t
r
THE INDEPENDENT
THE GIRL, A HORSE AND A DOG
By FRANCIS LYNDE
Copyright bj Charles Scrlbner'n Son#
"STANNIE, OLD BOY, THERE'S YOUR FORTUNE!"
"i'our portion of Grandfather Jasper's property uas north, at
its latest valuation, something like 1.000. It lies in a perfectly
safe repository, situated between /'Ih and 110th deijre* - of longli-
tude ii est from Greene ich, and the ,H'ith and 40th degrees north lati-
tude. H'/icn 1/on find it. you will be aide to identify it In/ the pres-
ence of a girl with brown hair and blue eyes and small mole on her
left shoulder, a piebald horse which tin 1irl rides, and a dog with
a split fare half black and half while You will be more than
likely to find the three together; and if you make the acquaintance
of the girl, you'll be on the trail of your legacy."
And there's that! Stanford Broughton it an attractive young socie-
ty idler relying on the fortune his grandfather is going to leave him.
But the will gives all the tangible property to Sanford's cousin, Perry.
And Percy writes Stannie, as in the foregoing, sagely adding, "All
you've got to do is to go to work and find it."
So Stannie, shocked into reliance on his own resources, sets out.
He finds the dog'and the horse. Next he finds the girl. And then he
discovers that the "perfectly safe repository" is a drowned-out gold
mine.
The mine was flooded and shut down, hut as soon as Stannie gets
to puttering around it he finds that other people want it, just the
same. In fact, they want it bad enough to try to kill off Stannie and
the girl's father, caretaker of the mine, in order to get possession.
Kifles, dynamite, sulphur fumes—everything goes. Stannie gets his
mad up and turns out to be a regular fellow. And as for the girl—
she's worth a dozen gold mines.
Francis Lynde wrote this thoroughly good story. He long ago
made himself famous hy his railroad stories. Dollars to doughnuts he's
proud of this mining story 1
=0
CHAPTER I.
Cousin Percy'# Little Joke.
I suppose every one has had the ex-
perience of waking In the middle of
the night to find everything perfectly
still and quiet and normal, and yet
with the impression persisting that
there had been a tremendous crash of
pome sort Just before the waking
senses were alive enough to realize It.
It was some such razing Jolt as this
that was gRen me on the morning
when I was called In, with the other
members of the family, to listen to the
reading of my grandfather's will,
i But, first, however, to give some
Idea of the conditions precedent, as a
lawyer would say. My father—good,
easy-going, comfort-loving Had!—
never owned what Grandfather Hud-
ley, pursing his thin lips and snapping
the words out, called "the money
sense." As an architect high In his
profession and with fine artistic feel-
ing for the beautiful In buildings, he
earned a liberal Income—and spent If;
or so much of it that there was barely
enough left after his death to provide
for my mother and sister, and to keep
me going, as you might say, In an ex-
ceedingly modest manner. Without
work, I mean. I may as well confess,
at once, that 1 had never acquired the
work habit. I was always "going to,"
but It was so fatally easy to keep on
postponing the chilling plunge. I sup
pose I had been ready on at least half
a dozen occasions to take a dive Into
some pool with a salary attachment;
but always some good friend would
bob up to say, "Oh, come on. Stannie,
old man; we're lacking Just one more
to make up the bunch. Don't be a
clam. Time enough to settle down
when you have to," and then It would
be nil ofT.
Besides, you see, there was always
Grandfather Jasper in the background.
He bad money—lashings of it, so we
all believed; and it had been a family
understanding for years that he In
tended splitting the bulk of it, fifty
fifty, between my cousin Percy and
me. Before we go any farther, let me
set it down that Cousin Percy was—
and Is—nil the seventeen different
kinds of things that I am not, and
never wished to be; smooth, neat, well-
groomed, a "grind" in college and a
•'perfect dear" with the girls, am-
bitious as the very devil, and measur-
ing his friends by the amount of "pull"
they might be able to exert In his be-
half; there you have him from the
crown of his well-brushed little head
to his pntent-lenther pumps.
