I Vhe Bondmaa By HALL CAINE -X A Coittaued Story 33SkSk3S CHAPTER II Continued There are momenta when the sense of our destiny is strong upon us and this was such a moment to Red Ja son He saw Michael Sunlocksfor the first time but without knowing him and yet at that sight every pulse heat and every nerve quivered A great sorrow and a great pity took hold of him The face he looked upon moved him the voice he heard thrilled him and by an impulse that he could not resist he stopped and turned to the warder leaning on the musket and said Let me do this mans work It would be nothing to me He is ill Send him up to the hospital March shouted his own warders and they hustled him along and at the next minute ho was gone Then the bell stopped for an instant for Michael Sunlocks had raied his head to look upon the man who had spok en He did not see Jasons face but his own face softened at tho words he had heard and his bloodshot eyes grew dim Go on cried the warder with the musket and the bell began again All that day the face of Michael Sunlocks haunted the memory of Red Jason Who was that man he asked of the prisoner who worked by his side S How should I know tho other fellow answered sulkily In a space of rest Jason leaned on his shovel wiped his brow and said to his warder What was that mans name A 25 the warder answered mood ily I asked for his name said Jason Whats that to you replied the warder A week went by and the face of Sunlocks still haunted Jasons mem ory It was with him early and late the last thing that stood up before his inward eye when he lay down to sleep the first thing that came to him when he awoke sometimes it moved him to strange laughter when the sun was shining and sometimes it touched him to tears when he thought of it at night Why was this He did not know he could not Think he did not try to find out But there it was a living face burnt into his memory a face so strangely new to him yet so strangely familiar so unlike to anything he had ever yet seen and yet so like to everything that was near and dear to himself that he could have fancied there had never been a time when he had not had it by his side When he put the matter to himself so he laughed and thought How foolish But no self mockery banished the mystery of the power upon him of the mans face that he saw for a moment one morning in the snow He threw off his former listlessness tnd began to look keenly about him But one week two weeks three weeks passed and he could nowhre see the same face again He asked questions but learned nothing His fellow pris oners began to jeer at him Upon their souls the big red fellow had tumbled into love with the young chap with the long flaxen hair and maybe he thought it was a woman in dis guise Jason knocked their chattering heads together and so stopped their ribald banter but his warders began to watch him with suspicion and he fell back in silence A month passed and then the chain that was slowly drawing the two men together suddenly tightened One morning the order came down from the office of the captain that the pris oners straw beds were to be taken cut into the stock yard and burnt The beds were not old but dirty and damp and full of foul odors The officers of the settlement said this was due to the filthy habits of the prisoners The prisoners on their part said it came of the pestilential hovels they were compelled to live in where the ground was a bog the walls and roof were a rotten coffin and the air was heavy and lifeless Since the change of warders there had been a gradual decline in Hthe humanity with which they had been treated and to burn up their old beds without giving them new ones was to deprive them of the last comfort that separat ed the condition ol human beings from that of beasts of tho field But the captain of the mines was in no humor to bandy parts with his prisoners and in ordering that the beds should be burnt to prevent an - outbreak of disease he appointed that the prisoner B 25 should be told off to do the work Now B 25 was the prison name of Red Jason and he was selected by reason of his gieat bodily strength not so much because the beds required it as from fear of the rebellion of the poor souls who were to lose them So at the point of a musket Red Ja son was driven on to his bad work and sullenly he went through it mut tering deep oaths from between his grinding teeth until he came to the log hut where Michael Sunlocks slept and there he saw again the face that had haunted his memory This bed is dry and sound said Michael Sunlocks and you shall not tako it Away with it shouted the warder to Jason who had seemed to hesi tate It is good and wholesome let him keep it said Jason Go on with your work cried the warder and the lock of the musket clicked Civilized men give straw to their dogs to lie on said Michael Sun locks It depends what dogs they are sneered tie warder If you take cur beds this place will be worse than an empty kennel said Michael Sunlocks Better that than the mange said j the warder Get along I