The Huttig news., 1916-07-01

anything but the mad money chase or the still madder dissipation in which the poor wretches seek tn forget. can only try here and there to drag some poor soul cut of the fire at the last moment, and it makes me sick sick at heart!"
 You musn't look at it that way" said Brouillard, suddenly turning com forter. You have been doing good work and lot of it-more than any three ordinary men could stand up un- der. l haven't got beyond seeing and appreciating, Castner; truly l have not. And I'll say this If l had only half your courage but it's no | use, I'm in too deep. 1 cant see any farther ahead than a man born blind TheEe is one end for which I have been striving from the very first, and it is still unattained. Pm past help now. l have reached point at which I'd pull the whole world down in ruins to see that end accomplished
 The young missionary took another turn up and down the room and then came back to the desk for his hat At the leave-taking he said the only help ful word he could think of.
 Co to your eonfessor, Brouillard- your real confessor-and go all the more readily if that one happens to be good wcman-whom you love and trust. They often see more clearly than we do-the good women Try it; and let me help where a man can help"
 For long hour after Castner went away Brouillard' sat at his desk. fight ing as those fight who see the cause lost, and who know they only make the ruin more complete by struggling on
 Cortwright's guess had found it's mark. He was loaded to break with front feet" and options and Corners" i In the least speculative period he had bought and mortgaged and bought again, plunging recklessly with the sole object of wringing another hun dred thousand out of drying sponge against the time when David Massin-
  taking seemed easily possible But with the drying of the speculative sponge it became increasingly diff cult. Mere and more he had been con- pelled to buy and hold, until now the bare attempt to unload would have started the panic which was only wait ing for some hedging seller to fire the train.
 The sweat stood out in great drops On his forehead when he finally drew a pad of telegraph blanks under his hand and began to write message. Painstakingly he composed it. refer ring often to the notes in his field book, and printing the words neatly in his accurate, clearly defined hand writing.
 i When it was finished he translated 1t laboriously into the department code But after the copy was made and signed he did not ring at once for a messenger. Instead, he put the two. the original and the cipher, under a paper weight and sat glooming at them searching blindly for some alternative t9 the final act of treachery which would be consumrnated in the sending of the wire.
 Since, by reason of Cortwright's tam perings with the shelter people and the railroad, the Little Susan" had be- come locked treasure vault. the er- gineer, acting upon his own initiative, had tried the law. As soon as he had ascertained that David Massingale had been given sixty days longer to live. solely because the buccaneers chose to take his mine rather than his money, Brauillard had submitted the facts in the case to a trusted lawyer friend in the East.
 This hope had pulled in two like frayed cord Massingale must pay thA bank or lose all. Until he had ob- tajnea possession of the promissory notes there would Ee no crevice in which to drive any legal wedge. And even then, unless some pressure could be brought to bear upon the grafters to make them disgorge, there was no chance of Massingale's recovering mere than his allotted two-thirds of the stock; in other words, he would still stand committed to the agreement by which he had bound himself to make the grafters a present, in fee simple, of ene-thire of his mine. Brouillard had written one more let. ter to the lawyer. Iii it he had asked how David Massingale could be unas- sailably reinstated in his rights as the sole owner of the Little Susan" The answer had come pro-ptly and it was explicit. "Cnly by the repayment of such sums as hal been actually ex- pended in the reorganization and On the betterments-for the rcodernizing machinery and improvements-an the voluntary surrender by the other par. ties to the agreement. of the stock in dispute" the lawyer had written; and Brouillard had smiled at the thougn of Cartwright voluntarily surrendering anything which was once we'll within the grasp of his pudgy hands.
 Failing to start the legal wedge, RrOuitlarH had Jinno1- wifhcut