railroad com
pany had decided to build the exten
sion, there was — there was — a
chance.
“Yes,” he encouraged,
“A chance that the day of little
things was past and the day of big
things was come. Mr. Cortwright and
some of his associates had been trying
to buy an interest in the ‘Little Susan.’
Father let them in on some sort of a
stock arrangement that I don't under
stand and then made himself person
ally responsible for a dreadful lot of
borrowed money.”
"Borrowed of Mr. Cortwright?"
queried Brouillard.
“No; of the bank. Neither Stevie
nor I knew about it until after it was
done, and even then father wouldn't
explain. He has been like a man out
of his mind since Mr. Cortwright got
hold of him—everything is rose-col
ored. But ycu see how it all depends
upon the railroad.”
“Not so much upon the railroad now
as upon some other things,” said
Brouillard enigmatically. “You say
your father has borrowed of the hank
—is Mr. Cortwright mixed up in tho
loan in any way?"
“Yes; he arranged it in some way
for father—I don’t know Just how. All
I know is that father is responsible,
and that if the railroad doesn't come
he will lose everything."
Brouillard gave a low whistle. “I
don’t wonder that the quitting rumor
made you nervous. But 1 think I can
lift one of your burdens. What you
heard in town this morning is a fact:
the railroad people have stopped work
on the Buckskin extension. Don’t
faint—they are going to begin again
right away ”
“Oh!" she gasped. “Are you sure?
How can you be sure?”
"I’ve given the order,” he said
gravely, “an order "‘they ear.'t disre
gard. Let’s go back a bit and I'll ex
plain. Do you remember my telling
you that your brother had tried to
bribe me to use my Influence with Mr.
Ford?”
“As if I should ever be able to for
get it!" she protested.
"Well, that wasn’t all that he did —
he threatened to turn the valley into
a placer camp, to disorganize our
working force, even stop or delinitely
postpone tho building of the datnj'
She was listening eagerly, blit there
was a nameless fear in. the steadfast
eyes—a shadow which he either
missed or disregarded.
And you—you believed this?" she
asked faintly.
"I was compelled to believe it. He
let me pan out the proof for myself."
"It is dreadful—dreadful!" she mur
mured. "You believed him, and for
that reason you used your influence
with Mr. Ford?”
He got up and took her in his arms,
and she suffered him.
"A few days ago, little girl, I couldn’t
have told you. Cut now I can. I am
a free man -or I can be whenever I
choose to say the word. I did it for
love’s sake.”
She was pushing him away, and the
great horror in her eyes was unmis
takable now.
"Oh!” she panted, "is love a thing
to be cheapened like that? And your
freedom-—how have you made a hun
dred thousand dollars in these few
weeks? Oh, Victor, is it clean money?”
He was abashed, confounded; and at
the bottom of the tangle of conflict
ing emotions there was a dull glow of
resentment.
“I did it, as I say—for love of you.
1 Amy; and now I have done a much
more serious thing—for the same rea
son.”
“Give Us a Job If We Come Back To
morrow?”
"Toll me.” she said, with a quick
catching of her breath.
“Your brother put a weapon in my
hands, and I have used it. There was
one sure wav to make the railroad
people get busy again. They couldn't
sit still if all the world were trying
to get to a new gold camp, to which
they already have a line graded and
nearly ready for the steel.”
"And you have—?”
He nodded.
She had retreated to take her for
mer position, leaning against the porch
post, with her hands behind her, and
she had grown suddenly calm.
“l>on’t look at me that way, Amy.”
he pleaded. “You wanted something—
and I wanted to give it to you. That
was all—as God hears me, it was all.
You believe that Amy? It will break
my heart if you don’t believe it.”
She shook her head sadly.
You don’t understand, and 1 can’t
make you understand—that is the keen
misery of it. If this ruthless thing you
tried to do had succeeded, I should be
fthe most wretched woman in the
world.”
