Download the full version of the ebook now at ebookgrade.

com

Molecular Cell Biology 7th Edition by Lodish

https://ebookgrade.com/product/molecular-cell-
biology-7th-edition-by-lodish/

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookgrade.com

Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Black Cat,
Vol. I, No. 7, April 1896
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Black Cat, Vol. I, No. 7, April 1896

Author: Various

Release date: April 12, 2024 [eBook #73381]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: The Shortstory Publishing Co, 1895

Credits: hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from
images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK CAT,

VOL. I, NO. 7, APRIL 1896 ***
 The Black Cat

April 1896.
The Mystery of the Thirty Millions, { T. F. Anderson.
{ H. D. Umbstaetter.
The Man at Solitaria, Geik Turner.
The Compass of Fortune, Eugene Shade Bisbee.
A Surgical Love Cure, James Buckham.
The Williamson Safe Mystery, F. S. Hesseltine.
How Small the World, E. H. Mayde.

5 CENTS
ADVERTISEMENTS
 FORTY YEARS AGO, AS TO-DAY, THE LITTLE FOLKS EVERYWHERE USED
Sozodont
A safe and delightful dentifrice which has become a standard it is economy to use.
It preserves the teeth, hardens the gums and perfumes the breath.
PURE AND FRAGRANT.
Use daily, the powder (accompanying liquid SOZODONT) twice a week. A small
sample will be sent free if you address Hall & Ruckel, Proprietors, New York, and
mention this publication.
AND NOW, AS BIG FOLKS, THEY AND THEIR CHILDREN USE IT!

“Pull Down the Shade.”

That’s easy. The trick is to get it up again.
Isn’t hard if it’s mounted on a “Hartshorn,” the shade-roller that rolls.
Always ready. Always works.
HARTSHORN’S SELF-ACTING SHADE ROLLERS
Beware of imitations
Look for Stewart Hartshorn’s Autograph on the Label.

Regina Music Box.

THE QUEEN OF MUSIC BOXES.
PLAYS 1000 TUNES.
A RARE INSTRUMENT.
Musical people wonder at its brilliancy of tone and artistic effects. It is unrivaled
as a social entertainer. Never needs tuning, is always ready to play, and will last a
lifetime.
PLAYS ALL THE LATEST MUSIC,
and furnishes music for your every mood. Nothing about it to get out of order, and
the tune discs being of metal, are indestructible. These boxes run from 10 to 30
minutes with each winding. The cases are highly ornamental and will prove a
handsome addition to any room. These boxes are cheap enough to place them
within reach of all lovers of good music.
 BOXES FROM $12 TO $100.
Send for handsome illustrated catalogue.
REGINA MUSIC BOX CO., RAHWAY, N. J.

The Black Cat

A Monthly Magazine of Original Short Stories.

5 cents a copy,
No. 7. APRIL, 1896. 50 cents a year.

Entered at the Post-Office at Boston, Mass., as second-class matter.

IMPORTANT.—The entire contents of this magazine are covered by copyright
and publishers
everywhere are cautioned against reproducing any of the stories, either wholly or
in part.
Copyright, 1896, by the Shortstory Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 The Mystery of the Thirty Millions.
BY T. F. ANDERSON AND H. D. UMBSTAETTER.

