Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1920-12-13
fast as the train swung around

fast as the train swung around q
curve at. Mott Haven. was thrown off.
4 Brooke came from Honolulu, and
was on, his way to visit his uncle. a
Boston stock broker named Perry.
on the Overland express, which was
wrecked at Sledville, Ind, two nights
ago, who escaped injury"
"The body was removed to the
morgue." .-
Having read the article once in,
frantic haste. Brooke read it now
again more slowly, his brain swept
meanwhile by a flood of RETROSPECT
ton and an avalanche of possibilities.
In his excitement over finding the
money he had paid small heed to his
own missing bag with it's inexpensive
n unimportant contents. s8
His trunk he had checked straight
through to- his uncle in Boston, but
the fact that he was without a change
of clothing had failed to make any
particular impression, absorbed as he
was in the chance finding of a for
tune, the reward for the return Of
which, he fancied, would be more
than. enough to compensate him for
his loss and Inconvenience.
And now it seemed that the only
logical conclusion was that the nan
who lay dead at the morgue was the
rightful possessor of the bag and the
money which had fallen SO strangely
into Brooke's hands. Aid, there be-
ing no letters or other papers on the
Lody. there was nothing to indicate
the mans identity. It was natural.
Brooke thought his own bag having
been unclaimed, to fancy that he was
the victim.
He wondered whether his uncle
would come on to identify the body.
He supposed he would, and yet he
would be at a disadvantage. Alexan-
der Perry had not seen his nephew
since he was four years old, and
Brooke doubted that he had ever
been the recipient of a photograph in
all the intervening time. Certainly he
had had no photograph recently.
How then was he to know?
Would not the mans clothes, or his
hat at least, have some identifying
label to prove that he was not from
Honolulu? All the chances were that
were that in his pockets would have
been found some card or men,oran-
dunn to prove, If not his name,> at
least that he was not a stranger
from the far Pacific isle.
Brooke ran Over in his mind the
men who had been his fellow pas
sengers from Buffalo, in an effort ia
identify this unfortunate, so shock
ingly taken from a life which nAlst
have been worth living. seeing that
that he possessed such ar ample for
tune in ready money. But he Mad
failed to observe with any degree Of
interest the men on the train.
He had been SO deeply absorbed il
Of The night before, and especially the
scene in the little farmhouse. and II
reproaching himself for failing t.
learn the name Of the. woman he had
succored. that his fellow passenger
were little more to hfna than shadows
leaving no impression whatsoever MP.
on his memory.
But the question for him to decide
now was whether or not to revea'
himself. Should he go to the morgut
and declare that the body brough,
there was not his body? Should HI
wire his uncle that he was still alive
and that the announcement Of hi
death, as Mark Twain once graphi.
'cally and humorously put it. was pre-
mature?
\, should he turn the bag Of money
over to, the authorities and claim hi
own bag In return? The situation Of.
fered a problem that required q dea,
. OF thinking for Its proper. solution
and thinking Favored with sound
judgment,
Il must, be remembered, however
that Brooke was not only young Sbu'
romantic. Had he been older and
more pr0saic his reasoning migh,
have taken q different trend. AS i
wa. It ran along the lines Of pure ad.
venture AZ he had learned It from
story books. There was no flaw ii
his honesty. Not for one moment die
he consider the possibility OF making
this million odd dollars his own. 4
was not his, That was conceded, from
tho sArst. hut he felt that he had M
right "a deliver II until he could IND
the riEhtful owner. II he turned &
over TO the coroner or 70 the police
there was h telling Whist disposition
might be sInade OF 1T. He had, read
sonyething Of the easy consciences o.
niunicipal pficerS in sthe crest cities
of8 the United StAtes and ne Wa dis.
fin6ltaol St6Stake anySSfisks. sass
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