New-York tribune., 1909-12-12

81 !. j.
0ENCKNN that shield the mainland of our
ESMuW2AI country from the Atlantic coast
ON$U WI line, you might have met him. Per
q MMSM y haps IL would have been on some
ElUJu uNbISD dark night when the trails through
MA uNIG the wilderness dim and YOU
NMANCW terrified by the mystery of Nature
NSlbNICSI in her black cloak had paused with
Eg}3ES&II straning to catch unusual
sound y slow, stumbling noise
would become clearly audible and from your
position at the side of the trail where vine and
thicket Joined you would see shape loom up against
the stars above you shape of man and horse, the
former huddled over with folded arms and bent head
If the horse didn't start and betray your presence
his rider they two would pass off the shadows
moving steadily toward some distant goal and YOU
would for the first time have met DR.. Harvey-and
would later know that the flame of his great spirit
exhausted, had burned low through physical weak
ness and that, having brought ease to others, he
slept as tired soldiers sleep in the saddle That the
horse passed slowly proof that the battle was
for had it been the call that universal
enemy Pain you might have found scant time 10
leave the road else that charger with back-lad ears
lathering flank, and steaming breath had you
down.
If he had been pointed out to you in some wavside
tavern of the wild, the man who did it would have
whispered his name reverentially with some crude
apology for his Difference BELTS free men of the
mountains when admitting that before them stands
superior. 1t might 60 something like this in that
free speech of the forest
That's Doc Harvey, him a saved my wife who
told the president of the powder works his teeth
that he'd been careless of his men when the old
Number Seven magazine went up: who cries when
he nights but IS unafraid, who cries when somebody's
baby dies; who lends his money his life to us who
stand in need
THE man who was unafraid would take a new SEM
blance TO your critical eyes, and YOU would stare
at HIM as he stood there IN the halfghted taproom
giving instructions to the stable boy and watching
the landlord dip the hot poker into the steamnS
ale. tall man he and at first plain to look
upon thin, angular, smooth shaven and not overly
strong of frame If talking his voice came from the
tral shell OF his throat and body with a melancholy
boom, decisive and with an under note of power If
he turned toward you with that sharp steady look
from blue-gray eyes, he transformed
You saw soul, and 1t was brave. IL analvzed vo,,
and your worth III one sweeping inventory; not by
that worth of dollars by which the tax collector rep,
lateS his Obeisance but by that standard which asks
your conscience rings the bell that IS cast
without flaw. And the longer YOU knew him the
more you understood that his a heart of courage
lie would stop man of wealth in the road and
lash his petty soul with the SCourge of his tongue
did he abuse a horse. or he would lean above The
couch OF the dead tenderly as a mother whisper-
ing prayers over her dying young. He had no enc
mics save the undertakers, vet he would seize
ruttIan by the throat. or, the countryside whis-
pered, methods of his with hvsterical women
For instance. there was Bill Harmsworth's wife
a woman who loved cheap fTills and sweeping city
wells and used 10 throw herself on the floor and
shrek when her husband declined to mortgage the
home 10 give her trip 10 the seaside When DIR
Harvey called he sent William away and used
some unSympathetiC words and the back of a hair
brush. assuring the patient that the next time ne
came he would bring board. And, strange to re-
late. she never after had hysteria and the doctor
never again required
He roundy and faithfully spanked Tom Minion's
boy for tying can 10 a stray dog tail and an hour
afterward dved into the lake and rescued the young