tell you x he cried again handling his musket and turning to Jason Then with a glance of lothing Ja son picked up the bed in his fingers that itched to pick up the warder by the throat and swept out of the place Slave cried Michael Sunlocks af ter him Pitiful miserable little hearted slave Jason heard the hot words that pur sued him and his face grew as red as his hair and his head dropped into his breast He finished his task in less than half an hour more working like a demented man at piling up the dirty mattresses into a vast heap and setting light to the damp straw And while the huge bonfire burned and he poked long holes into it to give it air to blaze by he made excuse of the great heat to strip off the long rough overcoat that had been given him to wear through the hard months of the winter By this time the warder had fallen back from the scorching flames and Jason watching his chance stole away under cover of deep whirls of smoke and got back into the log cabin unobserved He found the place empty the man known to him as A 25 was not any where to be seen But finding his sleeping bunk a bare slab resembling a butchers board he stretched his coat over it where the bed had been and then fled away like a guilty thing When the great fire had burned low the warder returned and said Quick there put on your coat and lets be off At that Jason pretended to look about him in dismay Its gone he said in a tone of as tonishment Gone What Have you burnt it up with the beds creid the warder Maybe so said Jason meekly Fool cried the warder but its your loss Now youll have to go in your sheepskin jacket snow or shine With a cold smile about the corners of his mouth Jason bent his head and went ahead of the warder If the Captain of the Miines had been left to himself he might have been a just and even merciful man but he was badgered by inhuman or ders from Jorgen Jorgensen at Reykjavik and one by one the com mon privileges of his prisoners were withdrawn As a result of his treat ment the prisoners besieged him with petitions as often as he crossed their path The loudest to complain and the most rebellious against petty tyranny was Michael Sunlocks the humblest the meekest and most silent under cruel prosecution was Red Ja son The one seemed aflame with in dignation the other destitute of all manly spirit That man might be dangerous to the government yet thought the Captain after one of his stormy scenes with Michael Sunlocks That mans heart is dead within him he thought again as he watched Red Jason work ing as he always worked slowly list lessly and as if tired out and longing for the night The Captains humanity at length prevailed over his governors rigor and he developed a form of penal servitude among the prisoners which he called the Free Command This was a plan whereby the men whose behavior had been good were allowed the partial liberty of living outside the stockade in huts which they had built for themselevs Ten hours a day they wrought at the mines the rest of the day and night was under their own control and in return for their labor they were supplied with rations from the settlement Now Red Jason as a docile prisoner was almost the first to get promotion to the Free Command He did not ask for it and he did not wish for it and when it came he looked askance at it Send somebody else he said to his warders but they laughed and turned him adrift He began to build his house of the lava stones on the mountain side not far from the hospital and near to a house being built by an elderly man much disfigured about the cheeks who had been a priest imprisoned long ago by Jorgen Jorgensen out of spite and yet baser motives And as he worked at raising the walls of his hut he remembered with a pang the mill he built in and what a whirlwind of outraged passion brought every stone of it to the ground again With this occupation and occasional gossip with his neighbor he passed the evenings of his Free Command And looking toward the hospital as often as he saw the little groups of men go up to it that told of another prisoner injured in the perilous labor of the sulphur mines he sometimes saw a woman come out at the door to receive them Who is she he asked of the priest The foreign nurse said the priest And a right good woman too as I have reason to say for she nursed me back to life after that spurt of hot water had scalded these holes into my face That made Jason think of other scenes and of tender passages in his broken life that were gone from him forever He had no wish to recall them -their pleasure was too painful their sweets too bitter they were lost and God grant that they could be for gotten Yet every night as he worked at his walls he looked longingly across the shoulder of the hill in the direc tion of the hospital half fancying he knew the sweet grace of the figure he sometimes saw there and pretending with himself that he remembered the light rythm of its movement After a while he missed what he looked for and then he asked his neighbor if the nurse were ill