The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-10-12
CHAPTER VII.
Hardin and Humpy.

Hardin and Humpy. The ex-consul was not hard to find | as lawyer, once judge, and now lead | ing politician in a Southern n1anu- l featuring town, a person eager fol l an audience. glad to talk with one l who could throw upon him the light of greatness once achieved as hrs country's foreign representative in far off lands.
 He remembered Hardin, the crazy little druggist.
 'I thought there might be some thing in his story.' he said. ''but what chance had he against the hide
 bound British government, represent
 ed by old Fairweather? As a matter
 of fact, all his talk was hearsay
 though it rang true, for all his ex-
 cttable manner. But Forsythe was a rich man and Hardin was a nut, plainly speaking. He had an orchid he could have sold through me for five thousand dollars, and he wouldn't though I was seeing that he got his meals. He paid me back, later, fair enough, when he got a job with the Mavinas plantation. And he bothered the life out of me with his pleas for justice. I couldn't send an expedi- tion up river to bring in the Indians. Their evidence ain't worth a damn, anyway.
 'But I was sorry for the little beg gar. He believed what he said. This chap Barnes had saved his life onc.. Grabbed him off in front of a train when Hardin was staggering drunk across the tracks in his hometown. He was the village drunkard then. Or dope-fend, one of the two.'
 Where was that?" asked Cairns.
 'Scip1o. Missouri. A swamp village that makes barrel slaves and buys more Quinine for swamp fever than aany other town of twenty times US size. bar none.' said Selwyn. Barnes picks him up, out of the sweep of Deaths scythe, as it were ,stra1gnrens him out, gives him a talkin-to hands him a little money, persuades Hardin.s wife to take him back, and makes a
 man out of a misshapen bit of swamp timber. That part of it's goapeI I got it from Mrs. Hardin. She's dead long since.
 And then Barnes, 'cordin' to Hardins gets up against it, inancin' a crook partner on some notes. He gets a tip there's wild flower ou, there in the jungle some crazy gaze bos are willing,to pay thousands for. and he has no money. you see. Hardin has got a little drug store in St. LOUIS and he goes the limit to back Barnes. And they both lose out. I just come into part of their lives, you may say, but Hardin and Barnes both sound mighty good to me though I guess the parrots have said prayers over Barnes remains for many a day.
 Cairns left, 5ubliant. He knew where Hardin's drug store had been in St. Louis. It was on the corner of the street where Quando spun her TURh Wh ho per and envelopes that matched up with the autograph-seeker's station cry. And Paxton was Hardin, still on Forsythe's trail, convinced, even as he, Cairns had been, by the talk of Nami and his fellows in the Jungle.
 But what had Quando to do with Hardin? Why she had so fiercely de- tended him, even to putting her own sons neck in Jeojardy, Cairns could how Hardin had wrought F'orsythe's death.
 Meanwhile, like a hound that has once muzzled up the well-laid scent he rushed along the trail, pausing only to see Claire Carroll for a brief visit and recapitulate his wanderings and his deductions. Rainey he saw not. But Blatchley came to him in New York before he started for St. LOUIS ana begged to accompany him.
 If Forsythe reserved his death, If he committed a crime and it can be proven" he said, then it gives clear fair reason for Claire refusing to touch his inheritance, blood money won by treachery. I am a stubborn fool. Cairns, and think prejudiced Forsythe, though he gave no reason for it save not liking this homeIy mug Of mine. But the one person in all the world l care for has read my soul and, without hers to march with mine, life means very little.
 T have enough for both, enough Tor all she wishes. She has told me all that you have said and done, and It means to me new hope. Let me come with you. I can make the in qu1ries in St. Louis that you cannot, handicapped with Quando and her brood. More than that. hold a sym pathy for Hardin. poor devil, that I am sure you share. and want to be his counsel.
 First, the thing must be solved. It is not fit that such a death should go unsolved. Men may not be done away with in such mysterious fash 1en- I was sceptical, I admit Even now cannot see how the thing was accomplished, but believe that Cla1re's instinct, like your own- is finer I?''