The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-30

games that fourished in San Francisco than was beneficial to him. He was a rounder, man about town, and he handled, the express company's money as one of it's cashiers.
 One bright morning nearly a year and half ago he did not appear at his desk in his office at the usual hour. He had not been at home all night, but it turned out on inquiry that he had frequently been absent in the same way. No one suspected him of any wrong doing. He had probably gone down the bay on fishing excursion and had been delayed unexpectedly, and then he had been absent before for couple of days without causing any particular comment. Three days passed and Charley did not return. Then his safe was opened, his accounts examined, and he was found to be a defaulter in sum that has never been officially announced by the company, but it is we'll known to run up into the hundred thousands.
 There was not trace of him to be found. The best detective talent on the coast was employed in the search for him without the slightest success. He had dropped as completely and suddenly out of view as though he were lying at the bottom of the Bay of San Francisco. Indeed, it became finally the accepted theory that the Pacific ocean had made a grave for him under it's blue waves. The search stopped and he was given up for lost or dead, but one summer morning the captain of San Francisco bark came along the Island of Tahiti, stopped at little settlement on the mainland and one of the first men who met him after he touched the beach was Charley Banks. They had known each other in California, but the fugitive express man was not overjoyed at the meeting. Of course the story of his presence in the Sandwich Islands soon reached home and Wells, Fargo x Co. dis patched officers to arrest him and bring him back to America. When they reached the island Charley Banks had already sailed away, and was far be- yond the reach of extradition, and the next that was heard of him he had landed at Rarentonga, Cooks Island, in the South Pacific ocean.
 The king of the island had died short time previous and left charm ing young widow. She was little off color, to be sure, but she was asant-mannered woman, and she had power and wealth, while he was poor and in danger. He was good- looking fellow, and he make himself agreeable to the lovely queen. She fell in love with him, and three months after he landed on the island they were married. The people seem to have ap- proved the choice of Queen Makia, and Charley Banks, the fugitive from San Francisco, is at this day the duly acknowledged king of the island, and proving, from all accounts, very sat- isfactory sovereign to the natives of his realm.
 King Charley has written several times to his former wife since the day when in a fishing smack, alone with one faithful friend, he sailed out from the harbor of San Francisco and dared the dangers of the ocean in his flight from justice. He has not denied the fact of his new domestic arrangements, and at the same time has expressed his most sincere and touching affection for his lawful wife. But there is no pros- pect of his quitting his island kingdom and his dusky queen, and SO Judge Lawrence yesterday gave Mrs. Banks back her maiden name and made her a free woman once more.
 But it is strange story, and the strangest thing about it is that it is absolutely true.