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RAMA MISS senna SSE TEES

RANK MERRIWELL JR. “eBLUE BONNET MINE

. ow Hare- and-Hounds on New Mexican Hills.

STREET & SMITH ° .PUBLISHERS ° NEW YORK
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An Ideal Publication For The American Youth

 

 

 

Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, according to an act of Congress, March 8, 1879. Published by

 

 

 

 

 

 

tee STREET & SMITH, 79-89 Seventh Ave., New York. Copyright, 1914>0y,STREET & SMITH. O. G. Smith and G. C. Smith, Proprietors.
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No. 114. NEW YORK, October 3, 1914. Price Five Cents.

 

 

FRANK MERRIWELL, JR. AT THE BLUE BONNET MINE:

Or, HARE AND HOUNDS ON NEW MEXICAN HILLS.

By BURT L. STANDISH.

CHAPTER I. “Hunting is the sport of kings,” said the boy loftily.
2 athe Tl lente tai & *fRe en I was over in England last season we were in-
: Bre Mout to the shooting at Lord Arrogant’s, and the

a brave wan. How manny bir-rds have ye killed, and
how much shot have ye wasted the day now?”
He was lying on the warm sand, looking with twinkling
eyes at the boy who reclined near him, The Irishman was
strong and athletic, with a whimsical face, burned red
by the ardent sun of New Mexico. The boy was un-
dersized, and he had a scornful look. He was dressed
ina comfortable khaki outing suit, a light twenty-gauge
double-barreled. shotgun lay at his side, and a cigarette
dangled limply on his lips.
They had met in the hills by chance a few minutes
before, and, as is the custom when people meet in out-
- of-the-way places, they had exchanged greetings. Both
being tired, they had dropped down on the sand to-
* | gether.

_ Not liking the Irishman’s tone, which he thought chaffing

and critical, the young fellow was on the point of giving
« him a tart answer, but something in the Irishman’s. smiling
; eyes stayed him.

Yet he looked somewhat scornfully, with his superior
air at the Irishman, who was roughly dressed, and had been
carrying a prospector’s hammer and specimen pouch, as
well as a small blanket roll and food supply.

_“T suppose that’s the way you look at it—always think-
ing of what is wasted,” said the boy, somewhat sul-
“Henly. “But you’re not in a position to judge and pass
"Sentence on a fellow like me.”

"2 “Maybe I’m not,” said the Irishman, amused by this
»» show of heat and resentment.

“Of course you aren't.”

“By which ye mane thot a worrukin’ man has no right
to criticize th’ idle rich?”

   
   

ey
e
E

anne

/“Ye’re a great spoort,” said the Irishman genially, “and * king was out there in the line of shooters.”

“An’ they driv th’ bir-rds up to him?”

“What’s that got to do with it? He was the King
of England, and he was shooting birds.”

“So ye’ve been in England, acrass the say? It takes
money.”

The boy exhaled a cloud of smoke. .

“Oh, of course. It takes money to do anything... That
little shotgun cost. me more than a hundred dollars.”

“Ye’re father has got bales o’ th’ green, I take it?”

“Well, back East, where money isn’t as uncomnion as
it is out here, he’s ‘considered one of the wealthiest men
there,” the boy boasted.

“Ye don’t say now!”

“And he has just bought a mine, a silver mine, out

here in New Mexico—the mine that’s called the Blue

Bonnet.”
“Ve don’t tell me!”

“Why, he’s got more money than—than forty silver
mines are worth.”

“And here I haven’t got the price av wan! What d’ye
think av it? No wondher th’ worruld is going to the
dogs an’ cats an’ other animuls, whin a boy loike you,
thot niver airned a cint, can have iverything, and a hard-
wurrukin’ man loike Barney Mulloy has to dig th’ same

>”

as anny ould badger joost to make a livin’.

“That’s because of your lack of money to start with,
your lack of training and education, and all that, you
know.”

“Ah-h, ut is?”

“Of course.”

“I suppose ye’re that iducated ye can’t think?”

\

    
  
   
    
  
  
  
  
   
    
  
   
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
     
   
    
  
 
   
. lading. I’m alone much av th’

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Be
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th

- NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

education I expect to have
hroug know.”

“Will Bes let ve? .

“With the money my father has got? Of course they
will. I don’t care so much for the education, but I
want the degree.”

“Ve'll be an honor to Yale!”

“Well, I ‘don’t expect to disgrace it. I expect to be
treated right there, and helped along. They wouldn’t
dare to do otherwise, for, you see, they might think
my father would leave the college a lot of money when
he dies, and he wouldn’t, if I wasn’t treated well.”

“Ye’ve got a wide view of life, sonny; I can sée ut.”

“Three times you’ve called me sonny; I wish you
wouldn’t. I’m no little kid!”

The Irishman’s red face rounded in a smile.

“Beggin’ yer pardon fer that same. But I didn’t know
yere name, ye see.”

“Tts Realf—Robert Realf.
my sister’s name is Rhoda, and I'm Robert ;
the three Rs.”

“Readin’,
tion.”

“T ought to have a pretty wide view of life,” Realf
boasted ; “I’ve been everywhere, and I’ve been to the best
schools, and I’ve had all the advantages: that money

My father’s name is Ruel,
they call us

’ritin’, an’ ’rithmetic; ‘tis a good combina-

‘can buy.”

: “Me son, it can’t buy brains. It’s intirely too bad that

it. can’t.”

“That’s personal ?”

“Not in. the laste;
out loud. Ut’s a habit due intirely to the life I’vs
toime, ye see, goin’ trough
the mountains prospecting; an’ wan gets into the bad
habit av talkin’ to himself, lackin’ some wan to talk to.
Sometimies I’m addressin’ me mule, whin I have wan; and
at other times I foind mesilf addressin’ the rocks. I

chip at thim with me hammer, and spake polite to thim,

askin’ thim to open up to me their saycrets.”

“Théy do it, of course?”

“Now and thin.”
“Well, you can see what it would mean to you if
you had an education—if you were a real geologist, and
not merely a prospector ; :mé
and faults and fissures and all that, and you could tell
easy, without. so much hard work.”

“Worrukin’ is healthy, me boy.”

“Thank you, I don’t care for it; and a fellow with

plenty of money’don’t need it, But, of course, you can't
understand that.” The boy turned lazily and blew out a
cloud of smoke. “I tell you it’s nice to be rich.”

“You've got the whole worruld agreein’ with ye, me
boy.”
The youthful face was disfigured with disdain.
“Do you know, you kinda make me tired?”

