The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1915-11-25

tears-and verdicts. Possibly I might
have stormed the editorial outposts
and set my banner OF manuscript ut
the forefront Of literature. Be that
a. It may, I had heretofore never
loved.
Now I did. Now I was the most
quantity tortured Of men: wholly, I'M
Qualifledly, and to the depts, stirred
by the worship Of a woman I had
never seen. Moreover, she was prob
ably some other mans wife and the
mother of his children.
I She had come 20 me over the sea,
bringing with her my destiny. She
had smiled on me and saved me. She
had taken tribute of my soul. Now it
was ended. I had worshiped her
among crags and coral, under the
dome of a volcano. I had come to
think of her as q spledGid and vivid
orchid which a man might hope to
wear very proudly at the heart of his
life. To what end had The rates lured
me into this Guide sac?
I made the rest Of the journey in
q fog Of sullen misery, and emerged,
at its end, from the Penas .'lyan;a sta
ton a morose and hopeless ma
At the club, to which habit had car
ried me, I encountered the doctor,
who was dallying owe a cup of coffee
and a morning paper. He glanced UP
and for a moment his eyes fingered.
Hello" he said; "how long have
you been gomez"
"Little less than a year."
"You went away a youngish sort Of
man and you return with distinguish
ed white temples" he summarized
There must be a story locked up in
you"
glanced impatiently at the card
and called for eggs.
II haven't been nibbling at life this
time" l retorted, with some touch of
asperity.
II didn't instruct to gluttonize." he
reminded me.
gave him a partial history, but he
eyed me sharply and finally fell into
his old habit Of diagnosis.
Something is weighing on your
mind" he declared; "and it isn't the
memory Of cannibals."
The end was that he decided I
must get my mind active, and, after
vainly trying to bully me back into lit
erary effort, he took a new tack.
"Are you too surely and apathtic to
combine a small service to friends
with the augmenting Of your W for
tune" he demanded; and before l
could reply he fell into the discussion
of a matter which just now lay at the
front of his interests. There was a
Kentuckian in town, with glowing pro-
! jects of a fortune to be made along
the ridges Of the Cumberlands.
He was not a mere promoter, but a
man of large means and ability who
was also much the gentleman. His
present scheme of things required the
enlistment of additional capital, and
he had come to men who had interest
ed the doctor as we'll as themselves.
The Kentuckian had suggested, how
ever, that before committing them
selves in the matter they send n of
their own number with him to look
over the options.
None of the others, as it happened,
could 60. Here, declared the doctor,
was my opportunity to try the novelty
NJ ,,sof,1 o%ccunatiOn
The man, whose name was Weigh
borne, was to lunch with him. Would
I meet him and talk it over, and, If
l was favorably impressed, accompany
him to the Kentucky mountains?
We were sitting by a Fifth Avenue
window. The sky was deary with the
ash-gray of autumn. Buses, motor, and
takes were trailing along in the same
old hopeless monotony. At the thought
of remaining here I sickened. Until
a letter could arrive from Keller, I
could do little here, and this trip
would take only ten days OF two
weeks.
Yes, I said, I would meet Mr.. Weigh
borne. Why not?
Having promised to be on hand at
two o'clock, I finished a hurried meal
and began a strange quest that came
to nothing. In Times square and Park
Row I spent several dusty hours ruiz
ming through newspaper files and 60
ing back to dates five and six years
old. l was hunting for a pictorial
section of the same general style as
that which bore the portrait.
I found one or two printed on SINH.
lar paper, but not even of the exact
size, and although I followed these
through the Sundays of several years,
I came in the end only to the conclu-
sion that the paper had been printed
outside of New York.
Weighborne impressed me. In ply
sique and mind and energy he was
big and virile. One could glance at
him in his carelessly correct clothes
and know that he would be equally st
home in drawing room or camp. /
agreed to meet him in Lexington