Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1925-07-02
Copyright BY r. p. Dutton g Co.,


! belonging to that class of Improbable
ties that only those who love to make
more mystery rather than to lessen it.
seize with all the joy of the amateur
secret service men who had amused
Peter so much during the war.
The vital facts as Peter saw them
were to be found among those which
attended the disappearance of men
men of different types who at moments
some years apart had sunk to the bot
tom Of nonexistence like two plum
NETS
One Of these men, Jim Hennepin,
had gone to his end without fear: he
had only shown excitement. He had
limited that some call or message of
great advantage had come to him. At
the time he left he had given, appar-
emily without intention, scrap Of pa.
per bearing the symbolic figure of the
feathered snake-the Kuk-ul-can, god
OF the Magyar civilization. According
TO Parmalee, who not only had been
much in the desert country but who
was student Of it's history and a col
lector of books bearing upon its an
tlqulties, the appearance of this sym.
Dol suggested the southwestern United
States or Mexico.
When, however, Parmalee himself
mad disappeared less than four years
later 1t was at the end of long period
IN Which he indicated beyond doubt
that he had some knowledge, however
vague, of the danger that threatened
MIN. Peter had often on his voyage
across the Atlantic, squeezed all the
conclusions possible from the facts
bearing upon whether Parmalee feared
known enemy or one unknown
Brena's strange husband at times in.
dlcated a fear of a known and human
agency; when he had shot at an imag-
mary intruder in their New York
apartment he had said, II thought II
was him." remark that he had after
ward explained by saying he referred
to the burglar that he believed had en-
tered. Parmalee's violent objeCuo to
the exhibition of Brena's portrait with
her name attached might well have
been the objection of man who feared
that some one by chance seeing the
picture and recognizing it would trace
the original by inquiries addressed to
the artist.
What had 1t meant that this extraor-
binary man had surrounded his life
with defenses as If forewarned of his
fate? He employed only servants be
knew, he built defensive walls, put ur
bars at his windows, retained the
chauffeur, Paul, because the man
would be handy with his fists in an
emergency. he bought a fanged mon.
grel beast to roam about the grounds
at night. He lived in terror which
burned his nerves and chilled his heart
that drove him jibbering to the bottle
and he Indicated more than once tha,
this was all due to his wife-that n
was she who dragged this trail of un.
known horror.
/ But when he had gone-vanisbed
without trace, he. like Jim Hennepin
went willingly.
What was the bait? In Hennepin,s
case it had been money. This could
not have drawn Parmalee.
Peter got up and looked out over the
city sweltering in the purple hazy sum
mer night, blinking its yellow eyes sc
If these eyes were full Of salty perspi.
ration.
Well, the two men had gone willing
ly and had thereafter disappeared as
completely as wisps OF smoke in a tenn
pest or raindrops on the sea. Some
force drew them, Peter told himself
some force that perhaps was capable
of calling craftily to that which In
each man would respond. Parmalee
had pretended to some knowledge Of
what this force was. How did he
known
Peter walked back to the dark OAK
mantel and, opening his wallet that
lay there, he took out the sheet Of pa.
per which had told him of his own
danger. There was the explanation
Parmalee too had been warned. But in
spite of that warning he, too, had gone
had been dissolved, had been wiped
out like tiny chalk mark by a giant
thumb.
And what conclusion could be drawn
from all of this-all that Peter knew,
He saw it suddenly. He had beer
tumbling over and over again into tbe
error that pitfalls so many of his coun
trymen; he wanted to assume the
facts upon which conclusion is to be
based Often he had seen the same
delusive yearning when a political
leader with noble sentiments and
high-sounding purposes based his pro
gram upon a world not as it is but as
good men would like to have it and
tolled, after him, those persons who
liked to call themselves idealists; He
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