Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-12-12


& !.
HVE@RF you had lived in those mountains
NEM/AlNN that shield the mainland of
k1WXWSll country from the Atlantic coast
mi VII line, you might have met him. Per-
q mi 81 ~ haps it would have been
GlTy W6'1M dark night when the trails through
&1N NO2 the wilderness dim. and you,
NNAIlGeW terrified by the mystery of Nature
NS}bMSNI in her black cloak had paused with
QY}Z1S&4ll straining to catch unusual
sound. slow, stumbling noise
would become more clearly audible, and from your
position at the side of the trail where vine and
thicket Joined you would shape loom up against
the stars above you, shape OF man and horse, the
former huddled with folded and bent head.
If the horse didn't start and betray your presence
to his rider they two would pass off into 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 fame of his great spirit.
exhausted had burned low through physical weak
ness and that having brought to others. he
slept tired soldiers Sleep in the saddle. That the
horse passed slowly proof that the battle
over for had been the call to meet that universal
enemy Pain you might have found scant time to
leave the road else that charger with backad ears,
lathering flank, and steaming breath had run you
down.
If he had been pointed out to you in some wayside
tavern of the wild, the man who did it would have
whispered his reverentially with some crude
apology for his Difference BELTS free men of the
mountains when admitting that before them stands
a superior 1t might go something like this in that
free speech of the forest:
That's Doc Harvey, him as saved my wife; who
told the president of the powder works to his teeth
that he'd been careless of his when the old
Number Seven magazine went up; who cries when
he fights but is unafraid who cries when somebody's
baby dies, who lends his money or his life to us who
stand in need"
THE man who was unafraid would take
bance to your critical eyes, and you would stare
at him he stood there in the half-ghted taproom
giving instructions to the stable boy and watching
the landlord dip the hot poker into the steaming
ale. tall man he was and. at first plain to look
upon thin angular smooth Shaven, and not overly
strong of frame If talking his voice from the
frail shell of his throat and body with melancholy
BOOM decisive and with under note of power. If
he turned toward you with that sharp steady look
from blue-gray eyes, he transformed
You soul, and it was brave. 1t analysed you
and your worth in sweeping inventory; not by
that worth of dollars by which the tax collector regu
lates his obeisance but by that standard which asks
if your conscience rings true the bell that cast
without flaw. And the longer you knew him the
more you understood that his heart of courage
He would stop Of wealth in the road and
lash his petty soul with the scourge of his tongue
did he abuse horse, he would lean above the
couch of the dead as tenderly as mother whisper
ing prayers over her d wing young. He had no enc
mics the undertakers yet he would seize
ruffian by the throat. SO the countryside whis-
pered use methods of his with hysterical women
For instance there was Bill Harmsworths wife
a woman who loved cheap frlls and sweeping city
wells and used to throw herself on the floor and
shrek when her husband declined to mortgage the
home to give her a trip to the seaside. When Dr.
Harvey was called he sent William away and used
some unsympathetic words and the back of hair
brush, assuring the patient that the next time he
came he would bring board And strange to re-
late she never after had hySterla, and the doctor
was never again required.
He roundly and faithfully spanked Tom Minon's
boy for tying to stray dog tail and an hour
afterward dived into the lake and rescued the young