At eight o’clock on the morning of March 14, 1903, the Anglo-

American liner, the Oklahoma, left her dock in North River on her
regular trip to Southampton.
The fact of her departure, ordinarily of merely local interest, was
telegraphed all over the United States and Canada, and even to
London itself; for there was a significance attached to this particular
trip such as had never before marked the sailing of an ocean
steamship from these shores.
It was not because the great vessel numbered among her crowd
of passengers a well-known English duke and his young bride, the
grand-niece of a world-famous New York railroad magnate, that her
sailing was heralded by such a blowing of trumpets, nor because she
also had upon her lists the names of the august British ambassador
to the United States, returning home on a brief furlough, the noted
French tragedian, fresh from his American triumphs, and a score of
other illustrious personages whose names were household words in
a dozen countries.
The presence of all these notables was merely incidental. What
made this trip of the Oklahoma an event of international interest was
the fact that at this, the apparent climax of the great gold exporting
movement from the United States, now continued until it had almost
drained the national treasury of its precious yellow hoard, and had
precipitated a commercial crisis such as never before had been
experienced, the Oklahoma was taking to the shores of insatiate
John Bull the largest lump amount of gold ever shipped upon a
single vessel within the memory of man.
 Not even in the memorable gold exporting year of 1893, ten years
previous, had any such sum as this been sent abroad at one time.
It was not the usual paltry half million or million dollars that she
was carrying away in her great strong room of steel and teak wood,
but thirty million dollars’ worth of shining eagles and glinting bars,
hastily called across the ocean because of the adverse “balance of
trade” and the temporary mistrust of American securities by the
fickle Europeans.
The mere insurance premium on this vast sum was in itself a
comfortable fortune. Business men wondered why such a large
amount was intrusted to one steamer. Suppose she should collide in
the fog and sink, as one great ship had done only a few weeks
before—what would become of the insurance companies then?
Suppose some daring Napoleon of crime should hatch a startling
conspiracy to seize the steamer, intimidate the crew and passengers,
and possess himself of the huge treasure? “It would be a stake well
worth long risks,” thought some of the police officials, as they read
the headlines in the evening papers.
The Oklahoma was a fast sailer. Her five hundred feet of length
and her twelve thousand tons of displacement were made light work
of by the great clanking, triple-expansion engines when their
combined force of fifteen thousand horse power was brought to bear
upon her twin screws. Under ordinary conditions she ought to have
made port on the other side in time to let her passengers eat late
dinner on the sixth day out. Incoming steamers reported a brief spell
of nasty weather in mid-ocean, however, and so her failure to reach
Southampton on the sixth and even the seventh day was not
particularly remarked.
The great American public had been busy with other weighty
matters in the interim, including a threatened secession of the silver-
producing States; and the departure of this modern argosy with her
precious freight had almost passed into history. For history in the
year 1903 was anything that had happened farther than a week
back—a day, if it was not of overwhelming importance.
If the big ship’s arrival had been cabled on the eighth day, or even
early on the ninth, it would still have found the public in a
comparatively calm state of mind, for the mid-Atlantic storm would
naturally account for a multitude of lost hours; but when the ninth
lapped over onto the tenth and the tenth onto the eleventh and
twelfth, with no tidings of the tardy steamer, surprise grew into
anxiety and anxiety into an international sensation.
Of course all sorts of plausible theories were advanced by the
steamship agents, the newspapers, and other oracles, including that
of the inevitable broken shaft; and these might have sufficed for a
day or two longer had it not been for another and much more
startling theory that suddenly came to the surface and threw two
continents into a fever of trepidation and suspense.
It was the following announcement in a leading New York morning
paper that roused excitement to fever heat: “A new and most
astounding phase has come over the case of the mysteriously
missing Oklahoma. It has just been given out from police
headquarters that ‘Gentleman Jim’ Langwood, the noted cracksman
and forger, whose ten years’ sentence at Sing Sing expired only a
few weeks ago, was in the city several days previous to the sailing of
the Oklahoma and went with her as a passenger, under an assumed
name. Even at that very time the central office detectives were
looking for him, as a tip had been sent around that he was up to