“*Tis too bad.”

“Yes, you make me tired. You began by. criticizing
me”. |

‘The genial Irishman laughed softly.

“T’ve had ixperience, me boy.”

“What kind of experience? Living with laborers and
miners and such cattle! If you. had ever lived East, or

ee to school, or had money———”

he Tis iligant manners ye were taught, annyway. But,

lok Kye, Tye been to school, and l’ye been in th East, and

you'd know about the séams

T’ve aven heard th’ chink av real goold a long time belure Fs
ye was born, me son. In thim schools. ye’re sp’akin’
av they should have taught ye niver to judge a pitcher
be its frame.” a

The boy turned languidly and regarded the Irishman i
with mild resentment. |

*“Now you're guying me,” he said, his cigarette hanging
limply on his lips; “that is, you’re trying to.”

“To the bist av schools I’ve been. I’ve aven seen 1 thy
insides av th’ buildin’s ye call Yale.”

“Went in at one door and out at the other!”

“Be that as it may. And I’ve had money to spind. And
I’ve sane the worruld, and I’ve sane life. I could give ye
some advice.” . or

“Ha, ha! You!”

“?'Tis the truth I’m sp’akin’.
ye would be like pourin’ wather into the say, monody, would
iver be able to noticé the iffict.” —

“Ha; ha! I suppose you’ve. been abroad, too?”

“Ve’re tellin’ the truth.”

“Been in England and in Wales—and in jails ;
you've been there, all right.” .
“Ye've a funny .way with ye, me son,
yell iver know more tha you do. now.
the jails, but I’ve been in thim other places,” :
“And have got an ancestry reaching back: to William, “the -

Conqueror, .of. course.” PAE cm

The young fellow kicked out with: his haces Joughinyen

“Tis a gintleman and a scholar ye are, I can-see””. The

oe hey

But x. Hii if
Tve_ skipped

 Trishman’s temper still held, but there was ‘A: -flush on: his

I was merely sp’akin’ me thoughts»

red face that was. not made; by the sunburn. Is ut ime.

: anecistry ?”

if

7

yy

“Say, you're funny!

“I thry to be; ut takes a bee ay humor to git along
with some paple.”

“Ha, ha!”

The Irishman begat to fangh with iia "

“Tis all gight. I’m nading a bit. of the ‘chastenin
tongte, and I admit it. Whin. I. was J’avin’ me ancisth

~ castle”

“Ha, ha! Ancestral castle !” .
“Tt was a mud hut, with a thatch roof, and it sto od
the land of the blarney stone, and me mother lived th
God rist her soul! She wasyth’ daughter av Irish kings
though ye’ll not be belavin’ ut. :No-mather. She was bu
a poor Irish woman thin, and past glories andthe blood |
av Irish kings in her veins didn’t kape the wolf from
the dure. So her son, which is me, was going to Ameriky
to see av it didn’t offer him something betther t

could ixpict in Ireland. He was to make a dalé ay
money, and sind ut to her, and she was to come an £
with him in the land of the free. ’Twas a foine’ dr
But the good ould mother died befure it could come

the help of some friends. So his ancistry is ae ight
he has airned and spint money, and he ha
thing of that iducation that can. be got in s
that wider iducation that can be got outside a
he’s still worrukin’, and still Bs ai and sti
Ah, me!” P

“ eupR Oe,

 

But pourin’ advice into —
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

“Th’ same; about mesilf, Barney Mulloy, Ye wouldn’t
know ut, but ’twas th’ name av wan of thim Irish kings
I was tellin’ ye about. Though I don’t value it for that,
but becaz Mulloy was the name av me mother, and Bar-
ney the name she gave me.”
The boy looked up at the sky. He*wouldn’t acknowl-
__ édge it even to himself, but he was inwardly abashed.
The Irishman was also silent, looking off at the scrub-
clad sand of the New Mexican hills.
“This mine that ye call the Blue Bonnet,” he said finally;
“fs ut close by?” .
“Right off beyond that little mountain. I was out to
see it yesterday. Father is going out to-morrow again,
with Mr. Merriwell.”
The Irishman gave him a quick look.
“Say that last name ag’in.”
“Merriwell.”
“And the first name av him is what?”
“Dick, or, perhaps, Richard.”
“The blue eyes of the Irishman became suddenly moist.
“Brother. av Frank Merriwell, I take it.”
“No, he’s the uncle of Frank Merriwell.”
_ “The uncle av wan Frank Merriwell and the brother av
the other. I’ve heard av him.”
“Nearly everybody has.”
“Ye’re right, I guess.”
“You know them? But, of course, you don’t.”
“I knew Frank Merriwell wance; a long time ago it
was, me boy.”
“Of course he doesn’t remember you now.”
The Irishman was silent, looking again at the hills.
“This Dick Merriwell is to visit the mine with yer
father ?”
“To-morrow, I think.
for him.”
“To-morrow. He’s in Santy Fay, thin?”
“We're all there—been there for nearly a.week. But,
eas I think I told you, we’re going back East*: now.”
_.The Irishman’s lips’ were moving.
“Merriwell!” he said, whispering it, while his blue eyes
shone and his cheeks were flushed.

Mr. Merriwell is investigating it

CHAPTER II.

a AT THE BLUE BONNET.

Barney Mulloy sat looking at the hills, thinking, after

young Realf had taken his shotgun and set out’ to get
his tethered pony for the purpose of riding back into
anta Fe,

_ “Av th’ father is loike th’ sun, Dick Merriwell will airn
“bis money while worrukin’ for him. It brings back all the
ould days, that name av Merriwell. I’m wanting to go in

nd see him, and av ’twas Frank, now, I’d do ut.”

‘If Gituek Mulloy had been a bit more inquisitive, he
would have heard of Swiftwing as well as Dick Merri-
well, and of Swiftwing’s adventures with Chip Merriwell
and Doc Fisher at the pueblo of Taos.
4+ He had known John Swiftwing well, for he and Swift-
Wing were members of the ball team that Frank Merri-
well had conducted on a triumphant tour through the
West a number of years before. He had been with the
ball team on Pike’s Peak when Herbert Hammerswell
had tried to kill Frank with a rifle, and at the archery
meet when Hammerswell hired the Indian archer, Crazy
pais to slay Frank by a pretended accidental discharge

of an arrow; a plotted crime, for which both Ham-
merswell and Crazy Head were sent to the Colorado
penitentiary, at Cafion City.

