The Nevada County picayune., 1909-03-04
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CHAPTER |. rh. Man with the Moles.


 .o. saw Cary Mercer was under cir
 un.tances calculated to fix the incl
 .ant firmly in his memory. In the
 a. ,oOs home from the Philippines furlough. and preparing to return task big enough to attract him ,n snite of it's exile and hardships, he s.d visited the son of friend at Har- -ord They were walking through the corridors of one of the private dormi- .or,es where the boy roomed. Rather ar,mly the soldiers eyes were noting marble wainscoting and tiled floors, and contrasting this academic en- r,ronment with his own at West Point. caustic comment rose to his lips. hrt if was not uttered, for he heard ,he sharp bark of pistol, followed by . thud. and a crackle as of breaking glass.
 Do you fellows amuse yourselves shooting up the dormitory?' said he, The boy halted; he had gone white.
 of came from Mercer's room," he cried and ran across the corridor to q door with the usual labelling of two visiting cards. The door was not )ocked. Entering, they passed into a yestibue, thence through another door which stood open. For many a day after the colonel could see just how the slender young figure looked, the shoulders in huddle on the study cx,,ip puiv ho side him, on the floor. a revolver and broken glass bottle The latter must have made the cracking sound. Some dark red liquid, soaking the open sheets of a newspaper. filled the room with the pungent odor of alco- hol Only the top of the lads head showed-a curly, silky. dark brown head; but even before the colonel lift ed it he had seen a few thick drops mating the brown curls. He laid the head back gently and his hand slipped to the boys wrist.
 No use. Ralph" he said in the sub dued tones that the voice takes un- consciously in the presence of death
 And Endy was going to help him." almost sobbed Ralph. He told me he would Oh, why couldn't he have trusted his friends"
 The colonel was looking at the newspaper-"Wasi 1t money?" said he; for a glance at the dabbled sheet had brought him the headings of the stock quotations: Another Sharp Break in Stocks New London Records" It had been money. Later, after what needed to be done was over, after doc tors and officers of the law were gone Col Winter heard the wretched story young, reckless, fatally attractive Southerner, rich friends, college SO cieties, joyous times; nothing really wicked or vicious, only a surrender to youth and friendship and pleasure and then the day of reckoning-duns, college warnings. the menace of black disgrace. The young fellow was an orphan, with no near kindred save one brother much older than he. The brother was reputed to be rich, ac- cordlng to southern standards, and young Mercer, who had just come into modest patrimony of his own, invest cd In his brothers ventures. As to the character of these ventures. whether fimsy or substantial the col ohei lnformants were absolutely ignorant. All they knew of the elder Mercer was that he was often in New huA ssn lot tN I4 oil street. He wasn't a broker; no. he was trying to raise money to hang on to some pig properties that he had; ana the stocks seemed to be going at remarkable rates just now, the bot tom dropping out of the market. If a certain stock of the Mercers-they aidn know the name-could be kept aooVe v he would pull through. Col. winter made no comment, but he remembered that when he had studied ,he mornings stock. market pages for himself, he lad noted bad slump in the southern steels," and Underwater on the toboggan slide: of three to iour points, declining from 27 and a Traction to 23."
 Another victim of the Wall street prates, was the colonel's silent judg- ment on the tragedy. Lucky for her his mothers dead"
 The next morning he had returned ana had gone to his young friends rooms.
 The boy was still full of the horror oi the day before. Mercer's brother was in Cambridge. he said--arriving mat morning from New York. "Endy is going to fetch him round to get him out or the reporters way sometime .nis evening; maybe there's something
 can do'--this in explanation of ms declining to dine with the colonel. As lhe two entered the rooms, Win ter was little in advance, and caught