that he had not seen her lately 111 Well yes said the old priest She has been turned away from the hospital What cried Jason you thought her a good nurse She was too good my lad said the priest and a blackguard warder who had tried to corrupt her and could not announced that somebody else had done so Its a lie cried Jason It was plain enough said the priest that she was about to give birth to a child and as she would make no explanations she wag turned adrift Where is she now asked Jason Lying in the farmhouse at the edge of the snow yonder said the priest I saw her last night She trusted me with her story and it was straight and simple Her husband had been sent out to the mines by the old scoundrel at Reykjavik She had fol lowed him only to be near him and breathe the air he breathed Perhaps with some wild hope of helping his escape she had hidden her true name and character and taken the place of a menial being a born lady Then her husband is still at the mines said Jason Yes said the priest Does he know of her disgrace No Whats his name The poor soul would give no name but she knew her husbands nuirber It was A 25 I know him said Jason Next day his hut being built and roofed after some fashion Jason went down to the office of the Captain of the Mines and said I dont like the Free Command sir May I give it up in favor of another man And what man pray asked the Captain A 25 said Jason No said the Captain Ive built my house sir said Ja son and if you wont give it to A 25 let the poor woman from the hospital live in it and take me back among the men That wont do my lad Go along to your work said the Captain And when Jason was gone the Cap tain thought within himself What does this mean Is the lad planning the mans escape And who is this English woman that she should be the next thought in his head So the only result of Jasons ap peal was that Michael Sunlocks was watched the closer worked the hard er persecuted the more by petty tyrannies and that an order was sent up to the farmhouse where Greeba layin the dear dishonor of her early motherhood requiring her to leave the neighborhood of Krisuvik as speedily as her condition allowed This was when the long dark days of winter were beginning to fall back before the sweet light of spring And when the snow died off the mountains and the cold garment of the jokulls was sucked full of holes like the hon eycomb and the world that had been white grew black and the flowers be gan to show in the corries and the sweet summer was coming coming then Jason went down to the Captain of the Mines again Why said the Captain what have you been doing Nothing said Jason but if you dont prevent me Ill run away This Free Command was bad enough to fear when the snow cut us off from all the world But now that it is gone and the world is free and the cuckoo is calling he seems to be calling me is calling he seems to be calling me and I must go after him Go said the Captain and after youve tramped the deserts and swam the rivers and slept on the ground and starved on roots well fetch you back for you can never escape us and lash you as we have lashed the others who have done likewise If I go said Jason defiantly you shall never fetch me back and if you catch me you shall never punish me What Do you threaten me cried the Captain Something in the prisoners face ter rified him though he would have scorned to have acknowledged his fear and he straightway directed that Jason should be degraded for inso lence and insubordination from the Free Command to the gangs Now this was exactly what Jason wanted for his heart had grown sick with the longing for another sight of that face which stood up before his inward eye in the darkness of the night But remembering Jasons ap peal on behalf of Michael Sunlocks and his suspicion regarding both the captain ordered that the two men should be kept apart To Be Continued Census Taking in Russia The first general census in Russia was taken in January in 1897 but as may be expected in such a vast country the difficulties are so great that the returns cannot be vouched for as absolutely correct Compared with western countries census taking in Russia is rather crude Prior to 1897 the census had been taken ten times but this was to find out how many males there were who paid or ought to pay taxes The first census took place as far back as 1724 when the number of inhabitants was set down at 14000000 in round figures in 1897 the number was given as 129 000000 including Finland Pearsons Weekly Regiment on Ski In Norway the ski is in constant use during the winter and the ease with which great distances can be covered is surprising feasants are thus able to get about their work and visit friends in far- way districts Sports men with gun en back and stick in hand set out in pursuit of game on ski and the soldiers are reduced to this means of getting about when ex ercising A regiment of soldiers on ski is a sight by no means uncommon In and around Chistiania The Traveler Paris Gibson Honesty Montanas new senator