Mulloy would have learned, too, that Hammerswell
had been pardoned, and was out of prison, and was al-
ready abusing his liberty; that he had been the agent
who negotiated the sale of the Blue Bonnet to Ruel Realf;
that he had engineered a dastardly attempt against Dick
Merriwell’s life, and at Taos had spread a net, into which
young Frank Merriwell and Doc Fisher had fallen. And
that he had escaped there from Swiftwing, and was again
at large.

Ignorant of these things, Barney Mulloy, Frank Mer-
riwell’s old-time Irish friend and chum, sat a long time
looking blindly at the hills, while his mind roved through
the strange fields of the past.

His memory traveled the round of the Fardale days
when he had been at school there with Frank Merriwell
and Hans Dunnerwust and a lot more. There had been
hard work, excitements, and many happenings both movy-
ing and humorous. It was a pleasant thing to go over
those old experiences again in memory.

Recalling so vividly the past, Mulloy had a great long-
ing to see Frank himself, and, in lieu of that, to go into
Santa Fe and see Dick Merriwell and young Frank. He
smiled a ‘bit grimly, wondering what they would think
of him in his rough prospector’s clothing; and, with the
smile still lingering, he decided not to go. He had
found that sometimes it is best not to meet some of his
iol q friends again after the lapse of too long a time, be-
fats ‘of changes in himself and in them.

0 ey Mulloy had contrived always to make a good
“living for one of his simple tastes, but he had never
contrived to save up much money. His Irish heart
was of too generous a make-up. He had an open hand
for any one in want, and it seemed that people were
always in want. He could not bear to see a woman or
a child crying or in distress, and if any little money he
might have could relieve them, he gave it gladly: He
was free-handed and lavish with every one Lut himself.
But then, as he often reflected, it was lucky that for
himself he needed very little. There would never have
been anything for others had it been otherwise.

Barney never regretted that he had given away his
money as fast as he could make it, reasoning that money
is good only when it does good. And so, though he had
no money to show for his years of toil, he had an inner
wealth of good will for everybody, that really brought him’
more comfort and happiness than gold could have done.

While he could not decide to go into Santa Fe to see
Dick Merriwell, it occurred to him that a meeting with
Dick might be brought about very naturally and pleasantly
if he could secure temporary employment at the Blue
Bonnet, .

“Thank ye, me boy,” he said, speaking aloud and nod-
ding his head in the direction that young Realf had taken;
“but for our chance meetin’, ye see, I wouldn’t had th’
information ye gave me. I can wash out av me mouth
the bad taste ye left by thinkin’ av that. Ye’re young.
But I wonder will ye know more whin ye’re older? The
loikesav ye niver learn aisy.”

Rising, he began to wend his way round the low moun-
tain, looking for a trail that would lead him to the Blue
Bonnet. Now and then, as he went along, he stopped

 
e money. in their hands.

f

and chipped with his hammer at certain ledges which at-
tracted his attention.

“From th’ ould philosophers down to the prisint we're
always lookin’ fr the stone that can be turned into goold,
or maybe it is silver. If happiness is threasure, I was a
millionaire whin I was in Fardale.”

He came in sight of the mining shaft and the dump
of the Blue Bonnet when, the sun was»yet an hour
high.

In a shedlike office that was part of onl of the mine
buildings a man sat at a desk paying off the men who
had come out of the mine. Mulloy stopped on seeing
him through the window, before he was seen himself.

“Whurroo!” he said, fairly whistling it, as he halted
in the path. “Avy it ain’t Herbert Hammerswell, I'll ate
me whiskers! Sooperintindint av this mine, I take it,
and payin’ aff th’ hands. Now, do yez git that?”

It was a bewildering revelation.

' Hammerswell had changed greatly, yet Mulloy knew
him. He was larger than in the old days, his face was
harder, and it was whiter. Judged solely by his clothing,
he presented the appearance of a gentleman. He had
always dressed well, and had been a spender.

Mulloy stepped aside, so that he could not be seen
from the office window. He was sizing up the situa-
tion. How Hammerswell happened to be the superin-
tendent of the Blue Bonnet he could not even guess. He
‘had thought the rascal was in the penitentiary.

_ Dick Merriwell could not be expected to know Hani-
merswel) personally. He might have heard the name, but

it was likely that Hammerswell was not passing under his.
However that was, Mulloy knew thay the: .

own name.

was, and could be expected to be his enemy. ;

But for his knowledge that Dick Merriwell was likely
to visit the mine on the following day, Barney Mulloy

‘would have retreated. It seemed that: Hammerswell must
know him at once, as readily as he had known Hammers-

well,

Yet he reasoned that this might not be so. Hammerswell
had always ‘dressed much as he was dressed now; while
Mulloy, on that Western baseball trip, had been much of
the time in baseball clothing. In many other ways, Mul-
loy knew he had changed.

He decided to risk it. Hammerswell could do no more
than turn him down. If that happened, he determined
that he would hurry off to Santa Fe and have a talk with
Dick about this old enemy of Frank Merriwell, who seemed

teat he the head SE the management of the Blue Bonnet.

With his hammer displayed, his face steadied into due
_soberness, Mulloy presented himself at the office door.
A number of men were coming out, one by one, with
Mulloy halted one, and asked the’ meaning.
“Ts it the mine he is shutting down?” he inquired.
_ was thinkin’ av applyin’ f’r a job.”
- “Don’t ast me fer the meanin’, ” the man growled; “ast
him; he’s the new owner.”
“The new owner, is it?”
“He’s dischargin’ all the old hands, and has got some
new ones comin’, That’s my understandin’. He’s been
here only to-day.”
oe was prose. f to say he had heard that the mine

. “Vm going to need a good white man.
g

uf dded, as Mulloy’ was again ttirning r
-murderous scoundrel could not fail to learn who> Dick he added, as J aga ; SRW ey

 

‘NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

“The new men will be on whin?” he asked.

“Some of.’em this evenin’, I heard; they’re a lot o
greasers. Take my advice and don’t herd with ’em; they —
ain’t fit fer a white man to associate with.” oe

Mulloy entered the office as the last of the discharged oy
employees left it, and stood before Hammerswell’s desk. —

“Is ut mine work ye have?” he asked, “I’m lookin’ fr ”
a job.” :

The crucial moment had come. Hatmmerswell looked at —
him. There was a shine in Hammerswell’s eyes that Mul- —
loy did not like, as it indicated he had been drinking.
Yet Mulloy hoped the liquor the scoundrel had taken would |
dull him, and make recognition less likely.