some new deviltry. One of those clever people whom nothing ever
escapes had seen him go aboard almost at the last minute, and gave
an accurate description of his personal appearance, which was
evidently but slightly disguised.
“Langwood is probably the only criminal in the country who would
ever conceive and try to execute such a stupendous undertaking,
and it is something more than a suspicion on the part of the New
York police that he has smuggled on board a couple of dozen well-
armed desperadoes, who could easily hold the entire crew and
passengers in check and make them do their bidding, for a time, at
least. The idea is so replete with thrilling possibilities that the entire
community stands aghast at it.”
It is to be noted that the public always “stands aghast” in such a
case as this; but it is more to the point just now to say that the
article went on, through a column or more, to describe in minute
detail the circumstances attendant upon the departure of
“Gentleman Jim” even to the number and shape of the bundles he
had in his arms. The famous robber was very boyish in appearance,
and one of the last persons in the world whom a chance
acquaintance would think of looking up in the rogues’ gallery.
Evidently he was “out for the stuff,” in most approved stage villain
style, with more millions in the stake than even Colonel Sellers, of
nineteenth century fame, had ever dreamed of. Of course this
theory, which was already accepted as a fact, especially in police and
newspaper circles, was quickly cabled across, and created such a
profound sensation on the other side that even the London papers
had to give it that prominent position which is usually reserved for
American cyclones, crop failures, and labor outbreaks.
Upon the phlegmatic British government it acted much like an
electric shock and nearly threw the foreign office into a panic; for
was not the British minister plenipotentiary himself a passenger on
the ill-fated Oklahoma, and possibly at that very hour being
butchered in cold blood by a lot of Yankee cut-throats?
The thought was too horrible for a moment’s endurance, and
forthwith the cablegrams began to flash thick and fast between the
foreign office and the British legation at Washington.
The result was that, within a few hours after the appearance of
the paragraph, one of the fastest and most powerful of her majesty’s
cruisers, quickly followed by a second and a third, hastily steamed
from Portsmouth Roads, the three spreading out north, west, and
south, like a great marine fan, as they hurried to the rescue of the
Oklahoma and the British ambassador.
 Meanwhile, at the Boston, Brooklyn, and League Island navy yards
three or four of Uncle Sam’s white war dogs were getting up steam
for a similar errand, and a small fleet of ocean-going steamers,
specially chartered by New York, Boston, and Chicago newspapers to
go in search of the absent leviathan, were already threading their
way through the Narrows.
Not for years had there been such world-wide interest in an ocean
expedition. The newspapers commanded an unheard of sale, for
everybody was on the tiptoe of expectation concerning the fate of
the missing steamer, her six hundred passengers and her thirty
millions of gold.
While the public was thus feverishly awaiting the news, certain
discoveries were being made by the New York police, which only
went to confirm their previous suspicions. Four or five other
hardened graduates from state prison were found to be absent from
their accustomed haunts in the East Side slums, although known to
have been in the city just before the Oklahoma sailed, as was
“Gentleman Jim,” himself.
These discoveries had their natural effect upon the public mind,
and the friends of those on board the steamer began to despair of
hearing that even human life had been respected by the piratical
band.
As to the British foreign office, this cumulative evidence threw it
into a perfect frenzy, and it was only by a miracle that a declaration
of war against the United States was averted.
Three days passed by after the departure of the big searching
fleets, during which time all incoming steamers reported that they
had not found a single trace of the Oklahoma either in the northern
or southern route. Vessels from the Mediterranean, the West Indies,
South America, all made the same ominous report.
The tension was terrible. Thousands could not even sleep on
account of the mental strain, and the minds of some of the weaker
actually gave way beneath it. The public by this time was convinced
beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt that the robbers had
successfully carried out their fiendish plan; but how? and when? and
where?
When they opened their newspapers on the morning of the
eighteenth day of suspense, they found the answer to the question,
and the greatest marine mystery of centuries was solved.
In the small hours of the night there had flashed across the
European continent, and under the dark waters of the Atlantic, this
startling message from the representative of the Union Press
Association:—

