Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1911-04-06

ment in him, he approached so near
the ideal standards. He was fine
grained, supple, slender, smalljointed,
thoroughbred from head to heel.
Intellectually, he had been good
enough to 60 through the academy at
West Point with credit, and to grad
uate high enough in his class to be
assigned to service in the cavalry. His
standards of conduct, his ideas of hon
or and morality had been about The
same as those of the best third of his
classmates. II his fellow officers in
the Philippines, during the year or
two he spent in the service, had been
asked to pick a flaw in him, which
they would have been reluctant to do,
they would have said that he seemed
to them a bit too t~hin-skinned and
rather fastidious; that was what his
chum and only intimate friend, Perry
Hunter. said about him at any rate.
But he could afford to be fastidi-
Gus, for he had about all a man could
want, obs would think. For three
generations they had taken wealth
for granted in the Cayley family, and
with 1t had come breeding, security
Of social position, simplicity and ease
in making friends, both among men
and women In short, there could be
no doubt at all that up to his twenty
ninth year Fate had been ironically
kind to Philip Cayley. She had given
him no hint, no preparation for the
stunning blow that was to fall upon
him, suddenly, out of so clear a sky.
When it did fall, it cut his life
clean across; sc that when he thought
back to that time now, it seemed to
him that the Lieutenant Cayley of the
United States arhy had died over
there in the Philippines, and that he,
the man who was now soaring in those
great circles through the arctic sky,
was a chance inheritor of his name
and of his memory.
He had set out n day at the head
Of a small scouting party, the best
liked man in the regiment, secure in
the respect, in the almost fatherly re-
gard, Of his colonel, proudly conscious
Of the almost idolatrous admiration
( Of his men and the younger officers.
He had gone out believing that no
: one ever had a truer friend than he
t possessed in Perry Hunter, his class
mate at West Point, his fellow officer
in the regiment, the confldant of all
his hopes and ideals.
Q He had come back, after a fort,
! nights absence, to find his name
smeared with disgrace, himself judged
and condemned, unheard, in the opin
!, ion of the mess. And that was moi
the worst of it. The same blow which
II had deprived him OF the regard of the
d only people in the world who matter
ed to him, destroyed, also, root ant
branch, his affection for the M mai
of whom he had made IN intimate
n The only feeling that 1t would be pos
sible for him to entertain for Perry
+ Hunter again must be a Multiplying
half-incredulous contempt And Il
that was his feeling for the man he
had trusted most and loved the most
T deeply, what must be it for the rest Of
humankind? What did 1t matter what
Q they thought of him or what they did
d to him? All he wanted Of human so
ciety was to escape from 1t.
a He fell to wondering, as he hung
suspended, over that rosy expanse O.
Q feecy fog. whether, were the thing t.
do over again, he would act as he hat
acted five years ago; whether hi
Q would content himself with a single
d~isdainful denial of the monstrouE
It thing they charged him with; whethe
h he would resign again, under fire, anC
i. go away, leaving his furnished nam'
o for the DAVIS to peck at.
Heretofore he had always answered
that question with a fierce afirma
IS tive. Today it left him wondering
Y, Had he stayed, had he paid the pric'
d that would have been necessary tt
D. clear himself, he would never hav'
t, found his wings, SO much was clear
10 He would never have spent thos'
ID four years In the wilderness, working
experimenting, taking his life in hi
10 hands, day after day, while he master
sr ed the art that no man had ever mas
ID tered before.
He had set himself this task becaus
t. it was the only one he knew that di
t, not involve contact with his fellow
d. beings. He must have something tina
he could work at alone. Work an
lB solitude we're two things that he ha
felt an overmastering craving for. An
t. the possibility he had faced with
light heart every m~orning-the poss
% bility Of a sudden and violent deaf,
ID before night, had been no more t
10 him than an agreeable spice to tn
O. days work.
It was not until he had actual
70 learned to fly, had literally shaken tn
le dust of the earth from his feet an
taken to the sky as his abode, that hi
10 wound had healed. The three month
n that he had spent in this upper arcti
air, awning for 16 hours out Of "a, ha
% Gained him, put his nerves In tun
10 again; given him for men and thei
r. affairs a quiet Indifference, in plac
ID Of the smarting contempt he had bee
d hugging to his breast before. Thre
months ago, at sight Of those littl
BY human dots crossing the glacier, b
n would have wheeled aloft and gon
n sailing away. Even a month ago y
40 would hardly have hung. soarin
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