Paris Gib son is a popular man in Minneapolis Minn He started the first woolen mill in that city but failed in the pan ic of 1877 owing his employes nearly 10000t Soon after Gibson went to Montana and a decade later returned to Minneapolis and paid off every cent pf his indebtedness with inter est at 7 per cent Guns of Svrlss Army The quick firing artillery with which the whole Swiss army is to be equipped forthwith consists of nickel steel guns 74 centimeters caliber fir ing 10 shots a minute with a range of 5800 yards fi in in Timely Topics Intelligently Dis cussed By Bryan IHE0D8RE R00SEYELT ON DUTY Something About the Prosperity of Some Sections of the Country Prediction - of Panic By United States Investor Notes Roosevelt on Duty Tho vice president delivered a speech a few nights ago before the Home Market Club of Boston A perusal of his remarks convinces one that he shares with the president the tendency to apply the term duty to those things which he desires He says l For good or for evil we now find ourselves with new DUTIES in the West Indies and new DUTIES beyond the Pacific We cannot escape the per formance of these DUTIES All we can decide for ourselves is whether we shall do them well or ilL The fact that these duties were self imposed and are clung to in spite of the fact that they involve a violation of American principles cuts no figure It is all in the definition of duty Ac cording to republican logic it is very wrong to steal unless you find some thing which is very valuable then larceny becomes a duty The fact that you may be compelled to take human life in order to get the thing desired is immaterial call it duty and sin be comes a virtue A little later on in his speech the real secret of the Philippine policy leaks out Mr Roosevelt says In developing these islands it is well to keep steadily in mind that busi ness is one of the great levers of civili zation It is immensely to the inter est of the people of the islands that their resources should be developed and therefore it is to their interest even more than to ours that our citizens should develop their industries The further fact that it is our duty to see that the development takes place under conditions so carefully guarded that no wrong may come to the islanders must not blind us to the first great fact which is the need of development The reasoning is complete Business is a civilizer the Filipinos need civi lizing and we are nothing if not business-like Therefore it is to the inter est of the Filipinos that we should develop them for their good This is strenuous life and lest some might be restrained by conscientious scruples the Vice President felt it necessary to impress upon his hearers that the first great fact is the need of develop ment The duty to see that the de velopment takes place under conditions so carefully guarded that no wrong may come to the islanders is simply a further fact and must not blind us to the principal thing the need of development Nowhere does Mr Roosevelt discuss jthe effect of the new policy upon our itheory of government nowhere does he attempt to explain why a colonial system was wrong in 1776 and right now His whole argument can be summed up as follows We are in the Philippine Islands no matter how we got there we are there whether there for good or evil we cannot get away Jit looks as if it were providential for them and besides there is money in kt for us The President Contradicts Himself At Decatur Alabama the president took occasion to defend the adminis tration against the charge that it fa vored militarism and viewed blood and carnage with indifference But in his anxiety to make the defense complete lie found it necessary to contradict What he had said during the negotia tions of the Paris treaty The conflict between the speech made at Decatur and the instructions given to the peace commission can best be shown by pre senting the two Decatur Speech We have never gone to war for con quest for exploitation or for territory but always for liberty and humanity and in our recent war with Spain the people of the whole United States as one man marched with the flag for the honor of the nation to relieve the op pressed people in Cuba Instructions United States Peace Commission Paris Nov 3 1898 10 a m For the president Special After a careful examination of the authorities the majority of the commission are clearly of the opinion that our demand for the Philippine islands can not be based on conquest Djly Department of State Washington Nov 3 1898 The president has re ceived your dispatch of this date and awaits your letter Meantime how ever the question may ba ultimately determined He assumes you have not yielded the claim by right of conquest In fact the destruction of the Spanish fleet on May 1 was the conquest of Manila the capital of the Philippines Hay Extract from- correspondence be itween Day of the Peace Commission and Hay Secretary of War All the protection that arc American Industry needs when backed by Amer ican skill and ingenuity is