“Lisbon, April 1.—The missing Oklahoma is disabled at Fayal,

Azores, where she was discovered by the Union Press special
expedition. Many of the half-starved crew and passengers are
on the verge of insanity. The officers tell a most astounding
story of the steamer’s exciting and almost fatal adventures.
On the third night out, the Oklahoma suddenly came under
some mysterious but irresistible influence by which she was
carried rapidly out of her course towards the south. Every
effort was made by the officers to bring the ship back to her
course, but the big liner seemed drifting helplessly at the
mercy of some powerful current. The compasses were
useless, and the wheel no longer exercised the slightest
control over the steamer’s movements.
“Naturally the anxiety of the officers was in no way
diminished when on the morning of the next day, which was
then the fourth day out, another vessel,—a long low-setting
craft of shining steel,—was discovered off the Oklahoma’s
starboard bow, about a mile ahead, but moving in the same
direction. By careful observations it was discovered that the
course of the two steamers was identical. Both were
apparently under the same mysterious influence. Instead of
sighting a rescuer, the Oklahoma had, so it seemed, only
discovered another victim of the irresistible current!
 “Time and again the Oklahoma attempted to signal the
companion ship, but the latter made no reply. Close
observation revealed that she was built on the whaleback
principle, with nothing above decks save ventilators and
signal mast,—but failed to discover any sign of human being.
“By afternoon their continued failure to bring the liner back
to her course had so wrought upon the minds of her officers
that their anxiety infected the spirits of the passengers, who
were now aroused to the real danger that menaced them.
“When the fifth day dawned, with the Oklahoma hundreds
of miles out of the regular transatlantic course, the gravity of
the situation could no longer be concealed. Distress signals
were kept flying, and all possible steam was put on with the
idea of overhauling the companion ship and giving or
receiving aid. To the amazement of both officers and
passengers, however, in spite of every effort, the Oklahoma
failed to gain a single inch on the other vessel. Before they
had time to attempt an explanation of this remarkable fact,
amazement gave way to consternation. For just a moment a
third vessel had appeared on the horizon like a messenger of
hope; but no sooner had she been sighted than with the
swiftness of lightning the mysterious companion craft turned
half around and darted away to the southeast, with the
Oklahoma following as helplessly as though she were in tow.
“In that moment the awful truth was revealed. The steel
vessel was nothing more nor less than a floating loadstone,
which by some mysterious power was dragging the great
ocean monster hither and thither as easily as a magnet draws
a toy ship from one side to the other of a mimic pond!
“Who was she, and what was her motive? Almost before
those on board had asked the question, the answer flashed
upon them. The thirty millions of gold! Beyond a doubt, it was
their capture which she was planning to accomplish, either by
luring the Oklahoma from the regular path of ocean travel,
and looting her and her passengers at leisure, or by
compelling her to run aground upon some remote rock or
shoal.
“With this revelation a new horror unveiled itself. Equipped
as they were only with the supplies for a short trip across the
Atlantic, the overwrought minds of many saw starvation
looming up before them. That night not a soul sought his
berth. From time to time consultations were held between the
chief officers, and many-colored rockets spit and blazed their
signals of distress incessantly across the sky.
“At length, soon after dawn of the sixth day, orders were
given to bank fires and hoist sail in the hope that the
Oklahoma as a sailing vessel might free herself from the
awful influence that chained her.
“But the effort was vain. Wind and sail proved as useless as
wheel and compass against the fatal power of that mysterious
craft which drew the Oklahoma after her as irresistibly as
though the two vessels were united by an unseen hawser.
“The steamer had now become a scene of indescribable
horror. Mealtime, bedtime,—all the customary routine was
disorganized; and daily prayer meetings were conducted
among the more emotional of the passengers.
“Finally, seven days after she had left New York, the
officers of the big liner united in one last desperate effort to
offset the magnetic influence of the mysterious ‘pirate.’ The
fires were revived in the engine room, the steam pressure in
all the boilers was run up to the ‘blowing off’ point; then,
suddenly, the reversing mechanism was applied and a
shudder ran through the great floating city as the twin screws
began to back water.
“For a few minutes there ensued a titanic tug of war such
as the beholders had never before witnessed. The water
astern was lashed into a lather of foam, and for a brief
moment the triumph of steam over magnetism seemed
assured.
“Only for a moment, however, for the cheer that had
ascended from the anxious scores on the deck of the
Oklahoma when she slowly began to back had scarcely died
away when with a mighty crash a vital section of the
overtaxed engines gave way, followed by a hoarse yell of
consternation from the excited engineers and stokers—and
both screws were helpless and still.
“With this failure hope was well-nigh extinguished; and the
Oklahoma, with her precious freight and her 643 human
souls, abandoned all active effort to escape. With not a sail of
any kind in sight, she passively rolled and plunged southward
for seven days after her strange and terrible pilot, from
which, to add to the horror of the situation, no human sign
had yet been given. The supply of rockets was now
exhausted, and food was doled out in minute portions as to
members of a shipwrecked crew in order to husband supplies.
“On the afternoon of the fourteenth day, when the
exhausted passengers had reached the verge of distraction, a
gleam of hope appeared on the horizon in the shape of a
solitary steamer, bearing down from the southwest. A glance
through the telescope proved her to be a fast and formidable
British cruiser, evidently en route from South America to
England.
“At this news a mighty shudder, half of hope, half of fear,
seized the crowd assembled upon the deck. Would the British
cruiser come to their assistance, and if so, would she, too,
become a victim of the magnetic craft? For a moment their
fate hung in the balance; then from three hundred throats
rang out a hoarse cry of joy as the mysterious craft swerved,
turned sharply and shot away over the surface of the Atlantic
due north.
 “The spell was broken. The big liner with her six hundred
human souls and thirty millions in gold was freed from the
power that had for so long held her captive. But crippled as
she was by the accident to her machinery she was unable to
proceed unaided, and was taken in tow by the British
steamer, the Midlothian, and a day later was brought safely
into port at Fayal.
“The Union Press steamer is the first to bring the thrilling
news. The first officer of the Oklahoma and the saloon
passengers, including Sir Gambrel Roufe, the British
ambassador, accompanied your correspondent to Lisbon. A
relief steamer is urgently needed, as the Oklahoma’s engines
are both disabled, and she will not be able to proceed for
several weeks.
“The passenger thought to be ‘Gentleman Jim’ Langwood,
proves to be the Duke of Medfordshire, now on his wedding
trip with his young millionaire American bride.”

