St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1921-12-03


/. Recalling the story in the garish
light of another day, it seemed bit
less credible than it had while was
listening to it, and I began to wonder
II the teller of it might not be men,
Der of the deathless guild of smoke
among the things to be smiled at and
forgotten, when l took a taxi for the
hotel. After an excellent breakfast I
made few inquiries about the meri-
dian; the 1O5th. that the maps showed
as passing just west of the city. The
maps were right. The 105th meridian,
which is the one from which mountain
time is reckoned, ran a little west of
the city proper and, by consequence,
west of the two other principal cities
Of the state, Colorado Springs and
Pueblo.
I found that the 1O5th meridian,
tracing it north from Denver, stops
short against the 40th parallel Of latt-
tude just south Of little town called
Erie. Traced south, it tracks the D.
& r. G. railroad for about twenty
miles and then takes to the mountain
barely shutting out Manitou, and pass
ing, of course, well to the west
ward Of Pueblo. This simplified mat
ters-a little
Yet this business Of wandering aim
lessly from post to pillar, combing the
face of nature for blue-eyed maidens
and piebald horses and harlequln-faced
dogs was already beginning to strike
me as about the most fantastic thing a
body could conceive of doing To at
tempt it without a plan Of some kind
seemed worse than useless so, for per-
haps the first time in pretty rattle
| Drained life, I sat down to do some
ground-and-lofty head work, with
| Cousin Percy's letter for sort of
| MENUS
The third paragraph contained the
meat Of the matter: "Your portion of
Grandfather Jasper's property was
worth, at it's latest valuation, some
thing like $40, 600" What single piece
of property outside Of large city
could be worth any such sum as thatl
/ could think of nothing but mine of
some kind, unless it might be cattle
ranch, or growth of standing timber
and in the area laid out for me, mines
would outyote cattle or timber about a
hundred to one, thought.
Then there was that other phrase:
ut lies in a perfectly safe repository.
Repository, implied recep-
tacle or container of some sort; brick
wall, or barbed-wire fence, or any In
closing thing you like to imagine. Could
mine be said to be repository?
AS you see, I kept coming back to
the mine idea, in spite Of all could
do; and at last, without word OF
warning, and right out Of a clear sky,
as you may say, smack! thing hit
| me squarely between the shoulder
blades Brown-beard and his eccentric
old gentleman!
After l got cooled off bit I had to
admit that there was something less
| than one chance in thousand that, at
| the price of a couple Of cigars given to
| fellow traveller in distress, had pur-
chased any real clue to my own puzzle.
Yet l couldn't get away from the
notion that was ON the verge OF dis
covery. Oddly enough, the miraculous
part Of 1.-THE one chance In million
that I should run across the one per-
son in hundred million who could tell
me that particular story--didn't i'm
press me at the time. I was too busily
engaged in trying to fit the puzzle
pieces together to think Of anything
else at the moment.
Come to sum them up, they fitted as
toundingly well. Grandfather Jasper
had always been exceedingly close
mouthed when speaking Of his invest
ments. Added to that, he would be
the last man in the world to have con-
fessed that he had been bitten, even In
directly, by "gold-brick" game. Then,
too, the course he had pursued with
the mining engineer always granting
the truth of Brown-beard's story) was
Just like him; he would have wanted a
year in which to think 1t over-or may
be longer. Also, it was like him to
keep all the identifying marks as
| carefully hidden as a nut meat In Its
shell.
At this point 1 began to think about
getting action. One word from Bull
| ton. or Bulletin, or whatever his name
| was would settle the identities beyond
| question, and that word was his "old
eentleman's" name. He hadn't men.
| toned 1t once in telling his yarn
/ which might have been by design, OF
Just happen-so. But, by heavens, I'd
make him mention it!
/ happened to think Of the Mining
exchange, and to wonder II somebody
| connected with it might not have a list
of engineers and mining experts. A
| hike through the streets brought me tc
| the exchange and the secretary moi
only had such list, but was willing
| to show 1t to me. In Its proper place
| found the name, Charles Fullerton
| A query shot at the man behind the
| desk elected the information that Mr.
Charles Fullerton was in South Amer
| lea. At this, could have shouted fol
| 10y. because it proved conclusiyelJ
that Charles Fullerton was my man
and that the tale to which I had lis
tened wasn't altogether made up out
of whole cloth, as so many Pullman
smoke-room romances are.
| D,,11or+ ,p,e ,rc,7ol address, whom he