The Minneapolis journal., 1902-08-20

fguration to him whose first youth is pass
ing, and who finds unsolicited additions ac->
cruing TO some parts Of his being and strange
deprivations In others, and upon whom the
unhappy realization begins to be borne in,
that his is particular case. and that he of
all the world is not to be spared, but, like
his forbears. must inevitably wriggle in the
Disgusting crucible of time. And, though
men accept it with apparently patient humor,
the first realization that people do grow old,
and that they do 1t before they have had
time to be young, is apt to COME like
shock.
Perhaps not even in the interminabe
months Of Carlow had Harkless realized the
length of seven years so keenly as he did
when he beheld his old friend at his bed
side. How men may be warped apart In
seven years, especially in the seven years
between % and 80! At the latter age you may
return to the inseparable Of seven years be-
fore and speak not the same language; you
find no heartiness to carry on with each other
after half an hour. Not SO these classmates,
who had known each other to the bone.
All, yes, it was Tom Meredith, the same lad,
In spite OF his masquerade Of flesh; and Hell
en- was right Tom had not forgotten.
Its the old horse-thief!' John murmured,
TREMENDOUSLY.
You go plumb to thunder" answered Me-
redith between gulps.
| When he was we'll enough, they had long
talks; and at other times Harkless lay oy
| the window, and breathed deep Of the fresh
| air, while Meredith attended to his corre-
spondence for him, and read the papers to
him. But there was one phenomenon or ht-
| erature the convalescent insisted upon OBJ
serving for himself, and which he went over
again and again, to the detriment of his single
unswathed eye, and this was the Carlo"
| Herald"
| The first letter he had read to him was one
from Fisbee stating that the crippled forces
left in charge had found themselves almost
distraught in their efforts to carry on the
paper las their chief might conclude for him
self on perusaD, and they had made bold to
avail themselves Of the services of young
relative of the writer's from distant city
a capable journalist, who had no other en-
ployment for the present. and who had &C.
| cepted the responsibilities OF the
Herald temporarily. There followed a note
from Parker announcing that Mr.. Fisbee'
relative was a bird, and was the kind tc
make the Herald hum. They hoped Mr.
Harkless would approve of their bespeakins
the new hand on the sheet; the paper must
have suspended otherwise Harkless, almost
overcome by his surprise that Fisbee pos
sessed a relative, dictated hearty and CRATE
full Endorsement of their action, and, soor
after, received a typewriter rejoinder, some
what complicated in the reading, because o
the numerous type errors and their correc
tons. The missive was signed II. F1sDee,
in a strapping masculine hand that suggested
six feet Of enterprise and muscle spatterlnt
ink on it's shirt sleeves.
John groaned and fretted over the with
ings Of the Herald's headless fortnight, but
perusing the issues produced under the ooHh
nation Of H. Fisbee, he started now and then
and chuckled at some shrewd fellcltles o
management, or stared puzzled, over al
oddity, but came to a feeling of vast relief
and, when the question of II. Fisbees salar!
was settled and the tenancy assured, he sanl
into repose of mind. H. Fisbee might be al
eccentric fellow, but he knew his business
as WELL for he wrote at length concerning tn
Carlow Oil field, urging Harkless to TAX
shares in Mr.. Watts company while the stocl
was very low, two wells having been SUM
without satisfactory results. H. Fisbee e<
planned with exceedingly technicality his rea
sons for believing that the third well Woul
strike oil.
But with his ease of mln'
regarding the Herald, Harkles
found himself possessed by apathy
He fretted no longer to get back to Platt
ville:,. With the prospect of return it SCENE
an emptiness glared at him from hollow SOCK
cts, and the thought of the dreary routln
he must follow when he went back gave Mn
the same faint nausea he had felt the evenin
after the circus. And, though it was partl
the long sweat of anguish which had be
| numbed him, his apathy was pierced, a
times, by bodily horror Of the scene OF HI
struggle At night he faced the grotesqu
= masks of the Cross Roads men and the bruta
odds again. over and over he felt the blows
and clapped his hand to where the close tlr
of Bob Skilett's pistol burned his body.
! ITO be Continued Tomorrow