Hardly had the excitement caused by this startling intelligence

subsided, when it was once more aroused by a despatch from
Providence, R. I., announcing the capture in the act of robbing a
jewelry store of “Gentleman Jim” Langwood, and a gang of four
other oldtimers, and by the following even more important
cablegram from the Russian representative of the Union Press:—

“St. Petersburg, April 2.—The identity of the mysterious craft

by which the Oklahoma was drawn from her course has been
established beyond a doubt. The vessel is a Hypnotic Cruiser,
recently completed by a Russian inventor, named
Slobodenski, and possessed of an electric apparatus by which
any vessel can be brought completely under its control.
“Whether the Hypnotic Cruiser’s bedevilment of the
Oklahoma was merely a trial of power, or whether plunder
was intended, can only be surmised. But naval lawyers say
that this marvelous new invention will revolutionize naval
warfare and necessitate the passage of stringent laws to
cover a crime for which at present no penalty exists.”
 The Man at Solitaria.
BY GEIK TURNER.

Solitaria will be found indicated on the map by a circle half as large

as that which represents Chicago. That is Solitaria as it is advertised.
In reality it consists of a side-track and watering tank on the Great
Western Railroad, and a little wooden box opposite, courteously
called a station, which is inhabited by a man whose aim in life is to
watch the side-track and telegraph along the line how it is occupied
at various hours of the day and night. Just to the east the Great
Western makes its only distinct curve for miles through a little piece
of woods. To the west it stretches straight across the face of
Indiana, mottled with a million half-burned stumps, and cut into big
squares by incalculable miles of rail fence.
The man at Solitaria got to thinking it over—he had a great deal of
time to do this—and he made up his mind that matters were going
all wrong. In the first place, he thought he ought to be allowed more
than twenty-five dollars a month for his services, and that,
considering he had been running Solitaria alone for fifteen years,
they ought to give him an assistant to talk to—to talk to and to allow
him an occasional chance to sleep. These were, of course, entirely
personal matters. But finally he made up his mind the whole thing
was run wrong. It stood to reason; they never gave it any rest. Day
after day and night after night they had sent freight trains and
express trains, and express trains and freight trains chasing each
other along the road till they had got it so it was all going to break
down pretty soon,—the road, and the cars, and the men, and he
himself—especially he himself; he saw that plainly. They were all
going to stop short, one of these days, and fly to pieces.
 Now, take himself, for instance: was it right that they should have
kept running their trains by his door twenty-four hours out of the
day, and 365 days a year, for fifteen years, disturbing him and
depriving him of what little sleep belonged to him? Yet all night long
they persisted in sending their freights jarring and clanking by and
their express trains shrieking and making up time along the level
grade. He got so he knew those whistles by name—he could hear
them shriek for miles and miles in either direction—coming nearer
and nearer, till the train rushed by in a cloud of yellow light. Then
the next one came. It was bad enough at that, but when they got to
calling him names it was more than he could bear.
Besides, there was the electricity those trains kept making and
storing up in his station, faster than he could ever hope to get rid of
it. It was taking his life away. He went out and watched the wheels
of the freight trains crunching, and grinding, and squealing by, and
he could see it just rolling off and running into the station. Then
nights it came stealing over him, and numbing him, just as soon as
he tried to get a little sleep, which, heaven knew, he was entitled to.
Anybody knows that trains running by like that, day and night, store
up more electricity in a station than a man can bear, especially if he
is all alone. But they paid no attention to that. He often thought he
would write to the division superintendent, who had been a
telegraph operator himself, and ought to think of such things, and
tell him to stop it. But this plan he never carried out; he had asked
for things before.
Now, whatever might be said, no one could accuse the Man at
Solitaria of not giving the matter sufficient thought. For months
during the summer he sat out on the platform of his box, in the
baking sun daytimes, and through the close, airless Indiana nights,
looking down the tracks between train times, and considering the
question. He saw clearly they did not recognize the power and
importance of the man they were wronging. He knew perfectly well,
for instance, that any time he chose he could turn the switch to the
side-track and stand an express train on its head in the ditch. That
would be fascinating, certainly. Indeed, he considered the proposal
seriously for a number of weeks, and figured carefully on what train
he would better take; but finally thought better of this plan, too. It
would only stop one train, which wasn’t what he wanted at all. The
Man at Solitaria felt the responsibility of his position; he decided to
run the whole railroad himself.
Of course, he recognized that there would be opposition to this
scheme on the part of the president and directors of the road, and
the division superintendent,—especially the superintendent,—the
Man knew the division superintendent. But that railroad must be run
right. As a first step in that direction the Man saved up money and
laid in a large supply of canned meats; he also secured two forty-
four caliber revolvers and half a dozen boxes of cartridges.
Of course, the management of the Great Western Railroad didn’t