"You're a fright. Stannie," he would
say, In his carefully polished diplo-
matic manner—he had a billet in the
Department of State at Washington,
and was in training for tIk* legation
service abroad—"you are a perfect
fright. Three whole yearn out of col-
lege, and you haven't done a single,
solitary useful thing yet. When are
you going to begin? And, Incidental-
ly, how long are you going to keep
Lisette waiting?"
Oh, Lord!—right there was another
knot In the tangle—Lisette. We had
agreed to agree—Lisette and I—some
six months or so in advance of Grand
father Jasper's death, and we were
both perfectly well assured, and had
assured each other a dozen times, that
my income from Dad's estate wasn't
more than half big enough to marry
on. You see, It was this way: Lisette
was one of a family of four girls In a
mighty expensive household, and there
wasn't anything to lean on on that
side of the fence. Though, of course,
we never discussed It brutally in so
many words, we were waiting for that
fifty-fifty look-in at the will which fam-
ily tradition declared had already been
drawn up. signed, sealed, witnessed
and put away in cold storage; other-
wise In the safe keeping of Grandfa-
ther Jasper's family lawyer.
Ail of whlcli may serve to bring u*
back to that nightmare effect regis-
tered at the start. When the Dudley
will was taken out of the Icebox and
read to the assembled members of the
family, there were at least two shock-
ing surprises. Jasper hadn't been any-
where near as rich as we had all been
thinking he was; that his modest
manner of living had been, perhaps, ns
much a matter of necessity as of
choice. Bad investments—of which
the family had never heard so much
as a whisper—had cut his fortune
down to something less than half a
million, all told. That was shock
Number One; and shock Number Two
was strictly personal to me: Grand-
father Jasper had left me his love and
best wishes, and had willed the money
and property—all of It, mind you—to
Cousin Percy, giving as his reason
that he thought Percy would make
better use of It.
Of course, I had everybody's sympa-
thy and condolence—even Percy's, for
that matter. My mother wept; and,
as I recall it, Lisette managed to com-
pass a tear or so when 1 told her what
bad happened; or rather what had so
Ignomlniously failed to happen.
"Whatever will you do?" she fal-
tered. "I suppose you will really have
to go to work now, won't you, Stan-
nie?"
"Perish the thought!" I told her;
then 1 gave the good reasons why
there was no hope for tis in that di-
rection. "A fat chance I'd have to
earn any real money. I can navigate
a yacht—a little,—drive a motor, ride
a polo pony, and play a fair hand at
bridge and the other great American
game. I think these are the sum total
of my shining accomplishments.
You needn't return the ring." I
grinned, seeing that she was looking
at It rather regretfully. "You can wear
It on some other finger, you know."
"Yes; I suppose I could do that,"
she agreed; and I'm blest if she didn't
shift it to a linger of the other hand
right there and then!
It was less than a week after this
little fade-out scene with Lisette that
Percy's letter catne. This is what it
said:
"Dear Stannie:
"I know just about how you felt
last week when you heard Grandfa-
ther Jasper's will read, and it isn't
going to make you feel any better now
when I tell you that I knew of Its pro-
visions more than a year ago. When
the will was drawn, grandfather
showed It to me, and gave me a sealed
envelope, which 1 was to open after
his death. That envelope, as I knew
at the time, contained, among other
things, a codicil to the will. By its
provisions you are to receive a legacy
under certain conditions which were
to be revealed to you at such time as I
might think best.
"Your portion of Grandfather Jas-
per's property was worth, at its latest
valuation, something like $440,000. It
lies in a perfectly safe repository, situ
ated between the 105th and 110th de-
grees of longitude west from Green-
wich. and the 35th and 40th degrees
north latitude. When you find it, you
will be able to identify It by the pres-
ence of a girl with brown hair and
blue eyes and small mole on her left
shoulder, a piebald horse which the
girl rides, and a dog with.a split face
—half black and half white. You will
be more than likely to find the thiee
together; and If you make the hc-
qunlntnnce of the girl, you'll be on tlie
trail of your legacy.
