THE COURIER
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1 RUDGE & QUENZELCO.
1118 to 1 1 26 IC St.
Hardware, Furniture, Carpets and Queensware. Largest Stock. Low
est Prices.
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PALMER
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. 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
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