Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1910-11-05

its affairs. He came armed with letters of in
PRODUCTION that opened the most exclusive
homes of the aristocratic English families to
him. Among the many young girls that he
met was the village BELLE the afianced of the
young Scotch-American 1t another varta
ton of that old triangle, the woman and two
From the first the friends of young Thomp-
could that his was hopeless His
afianced wife and the young stranger spent
and more of their time together. Little
began to find their way about the village. The
gossips, ever ready in a small town,
busy Thompson, moody and hurt by her sys-
temat1c neglect was the last to hear and the last
to countenance the whispered talk that go
ing the round of the Village loafng places.
There a great hue and cry along the
quiet old streets one summer morning. Thomp
sons bride to be had disappeared. Her mother
had gone to her room to awaken her and found
her gone She had gone with the young
ager of Albion's latest business house. and from
that day to this neither of them have been heard
from
Young Thompson changed in day from a
cheerful, happy lad to grim-faced man. He
became moody and silent. He neglected his work
and never went near the home to which he had
expected to lead his bride. Less than a month
after the fight of the clippers there was more
excitement In Albion. 1t reported that Ed
ward Thompson had disappeared. The strain and
the shame of living in town where every man,
woman and child knew the story of his fitting
had proven too much for his sensitive, hgh-strung
nature
While life flowed on in the same uneven cur
rent in the village of his nativity he wander
ing here and there among the emerald islands,
behold the Southern Cross
All the islands that lie off the familiar track
of the steamers knew him first and last in the
three or four years that he spent with the traders
and copra buyers. The Philippines the Ladrones,
the Solomons and dozen other island groups of
the southern Pacific visited by him the
epic years of his Odyssey. Finally he and his
trading companions touched at the island of Nal
keva in the Fills. One of the eternal civil wars
that always dsrupting the peace of the little
island kingdoms was brewing in Naikeva when
the tramp schooner dropped anchor inside the reef
of coral that formed the harbor breakwater.
new claimant had risen for the throne and he
and his followers were demanding the scepter
and the head of the old king.
Thompson had left Illinois, had put the states
behind him to escape the constant reminder of
his lost love that he in every woman The
wandering life of three four years had cleansed
his heart of but little bitterness against woman
kind He had put the old life behind him and
dreamed only of adventure and of bright
eyes and loving lips. 1t mixed crew of
Kanakas, Maleysians half-castes aboard the
little trading schooner. They cared little for
the kings and chieftains of the islands, but 1t
was part of their policy to be polite to the ma
native sovereign and a part of the ships company
attended laden with calcoes, mirrors and brass
rods gifts 1t was in the royal hut Thompson
first sow the Princess Lakanta She stood at the
side of her fathers throne when the white men
entered the palm hut for their talk with the old
king.
Some indefinite attraction seemed to draw the
white adventurer and the brown skinned princess
to each other. They met many times while the
schooner was taking its load of native prod
ucts- There was more than a little Spanish
blood in the veins of the old kings daughter. Her
mother a half-caste Spanish woman and
much of the 1anguorous beauty of the maids of
old CASTLE the heritage of this barbaric
princess of the remote isle of NaikeYa- In the
half twilight of the cocoanut groves he heard her