"If It had succeeded? It has suc
ceeded. Didn’t I say just now that
the town was crazy with excitement
when I left to come up here?”
The girl was shaking her head again.
“God sometimes saves us in spite of
ourselves,” she sdid gravely. “The
excitement will die out. There are no
placers in the Niquoia. The bars have
been prospected again and again.”
/P CHAPTER XIII OK
^^Tumults and Dangers
Hrouillard turned on bis heel and
choked back the sudden malediction
tha* rose to his lips. Shs had called
Mirapolis a city of knav«^ and dupss;
! surely, ho himself was the simplest of
the dupes.
"I see—after so long a time,” he
went on. “Your brother merely ‘salt
; ed’ a few shovelfuls of sand for pny
especial benefit. Great heavens, but
1 was an easy mark!”
"Don't!” she cried, and the tears
in her voice cut him to the heart -
"don’t make it harder for me than it
lias to be. I have told you only what
i I’ve heard my father say, time and
again: that there is no gold in. the Ni
quoia river And you mustn't ask
me to despise my brother. He lights
his way tb his ends without < aring
much for tty” consequences to ethers;
but tell me haven’t you been doing
the same tiling?”
"Yet you condone in yotr hr >ther
what, iou condemn In m<*"' he com
plained.
I "My brother Is my brother; and you
are—let me tell you something, Vic
tor: God helping me, 1 shall be no
man’s evil genius, and yours least of
all. You broke down the harriers a
few minutes ago and you kn'.w what
is in my heart. Put I can take it cut
of my heart if the man who put it
there is not true to himself."
Brouillard was silent for a little
space, and when he spoke again it was
as one awaking from a troubled dream.
“I known There is a change. I am
not the same inan 1 was a few years,
or even a few months ago. I have lost
something; I have not the same
promptings; things that I used to
loathe no longer shock me. And there
is no cause. Nothing different has
broken into my life save the best of
all things—a great love. And you tell
me that the love is unworthy."
“No, 1 didn't say that; I only meant
that you had misconceived it. Love
is the truest, finest thing we know.
It can never be the tccl of evil; it may
even breathe new life into the be
numbed conscience.”
Again a silence came and sat be
tween them; and. as before, it was the
i man who broke it.
"You lead me to a conclusion that
I refuse to accept, Amy; that I am
dominated by some influence which is
' stronger than love.”
“You are," she said simply.
“What is it?”
“Environment.”
“That is the most humiliating thing
you have said todav.’’
"No. However much others may be
deluded, 1 am sure you can see Mirap
olis in its true light. The very air you
breathe down there is poisoned. The
taint is in the blood. Mr. Cortwright
and his fellow ba;idit3 call it the ‘Mir
acle City,’ but the poor wTetches cn
lower Chigringo avenue laugh and call
It Gomorrah.”
“Just at the present moment it is a
city of fools—and 1, the king of the
fools, have made it so,” said Brouillard
! gloomily. From his seat on the porch
step he was frowning down upon the
outspread scene in the valley, where
the triangular shadow of Jack’s moun
tain was creeping slowly across to the
foot of Chigringo. Something in the
measured eye-sweep brought him to
i his feet with a hasty exclamation:
“Good Lord! the machinery has
stopped! They've knocked off work
on the dam!”
“Why not?” she said. “Did you imag
ine that your workmen were any
less human than other people?"
“No, of course not; that is. I —but
I haven't any time to go into that
now. Is your telephone line up here
in operation?"
“No, not yet.”
“Then I must burn the wind getting
down there. By Jove! If those un
speakable idiots have gone off and
left the concrete to freeze wherever It
happens to bo—’’
une moment, she ropUed. while he
was reaching for his hat. “This new
madness will have spend itself by
nightfall—it must. And yet I have
the queerest shivery feeding, as if
something dreadful were going to hap
pen. Can't you contrive to get word
to me. some way—after it is all
over? I wish you could."
“I’ll do it,” he promised. "I'll come
up after supper.”
