The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-05-12
THIS BEGINS THE STORY

THIS BEGINS THE STORY
 Peter Nicholaevttch, Russian
 Grand Duke, driven from home
 by recoluftonlstS, arrives in this
 country and gets a job as forester
 on the estate of Jonathan K. Mo-
 Guire, meets 8 girl named Beth
 Cannaeon at the station who turns
 him over to a surly chap named
 Shad Wells. He has heard that
 there is something mysterious
 about the place and about his
 job, but he has had no definite
 inflammation
 AND HERE IN CONTINUES
 Had it not been for the preca utions | of his guide, Peter would have been willing quite easily to forget the tales that had been told him of Black Rock The place was very prettiIy situated in the midst of g. very fine growth of pines, spruce and maple. At one side ran the tea-colored stream els below, where it joined the old race below the ruin that had once been a mill. The Mcclure house emerged in a moment from its woods and shrubbery, and stood revealed & plain square Georgian dwelling of brick, to which had been added a long wing in a poor imitation of the same style and a garage and stables i in no style at all on the slope beyond It seemed a most prosaic place even in the gathering dusk, and Peter seemed quite unable to visualize it as the center of a mystery such as had been described. And the laconic in dividual who had been born triplets was even less calculated to carry out such an illusion.
 But just as they were crossing the lawn on the approach to the house, the earth beneath a cluimp Of bushes vomited forth two men, like the fruit of the Dragons Teeth, armed with rifles, who barred their way. Both men were grinning from ear to ear.
 .All right, Jesse,'' said Shad with a laugh. Its me and the new for ester" He uttered the words with an undeniable accent of contempt.
 The armed figures glanced at Peter and disappeared, and Peter and MT. Shad Wells went up the steps of the house to a spacious portico. There was not human being in sight and the heavy wooden blinds to the lower floor were tightly shut. Before his guide had even reached the door the sound of their footsteps had aroused some one within the house, the door was opened the length of its chain and a face appeared at the aperture.
 Who Is It v! asked male voice.
 "Shad Wells and Mir Nichols. the man from New York"
 Wait a minute" was the reply while the door was immediately shut again.
 Peter glanced around him compar- ing this strange sftuation with anoth- CT that he remembered when a real terror had come, a tangible terror in the shape of a countryside gone mad with blood lust.
 He smiled toward the bush where the armed men lay concealed and to- ward the gate where the other armed man was standing. It was all so like a situation out of an opera bouffe of Ofenbach.
 What he felt now in this strange situation was an intense curiousity to learn the meaning of it all, to meet the mysterious person around whom all these preparations centered. Peter had known fear many times, for fear was in the air for weeks along the Russian front. the fear of German shells. of poison gas, and of that worst poison of alI-Russian treach- cry. But that fear was not like this fear, which was intimate, personal but intangible. He marked it in the scrutiny of the man who opened the door and of the aged woman who suddenly appeared beside him in the dim hallway and led him noiselessly up the stair to a lighted room upon the second floor. At the doorway the woman paused.
 MT. Nichols. MT. McGuire," she said, and Peter entered.