The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1922-01-26
CHAPTER M.
Waits and Strays.

When | crawled out of my berth ot
the porter's call the next morning my
Pullman was standing in the Denver
yaru. while | was shaving in the
| waShr0om | asked the cOlOred bOy n
my smoking-rOom chum of the night
before was up yet.
'YnS. sab he done been uD an gone
| for the longest"
Or course, this was mere idle uucS
uoning on my part. Tracing the
brown-hearded mining engineer who
had used rne as convenient dumping
grouI Or his story was the least of
my Intention at the moment. For that
matter. since we hadn't EXCHANGED
cardS, ana l wasn't even sure that 70
heard Ills name straight, l couldn't
rave traced him II had wanted to.
Recalling the story in the garish
lght OF another day, it seemed u bit
less credible than 1t had while was
listening to II, and 1 began to wonder
II the teller Of 1t might not be q mem
Der OF the deathless guild of smoke
room romancers. buried the story
among the things to be smiled at and
forgotten. when took a taxi for the
hotei. AFTER an excellent breakfast /
made few inquiries about the .meri-
dlah the 105th. that the maps showed
as passing just west Of the city. The
maps were right. The l05th meridian,
Whlch Is the one from which mountain
tlihe Is reckoned, ran little west of
the city proper, and, by consequence,
west OF the two other principal cities
OF the state, Colorado Springs and
Pueblo
found that the 1O5th meridian.
tracing 1t north from Denver, stops
short against the 10th parallel Of lnti-
tude just south of little town called
Erie. Traced south, 1t tracks the d.
X. q. railroad for about twenty
mi$eS and then takes to the mountain
barely shutting out Manitou, and pnss-
ing, OF course. well to the west
ward Of Pueblo. This simplified mat
! ters-a little.
Yet this business Of wandering aim
lesSiy from post to pillar, combing the
race OF nature for blue-eyed maidens
ana plebald horses and harlequin faced
dogs was already beginning to strike
me as about the most fantastic thing a
tempt Ii without plan of some kind
seemed worse than useless so, for per
maps the first time in a pretty rattle
Drained life, / sat down to do some
ground-and-iofty head work, with
Cousin Percy's letter for a sort of
nexus.
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 $440,OO0." What single piece
OF property outside Of a large city
could be worth any such sum as that?
l could think of nothing but a mine of
some kind, unless II might be q cattle
ranch, or growth of standing timber;
and In the area laid out for me, mines
would outvOte cattle or timber about a
hundred to one, thought.
Then there was that other phrase:
1T lies in perfectly safe repository.
"Repository" implied recep-
tacle or container of some sort a brick
wall, or barbed-wre fence. or any in.
closing thing you like to Imagine. Could
mine he said to be a "repOsitOry"2
AS you see, kept coming back to
the mine idea, In spite of all | could
do; and at last, without word OF
| warning, and right out OF clear sky.
as you may say, smack a thing hit
me sIuarely between the shoulder
iades-Brown-beard and his eccentric
old gentleman
After / 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
a fellow traveller I'm distress, had pur-
chased any real clue to my own puzzle.
! Yet couldn't get away from the
notion thatX was on the verge of a dis
- sses \ ....-