“No, don’t do that. You will be
needed at the dam. There will be
trouble, with a town full of disappoint
ed gold-hunters, and liquor to be had.
Wait a minute.” She ran into the
house and came out with two little
paper-covered cylinders with fuses
projecting. "Take these; they are
Bengal lights—some of the fireworks
that Tig bought in Ked Butte for the
Fourth. Light the blue one when you
are ready to send me my message
of cheer. I shall be watching for it.”
“And the other?” he asked.
“It Is a red light, the signal of war
and tumults and danger. If you light
It, I shall know—”
He nodded, dropped the paper cyl
inders into his pocket, and a moment
later was racing down the trail to
take his place at the helm of the aban
doned ship of the industries.
Brouillard descended upon his dis
heartened subordinates like a whirl
wind cf invincible energy, electrifying
everybody into instant action. Gass
man was told cff to bring the Indians,
who alone wcr" loyally indifferent to
the gold craze, down from the crush
ers. Anson was dispatched to impress
the waiters and bellboys from the
Metrcpole; Leshlngtcn was sent to the
sheps and the bar.k to turn out the
clerks; Grislow and Handley wer9
ordered to take charge of the make
shift concrete handlers as fast as they
materialized, squadding them and driv
ing the work cf wreck clearing tor
every man and minute they could
command, with Gassman and Bender
to act as foremen.
For himself, Brouillard reserved the
| most hazardous . f the recruiting expe
I dients. The lewer avenue had already
s become a double rar.k of dives, saloons
! and gambling der.s; here, if anywhere
111 the craze-depopulated town, men
might be found. and for once In th_elr
lives they should te shown how other
men earned money.
"Shove it for every minute of day
light there is left," he ordered, snap
ping out his commands to his staff
while he was filling th > magazine of
his Winchester. "Puddle what mate
rial there is ill the forms, dump the
telpher buckets where they stand, and
| clean out the mixers; that's the size
J of the job, and it’s got to be done,
j Jump to it, Grlzzy, ycu and Handley,
| and we’ll try to fill your gangs the
bent way we can.’’
"You'll be up on the stagings your
self, won’t you?" asked Grislow, strug
gling into Lis working coat.
"After a bit. I’m going down to the
lower avenue to turn out the crooks
j and diamond wearers. It's time they
' were learning how to earn an honest
dollar.”
"You'll get yourself killed up ” grum
bled Leshington. "'Work is the one
tiling you won’t get out of that crowd.”
“Watch me,” rasped the chief, and
hg was gone as soon as he had said it.
Strange things and strenuous hap
pened in the lower end cf the Ni
quoia valley during the few hours of
daylight that remained. First, climb
ing nervously to the puddlers’ staging
cn the great dam, and led by l’oodles
himself, came the Metropcle quota of
waiters, scullions, cooks and porters,
■willing bnt skill-less. After them, and
herded by Leshington, came a dapper
crew of office .r.en and clerks to snatch
up the puddling spades and to soil
their clothes a.id blister their hands
in emptying the concrete buckets. Mr.
Cartwright's contribution came as a
dropping fire; a handful of tree-cutters
from the sawmills, a few picked up
here and there in the deserted town,
an automobile load of power-company
employees shot down from the gener
ating plant at racing speed.
Last, but by no means least in num
bers, came the human derelicts from
the lower avenue; men in frock-coats;
men in cowboy jeans taking it as a
huge joke; men with foreign faces and
lowering brows and with strange oaths
in their mouths; and behind the mot
ley throng and marshaling it to a
quickstep. Brouillard and Tig Smith.
