Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1910-04-13

80 young fellow with a face so |
ia tanned by wind and sun you |
had the impression that his !
skin would feel like leather if you
could affect the impertinence to test it |
by the sense of touch. His clothes fitted |
him loosely and yet were graciously
devoid Of the bagginess which char
acterizes the appearance of extremely
young men whose frames are not fully
set and whose joints are still paradipg
through the last stages of college de-
velopment.
This tall young man in the panama
hat and gray fannels was TruXtOn
King, embryo globe trotter and search
er after the treasures of romance.
Somewhere up near Central park, in
one of the fashionable cross streets,
was the home of his father and his
fathers father before him-a home
which Truxton had not seen in TWO
years or more. 1t is worthy of pass
ing notice, and that is all, that his
father was q manufacturer; more than
that, he was something of power in
the financial world. His mother was
not strictly social queen in the great
metropolis, but she was what we
might safely call one of the first ia
dies in waiting" which is quite good
enough for the wife of a manufacture
er, especially when one records that
her husband was manufacturer Of
steel It Is also matter of no little
consequence that TruXtOn's mother
was more or less averse to the steel
business as a heritage for her son.
Be it understood here and now that
she intended TruXtOn for the diplO-
matte service.
But neither TruXton's father, who
wanted him to be a manufacturing
Croesus, nor TruXton's mother, who
expected him to become a social Solo
mon, appears to have taken the young
mans private inclinations into con-
sideration.
Young Mr.. King believed in ro-
nance. He grew up with an ever in
creasing bump of imagination, con-
tiguous to which, strange to relate,
there was properly developed bump
Of industry and application; hence il
is not surprising that he was willing
to go far afield in search of the things
that seemed more or less worth while
to a young gentleman who had suf
fered the I'll fortune to be born in thu
nineteenth century instead of the sew
enteenth.
We come upon him at last-luckil,
for us we were not actually following
him-after two years of wonderful bu
rather disillusioning adventure in mid
Asia and all Africa. He had seen tn
KongO and the Euphrates, the Gange
and the Nile, the Yangtsekiang an
the Yenisei; he had climbed mour
tains in Abyssinia, in Siam, in Tibe
and Afghanistan; he had shot bi
game in more than one jungle and ha
been shot at by small brown men
more than one forest, to say nothin
Of the little encounters he had had
most unoccidental towns and cities.
For twenty days he had travelled b
caravan across the Persian upland
through Herat and Meshhed and b
khara, striking off with his guide aloI
toward the sea of Aral and the cas-
ern shores of the Caspian, thent
through the Ural foothills to the o
Roman highway that led down in
the sweet green valleys Of a land
had thought Of as nothing more ths
the creation of harebrained fictionis
Somewhere out in the shimmeri1
east he had learned, to his hone
amazement. that there was such
nnd as Graustark. At first he wou
not believe, but the English bank
Meshbed assured him that he won
come 10 it if he travelled long enou
and far enough into the north al
west and if he were rot afraid Of