know what was going on in the mind of the Man—especially as he
carried on most of his communication with human beings by
telegraph. It didn’t care much, either, as long as he kept awake
eighteen hours a day and watched the side-track and told them how
it was occupied. Consequently, no one knew of his intention of
operating the road, and no one knew or probably ever will know why
he chose such an unpleasant day for starting it.
It wasn’t unpleasant in the sense that it was rainy—it was merely
hot. Along down the track the heat rose in great zigzags, where the
yellow sun beat down and baked a crust over the surface of Indiana.
There was not a breeze in the air, not a sound except the occasional
call of a quail from some distant rail fence, or the cry of a
seventeen-year locust in a dead tree. On the sunny side of the
station at Solitaria the thermometer took its stand at 118 degrees,
and refused to be moved, and the air was a semi-solid mass of
cinders.
The Man at Solitaria made up his mind he would shut down his
railroad at six o’clock. He laid in a good supply of water and loaded
up his revolvers; then he shut up the station and made a kind of
barricade of old ties around his telegraph instrument, and sat down
inside and waited.
 No. 64, the fast freight from the West, was due at 6.10 o’clock to
draw up on the siding. No. 24, the fast express from the East, was
due at 6.17. At 6.03 the Man telegraphed the station east that the
freight was on the side-track and the main line was clear. The freight
was not yet in sight. At 6.13 it reached the station, hurrying to make
up lost time, and ran off the track; some one had turned the switch
half way. The big engine jumped the rails, crashed up on the station
platform, and stopped, without being overturned; three cars went
off with it. The brakemen came running up along the train, and the
engineer and fireman climbed down out of the cab, swearing and
looking for the operator. Just then the express could be heard
rushing along from the east, and two brakemen started up the track
to head it off, on the dead run. At 6.16 the train appeared in sight.
When she came around the curve and saw the freight she just
stiffened right out and slid. It wasn’t quite soon enough, however.
She struck the freight cars just before she came to a stop, smashing
a cylinder and nearly jerking the heads off the passengers. All the
windows and doors of the coaches flew open with a slam, and the
train hands and passengers began to swarm out like hornets out of a
hornets’ nest. The trainmen started forward on the run to see what
was the matter and to look up the operator and find out what he
was trying to do.
The Man opened a window in front of the station, with a revolver
in his hand, and told them that what he was trying to do was none
of their business. He was operating this damned road now, and he
wanted them to understand it. Besides, he didn’t want them on his
platform. By way of emphasis, he fired a couple of shots as close to
their feet as he could without hitting them. They got off, and he shut
down the window with a bang. Somebody went around and tried a
window in the rear, and he fired two shots through the glass. It was
just as well they didn’t try it again, for he would have nailed them
the next time.
Then the trainmen went off to a respectful distance and discussed
the situation, and the passengers retreated behind the coaches. The
Man sat down and telegraphed that the express had gone by, but
that No. 64 had a hot box on the side-track, which might keep it
there for some time, so that No. 31, the westbound freight, had
better be sent along. He would hold No. 64 for it. So No. 31 came
along. It nearly paralyzed the passengers of the express train when
they heard it on the line, but the brakemen stopped it all right in
time to prevent it from landing on the back of the coaches.
By this time the station at Solitaria presented an unwonted and
active scene. Three trains were huddled up around the place, two of
them tangled together in a heap. The engine of No. 64 stood up
inquiringly on the station platform, like a big dog waiting to be let in.
The trainmen and the passengers still stood around and discussed
ways and means and swore at the Man and the infernal heat.
Several times they had tried to approach the Man, but the Man at
Solitaria was unapproachable. A big passenger from the West had
declared he would go up, anyway, as a little thing like that had a
comparatively mild effect on his nerves, and a small passenger from
the East had tried the effect of kind words and moral suasion; but
the big six-shooters of the Man had an equally discouraging effect
on both.
In fact, the exhilaration of running a railroad was beginning to
exercise a strange fascination on the Man at Solitaria. This was only
natural, after all. The way he ran things was a good deal like firing
railroad trains at a mark, with the certainty of hitting it, if nobody
interfered. He recognized, however, that there was need of great
discretion and intelligence in the matter. The train despatcher was
already making the telegraph instrument chatter like a sewing-
machine, asking the station to the west what had become of the
express, which, of course, the station west didn’t know.
The Man sent word down the line that a brakeman had come into
the station and said there was a big wreck at a culvert three miles
west. It was a bad wreck, with a great many killed, and the wrecking
train should be sent at once. The train could run right by his station
to the place, as the line was clear. In fifteen minutes the wrecking
train was drawing out of the Centerville station, seventeen miles
east, with all the doctors that could be raised in the vicinity, and
coming down the line sixty miles an hour in a halo of hot cinders. If
it hadn’t been for a line of brakemen stationed up above the curve,