It was hot work and heavy for tho
strangely assorted crew, and Broeil
lard drove it to the limit, bribing, ca
bling or threatening, patrolling the
Xiig line of staging to encourage t,ho
awkward puddlers, or side-stepping
swiftly to the mixers to bring back a
detachment of skulkers at the rifle's
muzzle. And by nightfall tire thing
was done, with the loss reduced to a
minimum and the makeshift laborers
dropping out in squads and groups,
some laughing, some swearing, and all
too weary and toil-worn to be danger
1 ous. "Give us a job if we come back
I tomorrow, Mr. Brouillard?” called out
! the king ol the gamblers in passing;
and the cry was taken up by others in
j grim jest.
“Thus endeth the first lesson,” said
: Grislow. when the engineering corps
was reassembling at the headquarters
preparatory to a descent upon the sup
per table. But Brouillard was dumb
and haggard, and when he had hung
his rifle and cartridge belt on their
pegs behind his desk, he went out,
leaving unbroken the silence which
had greeted his entrance.
"The boss is taking it pretty hard,”
said young Griffith to no one in par
ticular, and it was Leshington who
took him up savagely and invited him
to hold his tongue.
“The least said is the soonest
mended—at a funeral,’’ was the form
the first assistant's rebuke took. "You
take n:y advice nr.d don’t mess or
meddle with the chief until he's had
time to work this thing out of his sys
tefii.”
The* cVirmfa rtf tho mnh worn rinrnnf*
iii Brotiillard's oars when lir* strode de
ject edly into the deserted maproom,
and th° cries were rising with a new
■rote and in fresher frenzies a little
later when Grislovv came in. The hy
drographer’s blue eyes were hard and
his voice had a tang of bitterness in
it when he said: “Well you've done It.
Three men have just come in with a
double handful of nuggets, and Mirap
olis makes its bow to the world at
large as the newest and richest of
the gold camps.”
Brouillard had been humped over
his desk, end he sprang up with a cry
like that of a wounded animal.
"It can't be; Grizzy, I tell you it
cant be! Steve Massingale planted
that gold that 1 washed out—played
me for a fool to get me to work for
the railroad. 1 didn’t know it until—
until—”
“Until Amy Massingale told you
about it this afternoon.” cut in the
mapmaker shrewdly. “That’s all right.
The bar Steve took you to was barren
enough: they tell me that every cubic
foot of it has been washed over in
dishpans ana skillets in the past few
hours. Rut you know the big bend op
posite the Quadjenai hills; the river
has built that bend out of its own
washings, and the bulletin over at the
Spotlight office says that the entire
peninsula is one huge bank of gold
hearing gravel.”
At the word Brouillard staggered as
from the impact of a bullet. Then he
crossed the room slowly, groping his
way toward the peg where the coat he
had worn in the afternoon was hang
ing. Grislovv saw him take something
out of the pocket cf the coat, and the
next moment the door opened and
closed and the hydrograpber was left
^one.
Uaving been planned before there
was a city to be considered, the gov
ernment buildings Inclosed three sides
of a small open square, facing toward
the great dam. In the middle of this
open space Brouillard stopped, kicked
up a little mound of earth, and stood
the two paper cyliadi rs on it side by
side.
'1 he tempered glow from Jhe city
electrics made a soft twilight in the
little plaza; he could see the wrapper
colors of the two signal tires quite
veil. A sharp attack of indecision had
prompted him to place both of them on
the tiny mound. With the match in
his hand, he was still undecided. Amy
"Brouillard, This Is Simply Hideous!"
Messingale’s words came back to him
as he hesitated: ‘‘Light the blue one
when you are ready to send me my
message of cheer. . . On the lips
of another woman the words might
have taken a materialistic meaning;
the miraculous gold discovery would
bring the railroad, and the railroad
would rescue the Massingale mine and
restore the Massingale fortunes.
He looked up at the dark bulk of
Chigringo. unrelieved even by the tiny
fleck of lamplight which he had so
often called his guiding star. “Take
me out of your mind and heart and say
which you will have, little girl,” he
whispered, sending the words out into
the void of night. But only the din
and clamor of a city gone wild with
enthusiasm came to answer him. Some
where on the avenue a band was play
ing; men were shouting themselves
hoarse in excitement, and above the
shouting came the staccato crackling
of pistols and guns fired in air.
