The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1909-12-15

Continued From Page one.)

old, strong and full of the fire
of life, convincing himself thai
there was nothing for him to de-
but to drift back to dear ole
New York and talk to his father
about going into the offices; tC
let his mother tell him over and
over again of the nice girls she
knew who did not have to be
rescued from ogres and all that
sort of thing in order to settle
down to domestic obsolescence
to tel Ibis sister and all of their
mutual friends the whole truth
and nothing but the truth con-
corning his adventures in the
wilds, and to feel that the friends
at least, were predestined to look
upon him as a fearles liar, moth
ing more.
For twenty days he had trav-
eled by caravan across the Per-
sian uplands, through Herat. and
Meshed and Bokhara, striking
of twith his guide alone toward
the Sea of Aral and the eastern
shores of the Caspian, thence
through the Ural foothills to the
old Roman highway that led down
into the sweet green valleys of a
land he had thought of as moth
| ing more than the creation of a
lhairbrainnd fictionict
Somewhere out in the simmer
ing east he had learned. to his
honest amazement that there
was such land as Graustark. Al
first he would not believe. But
the English bank in Meshed as
sured him that he would come to
it if he Travelled long enough and
far enough into the north and
west and if he were not afraid OF
the hardships that most men alb.
hor. The dying spirit of Ro.
nance famed up in his heart; his
blood grew quick again anG
eager. He would not go home
until he had sought out this land
of fair women and sweet tradi.
ton. And SO he traversed the
wild and dangerous Tartar roads
for days and days, like the
knights of Scheherazade in the
times of old, and came at last to
the gates of Edelweiss.
Not until he sat down to a rare
dinner in the historic Hotel Re-
gengetz was he able to realize
that he was truly in that tabled
mythical land of Graustark
quaint, grim little principally in
the most secret pocket of the
earth's great mantle. This was
the land of his dreams, the land
of his fancy; he had not even
dared to hope that it actually
existed.
And now, here he was, pinch
ing himself to prove that he was
awake, stretching his world-worn
bones under a dainty table to
which real food was being brought
lby-well, he was obliged to
pinch himself again. From the
broad terrace after dinner he
looked out into the streets of the
,quaint, picture-book town with its
medieval simplicity and rugged
ness combined; his eyes tried to
Keep pace with the things that
his fertile brain was seeing be-
yond the glimmering lights and
dancing window panes-for the
whole scene danced before him
with a persistent unreality that
made him fele his own pulse in
the fear that some sudden, in
sidious fever had seized upon
him.
If any one had told him, six
months before, that there was
such land as Graustark and that
it he could but keep on travelling
in a certain direction he would
come to it in time, he would
have laughed that person to scorn,
no matter now precise a geogra-
| pher he might have been.
Young Mr.. King, notwithstand-
ing his naturally reckless devo-
ton to first impressions, was a
much wiser person than when he
left his New York home two
years before. Roughing it in the
widest parts of the world had
taught him that eagernes is the