there would have been a great opening for young doctors in
Centerville. As it was, the train stopped so short on the curve that
the front trucks of the engine ran off and the one passenger coach
was jolted full of a mixture of frightened doctors and medicine vials.
By this time the Man had been operating the road for an hour and
a half, and the excitement of the thing was growing intense,
especially among the disgruntled officials he had superseded. Trains
were beginning to stack up at the stations east and west, waiting for
developments, and the train despatcher was beating such a devil’s
tattoo on his instrument, trying to find out what was going on,
anyhow, that the Man used up a great deal of patience and
ingenuity trying to shoot him. As for the division superintendent,
who had come on the wrecking train, his hair was rapidly growing
white. But, as long as he could not effect a compromise with the
Man, there was nothing he could do. The Man was engaged at
present furnishing information on Solitaria to the outside world, and
it was futile to try to conceive what his rich imagination would
prompt him to do next. On the other hand, the freight engine on one
side and the engine of the wrecker on the other cooped up the only
able engine on the track, and made advance or retreat impossible as
long as the wrecker couldn’t turn to and haul itself up on the track.
But the Man refused to compromise. The division superintendent
finally gave it up and started overland for the next telegraph station,
ten miles away.
In the meanwhile matters were coming to a desperate crisis in the
parade before the station at Solitaria. It was growing dark. Under
the circumstances there was cause for excitement, although there
was a line of brakemen, armed with lanterns, stretched out half a
mile either way. It was generally agreed that the lamps in the cars
should be left unlighted in deference to the opinion of the women,
who thought lights would afford too good a mark, supposing the
Man should decide to turn his attention to a little target practise. The
engineers and express messengers lit theirs, however, and the
headlights on the two middle engines were started, and threw a
yellow glare on the cars before them. The Man paid no attention to
matters of this kind, so long as he saw they did not interfere with his
plans for operating his road.
About this time a couple of brakemen put their heads together
and, getting in back of the tender of the express engine, began to
fire chunks of coal through the window at the Man when he was
telegraphing. They figured that it would make the Man mad and that
he might exhaust his ammunition upon the tender. It did set him
going for awhile, and the sound of smashing glass, the crack of the
revolver, and the spat of the bullets up against the tender roused
considerable interest, especially among the women. Then the Man
made up his mind not to shoot any more; they couldn’t do him much
harm, anyway, from behind the tender, and he decided to devote no
more of his official time to them. So they knew no more about his
supply of ammunition than before. Besides, the thing was beginning
to be too much for the women in the cars, who got an idea from the
noise that something was going on or was about to, and the
conductors called the brakemen off. They were afraid they might get
the Man too much excited.
As it got darker, however, the ideas of the men on the outside
began to crystalize. About everything possible had been tried and
failed. At 8.30 o’clock a determined minority decided to go gunning
for the Man. It seemed a rather inhuman thing to do, but there was
no knowing what was going to turn up. It was really a case of self-
defense. Accordingly a messenger was sent across the fields to a
farmhouse for a shotgun.
At this time a ridiculous thing happened. The Man went to sleep.
This seems incredible until it is remembered that he had been up
very late the night before arranging the schedule for his road. As for
the men on the outside, they thought at first he was merely leaning
forward over his instrument; then some one suggested that he
might be asleep, but the crowd was against him, the popular theory
being that he was probably playing some trick. The beams of one of
the headlights streamed in the front window of the station and
showed him very plainly. He made an interesting, if not entirely
charming picture in the yellow light,—especially his white face and
his straggly black hair. If he had made the slightest move the crowd
would have seen it; but he didn’t. So after he had lain perfectly still
for ten minutes many said that they were comfortably sure that he
was really asleep. A young physician who watched him awhile said
they couldn’t wake him with a club,—it was one of the peculiar
symptoms of what ailed him,—and suggested that now was the
golden opportunity for those whose business it was, to gather him in
without the slightest danger to themselves. There was a long and
unanimous silence, during which the theory of subterfuge on the
part of the Man gained ground. Finally the doctor said he would be
one of two men to go in after him; a freight brakeman said he would
be the other. They went to the rear of the station and opened a
catch in a window where a piece of coal had broken out a light,
raised the sash, and crawled in. The crowd kept watch of the Man,
prepared to yell if he stirred. But he didn’t stir. The two men crawled
up behind the barricade, around in front where the headlight
streamed in and jumped. Then the crowd came through the front
windows, and the Man was gathered in.
Now this is the plain and unvarnished tale of how the Man at
Solitaria ran the Great Western Road. There is no probability that he
will resume the management. Nevertheless he inaugurated one
improvement for which the traveling public should be grateful. The
new Man at Solitaria has an assistant.
 The Compass of Fortune.
BY EUGENE SHADE BISBEE.

