Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1905-08-30


YOUR PROSPECTS, DAvID-HOW
ARE YOU FIXED HERE?'
just the same to you, Major. Thank
you." And the 127th man pocketed
his salvage from the wreck and fought
his way out through the jam at the
doors. Two hours farther along In
the forenoon the Apache National sus.
pended payment, and the bank exam
liner was wired for.
For suddeness and thoroughgoing
completeness the CASTOR bubble-burst-
ing was record breaker. For a week
and day there was a frantic struggle
for enlargement, and by the expira-
ton of fortnight the life was pretty
we'll trampled out of the civic corpse
and the stencil began to arise.
Flight upon any terms then became
the order of the day, and if the place
had been suddenly plague-smitten the
panicky exodus could scarcely have
been more headlong.
Kent stayed partly because a local
attorney for the railroad was as neces-
sary in CASTOR the bereaved as in Gag
ton the strenuous; partly, also, b.
cause he was student of his kind,
and the broken city gave him labor
atory opportunities for the study of
human nature at its worst.
He marked the raising of the black
flag as the CASTOR castaways, getting
sorrily afloat one by one, cleared their
decks for action. Some Bluebeard adj
miral there will always be for such
stressful occasions, and David Kent,
standing aside and growing cynical
day by day, laid even chances on Hawk,
the ex-district attorney, on Major
Guilford, and on one Jasper G. Bucks,
sometime mayor of CASTOR the rides
cent.
Afterward he was to learn that he
had moderated the gifts of the former
mayor. Fer when the famine time was
fully come, and there were no more
argosies drifting Gastonward for the
buccaneers to sack and scuttle, it was
Jasper G. Bucks who called a con-
ference Of his fellow werwolves, set
forth his new cast for fortune, and
brought the junto, the child of sheer
desperation .fiercely at bay. into be-
ing
It was in the autumn of that first
cataclysmic year that Secretary Lor-
ing, travelling from Boston to the
state capital on a mission for the West
ern Pacific, stopped over a train with
Kent. After a rather dispiriting din
ner IN the deserted Continent
cafe, and some blowing Of the field Of
recollection in Kent's rooms in the
Farquhar building, they took the de-
serted street in the golden twilight to
walk to the railway station. Il @s,..-: il.
1T was a decent thing for you to
do-stopping over a train. with me,
Grantham." said the host, when the
hve squares intervening had >een half
measured. Il have had all kinds OF q
time out here in. this God-forsaken
desert, but never until to-day any
thing approaching q chummy hour
with man know and care for"
Kent had not spoken since they
had felt their way out of the dark
lower hall Of the Farquhar building.
Up to this point the talk had been
pointedly reminiscent; OF the men Of
their first university year, of mutual
friends in the far-away Goods coun.
try 80 eastward, Of the Gastonian epic
of all things save only two-the ex.
d! lies cast for fortune In the untamed
west, and one other. *> ,s s.. IT .z#7
That brings US little nearer to the
things that be-and to your prospects
David" said the guest. How are
You fixed herr? p =2.5
Kent shrugged. .5s%... ..
CASTOR is dead. as you 80: too
dead 70 burr. 81 5*