Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-10-04

form the lovely tangled wilderness of Horse Island
into vast farm.
Gregg had been to all appearances the ideal man
for the post,-of approved ability, and equipped,
by happy chance, for exactly the work cut out for
him. Here were between two and three hundred
square miles of land. Gregg was to do what he liked
with it, and he to make it pay After all, per-
haps it is wonder that he lost his head; that while
he remembered that he was to do what he liked, he
forgot that he to make it pay.
The directors board room long way from
Horse Island, and the directors themselves were not
a very able lot They read Gregg's reports (no man
wrote better reports than he), and sent him
all the money he asked for,-money for his model
villages for his railroad, for his great iron pier
When it turned out, as it did, that the iron pier
was on the wrong side of the island that the fever
stricken villages should have been put somewhere
else that the railroad pretty much where there
was the eas to Ut h %
these things without actually facing them or learning
his lesson from them When he built Fort House,
the big imposing official residence up at the top OF
Fort HILL he did it under sort of deluson that he
was actually the King of Horse Island.
SMITH dated from early times though not the
- earliest He had been reporter on New York
newspaper and uncle of his, of the directors
of the Tropical Products Company, had sent him
down to Gregg one winter, to be made useful while
his lungs recovering from attack of pneu-
monia. Gregg had found him useful, and he had
stayed.
j
unpretending, young newspaper man took the re1ns
of government in his own hands, by sheer virtue of
his irresistible fitness for the position
Smiths grave face turned a shade graver as the
memory to him of that night when they had
summoned him in haste to Fort House, where he had
found, instead of the pompous consequential Gregg
he had met only that morning, white faced, sh'ver-
ing, dying man, who knew, Or seemed to know, the
full tale of the foies he had committed during his
reign
Smith had never come up to live in Fort House as
his position the island entitled him to. He could
afford risks of these decisions of royalty
THE great enterprise which Gregg had reared
L SO towering a fabric of hopes did not quite
collapse 1t was four years now since that solemn
funeral in the little galvanized iron church, which
had seemed at the time like the funeral of so much
more than just man In that time the enterprise
had back to life. 1t ready now for the
first time in all these years to begin to pay back
part of the stream of gold that had been poured
into it.
The man that had done it all could say now
could almost say have succeeded; and yet,
here in his hand, arrived this very day, letter
that brought the whole edifce tumbling about his
ears 1t offered him an alternative that letter did.
He could if he liked accept the inevitable and be
rich into the bargain, remain here and govern
his little kingdom urnnolested AS a reward for
in connection with it; there would be public dis
credit. There only the drawback that for
long as he should live he must always know himself
for a rascal
On the other hand if he chose to preserve his self
respect he could keep it, indeed; but that was all
he could keep. He could raise his voice for one
moment, in utterly futile protest, and then disap
pear from the and the piece of rascalty that
without him.
He turned sharply away from the which
his eyes had been resting he could not bear any
longer to look at it.
Turning thus, he stood face to face with the only
remaining monument of his predecessor Gregg: the
thick walls glowering caves, and heavily suffered