Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1911-08-26

Home of Col. Thomas n. S
ry with it puff of the pipe of peace
By and by the girl set up the plea
| that she had been duped and asked
that the land of her fathers be re-
turned to her. But as he laughed she
/ cursed him and all his house:
May fortune smile upon him only
to blight him and his. Hear the prayer
| of an Indian maid who has lost to this
| man the land of her fathers"
Swopes neighbors knew the anger
of the girl. They knew of the curse.
But If he ever heard it he never by
any act betrayed the knowledge.
Millionaire Without Effort.
The years rolled by, the people
| came, they built a great city around
the Swope farms. His pastures were
| cut into streets, his wheat fields into
building lots. His homestead became
business center. A bank rose on
the site of his cowshed He became
millionaire almost without the turn
| of a hand.
| Landless, farm1ess, the result of
| city's growth, he seemed scarcely to
| know what to do with his vast for
| tune. Almost in sadness he walked
|
ploughed and sown and reaped.
Wealth appeared to bring him no hap
piness. Always a hard working man,
he found little Joy in a life of idle
ness. Apparently he longed for the
| strenuous years of his youth. What
| few times he came downtown in his
! later years he found himself in a city
of strangers. Old friends were gone;
he made few new ones. His was a
solitary figure that not many recog-
nized.
Kindly of heart, he gave thousands
| away, but without much system or
reason. He had too much money. 1t
worried him. 1t was burden. Thir-
teen hundred acres, lying along the
Blue river and adjacent to Kansas
City, he gave to the people for a
park, which bears his name He
gave to charities and to all public
funds. Yet he kept in the back
ground and appeared to gain no hap
piness even from philanthropy.
He was a sombre man, gloomy,
alone. The curse had begun to work.
His brother was dead, leaving a
large family in a beautiful home on
Pleasant street in Independence, nine
miles as the crow flies and the trolley
car runs from Kansas City.
Thither went Colonel Swope to
live, and thither he took Moss Hun
ton, his friend ard counsellor
1t was in Independence that trou-
bles began to crowd upon the gen.
erous old colonel. One day in turn
ing the calendar he came to a sum-
mer month illuminated with the draw
ing of an Indian girls head. The
colonel looked at it from different
| nCIa re
place.
Enter DR.. Hyde.
Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde, weIl-known
physician of Kansas City, had wooed
and won Frances Swope. niece of the
millionaire, against the wishes of the
| girls family. This estrangement was
patched up and Hyde was the family
physician of the Swopes when Hun
ton died suddenly and under circum-
stances later termed suspicious and
mysterious" A few weeks later
, Colonel Swope. apparently overcome
by the death of his companion. passed
away And then Chrisman Swope, the
nephew
These three deaths. followed by an
epidemic of typhoid that threatened to
| wipe out the entire Swope family, re
suited in a rigid investigation DR.
} Hyde's name was dragged into the in
quiry and he promptly sued the ex
! ecutors of the Swope estate for 500.
I 900 damages.
r While the damage suit was pend
ing and while small fortunes were
? going for attorneys fees Hyde was
: indicted on the charge of poisoning
Moss Hunton and Colonel Swope
Lucy Lee Swope and others witt
, typhoid germs
A Trial and counter-TriaI.
: Hyde dropped his, damage suit FOL
: the more important labor of saving
5 himself from the gallows or the peni
: Tertiary The dollars began to poul
D out The executors employed the bes
r legal talent in two states to assist ths
: prosecution Mrs Margaret Swopt