Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1909-05-20

| forearms on the apron, and jerked his
cigarette out over the gates; the glow
ing stub described fiery arc and took
the water with a hiss. Warm whiffs
of the rivers sweet and salty breath
famed his face gratefully, and he be-
came aware that there was a moon.
His gaze rowing at will, he nodded an
even-tempered appreciation of the
nights splendor-in the city a thing
unsupported.
Never, he thought, had he known
moonlight so pure, so silvery and
strong. Shadows of gates and posts
lay upon the forward deck like stencils
of lampblack upon white marble. Be-
yond the boats bluntly rounded nose
the East river stretched its restless,
dark reaches, glossy black, woven with
gorgeous ribbons of reflected light
streaming from pier head lamps on the
further shore. Overhead, the sky,
pallid and luminous blue around the
low-swung moon, was shaded to pro-
found depths of bluish-black toward
the horizon. Above Brooklyn rested
tenuous haze. A revenue cutter,
slim, pale shape, cut across the bows
like hunted ghost. Farther out a
homeward-bound excursion steamer
tier upon tier of glittering lights,
drifted slowly toward it's pier beneath
the new bridge, the blare of it's band,
swelling and dying upon the night
breeze, mercifully tempered by dis.
lance.
Presently Maitland's attention was
distracted and drawn, by the abrupt
cessation of its motors pulsing to the
automobile on his right. He lifted his
chin sharply, narrowing his eyes,
whistled low; and thereafter had eyes
for nothing else.
Tho car, he saw with the expert
enced eye of connoisseur, was re.
cent model of one of the most ex-
pensive and popular foreign makes;
built on lines that promised deal in
the way of speed, and furnished with
engines that were pregnant with multi
piled horse power. All in all not the
style of car one would expect to find
controlled by solitary woman, es-
pecially after ten of summers night.
Nevertheless the lone occupant of
this car was woman. And there was
that in her bearing, an indefinable
neutrality-suspicious. it lay in the car
riage of her head, which impressed
one as both spirited and independent,
or in an equally certain but less tan
gible air of self-confidence and re-
liance-to set Mad Maitland's pulses
drumming with excitement For, I'M
less indeed he labored gravely under a
misrepresentation, he was observing
her for the second time within the
past few hours.
Could he be mistaken, or was this in
truth the same woman who had las
he believed) made herself free of his
rooms that evening?
In confirmation of such suspicion he
remarked her costume, which was al
together worked out in soft shades of
gray. Gray was the misty veil, drawn
in and daintily knotted beneath her
chin, which lent her head and face
such thorough protection against pry-
ing glances; of gray suede were the
light gauntlets that hid all save the
slenderness of her small hands; and
the wrap that, cut upon full and flow
ing lines, cloaked her figure beyond
suggestion, was gray. Yet even its
ample drapery could not dissemble
the fact that she was quite small,
girlishly slight, like the woman in the
doorway; nor did aught temper her
fmpersonal and detached composure.
which had also been an attribute of
the woman in the doorway. And again
she was alone, unchaperoned, unpro-
tected
Yes? Or no? And, if yes, what to
do? Was he to alight and accost her,