A few days after his return to New York from twenty years’
prospecting in South America, Alfred Leighton found the following
letter at his hotel:—

“Buena Vista, Tarryville-on-the-Hudson,

April 26, 189—.
“Dear Alfred: A moment ago, to my astonishment and
delight, I ran across your name among yesterday’s hotel
arrivals. I won’t waste words in telling you what pleasure this
news gives me, but write at once to ask you to come up here
with bag and baggage, so that we may talk over old times
and compare notes as to how the world has used us since we
parted thirty years ago.
“Telegraph when you are coming, and I will meet you at
the train.
“Yours, as of yore,
“Melville Barrett.”

For a moment after finishing the letter Leighton stood

dumfounded, his mind swiftly gathering up the threads of long-
forgotten experiences and friendships. It was now almost thirty
years since he and Melville Barrett had chummed together at
college, but the letter and the signature were enough to recall the
brilliant, luckless fellow who had been Leighton’s roommate during
the latter’s senior year. As nearly as he could remember, Barrett, in
spite of his mental gifts, had never got on in the world, and, at last
accounts, had gone West where he had dropped out of sight
apparently for good and all. And now, behold, he had turned up
again in the character of a landed proprietor! Had Barrett at last
struck it rich?
Five hours later when, after a drive in a well-appointed landau
through a winding avenue, the carriage stopped at a big colonial
mansion, and Leighton was ushered into an imposing hallway,
carpeted with oriental rugs and decorated with tropical plants and
curios from many lands, his mind recurred to the same question.
And during the dinner that followed, served by well-trained servants,
in a tapestry-hung dining-room, and the hour spent examining the
rare plants in the adjoining conservatory, Leighton found himself
varying the question by the mental inquiry,—“How had Barrett struck
it rich?”
For an answer to this question he had not long to wait. As the two
men sat together before the open fire in the library, over their
Havanas and after-dinner, coffee, reviving the experiences of years
ago, Barrett suddenly exclaimed, turning to his companion:—
“I suppose you are surprised to find me, at last, a property holder,
instead of the luckless, poverty-stricken chap you used to know. Very
likely, you’ve been wondering whether I have fallen heir to a
fortune.” Then, hardly noticing his friend’s evasive answer, he
continued: “I have come into a fortune, but not through the death of
friend or relative. In fact, the manner in which it was gained was so
extraordinary that neither I nor the friend who shared the adventure
have cared to speak about it. And people simply know that, like so
many others, we struck it rich in the land of gold. But you, who were
the companion of my college days, and so know that I never took
any stock in the supernatural, will, I am sure, believe what I have to
tell you, especially as I hold the proof. If its duplicate can be
produced by human hands, then I am ready to accept any
commonplace explanation that the maker may offer.
“The whole thing is as great a mystery to me to-day as when it
happened, eighteen years ago. My friend Mitchell and I had been