Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-09-19
CHAPTER XIX.-(Continned. /,

tulIS
You may think me crazed, 1 dare
say" said Jethroe, but l have what
amounts to fixed belief that if speak
my secret before the time shall never
live 10 profit by it. You shall know all
IN good time, and meantime you've only
got to believe that l mean well by you.
L tell you, Harvey, I'm going to make
you the wealthiest man in the world. In
six months we can be back, prepared to
buy up the Rothschilds between US, and
when I'm gone you'll have my share as
well as your own. There won't be an
Emperor, my lord, who'll take airs with
Harvey Jethroe the younger"
Jethroe had booked himself for the
voyage as Richardson, and had entered
Harvey under an alias also. He had
purposely chosen boat by which he had
never sailed before. His confidence IN
his disguise was shaken, but he was pre-
pared to face any and all suspicious
with a perfect effrontery. 1t would have
been strong likeness indeed, which
would have convicted him against the
absolute sang froid of the denial with
which he was ready. AS It CHANGED, he
was not called upon for the denial at
boat with whom he had Travelled upon
another line, and who from time to time
looked at him curiously. But if the stew
ard ever allied Jethroe and Richardson
in his mind at all, he must have dismiss
ed the fancy instantly, for the Mr.. Jeth-
roe he had known was a power in the
State, and a man reputedly made of
money, and why on earth should mill
- Ill
under an alias?
The voyage passed without adventure.
The landing was as uneventful; the jour
ney up country passed without recognl-
ton or incident which calls for narration.
But at last the two arrived at station
with great hills rising on the far horizon,
and they passed the night at weather
board shanty of a hotel with roof of
corrugated zinc, on which rain shower
played a laundering concerto as they lay
abed. Before they slept Jethroe had been
abroad bargain making, and in the morn
ing there were two wiry saddle horses
ct the door, and a baggage cart laden
with AZ manner of bags and boxes, with
four standing mules harnessed to it. A
half-breed had charge of the cart, and
the small cavalcade started in the cool of
the day.
Nobody in the sleepy township seemed
to have noted either their coming or
going. Those who had been approached
in the way of business had done their
little bit of trade and had thought no
more about it. AS to the business of the
travellers, whence they came and whittier
they were bound, there was no more in
terest in them than if they had been a
pair of house flies. They came, they
went out into the desert unregarded.
There were hundred places to which
they might have been going, and the
people who made up the township did
not care whether they were going to them
all, or driving out to die in the wilder
ness
This absolute Indifference suited Jeth-
roe to admiration. Nothing could have
suited mis- purpose better, and he mount
ed in high good humor
as the time yet here?" asked Har-
vey, as they faced the vast prospect Of
the wilderness, which would have SEEM
ed interminabe but for the blue barrier
of the hills miles and miles away. Am
to know on what wise errand | am GO
ing?"
Now's the timev' cried Jethroe. eve
taken pains to know that our guide be-
hind us doesn't speak a word of Eng
lish, and here, at least, we're pretty sd fe
from listeners. All the same, we'll ride
out of earshOt. | shouldn't be in the
least surprised to learn that one of the
very mules was Little William in dis
guise."
He put in spurs and galloped for some
two or three hundred yards. and Harvey
followed his lead.
Nov" said Jethroe, turning on him
with 4 glittering eye, Il can tell you.
I'm taking you, Harvey, to what poor
old Zelkar christened Diamond river, a
place compared with which Sinbad's val
ley was not a circumstance"
''Who was Zelkar?" asked Harvey.
He was nightly little moved as yet
'Zekarr" returned his uncle, was a
Hungarian Jew, who was famous in his
day as a chess player and now famous
still as a constructor Of chess problems.
He was not the discOverer of Diamond
river, and he never saw 1t, but he was
in a sort of way the chronicler and carto-
grapher of it. Let me begin at the be
ginning.
Game Wiley first came out to Brazil
years and years ago-long before my
time The natives were thorough-going
savages then, but Wiley got along with
'em well enough, and he was in this re-
gion off and on for three years. Got down
TO the coast twice in all that time. Sec
ond time he was there-back to some
sort of wild approach to civilization-he
meets fellow by the name of Raster.
who was on the point of sailing for Ell
rope with the very first big diamond
ever found in Brazil. is this diamond of
yours in the rough? says Wiley to Kas-
ter. Yes says Kaster; but it's fine
big stone and it bids fair to be worth 9
lot o money. i should like to look at
it. says Wiley, and Raster makes no ado
about the matter at all, but just unpacks
his kit and shows Wiley the stone. You
don't mean to say that things a dia-
mond? says Wiley. But 1 do, rather.
says Raster. Well says Wiley. IN
have a spell up country and come back
and buy out the Rothschilds. know
where there's thousands of 'em.' Kaster
argued that it was easy to mistake a
dismond-thst is, for an gnoramus like
Wiley, who knew nothing in the world
and cared for nothing in the world but
big game shooting-but Wiley stuck ia
it. He knew the bed of dried-up river
up country which was strewn thick with
'em. He'd picked em up, handled 'en
and never dreamed that they had any
special value. Not bit like diamonds
In jewelers. window 1t was likely
enough that Wiley thought they were dug
up already cut and polished.
We'll. Raster took his one big stone
to Europe. 1t was polished in Amster.
dam. It sold for twelve thousand pounds
That piece of luck killed Raster: be
couldn't stand it. He went on one IN
bounded bender Of spree and died be-
fore he had spent quarter of the money.
But Wiley, meantime, went up country,
not believing much, so far as can make
out, in the diamond idea, but quite per
suaded, all the same, tkst if Kaster's
stone was diamond. be could pick 'em
up like pebbles on a beach. He was
away this time about year and a half
and when he got down to the coast again
he had been very badly nauled. He had
al A.