He struck the match and stooped
over the blue cylinder. “This is your
message of cheer, whether you take it
that way or not," he went on, whisper
ing again to the silent void. But w'hen
the fuse of the blue light was fairly
tizzing he suddenly pinched it out and
held the match to the other.
hp on the high bench of the great
mountain Amy Massingale was pacing
to and fro on the puncheon-floored
porch of the home cabin. The girl’s
gaze never wandered far from a dark
arpa In the western edge of the town—
the semicircle cut into the dotting
lights and marking the site of the gov
ernment reservation. It was when a
tiny stream of sparks shot up in the
center of the dark area that she
stopped and held her breath. Then,
when a blinding flare followed to prick
out the headquarters, the commissary
and the mess house, she sank in a de
spairing little heap on the floor, with
her face hidden in tier hands and the
quick sobs shaking her like an ague
chill. It was Brouillard's signal, hut
it was not the signal of peace; it was
the blood red of revolution and strife
and turmoil.
CHAPTER XIV feT
WS, iJKg
Tlie Feast of Hurrahs
._5-5__
Mirapolis the marvelous was a hus
tling, roaring, wide-open mining camp
of twenty thousand souls by the time
the railroad, straining every nerve and
crowding three shifts into the 24-hour
day, pushed its rail3 along the foothill
bench of Ohigringo. tossed up its tem
porary station buildings, and signaled
its opening for business by running a
mammoth excursion from the cities of
the immediate Kast.
Busy as it was, the city took time
to celebrate fittingly the event which
linked it to the outer world. By proc
lamation Mayor Cortwright declared a
holiday. There were lavish displays
of bunting, an Impromptu trades pa
rade. speeches from the plaza band
stand, free lunches and free liquor—
a day of boisterous, hilarious triumph
ings, with, incidentally, much buying
and selling and many transfers of the
precious “front foot” or choice “cor
ner.”
Yielding to pressure, which was no
less imperative from below than from
above, Brouillard had consented to
suspend work on the great dam during
the day of triumphs, and the recla
mation service force, smaller now than
at any time since the beginning of the
undertaking, went to swell the crowds
on f'higrlngo avenue. Mr. Cortwright
had been inexorable, and Brouillard
found himself discomfortingly empha
sized as chairman of the civic recep
tion committee.
It was after his part of the speech
making, and while the plaza crowds
wire still bellowing their approval of
the modest forensic effort, that he |
vent to sit beside Miss Cortwright in i
the temporary grand stand mopping •
his face and otherwise exhibiting the
after effects of the unfamiliar strain.
"1 didn’t know you could be so con
vineing,” was Miss Genevieve's com
ment. "It was splendid! Nobody will
ever believe that you are going to go j
on building your dam and threatening !
to drown us, after this."
“What did l say?" queried RroulV
lard, having, at the moment, only the
haziest possible idea of what he h:*i
said.
‘‘As if you didn’t know!” she
laughed. "You congratulated every
body. And the funny thing about it is
that you didn’t say a single word about
the Niquoia dam.”
"Didn't I? That shows how com
pletely your father has converted me,
how helplessly I am carried along on
the torrent of events.”
“But you are not.” she said accus
ingly. “Deep down in your inner con
sciousness you don’t believe a little bit
in Mirapolis. You are only playing the
game with the rest of us, Mr. Brouil
lard.”
Gorman, Mr. Cortwright’s ablest
trumpeter in the real-estate booming,
was holding the plaza crowd spell
bound with prophetic outlining of the
Mirapolitan future.
In the middle distance and back
grounding the buildings on the oppo
site side of the plaza, rose the false
work of the great dam—a standing for
est of sawed timbers, whose afternoon
shadows were already pointing like a
many-fingered fate toward the city of
the plain. But, though the face of the
speaker was toward the shadowing for
est. his words ignored it. “The snow
capped Timayonis,” “the mighty Chi
gringo.” and “the golden-veined slopes
of Jack’s mountain” all came in for eu
logistic mention; but the massive wall
of concrete, with its bristling parapet
of timbers had no part in the orator’s
flamboyant descriptive.