“What can you do?” said Hammerswell.

“Anything about a mine.”

“Well, you can report in the morning.
handle Mexicans ?”

“The ‘bist way to answer is to say I’ve done it.” |

“Where have you worked?”

“In Coloraydo and Arizony.” \

“Do you know anything about modern methods?”

“There’s manny that knows ’em betther. But I can
boss a gang av -greasers at anny ordhinary worruk.” od _

“Look in on me in the morning, Here, have you got —
any place to sleep and eat?” he asked, as Mulloy was
turning away. Ne

“T’ve got food in me pack and blankits, and it won’t —
be th’ foorst toime that the sand has been ine bed. Tm
thankin’ ye. T’ll be on hand in the marnin.’

“T guess I can give you a place,” said Honneeee
Mark you, too,”
“T'll pay
you well if you serve me right, .There’s been some little
trouble here, and there may be, more. Those men I’ve
let go thought they had a call to interfere—the leaders
did, and I wiped them off the slate. They'll have time
to think it over and see that they’re fools.”

“T'll do me duty,” said Mulloy.

“Tm looking for trouble. Stand by me, and you'll 1 SE
nothing by it. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Pat. McCarthy.” -

“All right, eigen thy,

afternoon.’

Know how to.

I think I can take you on.

place for the night.
“He didn’t know
ixpicting throuble.

me,” he was thinking. : f
I’m likely to be right in th’ thick

ut ”

CHAPTER III.
THE SPY,

October in New Mexico is glorious and golden,

-a mellow haze on the hills, a streaming sunlight tha

not too warm for comfort, and a winey air that tingles
the blood, The heat of summer has gone, but the cold
of winter is still far off. In the Southwest it is’ ‘the best,
time of the whole year for athletic sports. wa
Races and running games had been uppermost in the *
minds of the youths of Santa Fe since the Pueblo races
at Taos, and long before, when the Indian racers. we

practicing, and reports of it were. circulated.

 
NEW TIP

_ make acquaintances and friends easily. So that already
he had many friends among the younger set. And on
_ his return with Dick Metriwell and Doc Fisher to the
old town he had been besieged by these friends, many of
them importuning him to join them in their running
events.

Now he had agreed to be the hare in a hare-and-
hounds game over the New Mexican hills.

He was in Dick’s room in’ the old adobe hotel where
- they Were staying; and, with a map of Santa Fe and the
region round about, he was going over the route he
thought of taking, discussing the matter with his ex-
perienced uncle.

“T thought it would be a good idea,” he was saying, “to
cuit across by this trail to that little pueblo, then swing
found and return by way of the Blue Bonnet Mine. It
would give the fellows some run, eh?”

_ “All that you would want to undertake, Chip,” said Dick,
smiling.

Chip figured out the distance on the map.

“Dead easy,” he said, “That’s the course I'll lay.”
“You can’t carry enough confetti to mark out the trail,
if you make it too long.”
int “Rasy, for this trail. I’ve figured it out, and I’ve
bought the confetti, and a big canvas bag to carry it in.
You’ ye no idea how far a little of that stuff will go.”

_ Dick smiled.

“Oh, of course you have; I didn’t mean that. What I

“gieatit is that a little goes a long ways, if you're careful.

_ with it.”

“Like money, eh? The trouble is, to be careful with

. And the danger in laying out a confetti trail is that
you will have to lay a trail that can be readily followed,
and in doing it you're likely to use up your material too
soon if the trail is long. But you understand that.”
“There are a lot of things that you could give me
good advice on, though,” Chip insisted. ™

Dick was still smiling.
_ “Oh, I don’t know. You're a pretty ee runner, Chip.
‘Still, there are some things to be remembered. A hare-
and-hounds chase isn’t a sprint. You have to be careful
not to tire yourself at the outset. But you don’t need
‘to be told that. How many hounds will be after you?”
“A dozen or more,” said Chip enthusiastically, “the
more the merrier. Some of ’em are mighty good runners,
too. But they give me fifteen minutes’ start, you see.
T’ve got to lay the trail.” He laughed. t know some
aa T'll take them into, too.”

You’ve got to look out for that. You see, while
y wre laying a hard trail for them, you're laying an
equally hard one for yourself, for they go only where

do. But what I was going to say is, these New

exican hills and trails, containing so much sand, will be
trying. You'll have a smooth road until you are well
‘out from the town, and, of course, you must make all
you can out of that, without overdoing it. Then you'll
"hit the hills, or a trail over the hills, if you hang to the
trail. Take the rises as fast as you can, without over-
- doing. Shorten your stride in going down the hills, and
keep your feet well under you. Don’t overstride. Get
the proper gait—the one you can hold up to; make it
ven and steady. You're inclined to be a shade irregular
in your gait, Chip. Keep it steady, mind about the hills,

cd ponding avay- Of Srna you'r re going to be

TOP WEEKLY.

hampered by handing out that confetti ; but that’s allowed
for in the start they give you.”

A sound was heard on the balcony leatiteng to the room—
the balcony and room opening on the patio; also a scram-
bling, and light steps departing hurriedly.

Then Brad Buckhart was seen in the doorway.

“Come in,’ Dick invited.

“Say,” said Brad, “what did that mean?”

“We're ready to be enlightened as to what it meant,”

“By the great horned toads! That fellow was listening
here at your door, and when I came along he up and
skipped.” .

“That so?” said Dick gravely. “Well, he’s gone. There
are two or three doors down there opening through into
the street, and he’s out of the house by now, I judge.
Mexican, was he? . Or what did he look like?”

“He looked like a scoundrel,” Brad sputtered, coming
on into the room.

“Definite description. I can see him in my mind’s eye,
Horatio! Was he white, black, or just Mexican yellow?
Take this chair, Brad. Whoever he was, he didn’t hear
anything that could help or hurt him, and he didn’t get
a chance to steal anything.”

“What were you talking about?” Brad demanded.

“Here’s a fine gentleman—enters my room and asks me
bluntly what I’ve been talking about! But I'll tell you.
Iwas doping out some wise stuff for the benefit of Frank
Merriwell’s hopeful. He’s going to play rabbit to-
morrow.”

)

ed ”
‘ef “Rabbit?
ae ‘mean hare. All the young fellows here are crazy

for running, since those Pueblo races. He's to be the
hare that’s to be chased across these hills by a lot of
hounds. I was giving him a few words of advice and
catition.”

