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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (July 7, 1900)
THE COURIER X !S9ei&! 1 RUDGE & QUENZELCO. 1118 to 1 1 26 IC St. Hardware, Furniture, Carpets and Queensware. Largest Stock. Low est Prices. 9 -SrIil rn 1 r fTlW W it w ivMBKHeaiiimYaiiiiw jvt ! ra!: I mKHmmi ft ,-r?JBW"r n . x ft - cut Nt.4-y.fc aB(S)fi)fi)S6xS)ftS)iB)(sXs) PALMER 1 . Tbs leading Hammock made. Prices from 7oc to ti.QO. More comfort taken in a Hammock than any tning eiEe you can invest in. Sole agents for I See them before you buy. i man I have ever met, East or West. I've knocked about a good deal since I cut looBe from Princeton, and I've found that there are a good many good fellows in the world, but I've not found many better than Larry. I think I can Bay, without stretching a point, that he was the most popular man on the division. He had the faculty of making every one like him that amounted to a sort of genius. When -he first went to working on the road, he was the agent's assistant down at Sterling, a mere kid fresh from Ireland, without a dollar in his pocket, and no sort of backing in the world but his quick wit and handsome face. It was a face that served him bb a sight draft, good in all banks. 'Freymark was cashier at the Chey enne office then, but he had been up to some dirty work with the compauy, and when it Tell in thp line of Larry's duty to expose him, he did so without hesi tating. Eventually Freymark was dis charged and Larry was made cashier in his place. There-was, after that, natur ally, little love between them, and, to make matters Torse, Helen Ma&te'son took a fancy to Larry, and Freymark had begun to consider himself pretty solid in that direction. I doubt whether Mies Masterson ever really liked tho blackguard, but he was a queer fish, and sho was a queer girl and she found him interesting. "Old John J. Masterson, her father, had been United States senator from Wyoming, and Helen had been educated at Welleeley and had lived in Washing ton a good deal. She found Cheyenne dull and had got into the Washington way of tolerating anything but stupid ity, and Freymark certainly was not stupid. He passed as an Alsatian Jew, but he had lived a good deal in Paris and had been pretty muLh all over the world, and spoke the more general Eu ropean languages fluently. He was a witty, sallow, unwholesome looking man, slight and meagerly built, and he looked as though he nad been dried through and through by the blistering heat of the tropica. His movements were as lithe and agile as those of a cat, and invested with a certain unusual, stealthy grace. His eyes were small and black as bright Jet beade; bis hair was thick and coarse and straight; black with a sort of purple luster to it, and he always wore it correctly parted in the middle and brushed smoothly about his ears. He had a pair of the most impu dent red lips that closed over white, regular teeth. Hia hands, of which he took the greatest care, were the yellow, wrinkled hands of an old man, and shriv elled at the finger tips, though I don't think he could have been much over thirty. The long and short of it is that the fellow was uncanny. You somehow feel that there was that in his present, or in his past, or in biB destiqy which isolated him from J other men. He dressed in excellent taste, was always accommodating, with the most polished manners and an address extravagantly deferential. He went into cattle after he lost biB job with the company, and had an interest in a ranch ten miles out, though he spent most of hie time in Cheyenne at the Capitol card rooms. He had an insatiable passion for gamb ling, and he was one of the few men who make it pay. About a week before the dance, Larry's cousin, Harry Burns, a reporter on the London Times, stopped in Cheyenne on his way to 'Frisco, and Larry came up to meet him. He took Burns up to the club, and I noticed that he acted rather queerly when Frey mark came in. Burns went down to Grover to spend a day with Larry, and on Saturday Larry wired me to come down and spend Sunday with him, as he had important news for me. "I went, and the gist of. his informa tion was that Freymark, then going by another name, had figured in a particu larly ugly London scandal that hap pened to be in Burns' beat, and his rec ord had been exposed. He was, indeed, from Paris, but there was not a drop of Jewish blood in his veins, and he dated from farther back than Israel. His father was-a French soldier who, dur ing his service in the East, had bought a Chinese slave girl, had become at tached to her, and married her, and after her death had brought her child ren back to Europe with him. He bad entered the civil service and held sev eral subordinate offices in the capital where his son was educated. The boy, socially ambitious and extremely eensi tive about his Asiatic blood, after hav ing been blackballed at a club, had left and lived by an exceedingly question able traffic in London, assuming a Jew ish patronymic to account for hiB oriental complexion and traits of feature. That explained everything. That explained why Freymark's hands were those of a centenarian. In his veins crept the sluggish amphibious blood of a race that was already old when Jacob turned the Hooks of Laban upon the hills of Padan-Aram, a race that was in its mort doth before1 Europe's swaddling clothes were made. "Of course, the question at once came up as to what ought to be done with Burns' information. Cheyenne clubs are not exclusive, hut a Chinaman who had been engaged in Freymark's pecu liarly unsavory traffic would be dis barred in almost any region outside of Whitechapel. One thing was sure, Miss Masterson must be informed of the matter at once. " 'On second thought,' said Larry, 'I guess I'd better tell her myself. It will have to be done easy lik, not to hurt her self-respect too much. Like as not I'll go off my head the first time I ser him and call him rat eater to hie face ' "Well, to go back to the day of the dance, I was wondering whether Larry would stay over to tell Miss Masterson about it the next day, for, of course, he couldn't spring such a thing on a girl at a party. "That evening I dressed early and went down to the station at nine to meet Larry. The extra came in, but no Larry. I saw Connelly, the conductor, and asked him if he had seen anything of O'Toole, but he said he hadn't, that the station at Grover was open when he came through, but that he found