The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1913-10-25

1t was not that he hated work OF
craved life of ignoble ease and pleas
ure. Philosophically inclined even
Nefore he left college he had discerned
the futility of the search after hap
piness. Contentment, he knew, must
be the reward of work. But this
this eternal toll in New York office
adding millions to millions for the
ACKNOWLEDGMENT of the monopoly which
his father had built up--this was what
appalled, him. In other lands a man
situated as he was might enter poll
tics, devote his life and fortune to
his country; here-well, his country
could get along very well without his
assistance. In the vast and varied
public life of America his efforts would
be lost, his ambitions crushed out
by daily disappointments and the sor-
did strife of the political world He
saw no future of contentment for him
In the land of his oirth; he, with his
millions, looked forward to fewer OBJ
portunities than the poorest and most
illiterate immigrant passing beneath
the Statue Of Liberty
Many times a millionaire at the age
OF thirty he had succeeded to the con-
troll OF his fathers. enormous business.
He fulfilled his duties punctiliously,
sedulously, but without heart And his
week ends he spent alone in his cot
tage on the northern Long Island
shore, among his books, reading,
dreaming, or wandering by the barren,
desolate marshes and the surf-swept
shores OF the Sounu, while his mag.
nifcient town house remained closed
and his automobile rusted unused in
his garage
Half mile from his isolated house
ne stopped, awaking out of his medi. !
tations TO discover that he could no |
longer see his way. A death-white fog. |
one OF the sea-borne fogs of Novem-
Der, had shrouded the land, plotting out
all the familiar landmarks. Lane drew
In great breaths of 1t greedily. Ii re-
minded him of London, with its mys-
terry and its charm, of melancholy
France, when the leafless poplars glis-
ten with white frost beside the Seine.
His years abroad had been too few
~AOeoA 'i'Au III OOUGInlng
OF his detection fell from him as the
pictures stirred in his mind and paint
ed themselves upon his memory in
YiyH 'eolors anew. Some day. when
he decently could, he would shake off
the cares Of his life, resign the bus
jness into other hands, and withdraw
to that life Of leisure which he loved
In other lands.
Suddenly he heard the booming of a
gun eyer the waters. 1t sounded like
tie ST ~ Of some ship in distress.
That " reacherous shore near the
east ef e Island, and one on
which en- came to grief, for
the long,\ 2pws hid the menac-
ing rocks Threatened vessels.
Although it lar less than a hun
dred miles from the metropolis, this
region might have been a remote
part Of the New England shore; it
was out of the track of passing ships,
a little, forgotten space devoted to
sea birds and hunters.
Then over the waves came some
thing strident and shrill, hooting like
approaching cable car. And out of
the void fell something not fifty yards
away that plunged into the sand and
flung up a smoking hillock Lane
walked quickly toward this object; as
he approached he neard the booming
sound once more.
When he came up he saw that IL
was fifty-pound shell from a man-of-
wars gun that had burst asunder there
and buried itself in the sand The
shell had fallen before the booming be-
gan; sound travelled slowly; he cal
that the warship must be
about three miles in the offing. She
was evidently some vessel that had
ost her bearings In the fog, and was
attempting target practice notwith-
That might be a rational explana-
ion, but-suddenly the thought came
o him: was ever target practice held
the waters Of Ions Island Sound
before? Though that especial region
vas out OF the track Of ships, num-
,rous small craft traversed the wa
ers. to gather oysters or lay them
Town on the marine oyster farms.
Surely no man-of-war ever engaged in ca
arget practice in that populous, land a
ocked sea. he
Again a distant scream rose into La
! dangerous din, and, as the boom of he
he gun followed, shell ploughed I'D sa
he sand, this time falling further WI
way. but scattering more widely. in
ane might have fastened from the
pot without imputetion upon his in
courage; and so he would probably ste
ave done. but at that moment the to
% lifted. an
he stared out at a stretch Of I'm. pu
ulating, gray sea, ripping away to- tw
ard the horizon. Half mile out. lust tho
here the crests of the Rip Rocks mo
merge from the waves, a small steam fos
Zip lay on her side, grinding to {
eces slowly under the incessant the
'unding Of the waters. And, fur cut
Ter away, hulk low down on the a |
,rizon, were the black outlines of a ma
an-of-war "
The warship was evidently Smelling at
Q steamship. This much was evi. run
mt. for the trajectory of her shells ly
Is Immediately over the latter. snf
I'd IL was equally clear that the her
,amshiD was no abandoned target ing