“But about that scamp that scudded away from your
door,” said Brad, helping himself to.a seat. “Do you
know, it struck me that maybe he was that scoundrel,
Hammerswell. I’ve never seen him to know it, but he
answered to what you told me about him. He wasn’t
here for any good, sur. I wish I could have set my
fingers on his neck.”

Though Dick retained his light air, he was not unim-
pressed.

“I’ve heard several times that the fellow has been seen .
here in Santa Fe. Swiftwing saw him, and others have
done so, too. You see, he’s known here, somewhat, as

the agent who negotiated the sale of the Blue Bonnet ed

to Mr. Realf. Though he didn’t go under the name of
Hammerswell when he did it.”

“T know what you’re thinking,” said Brad, “and ' P’m —
thinking the same. That fellow, whoever he was, prob- —
ably overheard you and Chip talking about the course -
he is to take in that hare and hounds, and if it was Ham-
merswell, he’ll lay for him out there, sure as guns.”

“You're trying to scare me,” said Chip, with a laugh.

“T’ve never seen a Merriwell that would scare, but I’ve
known one rather intimately that lacked a little horse
sense at times, and got into trouble on account of it.”

“You mean Uncle Dick.” i

“Who else? If the ramping steer from Texas hadn't =
been round and nigh about ready to yank him out of
trouble by his coat tails, I don’t know what would have
nen to him. ‘That's whatever!”

 
a ER RET ee CRE
KES ns i F Raster,

*

ne Rm TT

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

Brad nursed his knee and looked so solemn that Dick
broke into a hearty laugh.

“If you saw any one listening at’this door——”

“If I saw any one! Do you hear him?
any one!” :

“If you surely saw any one listening, you probably saw
a sneak thief who contemplated raiding this room some
time, to get at the vast wealth some fools think I’m
carrying about with me. I’ve heard that it’s reported
among the Mexicans that [’m in the multimillionaire
class, and that I lug round a trunk full of gold pieces.”

“But this wasn’t a Mexican. I can tell a greaser as
far off as I can see him,”

“Nothing in it,” said Dick; and Brad discovered sud-
denly that Dick did not think it wise to say anything
further before Chip.

Chip discovered it too.

“Unele Dick thinks I’m still in the little-kid class,” he
grumbled. “’Sh, don’t alarm the baby! But I’m not
afraid of that fellow, even if he was Hammerswell. I
don’t think he could have heard anything but the lecture
Uncle Dick was delivering on how to conduct yourself
when you are a hare and the hounds are after you. We
had already talked about the route I’m to take.”

Brad was about to say that they could not know how
long the rascal had been spying and listening, but desisted.

“Likely it wasn’t Hammerswell,” he admitted.

hE Ls saw

CHAPTER IV.
WITH THE HARE.

The conversation recorded in the preceding chapter
was had“on the evening of the day of Barney Mulloy’s
appearance on: the scene of this story.

Dick Merriwell had been out to the Blue Bonnet
Mine the day before, and had found in possession there
the man from whom Ruel Realf had bought it. Ham-
merswell was not there, and it was not then known where
he was, though it had been reported that he had been seen
in Santa Fe.

On account of that conversation with Buckhart, Dick
Merriwell was rather pleased the next morning when
word came to him that Realf could not go out to the
Blue Bonnet, but would go the day after. As Dick was
to accompany him, that meant a postponement of the trip
for Dick also.

Dick had not advised Chip Merriwell to pull out of the
hare-and-hounds game. He had not thought it wise to do
that. As Brad had very truly said, cowardice was not
a Merriwell trait. Besides, Brad did not know that the
_ man he had seen was Hammerswell. ,

Yet in consenting that Chip should take the part as-
signed him, Dick at the same time thought it wise to take
some precautions to guarantee his safety,

Brad had grown more and more certain that the spy
he had detected at Merriwell’s door was Herbert Ham-
_- merswell, and he held to his opinion that, in all probability,
Hammerswell had overheard Chip’s talk of the course he
meant to follow, and would lay for him somewhere
along it. ;
Chip scoffed at the notion. In fact,
the stirring thought of a little trouble
was not distasteful. Yet, in truth, Ch’p
man had been Hammerswell.

; “Yet, if he is,” -he had. argued, “he

a“ By

it appeared that
out in the hills
doubted that the-
wouldn’t try to

.

harm me now, even if he should be out there. But he'll
not be out there.
has skipped out of the country.” {

Chip would have changed his outlined course if he
had known of another that he thought he could cover
in a manner as satisfactory, He was not thoroughly
acquainted round Santa Fe, but he had been over this —
course, and knew every yard of it.

“Tl stay by my plan,” he said, “and it will be all
right.” * Com

Chip had a little of the heaviness of youth, which ig
takes time to tone down. 7

A mention of the hare-and-hounds game in the even-
ing paper brought out a big crowd to witness the get-
away that morning.

The paper spoke of it as that “fine old English game,
which ought to be made more of in this country than is
the case,” and had gone into details describing it.

“It is,’ the paper said, “played by any number of
boys, the more the merrier, and the greater the interest.
One of the boys is hare, sometimes there are two, if the
run is to be a long one; and they lay a paper trail
that the hounds are to follow. All the other merece
are hounds.

“The hounds have a leader, who is called the master of
the hounds, and he has command of the pack. He has
a subordinate, who is called the whipper-in, whose duty
is to keep the hounds together, or bring them together if —
they become separated in searching for a lost trail. Some-
times the trail/may be dim, caused by the hare not prop-
erly distributing his paper, though it is a point of honor
that he shall do so. But at times the wind blows: it away
in exposed places after he has put the scent there all
right, and’ search must be made to pick up the trail
again. Then the hounds scatter out to hunt for the trail. —
The whipper-in must get them back as ‘soon as he can, —
and to send them on.

“This master of the hounds is provided with a brass
horn or trumpet with which to call the pack together |
when the trail has been found. Aon

“A brief start is given to the hare at the beginning
of the chase, about fifteen minutes or half an hour, if the —
run is to be unusually long. He has to lay the trail,
and needs this extra time to get off and away and well,
out/of sight before the hounds go in pursuit. a

“As soon as the time is up, the hounds start in chase, —
and crowd him as hard as they can. They win the game
if they overtake him before he regains the starting point. —

“Often a run of this kind covers many miles, over what-
ever country the hare chooses to select, the hounds not
knowing where he is going, but following him by the trail _
he has left. Often the greater part of a day is taken ap ae
in this sort of chase. ra

“Spectators may scatter out and view the chase from
any eminences they may be able to find, but this is not
often satisfactory, for they, like the hounds, do not know ~
where the hare is going, that is, if the secret has been
kept properly.

