, 1922-12-17
CHAPTER XVI cconunusdl

TN THE TIMES she discovered a
81 number Of suggestive deaths. Here
%Swas the story Of a man who slipped
into the swollen Colorado river. which
was running one OF its annual amoks.
Here were u hundred people IN Colo
rHdo STAG swept out Of their homes
and drowned by a torrent Here was
q rich mar whose neck was broken
IN an overturned car. here were a
score effaced IN a collision between
an auto bus and an electric train.
Here was a New Yorker shot dead
in his oajamas as he sat with a lap
full OF morning letters. Here was a
man found buried in his own cellar;
here was a mid-western gentleman
for whose murder his wife and his
s~tepdaughter We're being tried, the
allegation being that they a filled
him with arsenic tnken from nypaper.
Here was a man who hired a hobo TO
pay a practical Joke on his wife and
pretend to hold them Up IN their
doorway; then the amazing drama
list shos the hobo dead. shot his wife
dead. and announced that he had
taken part in a pistol duel with a
highwRyman. The cynical police
f9Hnd a few flaws in his glib story
1nd wrung a confession from him.
He was a very religious young man
too. and superior 10 all small vices.
And the jury at his first trial dts
agreed as TO his guilt. since he r.
pudiated his confession. A secon5
jury found him guilty. but he plead
cd insanity and deferred the penalty.
Altogether an original genius in
crime. Mem enyied him his ingsn-
uity.
There were Instances enough and
too many OF deaths activities in the
Newspaper. Here was an aviator do
ing a moving picture stunt whose
down burned to a crisp. Here was a
man killed in his automobile by a
big tree falling over him.
There was such an embarrassment
OF riches thai Mem could not select
a single method OF doing away with
Mr.. woodville. She forgot him ut
terly for q while in a page devoted
to the gossip Of moving. picture stu
dos. She saw that Robnia Teele and
ATom Hobby had come back TO Holly
vNod from a dash to New York for
local color. and would soon b. going
out again "on location" wherever
that was. She saw .hat Viva d'Artois
and her husband had reooened their
beautiful bungalow In Glendale. She
.,-- sk-N At rfap, vpro bod urrf.taI
and taken a palatiaI house for her
stay Maurice Maeteriinck had
come out on a special train. Many
English men and women OF fame
were on their way. and herds OF au-
thors who, being American, were I'm
important, Domestic goods are al
ways shoddy. n imported elegant.
Mem reversed TO her plot. She had
her mourning all ready to put on.
But here was a new complication. II
she arrived in Yuma as a widow she
must don her mourning in the train.
She would have to retire to the mar
row cell OF the women's room and
make the change there. That was
inconvenient, but not impossible. 1t
was .he only thing to DO.
Yet If she went in n maid and out
y widow. people might notice the
(change and wonder: for she had been
well observed by the other paasen-
gers. a few OF them had remarked
that It vas hot, or asked her II It
were not hot. Pretty hot, what7''
one woman had said. Mem had
thought peevishly what q funny
thing 1t was the way folks used
''pretty"-"pretty hot" meant '.hide-
Gus hot"
She knew that women were like
cameras for s~napshotting other wo-
mems clothes at a glance and re-
Wondering them like a photograph.
Mem didn't nolice such things much;
We. men had noticed her-two men
particularly: one of them n flashy.
impudent creature with hard, e1plor-
ing eyes that fairly nosed her like a
pigs snout; the other q lonely deer
eyed thing pleading for pity with a
woman-hungry stare.
Mem had a flash Of unusual Gym
icism toward the moralities. Why Is
1t thai we feel SO sorry for the lone
illness of the timid man and so dis.
NSusted with the loneliness OF the
Bod mani The loneliness must hurt
both of them about the same. But
she did not dwell on h thought.
Humanity Is never going to give the
sympathy to the hyena that it wastes
on the more destructive rabbit.
What settled Mems debate was the
realization h a If she donned her