protection against the rapacity of modern jugglers of financial stocks A London paper calls J Pierpont Morgan the Bonaparte of trade Napoleons of finance have existed be fore but the St Helena of bankruptcy is covered with their bones The soundness of Senator McLaurins democracy may be measured by noting that it is receiving the plaudits of the men who have opposed democratic principles all their lives Is This Prosperity The Philadelphia North American in a recent issue gives a discouraging description of the depression which prevails in the textile trade The facts and causes are condensed by it into tho following brief statement Total number of textile employes in Philadelphia 75000 Number at steady work 30000 Number on half or three quarter tfaoe 25000 Number idle 15000 Number unaccounted for 5000 causes of depression 1 Overproduction during prosperity 2 Underconsumption due to- low low wages 3 The war in China 4 Competition of substitute com modities 5 Change in styles G Change in centers of textile in dustry If we had a low tariff protectionists would recommend a high tariff as a remedy if we had bimetalism the gold standard would be proposed as a pana cea but as we have a high tariff and a gold standard this depression will be explained as one of those natural and necessary conditions which cannot be prevented by foresight or remedied by legislation It comes too at a time when the stock markets are booming and when the speculators are boasting that railroad stocks have gained more than flve hundred millions in market value within a few months The North American gives interviews with employers and employes Here is a sample from each side John Hamil ton proprietor of the Montgomery car- pet mills says This thing is all a scare The busi ness is bad for some and other manu facturers are running about the same as usual We are running short hand ed but that is because it is the end of our season The talk about people starving is only the vaporings of labor agitators There is no necessity for people starving If they cant find work in the textile trades let them get to work at something else I have no reason to offer for the depression be cause there is no depression I Mr Hamilton is not worrying about the lack of employment or the lack of food complained of by some of the others It is evident that his salary is paid regularly Edward Thornton business agent of the allied textile trades is quoted as saying The busy season so long expected has not come Since November there has been no season at all In the up holstery trade not seventy five per cent of the thirty two mills are running on anything like full time A weaver in this line of work could make S13 a week but now the most skillful barely average 5 a week The weavers can make a fair wage as long as there is work but the periods of idleness are disastrous There has been a great overproduction and a tendency to lower the quality of the goods manufactured The tariff on wool has played havoo with the ingrain trade and has created a field for Japanese and Chinese mat tings In fact people are not buying carpets as they did at one time As yet there have been few appeals for help but this will come later if the depres sion continues Our men are living on credit to a great extent but this if bound to end Predicting Panic A marked degree of pessimism con cerning business conditions is notice able in many republican papers This is particularly true of great financial journals The United States Investor financial publica one of the leading tions appears to be particularly blue The Investor points out that the condi tions at present are very similar to the conditions of 1893 immediately prior to the great panic of that year It says The whole industrial and financial structure in this country may be liken ed to a man in mid air on a tight rope and it adds that the conditions might very well suggest to Wall Street the Advisability of getting things in snug condition The United States Investor informs us that trusts are the agency which will produce the next panic in this country and the Investor is of tho opinion toat the wreck will equal any that have preceded it How does it happen then that the financial jour nals like the Investor that were so anxious for the repeal of the purch ing clause of the Sherman law that were so bitterly antagonistic to any thing in the form of bimetallism that held out to us such alluring promises if we would but adopt the single gold standard how does it happen that these publications have no word of pro test to utter against the system which they now openly declare will be re sponsible for a disastrous panic When they thought or pretended to thins that silver was responsible for our ills they didnt hesitate to speak out When they thought or pretended to think that the prospect of bimetallism aggra vated our conditions they did not hesi tate to protest against bimetallism When they thought that the single gold standard would provide a remedy for our financial evils they did not hes itate