Free trader-journal and Ottawa fair dealer. (Ottawa, Ill.) 1920-1927, 1920-10-26

Beyond drawing heavily on his bank
and sending prummoud hret note,
Whitaker failed to renew communion
zion with his home. He sank into n
state of se,ui-apulhctic content. Abe
Adventures was five months oat of
port before he began to be conscious
that he WIS truly HccurScG, There
came Il gradual thckcnnC Of the
shadows that threatened to eclipse his
existence. And then, one day rs they
dined with the lonely trader of an
isolated station in the D'EntrccHSteQuX
Islands, he fell from his chair rs If
pOleaXcd. He regained consciousness
only to shiver with the chill of the
wind that's famed by the wings of
death. 1t was impossible to mcyc him.
Thcs agoulos Of the damned were his
when, with exquisite gentlene@5, they
lifted him to bed. j.. .
Stark Sailed In the Adventures be-
fore shutdown of the same day, purpoS-
ing To fetch surgeon from Port
Moreshy. Whitaker said last farewell
to his friend. knowing III his soul that
they would never meet again. Then he
composed himself to die Quietly. But
the following morning brought hap
chance trading schooner to the island,
and with 1t. In the estate of super
cargo, a Crapulous Scotch gentleman
who had been famous Specialist OF
London before drink laid him by the
heels. He performed a heroic oper-
alton upon Whitaker within an hour,
announced by nightfall that the pa
Iient would recover and the next day
sailed with his ship TO end his days in
some abandoned Australian boxing
ken--ns Whitaker learned in sydney
several months later.
In the same place, and at the same
time. he received his first authentic
news of the fate of the Adventures.
The yacht had struck on an uncharted
reef, in heavy weather, and had foun-
dered almost Immediately. OF her
entire company, solitary sailor man
aged to cling to ltfc-raft until picked
up, week after the wreck, by II tramp
steamship on whose decks he gHsped
out his news and his life in the same
breaths.
Whitaker hunted up an account Of
the disaster in the files OF Il local news
paper. He read that the owner, Peter
Stark. Esq, and his guest, II. NJ. Whit
aker, Esq, both of New York, had
gone down with the vessel. There
was also II cable dispatch from New
York detailing Peter Stark's social
and financial neutrality-suspicious.
that the news had been cublcl home.
To all who knew him Whitaker was
rs dead as Peter Stark.
There is a world outside the one you
know
To which for curiousness Ell can't
compare;
1t Is the place where wilful musings
60,
kipling's lines buzzed through his
head more than once in the course OF
the next few years; for he WAS
there They We're years of such
vugnbondnge as only the South Seas
countcnance; neither unhappy nor
very strenuous, nor yet scared by the
tooth of poverty. Whitaker had be-
tween four and five thousand dollars
In travellers checks which he convert
"a
mory of the wreck of the Adventures
was already fading from the Australian
mind no ona dreamed of challenging
the signature Of a man seven months
dead. And as certainly aud as quietly
rs the memory, Whitaker fndcd away;
Hugh Morten took his place, aud sgd
ney knew him no more. nor did any
other parts wherein he had answered
to his rlghtful name.
The money stayed by him handsome
ly. Thanks to strong constitution in
tough body (now that it's malignant
demon was cxorcSed) he found it easy
to pick up living by one means or
another. Indeed he played many parts
in as many fields before joining hands
with young Englishmnn he had
grown to like and entering upon what
seemed forlorn bid for fortune.
Thereafter he prospered amazingly.
When ut length he did make up his
mind to 60 home he was in Melbourne
with Lynch, his partner Whitaker
passed old friends in the street. They
were George Presbury and his wife
Anne Forsythe that s-self-evident
tourists, looking the town over between
steamers. Presbury. with no thought
IN his bumptious head of meeting
Hugh Whitaker before the day of judg.
ment, looked at and through him with
out a hint of recognition; but his wife
was another person altogether. Whit
aker could not be blind to the surprise
and perlexity that shone in her eyes,
even though he pretended to be blind
10 her uncertain nod; long after his
back alone was visible to her he could