The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-06-16

into waters inhabited by trout was a
heavy fine. Mum was guilty only IN
intent, but the club keepers sWere
falsely, and Peyster Sprowl, a lawyer
and also the new president OF the Sag
amore Club, pushed the case; and Mum
went to jail, having no money left to
purge his sentence.
O'Hara, wild with rage wrote, threat
ening Sprowl.
Then Sprowl did vindictive and
therefore foolish thing: he swere cut
warrant for 0'Hara' s arrest, charging
him with blackmail.
The case was tried in Foxvifle. and
O'Hara was acquitted. But a chance
word or two during the teStimeney fright
pOrtunTty of his life. He went to New
York and scraped up enough money
for his purpose, which was TO search
the titles of the lands controlled by the
Sycamore Club.
He worked secretly, grubbing, saving,
starving; he ferreted out the original
grants covering nine-tentbs OF Sycamore
County,; he disinterred the O'Hara
patent of 1850; and then he began to
understand that his title to the entire
Sycamore Club property was worth the
services, on spec, of any frst-class
Centre Street shysteT.
The club got wind OF this and appoint
ed Peyster Sprowl, In his capacity of
lawyer and president of the club, to
find out how much OF claim O'Hara
really had. The club also placed the
emergency fund of one hundred thou
sand dollars at SprOwPs command
with caTte-bEanche orders to arrest a
suit and satisfy any claim that could
not be beaten by money and talent
Now it took Sprowl a very short time
to discover that O'Hara's claim was
probably valid enough to Dust the club
from three-quarters Of its present hold
ings.
He tried to see O'Hara, but the lum-
herman refused to be interviewed, and
promptly began proceedings. He also
made his viii; for he was sick man.
Then he became a sicker man, and sus-
pended proceedings and sent for his
little daughter.
Before she arrived he called Mum in,
gave him packet of papers, and made
him burn them before his eyes.
They're the papers in my case, - he
said. I'm dying; I've fought too hard
/ don't want my child to fight when m
dead. And there's nothing in my claim,
anyway" This was a lie, and Mum
suspected it.
When the child, Eileen, arrived,
O'Hara was nearly dead, but he gather
ed sufficient strength to shove locked
steel box towards his daughter and tell
her to keep it from Mum, and keep it
locked until she found an honest man
In the world.
The next morning O'Hsra appeared
to be much better His friend Mum
came to see him; also came Peyster
Sprowl IN some alarm, on TIE matter of
the proceedings threatened But o. f1ara
turned his back on them both and Calm
" closed his eyes and ears to their pres
ence.
Mum went out of the room, but laid
his large, thin ear against the door
SproEl worried O'Hara for an hour,
but. getting no reply from the man In
the bed, withdrew at hast with eonsi-
derable violence
O'Hara, however, had fooled them
both: he had been dead ali the while
The day after the funeral, Sprowl
came back to look for O'Hma's daught-
er; and as he peeped into the door of
the squalid fiat he saw a thin, yellow
eyed young man, with a bony face, all
furry In promise of the future whiskers,
rummaging through O'Hara's effects
This young gentleman was Mum