Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1895-03-27
CHAPTER Xxx. CONTINUED.
tCoPYR1m, 1894 |

CHAPTER Xxx. -CoNTINUED
She hesitated y ,noment-then sh,
said:
Send cipher dispatch at once t.
G. G. at ST. LOUIS, to NJ. NJ at Chicago
and c. C. ut Davenport. Four thou
sand guns at Leavenworth left unpro
tccted by a withdrawal of troops
Kahsas City on the first at nine O'Clock
.. a.: impress G. G. with swiftness
twelve hundred men here now; car
hold everything; get answer from G. e.
at once; watch Memphis papers fol
movements of gunboat."
Here the young woman made another
pause. In his Impotence, Calicot got
up impulsively and strobe about the
little room. He was shut up helplessly
in . living tomb and events, in what
row seemed like another world, were
hurrying on to some kind of disaster.
He claimed himself by powerful men.
tai effort. WELL" he said, what dc
you see now?"
''They arc close together at the in
strvrnent. They are sending a dis
patch"
After some delay, there was evidently
an answer received from Hendricks,
for the girl began again, slowly
reading from the written page what
appeared to be instructions. Very lit
tie 81 it was ineligible to Calicot, but
blind as it was he tried to impress it
upon his memory for after reflection
He heard her saying: ''Will take gum
boat and seize arms; council here on
the 18th; make all instructions con-
form: to that date"
Day after day, as the girl revealed in
broken sentences the communications
that were made from the cave to the
cottage, the bulk of the information
began to arrange itself in his mind
around certain well-deined points.
The conspiracy, he now saw, extended
over the whole United States! 1t had
taken IN men in official positions. Its
agents were in the government employ,
in the railway service and in the tel
egraph offices. 1t must have vast forces
all ready to mass and the brain of the
movement was hidden away safely un-
oC4 AS OuC dbANi
method of the plan were slowly com
pretended, he asked himself: What is
the government doing? Can it be pos
sible that the world has not yet dis
covered the two exits to this strong
hold?-and then he tried to forecast
the result when the exits were discov-
cred. Hendricks cannot be dislodged,
he said, even by engineers, who would
have to tunnel a mountain. He can
only be sealed up and starved to death,
and in any such attempt what unknown
exits may he rot have. lie recalled
the mysterious magazine in the south
western wall of the rotunda with its
wooden doors and its sign of danger.
Vas this a magazine? Might not that
have been created to keep
secret an unknown exit until an emer-
gency occurred? He had heard La
port speak of the magazine. He would
talk to the old man about it.
His Imagination pictured a long
chasm leading to some unsupported
region of country with its exit hidden
in the mountains. He foresaw in
his fancy a besieging army encamping
over mine or fallen upon by sudden
force that sprang up as if by magic in
it's lear-and then disappeared, and he
began to ask himself if this conspiracy
had not gathered into its ranks most
Of the malign forces of civilization
which under the names of nihilism and
anarchy seek mainly to destroy.
In 10 fhaco ,-oAoof;ore ,r,o-o
10 a man compelled to see the progress
Of all this diabolism and prevented
from raising warning cry or lifting
! finger, there were other considera-
lions that were even more poignant.
Here was an innocent and intelligent
girl who, with her father, would be in
rolved in the inevitable catastrophe
,r throwa into the hands of Fenning,
Ind Calisot had grown to have a pro-
'ound sympathy for her. Lieut.. Stock
ng, as he well knew, had with his inn
oulsive temperament developed still |
stronger interest in her, and Stocking
~ mis- very nature could not be de-
,cnded on to assist him.
In turning over these perplexities in
MS mind he was aware of an undis-
urbed conviction hiding away in his
nature, that the normal intelligence
md moral force ought in some way to
We able to circumvent all this mischief. |
But how?
Some kind of a vague scheme of es-
ape for Stocking and Miss Laport,
Trough what he conceived to be the
ecret exit OF the magazine, shaped it.
elf in his mind, and then he got hold
4 Laport one day after comforting
nth the old mans daughter. The
ia1es were eating their breakfast to-