“Because of this uncertainty, spectators, if choosing to
go along, usually accompany the hounds, but must, never
interfere with their work, and, as it is strenuous rum- —
ning nearly all the time, few that are notin the game ~
ever care to accompany the hounds, 4

“They are not allowed to accompany the hare on horse="
back or on foot, as their presence might tell the pursuing ”

 

He is afraid of Uncle Dick, and he nA
complex than those of her brother.

 Merriwell had not been playing hare for

“NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

hounds where the hare is, so that the hounds would not
suffer the handicap of being forced to follow by the paper
trail.

“Altogether, it is an exciting and stimulating game for
young fellows with good running and staying powers. No
others should ever efiter into it, any more than they
should enter into any very strenuous athletic game. It is
only for the physically fit.’

Dick Merriwell appeared at the starting point, out be-
yond the town, accompanied by Robert and Rhoda Realf,
- and by June Arlington, her friend Mrs. Oliver, and Brad
_ Buckhart. They were all mounted on good horses.

Only Dick and Brad had an inkling that Chip Merriwell
might at that moment be preparing to run into trouble
and danger.. They were not to accompany the hounds,
but had given out that they meant to ride out to the
Blue Bonnet, a course that would take them in another

direction from the one/Chip was to purstwe; and the

_statément was true, for they intended to visit the Blue

Bonnet, or go near it.

» - Dick and Brad’s idea was to go near the Blue Bonnet,
‘and then swing inward in such a way that they would
be able to see Chip on at least a part of the final lap
of his long swing round and back to Santa Fe, ‘and so
be hear enough and ready: to hélp him if he needed it.

+ June and Mrs. Oliver were accompanying Dick and

Brad for the sake of the ride+in the winey New -Mexi-

can air, as a gallop across the New Mexican hills in. this

_ Sweet October weather was a sheer. delight.

' © Rhoda and Robert Realf were going along just ‘be-

cause they wanted to, and had not been told to abstain.

However, little Miss Rhoda’s motives were a bit more

Though she was

trying to conceal it from every one, she was not hiding

from herself the knowledge that there would have been

_ nothing in this riding out into the hills that day if Chip
the hounds’ to
follow.

Any discerning one could have read it igher face, and
several discerning ones did read it there, as. she sat
on her riding horse, with June Arlington and Mrs. Oliver,
-twhen the hare and hounds were aie oe. and the people

te collecting to see them off.

_. The-hare and hounds were in fight running costumes.
‘Chip Merriwell, though younger than some of them, was
easily the finest and manliest in general appearance,. with

a certain carriage and air, yet witha boyish earnestness

and: simplicity, and a lovable and straightforward hon-
esty that always and so quickly made him friends.

~ He was wholly different.from young Realf, whose su-—

» periot airs and: scornful face made enemies as easily as
 Chip’s good qualities made friends.

_ It was to Chip a standing marvel how so handsome and

fine a girl as Rhoda could have so contemptible a brother,
though he had been careful to keep this feeling to
himself.

“There's Chip,” he heard Rhoda saying, and it flushed
his face.

When he ventured to look at her, she waved her saad to
him, and Chip doffed his cap.

“A peach!” he was thinking, as he turned to the busi-
‘ness in hand. “June is mighty good looking, and Mrs.
Oliver isn’t bad, but—Rhoda !”

And a vision of a fair, flushed face and blue eyes so
oe, pacing bits out of the blue New Mexican sky fol-

_éased himself down the hill he had. mounted,

lowed him as he talked with the master of the hounds and
the whipper-in, and all the others who felt called on just
then to express opinions on the subject of the race.

The starter was in position by the chalked line, and was
looking at his watch. ,

“Time is up in half’a minute,” he said to Chip.

Chip looked off at the hills and along the road leading
to them, at the mob of spectators crowding so close upon
the runners and the chalked line as the starter would let
them get, then again at the little group on horseback
near by who were watching him, his glance lingering on
the girlish face that had so suddenly captured his fancy;
then he swung his confetti bag to his shoulder, settled it
firmly in place with the straps, and stepped to the line.

The starter looked at his watch again, snapped shut the
case, and dropped it into his pocket. His hand lifted:

“Go!” he said, like a pistol shot.

And Chip Merriwell was off and away, with an easy,
space-devouring stride, along the straight, broad road a
here led to the hills.

The cheers of the spectators arose as they saw that ‘the
game of hare and hounds had started.

The little group on horseback watched Chip Merri-
well until he passed from sight at a bend in the road,
then they galloped away in the direction that led~ ‘toward
the Blue Bonnet. Behind them the spectators - on “foot
were still craning their necks for the last glimpse of —
the trim young runner who was playing hare, and the
boys who were the hounds were trying to control their
impatience until the time should be up for them to start

in pursuit, At such a time, fifteen minutes seem very
die. th Bg .

It was not likely to seem. so long to Chip Mérriwell.
Making the most of the good advice Dick had given him,
he was holding himself well in hand, not exerting him-
self greatly at the start, yet going at a gait that cqvercd
ground rapidly.

The confetti filling the big bag slung at his back, packed
tightly in its hard packages, so that the bag held a,
large quantity, Chip did not need to touch until he got
beyond the beaten road, for all knew he would take the
toad until he was well bey ond the first bend, and out of |
sight.

Then he patised long enough to strip off an wake of a”
package, and, as he went on, he began to scatter a thin
trail of the confetti, here and there, that showed as many
colors as the rainbow. ;

But little was needed to make the trail, it ~iauanee sO
brightly, and Chip did not squander it any more than :
he squandered his strength.

“Here’s where I begin to fool them,” he said, when he
turned back on his track like a running hare, after ap-—
parently sending the trail into and through a mass . of
bushes.

He leaped far out to one side, dabbed down a pith
quantity of the telltale color, gave another leap and’ put
down a little more: then shot away, leaving behind the thin
trail, and changing his course completely. ;

Here is where he had planned to make a cut-off bald
swing on over the hills toward the little pueblo. _ :

Still bearing in mind the good advice of his uncle, Chip.
not ov
striding, and, with his feet well under ‘him. /

 
 

patra amas er
; pm,

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

therefore but little ma-

trail could be readily followed;
terial needed to be wasted on it.

He chuckled, thinking how the soft sand would try the
mettle of some of the hounds he knew.

