The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1925-07-31
Copyright by p. P. Dutton g Co.,

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! belonging to that class of improbable
ties that only those who love to make
more mystery rather than to lessen ii,
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 Mayan civilization. According
| to Parmalee, who not only had been
liuNh Tie uCSCtt NOuhIly DuI WIN
was student of its history and col
lector of books bearing upon it's an
| tiquities, the appearance of this sym
Dol suggested the southwestern United
States or Mexico.
When, however, Parmalee himself
had disappeared less than four years
later it 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
him. Peter had often on his voyage
across the Atlantic, squeezed all the
conclusions possible from the facts
| bearing upon whether Parmalee feared
a known enemy or one unknown.
Brena's strange husband at times in
| dictated fear Of a known and human
agency; when he had shot at an imag-
mary intruder In their New York
apartment he had said, 81 thought it
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 objection 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 it meant that this extraor-
binary man had surrounded his life
with defenses as If forewarned of his
fate? He employed only servants he
knew, he built defensive walls, put up
bars at his windows, retained the
chauffeur, Paul, because the man
| would be handy with his fists in an
emergency, he bought 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 that
this was all due to his wife-that II
was she who dragged this trail of un-
known horror.
But when he had gone-vanished
without trace, he, like Jim Hennepin,
went willingly.
| What was the bait? In Hennepins
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-
-ner night, blinking its yellow eyes as
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 tenn
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
| know?
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 been
| tumbling over and over again into the
error that pitfalls so many of his coun-
trymen; he wanted to assume the
facts upon WHICH a conclusion is to be
based. Often he had seen the same
delusive yearning when political
leader with noble sentiments and
high-sounding purposes based his pro-
| gram upon 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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