The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1912-03-21
CHAPTER I.

A still and sultry dusk had fallen,
'clc' og an oppressive, wearing day:
one OF those days whose sole function
seems to reside in rendering us irri-
tably conscious of our too-close cas-
dngs of too-solid flesh; whose humid
and inert atmosphere, sodden with
tepid moisture, clings palpably to the
body, causing men to feel rs if they
crawled, half-suffocated, at the bot
tom of a sea of rarefied water.
The hour may have been eight: it
may have been not quite that, but it
was almost dark. The windows were
oblongs, black as night in the yellow
walls OF O'Rourke's bedchamber in the
Hotel d'Orient. Monte Carlo.
have the honor to make known
!O'Rourke in the county of Galway.
Ireland; otherwise and more widely
known as Colonel Terence O'Rourke;
a chevalier of the Legion of Honor Of
France; sometime an officer in the
Foreign Legion in Algiers; a wander
ft,@.spendthrift, free-lance, cosmopol-
ite-a gentleman-adventurer, he's been
termed.
He was dressing for dinner. The
glare of half a dozen electric bulbs dis
covered him all but ready for public
appearance-not, however, quite ready.
In his shirt sleeves he faced a cheval-
glass, pluckily (f with the haggard
Avo ~ nvocrarotiOnN arIonuou;~- IN
outmaneuver a demon of inanimate
perversity which had entered into his
dress tie. melting it to refuse to as
sume, for all his coaxing and his STRAIT
agems, that effect of nonchalant per
lection SO much sought after, so sell
dom achieved.
Patiently was the thing possessed
by a devil; O'Rourke made no manner
of doubt Of that. Though for minutes
at a time he fumbled, fidgeted, fumed
it was without avail.
His room itself was in a state of
considerable Notwithstanding due
mainly to O'Rourke's characteristic ef-
forts to find just what he might hap
pen to desire at any given time with
out troubling to think where it ought
properly to be.
Something of this confusion, mir.
rored in the glass, was likewise re-
Elected in O'Rourke's eyes, what time
he paused for breath and profanity.
Faith, it's worse than a DAVIS nest,
the place." he admitted, %scandalized.
How ever did lone lone man-do
all that. will ye be telling me?" He
flung out two helpless bafrled hands,
and let them fall. After a meditative
pause he added: Damn that Alsa-
tian!"-with reference to his latest
and least competent valet. who had
but recently been discharged with a
flea in his ear and a months unearn
ed wage In his pocket. For knowing
me ways" sighed O'Rourke, there
was anyone the like Of Danny"
For as many as three livelong days
tbs man had been reduced to the ne
cessity of dressing himself with his
own fair hands-arAd that at least
thrice daily. who did nothing by
halves. And, somehow, mysteriously,
his discarded garments had for the
most part remained where he had
thrown them, despite the earnest ef-
forts of the femme de chambre to re-
store something resembling order from
this man-nade chaos. For servants
all liked we'll the O'Rourke. improvi-
dent soul that he was, freehanded
to a fault. a.
You are invited to picture to your
self O'Rourke as invariably he was.
in one of his not %infrequent but ever
transient phases of affluence: that is,
Standing a bit over six feet, deep of
chest and lean of flank, with his long,
straight legs he looked what he had
been mean to be, a. man Of arms and
action. His head was shapely, it's
dark hair curling the least in the
world; and. incredibly stained. a trans
parent brown. his features were lean,
by quick boyish eyes in whose warm
'bi6a-gray depths humor twinkled
more often than not. though those
same eyes were not seldom thought,
full, a trace wistful, perhaps. with
the look of one who recalls dear mem
cries, old friends and sweethearts
loved and lost. For he had
begun to live early in life and had
much to look back upon. though for
all that It's doubtful IL he, were more
than thirty at the time he became in
:volved In the fortunes Of the Pool
of Flame.
For the rest of him. barring the re.
tfractory tie. the man was %strikingly
well groomed, while his surroundings
spoke for comfortable circumstances.
On the authority of the absent and re-
GREETED Danny. who had long served
the O'Rourke in the i%nti1nate capaci-
ties Of ~oody-servant. cnntidant and
chancellor Of the exchequer (this last.
of course. whenever there happened
to be n exchequer to require a chan
,cellor), there was never anyone at all