to urge the application of that remedy How does it happen that at this moment they are content with making dire predictions as to the re sult of the trust system without enter ing any protest against the encourage ment of that system The North American is a republican paper and is owned by a son of exf Postmaster General Wanamaker Its portrayal of the industrial situation in one of the great trade centers will be profitable reading for those republicans who believe that universal prosperity is the constant and necessary attend ant of a republican administration Scientists are trying to frighten the people by predicting the exhaustion of the fuel supply but it has no effect on Messrs Carnegie Morgan and Rock efeller They have money to burn ROOT MAKES MS REPORT Sovereign Commander Woodmen of the World Gives Years Resume COLUMBUS 0 May 15 The fourth biennial encampment of the Sovereign camp Woodmen of the World con vened here today with Sovereign Com mander Root of Omaha presiding Del egates representing twenty one states are present The session will con tinue for a week After the delegates had been called to order addresses of welcome were made by Secretary of Slate Laylin who represented Governor Nash now In California Mayor Hinkle and Sec retary of Board of Trade Bassell Re sponses were made by Sovereign Bank er Sheppard of Texarkana Tex and Sov Advocate T A Fallenbark of Denver Following the open session secret work was taken up The report of Sov Commander J C Root of Omaha showed that the order now has a membership of about 250000 in nearly 4500 camps in the United States and Canada The rec ommendations in the report will not be made public until it goe3 to the committee on officers reports and has been acted upon The supreme forest Woodmen Cir cle an auxiliary organization also convened here today Mrs Emma B Manchester of Omaha supreme guard ian presiding The report of the su preme clerK J G Kuhn of Omaha showed the membership of the Circle had increased from 5260 to nearly 15 000 in two years NO CHANCE fOR NEBRASKA This State Baa Complete Representa tion at West Point OMAHA May 16 A number of ap plications have been filed with Sen ator Millard by young Nebraskans who have an ambition to become of ficers in the regular army The West Point cadetships are filled however with no chance of imedlata vacancy and Senator Millard can give the as pirants no encouragement The ca dets appointed by Senators Thurston and Allen will not graduate until 1904 and 1905 and until these years no other appointment can be made From present reports the Nebraska cadets are doing good work and there is little prospect that they will fail in their examination or for any other reason leave the military school before the completion of their course In a recent letter on the subject Ad jutant General Corbin said There will be no vacancies for the admission of senatorial candidates from Nebras ka until the cadets now representing that state at large shall have left thev military academy One of these wilL not graduate until June 1904 and the other in June 1905 CATCH AMERICAN BRIGANDS Manila Police Take Leaders of Band of Canning Murderers MANILA May 15 Detectives and the police have broken up a band of American brigands who have been operating in the province of Pmpan ga north of and not far from Ma nila George Raymond TJlrich Rog ers and Oscar Mushmiller have been captured and Andrew Martin Peter Heise George Muhn and two others are still being pursued The band committed murders and other outrages at Baeolor Pampanga province and in that vicinity Sun day last they killed Henry Dow an American The band sometimes rep resented themselves as American de serters and at others as American sol diers George Raymond wore the uni form of a captain Raymond and Martin were formely policemen at Ma nila tabor Troubles at Albany ALBANY N Y May 15 A thou sand National Guardsmen and 100 v mounted men will occupy Albany streets today and attempt to force a riotous crowd to let the cars of the United Traction company run with non union men The Twenty third regiment of Brooklyn the Tenth bat talion of Albany and the Third Sig nal corps will make up the comple ment of men They will be reinforced by 200 special deputies 300 policemen and over 100 Pinkerton detectives Mrs Nation Fonnd Gnilty TOPEKA Kan May 15 The jury in the case of Mrs Carrie Nation charged with joint smashing this evening returned a verdict of guilty The trial Was before the district court and sentenced will be pronounced to morrow morning It is the general im pression that she will be released on the payment of a fine and costs - I Order Three Warships Home WASHINGTON May 15 The navy department sent orders to Rear Ad- miral Kempff acting commander of the Asiatic station to send home the ships Concord Marietta and Castine during the latter part of the summer This is in pursuance of the policy an nounced some time ago of reducing the naval strength in the east The Bennington Petrel Oregon Newark and Brutus already have been ordered home