The daily Alaskan., 1914-12-01
An Instrument of. Providence
By WILLARD BRAKEMAN

Was w;;lking on the beach, watch ing the waves come rolling in before gale and throwing up driftwood. when bottle was tossed at my feet. l extracted d paper from 1t on which was written; -.
 We are goinS 10 pieces. Whoever getH this 50 to Norman D. Carlisle and tell him he will find my will in my desk in secret drawer ~
 This was all-no date, no signature, no address as to where Norman D. Carlisle wOuld be found. -.
 That night went to bed thinking about the message. Suppose It was genuine. Somebody was enjoying prop erty that belonged to another But 1t seemed tO me that if it were genuine the writer would have given at least the city in which the person for whom it was intended lived. If the perpe- trator was doing the thing for sport or to pass the time pr because he hadn't any more sense he would have given 1t.
 And yet perhaps that's just what he wouldn't do. He might not like to particularixc On the other hand, a man who is about to be dumped into a roaring ocean might leave something out that he ShDtld have put in.
 was imppllrd to find Norman D. Carlisle. | didn't wish to engage in looking for a needle in q haystack, but I couldn't resist the feeling that t was my boumicn duty to do so There were then some S0OOO,000 people in the United States alone. The name was Anglo.SaXUn, and the person might be somewhere in the great Brit Ish countrS$s. Nevertheless when l found that l couldn't let the matter alone went into it methodlcally. l put personal advertisement in one newspaper in every city in the United States whose inhabitants numbered 5OO.OOO or over for the said Norman D. Carlisle. received several replies signed Norman D. Carlisle, the middle name usually differing. wrote each of them, asking If he had lost rela. tive at sca, but they all answered in the negatlye-that is, so far as they knew.
 After six months put in another advertisement for MT. Carlisle and re, ceived a reply from a Norman D. Car lisle living in a town of about 5000 people. He had seen the ad. while in the city where it had been inserted. asked him if he had lost relative at sea, and he replied "NO." l dropped the matter so far as he was concern ed, but later he wrote me that he was a lawyer and had had client who had sailed from Rio de Janeiro In a vessel that was catalogued among missing ships
 After some correspondence he sent rue a check for expenses. and | went to see him. He made an engagement for me to meet a lady In his ofdce, and I was introduced to Miss Edith Parks. twenty. one years old and come ly. She appeared to be lady, but was shabbi!y dressed. was informed that her uncle had been lost on the missing vessel from Rio. brought out the paper I had found, which had carefully kept. and as soon as she saw it she said she believed that lt had been written by her uncle. Some of his letters were produced, and all doubt was removed The message, though scrawled hastily In trembling hand, was found to correspond Wlth- the uncle's writing.
 was then told that Miss Parks had been brought up by this uncle' Who WAS wealthy. he being unmarried ana without children. After he had been declared legally dead the courts had set about administering his estate and had already found forty persons wno were heirs at law.
 Since Mir. Weatherby, the man who had been shipwrecked, had given Miss Parks 10 understand that she was to be his heir il was likely that the will men tioned in the message gave his proper ty to her. But the deSk-where was itP Mir weatherby's furniture had been sold year before. Who hao bought the desk? No one could tell.
 Since had gone so far in the matter I did not propose to be beaten now. Advertising having avalled, I adver. tised for the person who had bought q desl; at Il sale of the effects of Cyrus Weathc"hy In due time I received reply from rhr purchaser. l wrote him that il niece of the deceased wished to redeem it aud asked him to fix pEiee.