Time flew so swiftly that it seemed no more than five
minutes had passed before he heard a pistol shot at the
starting point, announcing to him, as well as to the
hounds collected there, that the hounds were released and
on his trail, Then he heard the blare of the keeper’s
horn, and, as if coming from very far off, a sound of dog-
like yapping, with which some of the hounds were wasting
their breath.

Chip felt a thrill go through him when he knew that the
hounds had started, after him, and his imagination began
to play. with the supposition that he was a real hare, and
that hounds were pursuing him for his life.

In spite of this, Chip refused to leap off as if frightened.
If some of the foolish hounds were willing to waste
breath and strength, he was not. He stopped, listening,
gaining his breath. -

He had not tired himself in the least so far, yet his
breathing was naturally faster than usual, and his heart
had quickened its beats.

The keeper’s horn again sent its brassy notes ringing
over the quiet New Mexican hills.

“Wasting his breath, like the other fellows,
tered.

He~ started on again, strewing his thin trail of con-
fetti, letting it dribble in minute quantities behind him as
he ran on.

Instead of shaping his course straight for the little
pueblo, Chip swung off toward the road again, and once
more doubled on his track, trying to puzzle the hounds.

But finally he straightened out toward the pueblo. He
did not desire to do much trail doubling, and so make
the way too long; yet he meant to do enough at savoyerte
points to puzzle the hounds all. he could.

Coming to a small stream of water that made its way
toward the pueblo’ through a sandy hollow between hills,
he entered it.

“They'll be inclined to think that I back-tracked up the
stream, and’so I'll go straight ahead and down it. It will
scatter and delay them, anyway, for they can’t tell which
way I’ve gone.”

Real hares do not take readily to water, but it is allow-

able in playing hare, and it has the advantage, when it

” Chip mut-

can be doné, of making a blind trail, for, as no trail is.

left in water, so the hare, in using a water route, need
not leave his scent behind him in the shape of the tell-
tale paper. ©

Chip kept on wading, or, more properly, splashing, for
the water was not deep, until he came to a rocky. bank,
where he left the water carefully. °
from making a wet trail on the rocks, but he was sure
the sun would dry this before the hounds reached it.
_ Then once again he began to lay his paper trail.
It was past noon when he came to the little pueblo. He
was still running easily, having before this time got his

second wind.

This is a somewhat singular, yet well-known physiologi-
‘eal fact, in which the initial constriction of the lungs
passes away ahd there comes a deeper and freer breath-
ing. When it hasbeen attained, there seems to be given
renewed strength, this latter due to the fact that the blood
is being more rapidly pages through means of the

He could not keep

secaas breathing. Apparently, depths of the lungs, little
used ordinarily, are now brought into use and add amaz-
ingly in giving the runner a sense of untiring ability.
The pueblo that now rose on Chip’s sight was not at all
like the big, many-storied pueblo of Taos, the latter being
perhaps the most celebrated in New Mexico, at least his-
torically; the little pueblo was but a collection of adobe
huts of the pueblo character, inhabited by good-natured
Indians, whose business was the making of rude pottery
and the cutting of firewood, both being for sale in Santa
Fe. In addition, they cultivated small crops of melons,
grains, and fruit, which they irrigated with water brought
from the little stream through which Chip had waded,

In the big, round outdoor ovens, some of the women
were baking their waferlike loaves of bread. The men
were working in the tiny fields, gathering their corn.

All stopped working to stare at Chip, as he passed by
in his running clothes. And Chip wondered: what these
Indians thought of him as he thus swung by their isolated
homes, scattering behind him as he ran those tiny bits
of shining paper.

Chip turned his head to look, after he had passed, and
saw some of the women and men going out to the thin
paper trail and picking up the confetti, which they ex-
amined curiously.

“Well,” he thought, “if they lug off the paper trail it
isn’t my fault; yet I didn’t think of/that at the time:
Still, the hounds won’t be put out: any, for all they'll
have to do will be to ask the Pueblos, and they'll be told
the direction I am taking. Anyway, here goes for the
swing round toward the Blue Bonnet. I’m-holding up
dandy!”

At intervals Chip heard the blaring of the héen ot
the master of the hounds, which told him that ‘they
were sticking to his trail, yet were not gaining any; as
far as he could judge, hare and hounds were holding
about the same distance apart as. when’ the hounds
started. © * Re. cm

“It’s a pity to fool ’em so,” Chip chuckled, as he made
his turn, “They can’t tell which way I will go after
reaching the pueblo; but if they could cut right across
these hills and head me off——” . )

/

There was something exciting in what soon followed,

for, in making the turn which sent him back toward Santa
Fe, Chip, in a little while, was passing southward on one —
side of a hill, while the hounds were tearing along north- —
ward on’the other side of it, with less than a fourth of a
mile separating them.

But the hounds did not know it. :

The doglike yelping, which some of the boys had con-—

trived to keep up, came nearer and nearer, and now and

then sounded a blare of the horn.

Chip darted into’a bushy screen, when the hounds —
came almost opposite. For there was the chance “that —
some of them might climb to the crest of the hill and
see him running along the valley. If they had done
so they would have been privileged to swing off in pur-
suit, as much as if they had been real hounds, sighting
a hare they were following,

It was a lucky thing for Chip’s prospects of winning
out that he did this. The hounds became baffled on ‘the
other side of the hill. Chip, as in honor bound, had laid
the trail as well there as anywhere, or had tried to; but
the wind that was blowing had whisked the paper away

 

 

 
 

NEW

   
 

and blurred the trail, so that the hounds were forced
to scatter out and look for it.
It was a rare thing when they could not pick it up
he without much trouble, and, as soon as any of them found
ay it, the blaring horn brought all the others in, and they
a went right on again on the picked-up trail.
But, apparently, they were having a little more than
ordinary trouble at this point, for, in a short while, as
‘they were beating about, seeking it, two of them came
climbing out on the top of the hill, and looked over into
the valley where Chip lay concealed.
_ It almost seemed to him, as he peered out of his screen

of bushes, that the boys up there could see him, for he
could see them so plainly. One of them had field glasses
slung at his back, and with them he swept the valley up
and down, particularly in the direction of the pueblo.

“T don’t know whether that’s fair or not, for a hound
to use,artificial’ eyes; it doesn’t seem to me that it is,”
thought Chip. “With them he might see my tracks down
here, when he couldn’t in any other way.”
~ Luckily the boy with the glasses did not look long;
the horn blew, announcing that the frail had been found
. again, and the boys disappeared.