"So there you are. Stannie. old boy;
there's your fortune. All you've got
to do Is to go to work and find It. Per-
haps by that time you will have ac-
quired the working habit—which is
what Grandfather Jasper hoped might
prove to bp the case.
"Wishing you great Joy In your
search, I am,
"Your affectionate cousin,
"PERCY."
Naturally, I had a quiet little laugh
over this screed of Percy's, taking it
for a Joke; a poor Joke and in rather
bad tasfe, I thought. In that mood I
handed the letter to Lisette for her to
read. She didn't laugh, but she did
look a bit scornful and put ubout, If
you know what 1 mean.
"1 don't suppose the blue-eyed girl
would appeal to you." she said,
"though the horse and the dog might.
When do you start?"
We discovered that Meridian 105
west of Greenwich split the state of
Colorado Just beyond Denver,.Colorado
Springs and Pueblo, nnd the hunting-
ground plotted out for me took In
three-fourths of the remainder of the
state, a slice of I'tah, a good bit bigger
slice of New Mexico, with a bite out
of the northeastern corner of Arizona,
Just for good measure.
"Me for the wild and woolly!" I
brayed. "Don't you see me rigged out
In a nice, hairy pair of 'shaps' and
riding hcll-bent-for leather—I believe
that's the phrase—over the snow-
capped peaks or the boundless prairies,
as the case may be? But Just Imagine
Percy the Immaculate pulling a bone-
head Joke like this!"
"You are taking it for a joke?" she
questioned.
"Sure I am; and It's a rather rotten
one at that, I should say—considering
the source."
"Then you won't go to look for the
blue-eyed girl with nut-brown hair and
the cunning little mole? Think of what
you may be missing!"
For just one crazy minute 1 had a
bunch, < r a premonition, or whatever
you like to call It, that the letter might
not be a Joke. Grandfather Jasper had
always been a bit eccentric—a rich
man's privilege and a rich old mnn's
Incontestable right. What if hp had
actually done this thing to me?—a
thing scarcely less devastating than
cutting me off without a penny? On
the spur of the moment I said:
"If 1 should go, would you wait for
me, Lisette?"
She took her time about answering
—a good and sufficient plenty of It.
"I think perhaps I'd better not
change the ring back, Stannie," she
said, sort of wlntrll.v. "If there is any
money and you should happen to find
It, you would probably fling it all
away before you could get back to Bos-
ton. Besides, there Is the blue-eyed
girl; If she should bring you a fortune,
you'd have to marry her, wouldn't you?
You are lug and strong, and—well—er
—nice in a good many ways, Stannie,
and much too good-looking for your
own good; but when you marry—If
you do marry—you'd better be sure
that the girl has money enough to buy
her own hats. I haven't enough, as
you know."
"I know only too well that the love-
In-a-cottage Idea has never appealed
to you," I said, with the regretful stop
pulled all the way out in deference to
the sentimental decencies.
"Not in fite least, Stannie, dear; not
in the littlest least."
This appeared to be the end of our
rather lukewarm love-dream, and to
be really honest and aboveboard about
it. I am obliged to confess that it
didn't break as many bones for me ns
I suppose it should have. Anyway, a
half-hour or so after I had said good-
by to Lisette I met Jack Downing:
and when he asked me if I didn't want
to go with him and a bunch of the
fellows for a little spin down the coast
!
You Can Figure Me, If You Please,
Spinning the Wheel of One of the
Nattiest Little Boats on the North
Shore.
of Maine in his motor cruiser, 1 fell
for the invitation so suddenly thnt he
hadn't a ghost of a chance to back out.
If he had wanted *o.
So, a few hours beyond that touch-
ing little scene at "The Uockerle," you
may figure me. if you please, spinning
the wheel of one of the nattiest little
boats on the North shore, with t fresh
nor'easter blowing and the sea getting
up to give me the time of my young
life to hold the Guinevere to her
course, nor' nor'east. half a point east,
as we lifted the Shoals on our port
bow.