Brouillard loved Amy Masslngale
with a passion which, however blind it
might be on the side of the higher
moralities, was still keen-sighted
enough to assure him that every
plunge he made in the Mirapolitan
whirlpool was sweeping him farther
away from her.
He had transferred the power com
pany's stock, minus a single share to
cover his official standing on the
power company's board, to Cortwright,
ar.d had opened an account at the Ni
quoia National. The ninety-nine thou
sand nine hundred dollars had since
grown by speculative accretions to the
rounded eighth of a million which all
financiers agree in calling the stepping
stone to fortune.
He had regarded this money—was
still regarding it—as a loan; his lever
with which tc pry out something which
he could really call his own. But more
and more possession and use were dull
ing the keen edge of accountability
and there were moments of insight
when the grim irony of taking the
price of honor to pay an honor debt
forced itself upon him. At such mo
ments he plunged more recklessly, m
one of them taking stock in a gold
dredge company which was to wash
nuggets by the wholesale out of the
Quadjenai bend, in another buying yet
other options in the newest suburb ot
Mirapolis.
With the waning of the day of cele
brations the temper of the street
throngs was changing. It is only the
people of the Latinized cities who can
take the carnival spirit lightly; in
other blood liberty grows to license
atid the thin veneer of civilized re
straints quickly disappears. From
early dawn the saloons and dives had
been adding fuel to the flames, and
lightheartedness and good-natured
horseplay were giving way to sardonic
humor and brutality.
In the short faring through the
crowded street from the plaza to tlm
Metropole corner BrouiMard saw and
heard things to make his blood boil.
Twice before he reached Hongras’ cafe
entrance the engineer shouldered his
way to the rescue of some badgered
nucleus of excursionists, and in each
instance there were frightened women
to be hurriedly spirited away to the
nearest plaee of seclusion and safetv.
It was in front, of Hon gras’ that
Brouillard came upon Rev. Hugh Cast
ner, the hot hearted young zealot who
had been flung into Mirapolis on the
crest of the tidal wave of mining ex
citement. Though Hosford—who had
not been effaced, as Mr. Cortwright
had promised he should be—and the
men of his clique called the young
missionary a meddlesome visionary,
he stood in the stature of a man. and
lower Chigringo avenue loved him and
swore by him now and then when some
poor soul, hastily summoned, was to
be eased off into eternity.
When Brouillard caught sight of him
Castner was looking out over the
seething street caldron from his cotn
manding height of six feet of athletic
man stature, his strong face a mask
of bitter humiliation and concern.
“Brouillard, this is simply hideous!”
he exclaimed. "If this devils' carnival
goes on until nightfall we shall have a
revival of the old Roman Saturnalia
at its worst!” Then, with a swift blow
at the heart of the matter; "You're
the man I've been wanting to see; you
are pretty close in with the Cortwright
junta—Is it true that free whisky has
been dealt out to the crowd over the
bar in the Niquoia building?''
Brouillard said that he did not know,
■which was true, and that he could not
believe it possible, which was not true.
"The Cortwright people are ss anxious
to have the celebration pass oft peace
ably as even you can be." he assured
the young missionary, trying to but
tress the thing which whs not true.
“When riot comes In at the door, busi
ness tlies out at the window; and,
after all, this feast of hurrahs is mere
ly another hid for business."
But Castner was shaking his head.
”1 can't answer for Mr. Cortwright
personally. lie and Handley and
Schermerhom and a few of the otfiers
seem to stand for respectability of a
sort. But. Mr. Brouillard. 1 want to
tell you this: somebody in authority
is grafting upon the vice of this com
munity. not only today Imt all the
time.”
(Continued Next Weekj