no train orders and couldn't raise anyone, so supposed O'Toole had come up on 153. I went back to the office and called Grover, but got no answer. Then I eat down at the instrument and called for fifteen minutes Btraight. I wanted to go then and hunt up the conductor on 153, the passenger that went through Grover at five-thirty in the afternoon, and ask him what he knew about Larry. It was then nine forty-five and I knew Miss Masterson would be waiting, so I jumped into the carriage and told the driver to make up time. On my way to the MasteraonB' I did some tall think ing. I could find no excuse for O'Toole's non-appearance, but the business of the moment was to invent one for Miss Mas terson that would neither alarm nor offend her. I couldn't exactly tell her he wasn't coming, for he might show up yet, eo I decided to say the extra-waa late, and I didn't know when it would be in. "Miss Masterson had been an excep tionally beautiful girl to begin with, and life had done a great deal for her. Fond as I was of Larry, I used to won der whether a girl who had led such a full and independent existence would ever find the courage to face life with a railroad man who was so near the bot tom of a ladder that is so long and steep. "She came down the stairs in one of her Paris, .gojwns that are as meat and drink to Cheyenne society reporters, with her arms full of American beauty roses and her eyes and cheeks glowing. I noticed the roses then, though I didn't know that they were the boy's last mes sage to the woman he loved. She paused half way down the stairs and looked at me, and then over my head to the draw ing room, and then her eyes questioned mine. I bungled at my explanation and she thanked me for coming, but she couldn't hide her disappointment, and scarcely glanced at herself in the mirrrr as I put her wrap about her shoulders. "It was not a cheerful ride down to the capitol. Miss Masterson did her duty by me bravely, but I found it dif ficult to be even decently attentive to what she was saying. Once arrived at Representative hall, where the dance was held, the strain was relieved, for tho fellows all pounced down on hpr for dances, and there were friends of hers there from Helena and Laramie, and my responsibilities were practically at an end. Don't expect me to tell you what a Wyoming inauguration ball is like; I'm not good at.that sort of thing, and this dance is mere incidental to my story. Dance followed dance, and still no Larry. The dances I had with Miss Masterson were torture. She began lo question and cross-question me, and when I got tangled up in my lies, she became indignant. Freymark was late in arriving. It must have been after midnight when he appeared, correct and smiling, having driven in from his ranch. He was effusively gay and insisted upon shaking hands with me, though I never willingly touched those clammy hands of his. He was constantly dangling about Miss Masterson, who made rather i point of being gracious to him. I couldn't much blame her under the cir cumstance, but it irritated me, and I'm not ashamed to say that I rather spied on them; when they were on the bal cony I heard him say: "'You see, I've forgiven this morning entirely.' "She answered him ratbir coolly: "'Ah, but you are constitutionally forgiving. However, I'll be fair and for give, too. It's more comfortable.' "Then he said in a slow, insinuating tone, and I could fairly see him thrust out those impudent red lips of his as he said it: 'If I can teach you to forgive, I wonder whether I could nob also teach pou to forget? I almost think I could. At any rate I shall make you remember this night. Rappellcs toi lorsque les destinees Mf auront de tot pour jamais sphere' "As they came in, I saw him slip one of Larry's red roses in his pocket. "It was not until near the end of the dance that the clock nf destiny sounded the first stroke of the tragedy. I re member how gay the scene was, bo gay that I had almost forgotten my anxiety in the music, flowere and laughter. The orchestra was playing a waltz, drawing the strains out long and sweet like the strains of a flute, and Freymark was dancing with Helen. I waB not dancing myself then, and suddenly I noticed some confusion among the waiters who stood watching by ona of the doors, and Larry's black dog, Duke, all foam at the mouth, shot in the side and bleed ing, dashed in through the door and, eluding the caterer's men, ran half the length of the hall and threw himself at Freymark's feet, uttering a howl piteous enough to herald any Bort of calamity. Freymark, who had not seen him before, turned with an exclamation of rage and a face absolutely livid and ticked the wounded beast half way across the slip pery floor. There was something fiend iehly brutal and horrible in the episode, it wai the breaking out of the barbarian blood through the mask of European civilization, a jet of black mud that spurted up from Borne nameless pest holes of filthy heathen cities. Ihe music stopped, people began moving about in a confused mase, and 1 saw Helen's eyes seeking mine appealingly. I hurried to her, and by the time I reached her Frey mark had disappeared. " 'Get the carriage and take care of Duke,' she Baid, and her voice trembled like that of one shivering with cold. "When we were in the carriage she spread one of the robes on her knee, and I lifted the dog up to her, and she took him in her arms, comforting him " 'Where is Larry, and what' does all this mean?' she aeked. 'You can't put me off any longer, for I danced with a man who came up on the extra.' "Then I made a clean breast of it, and told her what I knew, which was little enough. " 'Do you think he is ill?' she asked. "I replied, 'I don't know what to thick, I'm all at sea. For since the ap pearance or the dog, I was genuinely alarmed. "She waB silent for a long time, but when the rays of the electric street lights flashed at intervals into the car riage, I could see that she wa3 leaning back with her eyes closed and the dog's nose against ber throat. At last she raid with a note of entreaty in her voice, 'Can't you think of anything?' I saw that she was thoroughly frightened and told her that it would probably all end in a joke, and that I would telephone 2 IE lU ICE CREJIM f ? And Dairy 60. Manufacturers of the finest qual ity of plain and fancy Ice Cream. Tpao Ppnnn Pni7.1inti i? . and Sherbets. Prompt delivery J and satisfaction guaranteed. 5 133 SO- 1 2th St. PHONE 205. t rf U s V. V -X e