In such Jolly good company as we
had aboard the stout ship Guinevere,
three full days elapsed before a
thought of Percy or his Joke ever en-
tered my head again ; and it's a ten-
to-one shot that I wouldn't have
thought of him, or it, during the re-
mainder of the cruise if we hadn't
been obliged to tie up at Uockland for
motor repairs. This, as I recall It,
was on the fourth day, and it was#a
dog that made me remember; a mon-
grel cur that followed the motor re-
pairman down to the wharf; a most
disreputable looking mongrel, at that,
but—by Jove! he bad the magic mark-
ings! llalf of his face, measuring from
a line drawn straight down over the
tip of his nose, was black, and the oth-
er half was a dingy, dirty white.
So then I did a little rapid figuring
on train schedules. If Percy had left
Washington as I knew he was plan-
ning to, my diplomatic cousin should
have been, at that figuring moment,
just ubout due In San Francisco. That
being the case, or the likelihood, I tod-
dled up to the telegraph office and sent
a message, addressing it in care of the
captain of whatever might he the next
steamer due to sail for ports in China.
All I said was: "Your letter was as
funny as an hour in a dentist's chair.
Bon voyage to you."
Night found us still tied to the
Rockland wharf; and just as we were
getting up from dinner In the yacht's
saloon, here came a boy with a tele-
gram. The wire was from Percy, and
It said:
"Don't he a complete fool. It was
no Joke at all. Ask my lawyer."
Even then, I didn't go ofT at half-
cock, though I have often been called
an Impulsive jackass. The thing was
still too ridiculous to bite very hard.
But farther along in the evening, when
I got to thinking it over, and more
especially when It was shoved In upon
me that I really did owe It to Lisette
not to turn down even the tenth part
of a chance to provide her with the
means of buying her future hats, the
die was cast, as the play-writers say.
I made some sort of a foolish excuse
to Jack Downing and the other fel-
lows, caught a night train for Boston,
stopped olT at the home station long
enough to pack a couple of grips and
to tell my mother and sister good-by,
nnd the thing was—oh, no; not done—
nothing like that. It was only just
begun.
CHAPTER II.
A Needle in a Haystack.
Since my happy hunting-ground be-
gan in tiie middle of Colorado, I took
a ticket to Denver by way of Chicago
and Omaha. As I recall it now, it was
after the train had passed North
Platte thrft I first became sensibly con-
scious, as you might say, of the fact
that the man in the opposite section of
the sleeping-car had a little Pullman
table set up in front of him. and was
studying maps—and blue-prints. He
was a rather efficient-looking fellow of
maybe thirty-two or three, with dark
hair and eyes, and what Lisette would
have called a determined nose, and he
sported a heard and mustaches, nut-
brown as to color, and neatly trimmed.
Farther along we met In the smoking
room, at a time when the stuffy little
den had no other occupants. Mr. Op-
posite Section's only cigar turned out
to have a broken wrapper, so I natural-
ly tendered my own pocket-case. That
served to break the Ice and we talked,
dribbling along from one commonplace
to another until finally Brown-beard |
said:
"You don't by any chsince happpn to
be a mining engineer, do you?"
"Far be it from me," I laughed;
"nothing so useful as that."
"I didn't know," he hastened to say,
half apologetically. "I saw you study-
ing maps as we came along."
Now, ordinarily I'm apt to talk a lot
too much about my own affairs—I'll
admit it; but this was one time when
I had a sort of hunch not to. So I
merely said:
"I saw you doing the same thing."
"Sure you did," he admitted cheer-
fully. Then he told me his name—
which I got as Bullton, or Bulletin, or
something like that—and said he was
a mining engineer, which was the rea-
son why he hud asked me If 1 wasn't
one.
Past that, the talk ran mostly upon
his profession, and since tlie mysteri-
ous hunch was still nudging me. I let
him have the floor, so to speak, figur-
ing chiefly myself as a good listener.
