The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1910-03-03

- la - was q 'AH - DOAN' 49,
~ young fellow with a face 50
tanned by wind and sun Won
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 who's joints are still %parading
through the last stages Of college de-
velopment.
This tall young man III 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. i'll
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 a manufacturer; more than
that, he was something of Il power in
the financial world. His mother was
not strictly Il 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 manufactur-
er, especially when n records that
her husband was 4 manufactures Of
steel. Ii is also a matter of no little
consequence that TruXtoD'S mother
was more or less averse to the steel
business as a heritage for her son.
Be ii 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 Truxion's mother, who
expected him to become a social Solo
mon, appears 20 have taken the young
mans private in~clinations 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 relale.
there was a properly developed bump
Of industry and applications; hence it
is not surprising that he was willing
to go far afeld in search Of the things
that seemed more or less worth while
to q young gentleman who had suf-
fered the Ill fortune to be born In the
nineteenth century instead Of the sew
enteenth.
We come upon him ut laSt-iuckily
for us we were not actually following
him-after two years Of wonderful but
rather disillusioning adventure in mid.
Asia and all Africa. He had seen. the
Kongo and the Euphrates, the Ganges
and the Nile. the Yangtsekiang and
the Yenisei; he had climbed noun
tains Ia Abyssinia. In Siam, In Tibet
and ~Afghanistan; he had shot big
game I'm more than one Jungle and had
been shot at by small brown men ia
more than q forest, to say nothing
Of the little encounters he had had 10
most unOccidental towns and cities.
For twenty days he had travelled by
caravan across the Persian uplapds.
through Herat and Meshhed and b.
khara. striking OF with bis guide alone
toward the sea Of Aral aud. the east
ern shores OF the Caspian. thence
through the Ural foothills to the old
Roman highway that led down into
the swee green valleys Of a land he
had thought OF rs nothing more than
the creation of q harebrained ictionist.
Somewhere ont in the shimmering
east he had learned, to his honest
amazement. that there was such a
land as Graustark. AT first he would
not believe, but the English bank In
Meshhed assured him that he would