Williams news., 1922-08-25
THE INDIAN DRUM E William ande
rg and Sdwi,1 Bal,ner


 I Corvet's life was not only in the past i; | 1t was something still going on. It had amazed SherrtlI to learn that Corvet for twenty years, had kept trace of Alan but Corvet had kept trace in the same way and with the same secrecy of many other people-of about score of people. When Alan thought of Corvet, alone in his silent house, he must think of him as solicitous about these people; as seeking for their names in the newspapers which he took for that purpose, and as re- cording the changes in their lives. The deaths, the births, the marriages among these people had been of the intensest interest to Corvet-
 It was possible that none of these people knew about Corvet; Alan had not known about him in Kansas, but had known only that some unknown person had sent money for his support. But he appreciated that 1t did not matter whether they knew about him or not; for at some point common to all of them, the lives of these people must have touched Corvet's life. When Alan knew what had been that point of contact, he would know about Cor vet; he would know about himself.
 Alan had seen among Corvet's DOOhS d StI O1 CudTIS OI Ine Lakes. He went and got that now and an atlas. Opening them upon the ta- ble, he looked up the addresses given on Corvet's list. They were most of them, he found, towns about the north ern end of the lake; a very few upon other 1akes-Superior and Huron but most were upon or very close to Lake Michigan. These people lived by means of the lake; they got their sus- tenance from it, as Corvet had lived, and as Corvet had got his wealth. Alan was feeling like one who, bound, has been suddenly unloosed. From the time when, coming to see Corvet, he had found Corvet gone, until now, he had felt the impossibility of explaining from anything he knew or seemed like ly to learn the mystery which had sur rounded himself and which had sur rounded Corvet- But these names and addresses! They indeed offered some thing to go upon, though Luke now was forever still, and his pockets had told Alan nothing.
 He found Emmet county on the map and put his finger on it. Spearman, WaSSaQuam had said, came from there. "The Land of the Druml'' he said aloud. Deep and sudden feeling stirred in him as he traced out this
  villages, the islands and headlands, their lights and their uneven shores. A feeling of "home'' had come to him, which he had not had on coming to Chi cago. There were Indian names and French up there about the meetings of the great waters. The sense that he was of these lakes, that surge of feeling which he had felt first in con- versation with Constance Sherri1 was an hundredfo1d.
 He gazed down at the lists of names | which Benjamin Corvet had kept so | carefully and so secretly; these were | his fathers people. too; these ragged l shores and the islands studding the | channels were the lands where his fla | ther had spent the most active part | of his life. There, then-these lists now made it certain-that events had | happened by which that life had been | blighted. North, there by the meeting | of the waters, was the region of the | wrong which was done.
 That's where I must gol" he said aloud. That's where I must gor'
 
 Constance Sherril1, on the following afternoon, received a telephone call from her father; he was coming home earlier than usual, he said; if she had
  til after he got there? Tke afternoons mail was upon stand in the hall She turned it over, looking through tin vitations, social notes. She picked from among them an envelope ad- dressed to herself in a firm, clear hand, which, unfamiliar to her, still queerly startled her, and tore it open. Dear Miss Sherrill." she read,
 'I am closing, for the time being, the house which, for default of other ownership, I must call mine. The pos sibility that what has occurred. here would cause you and your father anXi- ety about me in case I went away without telling you of my intention is the reason for this note. But it is not the only reason. I could not go away without telling you how deeply I ap- preciate the generosity and delicacy you and your father have shown me In spite of my position here and of the fact that I had no claim at all upon you. I shall not forget those, even though what happened here last night makes 1t impossible for me to try to see you again or even to write to you.
 ALLAN CONRAD"
 She heard her tather's motor enter 1 tT,<, dy-ixy h Iof I