"Yes; we do run across some rather
queer propositions In our trade," he
said, after he had given me some sort
of an Idea of what a mining engineer's
Job is like. "In my own experience,
for example, the only sure shot I have
e.er had—or possibly ever will have—•
got away from me."
It was up to me to bite, and, of
course, I did It.
"How was that?"
"The man died," he replied laconi-
cally.
That sounded rather Interesting, so
I gave him another pinch.
"Tell me about it; if It won't bore
you."
He grinned good-naturedly—and ac-
cepted another cigar out of my pocket-
case.
"You'll be the one to be bored. It
was this way: A little over a year
ago I was on my way to Chicago with
a report that I had been making on
some properties in the Cripple Creek
district. In the Diriver-Omaha Pull-
man I fell In with a nice old gentle-
man who had been buying himself a
gold brick in the shape of a flooded
mine. The mine had at one time been
a 'producer,' though not by any means
what you'd call a 'bonanza.' After a
rather extended dividend-paying period
—I don't know just how long, though
it was some years—the luck changed,
as sometimes happens. In sinking and
drifting the operators had uncovered
another vein which was exceedingly
rich. Don't let me talk your arm off."
"Go ahead," said I. "My arms are
Insured."
"Well, at about the time that they
struck this new underlying vein, they
nlso struck water; so much of It as to
lead them to suspect thnt they hud
tapped an underground lake. The old
gentleman wasn't exactly a woolly
He Grinned Good-Naturedly and Ac-
cepted Another? Cigar.
sheep—In the Wall Street sense of the
term. He had owned stock in the mine
for a long time, and it had been pay-
ing him dividends, right along. So
natu lly, after the new strike was an-
noum-ed, he was perfectly willing to
own more. I don't know what his in-
vestment was, but he gave me to un-
derstand that It was something like
half a million. In less than a month
after the deal was closed the mine was
drowned and went out of business."
"Still, I don't see your lost oppor-
tunity," I threw In.
"I'm coming to that. As it happens,
my specialty as an engineer Is the un-
waterlng of wet mines. The old gen-
tleman had maps and profiles with
him; the records of a very careful and
excellent topographical survey. I'm
reasonably certain that I discovered a
way in which that mine can be drained
at comparatively small expense.
"I told him I thought I could do It;
but 1 didn't give tuy plan away. In-
stead, I made him a proposition; of-
fered to undertake the drainage Job
at my own costs. If I should succeed,
he was to deed me a fourth Interest In
the property. If I didn't succeed, It
was to cost htm nothing—sort of a
contingent fee, as a lawyer would say."
I laughed. "You made an offer like
that to a stranger? and on a mine that
you had never seen?"
He grinned good-naturedly and got
back at me, quick.
"All business is a taking of chances.
As the matter stood at that stage of
the game, 1 had everything to gain and
nothing to lose, and the only chance 1
was taking was in the bet on my own
ability as an engineer. The old man
was a queer old codger in some re-
spects; as secretive and cautious as
an old fox. For example: he had care-
fully clipped the name of the mine
from the blue-prints and other papers,
and in all our talk lie never once let
that name slip, and never even men-
tioned the name of the district in
which tiie mine was located. But in
spite of all this caution he drew up n
sort of option agreement with me.
"We found a la\s"yer and had the
agreement drawn up in legal form.
The time limit was to be a year, and
each of us was to put up a thousand
dollars to make the agreement bind-
ing. If either of us should wish to
withdraw within that time, he was at
liberty to do so by forfeiting his nnte
of a thousand dollars to the other. If
neither of us withdrew by or before
the end of the year, I was to be at lib-
erty to go ahead with my drainage
project, and the agreement bound the
owuer to turu over a one-fourth inter-
est in the property to me upon the
completion of the Job and the unwater-
ing of tlie mine.
"At the moment I was under engage-
ment to go to Peru for a Chicago syn-
dicate, and 1 expected to be out of the
United States for at least six months,
and maybe longer. As it turned out,
the South American Job was a lot big-
ger ti.an I had anticipated, and for
that reason the time limit of a year
expired n week ngo, on the day that I
landed in New York. Yesterday I
called upon the Omaha hanker, and he
gave me the cheering Information that
my old man was dead—had died Just
a few days earlier."
