The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1888-04-21

WOOD on the ure, ana sat down before
it. When the little clock on the shelf
struck eleven he was still sitting there.
A tempest was raging in his brain.
CHAPTER V.
THE DEVILS RECKONING.
The presence of Mr.. Belmont in this
house, and the few words he had said,
had raised torment in Tom Bryson's
breast that effectually banished sleep.
He sat before the fire deeply wrapped
in thought; but his thoughts moved
about in a ceaseless circle, and moth
ing came of them. Mr. Belmont and
his former friends should help him
and he never would accept of their
help. He would return to the city
with Jessica and he was no longer fit
for the companionship of his old
friends. His child should be rescued
from this poverty and obscurity, and
placed in the station to which her
birth, her beauty, and her mind en-
titled her-and sooner than accom-
plish it by aims of those of whom he
was once an equal, she should share
his fate, bitter as it was.
An hour passed with these thoughts.
and the clock struck twelve. The fire,
fed by light, dry branches, had en-
tirely died out; the candle in the
further end of the room shed no light
here; and so it was that CLEAN of
light coming through the chink in the
wall near where he sat now attracted
his attention. He understood at once
what it meant, and with the knowledge
came suggestions from the tempter!
The room usually occupied by Bry-
son for a sleeping apartment, and into
which he had conducted the traveller,
was next adjoining this one. To reach
it the two had entered hall, passed
back twenty feet, and entered the
chamber by the hall-door. The old
house had been substantially built, with
thick partitions; but the wall between
these rooms had shared the misuse of
the whole house. and in places great
patches of plastering were gone. In
one spot, about four feet from the floor,
small piece of lathing was gone; and
it was through wide crack here that
the light came.
Bryson's curiosity was instantly
tired. His candle was still burning.
What was he about?
He might look and find out. The
sitting-room was dark at this end there
was no danger of detection.
The New1and Wendell of other days
would have scorned the act that Tom
Bryson now committed. He was, in
deed, changed man.
He stopped and put his eye to the
crack.
Removing only his coat and boots
when his churlish host had left him,
Mr.. Belmont placed his sachel under
the pillow and threw himself upon the
bed.
But he could not sleep.
He was not superstitious; he had not
an atom of sentiment in his hard, dry
nature: but there was something in the
rapid succession and the strangeness
of the events of the last five hours that
deeply impressed him. The accident
to the coach, the storm, the fall
ing in with Edgar Van Wyck, were
the links in the chain that had drawn
him to this out-of-the-w way place, and
to most disagreeable meeting. He
thought of the morrow, and groaned.
No remorse troubled him; it was sim
ply the fear that if this man should
continue to reproach him for his ruin,
he could not escape offering him
money.
Hang the fellow" he muttered.
"Why does he bother me? l only took
my own. don't owe him a cent"
He could satisfy his own coarse soul
by such reasoning as this, but he could
not shake off the subject.
at was hard on the poor devil, he
reflected; "but he'd ruined himself be-
fore l took him in hand"
Then came a thought that startled
him from the bed, as if with shock.
"A pretty place this is for me to be
IN all night, with what I've got along
with me! Can that crazy fellow sus-
pect it? Hardly. I've been careful
not to drop hint about it. What
might he not do if he did find it out,
off in this lonely place? 1t makes me
tremble to think Of it I can't sleep
now, sure, till I've seen that it's ali
right"
A match from pocket-case relit the
candle. He went to the door and shot
the rusty bolt. Sitting upon the side
of the bed, he took the sachel and
opened it with key from his pocket.
As the beginning of our narrative has
found Mason Belmont, he was only
midway upon his journey. It's object,
known only to few confidential friends
at his home, was to attend large land
sale at the capital of one of the new
States which was at that day considered
the Far West. His business shrewd
ness had foreseen chances for enormous
gains by liberal investment in that To-
cality; but ready money was requisite,
and bank paper at that sale would not
answer.
SO he secretly, carefully carried
small fortune with him. The sachel
contained twenty-five thousand dollars.
One after another he pulled out from
it bundles of notes, arm-thick, securely
tied with tapes. He examined the fig
ures penciled on the back of each, and
one of the bundles he unfastened and
counted. 1t was goodly sight Bills
/ there were of the denomination of fifty
dollars, one hundred, five hundred,
and at least three representing one
thousand each. The examination was
satisfactory. The merchant returned
the treasure to the sachel, replaced it
/ beneath his pillow, put out the light,
and found sleep.
The scene that has just been de-
scribed was silently, stealtEily viewed
/ by Tom Bryson from his concealment.
Like one fascinated, he gazed at the
wealth spread out on the coverlet. For
years he had seen no such sight as this;
/ for years he had known nothing of
money but the pittance that his hard
toll produced.
The tempter whispered in his ear,
and his heart throbbed madly at the
thought. Here was wealth enough to
make him comfortable, to make Jessica
! happy.
Who owned it?
His own worst enemy; the hearless
being, the faithless friend who had no
| COMPASSION for him in his extrar,i+v.