New Britain herald., 1930-10-02
DAGGER by Mary Dahlberg

: , Synopsis: Dagger Marley, spirited young niece of a Texas ranchman, , loves two men in succession and loses both. Blaine Howard, whom she rescues from Mexican border insurgents. is killed on the Western Front in France. Captain John Va neering, flying ace, whom she mar rfes, dies in an airplane crash. Dag ger finds that she cherishes the memory of Howard more than that of her dead husband. In Paris the Duo de Pontoise falls in love with her, but she refuses to marry him. Instead, she decides to visit three friends of Howard in Africa, h. adia and China, initiating a pilgrim age he once made in search of the answer to hfe's riddle. First she visits Sidi Marut Arab chieftain, who advises her that one should do what he thinks right Next, in India, Ghulam Bulk, Buddhist holy man, tells her that peace lies in forgetfulness of self. She starts for China to find Chang Kai Sho, Chinese military leader.
 Chapter 32
 DAGGER MEETS A WAR LORD
 Dagger's leisurely voyage across the Bay of Bengal, through the Straits to Singapore, and north through the China Sea to Shanghai. was at once restful and stimulating.
 She found interesting compan- icns, both Fasteners and Western as she could about Chang Kai Sho. A most remarkable man, everyone, was agreed. To her, apparently, the most interesting character identified with her journey.
 The son of a poor ilet-farmer, he had become a successful bandit during the hazardous days of the usso-Japanese War, and in the period of confusion attending the collapse of the Empire and the Civil Wars which followed had acquitted the power of sovereign prince in the great northern prov ince of Sung-liu, rich, populous and 50. situated as to be the strategical key to all of North China. Bolshe- vists, Japanese and warning Chi nese republicans alike courted and bribed him. and his armies, officer ed and trained by foreign merce. S hries. were regarded as the trump 6afd in any hostilities which oc- cured
 What she heard of him aroused ptgger's curiosity still further, and she left Shanghai by the first avail jAble train for <Pekin.
 With a special letter of introduc- ton from the American Minister to the Consul at Sung-fu, Chang's capital, she took the Northern ex- press across the Great Wall and up through the millet fields into the rolling hills of the north country Where coolies grew to be as tall as tall Westerners. and the people of the villages bore themselves with ar aggressive self-respect.
 A different country, this. There was order and discipline aE the way stations: the train kept to it's schedule: service was prompt and efficient; and foreigners were neither scowled at nor ignored. destination, Dagger appreciated that a man as positive in his per sonality as Ghulam Bulk was the animating force of this system of administration.
 Sung-fu was a vast, sprawling city of half a million souls, quaint combination of Chinese and West ern ideals, civilization and indus trialism. In the Old Walled City, streets were jumbled in confusion past Western comprehension. Shops were very similar to those of the North African cities Dagger had visited; sanitation was ignored; people lived in the intimacy of a beehive; business, trade. manufac- ture were conducted on the most primitive basis. But adjoining the Walled City, | surrounding 1t. were more modern quarters. mainly Chinese in archi- ltCluIc, lO be ouIe, yet SUI uS to adopt some measure of the | spaciousness of the West, while | here and there foundries roared and l factories spun and wove and punched metal.
 In the midst of all was reared Chang's palace, a building of colos- sal dimensions, conceived in an atrocious mimicry of nineteenth century public buildings in Europe, Its one claim to beauty was the park which ringed its ugly square bulk. The garden wall was dotted with sentries and machine guns, and in barracks adjacent a battalion Of infantry slept constantly upon their arms.
 Americans, from the Consul down, were inclined to laugh at Tagger's ambition to meet the Tu- chun--
 My dear lady, he's a most at tractive bandit and he has the largest harem of Western women owned by any one individual in China; but you'd be disappointed in him, I assure you. He takes him
 self very seriously. And I wouldn't encourage woman of your position to meet hin-not that he could do