"Still, I don't see how you have lost
out." I put In.
"Wait; here comes tin* funny part
of it. Mr. Banker tells me solemnly
that I am remembered In my old gen-
tleman's disposition of some cash lega-
cies made just before his death, and
I'm to have the thousand dollars which
he put up ns a forfeit. I took the prize
down and spent some of it within the
next few minutes wiring the old man's
home lawyer, whose name and address
the banker had given me. I briefed
the situation for the lawyer, said I was
ready to fulfill my part of the con-
tract, nnd asked him to wire me the
name and location of the mine. You'd
never guess in a thousand years the
kind of an answer I got."
I shook my head.
"No; probably not. What was It?"
"It was a bolt from the blue, nil
right. Mr. Home Lawyer wired that
his client had never owned a share of
mining stock in his life, that there was
nothing In his papers or records hear-
ing upon the subject of my telegram,
nnd that I must be either drunk or
crazy. Of course, he didn't put It Just
thnt wny In his reply, but thnt Is what
he meant."
"How do you sort It out?" I Inquired.
"The Inwyer's telegram? I put It up
thnt my cautious, secretive old gentle-
man never told anybody nt home nbout
his mining Investments; kept them in
n separate pocket, so to speak. Quite
possibly he didn't have any other ex-
cepting the one I've been telling you
about, and the one he regarded as a
dend cock In the pit. Thnt would ex-
plain the situation nicely, don't you
think?"
The story had left me n bit fogged'
ns to the present stnte nnd stnndlng
of the thing, nnd I said so. •
"Well, it stucks up nbout this way,"
said Brown-beard. "There Is a per-
fectly good mine somewhere west of
us that is worth anywhere from a
quarter to a half million, and at the
present moment it is kicking around
without nn owner. So far ns I enn see,
I'm the only man on top of earth who
has a claim on nny part of It. And I
have no more Idea than the man in the
moon where It is 'at.' No; I'm afraid
my handsome fortune is a lost dog, so
far as I'm concerned."
His mention of a lost dog hit me
right hi the center of the solar plexus
and I laughed like a fool.
"What struck your funny-bone?" he
demanded, sort of dubiously, I fancied.
"Nothing," 1 gurgled; "nothing
worth mentioning—only I'm hunting
for a lost dog, too."
But I didn't tell hlin nny more. After
we'd smoked n while longer, and
Brown-benrd hnd apologized for mak-
ing me listen to his rather longish tale
of woe, we took the porter's hint thnt
he'd like to hnve the smoking room for
his nightly shoe-shine, nnd turned In.
"I could see by his expres-
sion that he still thought me
crazy."
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
Electric Refrigeration.
A brine tanli in plnce of ice, which
by means of an electrical Instrument
keeps a mean temperature In the re-
frigerator, is growing In popularity in
suburban and country places where Ice
is difficult to obtain. Its advantnges
are that It does away with the Iceman,
It gives a dry temperature advanta-
geous for the preservation of food,
and there Is no slime, dirt or drip as
with the use of ice. It is arranged to
freeze a little ice for table use when
thnt Is desired. It is not nn inexpen-
sive luxury, costing nbout $400 to In-
stall In nny refrigerntor.
Torrens Registration System.
This Is a system of registration of
titles to real estate introduced by Sir
Robert Torrens In Australia, and
bears his name. This system of ofli-
clnl examination nnd registration of
titles has been adopted In Australia,
England, New Zealand. British Colum-
bia and parts of Canada. In a modi-
fied form it is used In several states of
the Union, in Havvuii and In the Phil-
ippines.
Peculiarities of Hair.
Examined through a microscope, the
hair may show certain peculiarities;
the hairs of different people vary con-
siderably. Apart from color, they may
he course, medium, or fine; in shape
they may be round or oval; In struc-
ture they may he made up of large or
small rings. Certain races, too, have
hair of a very distinctive type.