Through the valley, over the hills, and straight away
for the Ble Bonnet, Chip Merriwell now sped, as the
hounds, having the scent again, continued on toward the
- pueblo.

_ “This is going to be a cinch, now that danger is past;
I don’t see how they can overtake me, and I’ll be in Santa
_ Fe by three o’clock !”

So Chip Merriwell was thinking as he neared the Blue
Bonnet Mine, in that confidence Which, like pride, some-
times goes. before a fall. Suddenly a rock turned under
his feet as he was climbing over the shoulder of -a- hill,
and he: was hurled sprawling.

Chip .was. thrown with a lurching. motion. He struck
‘heavily, rolled over and over down a taluslike slope of
hard gravel, and brought up against : ‘another rock,
unconscious. :

cae

 

 
   
  
   
  
   
    
    
   
   
  
  
   
  
   
    
   
   
   
 

CHAPTER Y.

WITH THE HOUNDS.

 
 
   
 

When -the hounds, after. successfully picking the trail out
of the water, and surmounting other difficulties, stopped
before the pueblo, where-the trail. had vanished, not able
- to determine which way Chip had taken here, some of them
“were grumbling, some were nearly exhausted, though the
leaders and a few others were as bright and: fresh as
Chip had been when he passed that way.

“Aw, the trail’s gone! He ain’t played fair here.
ain't a bit of paper to be. seen anywhere!”
raved.

_ More than once the Paice of this grumbler had sent up

‘that wail,
F “Scatter out,” said the master of the hounds. “Hunt
it up! -Lay to it, hounds. Dig it out of the ground. It’s
bound to as here. You aren’t going to let him ee you
that easy.”

The master of the hounds and the whipper-in were both
fine young fellows and good runners, square-playing boys
of the kind Chip Merriwell liked to associate with.

Knowing Chip, they were declining to believe he had
‘not played fair all along, though he certainly had given
them some puzzlers now and then that had blocked time-

; one

   
   
  
  
  
  
  

see
*.

 

There
one of them

  
 
  
   
 
   
    

 

 

 

   

TB LOOP WEEREY: : 9

“If he wanted to,” said the master, “he wouldn’t try any _
trick here. The road is open, you see, and the confetti \
has been blown away; there’s some wind going, and here
it has a good sweep. Scatter up and down, for you're
bound to come on it in a little while. Some of you
get off the road and hunt. If he went toward that hill you
can see his tracks in the sand; if he went out behind the
pueblo, he has gone down to the river and taken to the
water there again; but you’re bound to find his paper trail
before you reach the water.”

Some of the Pueblos were hurrying out.

“What um mean?” asked one of the men; “boy go by
here, runnin’, throwin’ red paper, blue paper, all kind
paper; has he shot somebody, and you tryin’ ketch um?
What mean um funny, all kind paper?”

“Which way did he go?” said the leader.

The Pueblo pointed in the direction Chip had taken.

The horn blared, calling in the searchers.

“You picked up the paper,” said the master, in surprise,
as the Pueblo began to pull some of it out of his pocket,
having thrust it there as if it were treasure.

“Si, we pick up um: funny paper.”

The Indian could not understand why, if Chip was try-
ing to get away from this band of pursuers, he had been
throwing down that paper to guide them.

The hounds came leaping in, summoned by the horn.

“He steal somet’ing?” said the Pueblo.

“No, just a game. Fellows, he went that way, this
Pueblo’ says; and they swiped the paper he threw’ down
here, because it was in colors. On with you, hounds; the
trail will be found now again in a little while! Buckle
down to it. We've got to do better than we’ve, been doing,
if we’re going to get him.”

More than half of the boys dropped out at the pueblo,
determined to return to Santa Fe by the Pueblo Trail;
they had stopped just long enough. to begin to cogl and
feel more severely the effects of their running. Some
of them tried to bargain with the Pueblos for the use
of burros and carts in which they could ride in,

Those fresh enough to continue the run passed on, and
found the paper trail again beyond the pueblo.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” one of them said, when they.
discovered that Chip, in returning, had passed so close
to them; “we’ve lost nearly an hour in coming down here;
and we could have headed him. off if we had known.
this.”

“Not so much growling and barking,” said the master.
“On, hounds! If he had lain down by the trail, and
we had passed him without seeing him, that would have
been fair, too. We couldn’t know he was doing this, and
that’s the end of.it. On, hounds!”

It was two o’clock when they came close to the Blue
Bonnet Mine. The paper trail passed it, and swung over
a bare and rocky hill toward Santa Fe.

“On, hounds! Faster;
if we don’t dig down to it.
down to it!”

he’s sure going to beat us in
This is\a plain trail here; get

The master of the hounds led the pace, and now made
it a hot one.

He was still in fair trim, though even the best of them
were tiring. Yet they now pulled their energies together
for a long and hard run, knowing that only in that way
could they hope to overtake the hare now. Some of them
were beginning to feel that they were beaten ae es
the master would not admit it;

     
    
      
     
       
  
 

 
  
   
    
  
   
  
   
  
  
   
  
    
  
  

NEW TIP
His encouraging cry continued to in-
tervals:

“On, hounds!”

Then, suddenly; on the bare slope of a hill, the trail
ended. Up to that point it had led plainly across the
hill,

The pursuers stopped, puzzled, looking about.

“Aw, his paper played out!” was the exclamation. “Here
he threw down the last handful of it.”

They looked about, seeing nothing of the trail, nor any
sign that Chip. Merriwell had gone farther.

“It was his duty,” said one, “if his paper gave out, to
set-up a notice that we couldn’t fail to see, telling us
just the course he would lay from that on for the starting
point; but -he hasn’t set up a notice.”

-“Scatter out,” the master commanded; “pick up the
trail! Perhaps the wind carried the trail away.”

“Why didn’t it carry this paper away, then?” was. the

* puzzling question. “The wind is blowing as much here
as farther-on, and here the paper hasn’t been disturbed.”

“Scatter out!” shouted the leader... “Pick up the’ trail,
hounds ; get the scent again. Get it! “Pick it up!”
‘They ‘scattered, and began a swinging-circle search, in
which the master and the whipper-in joined,

Wider:and. still wider they made their circles.

- But the trail had ended

ring out. at

 

CHAPTER VI.
MISSING,

’ Dick Merriwell and Brad Buckhart and those with them
came on the baffled hounds at this juncture. They had
struck the paper trail some distance back, and this, show-
ing that Chip was ahead of them, they had followed it
at a canter.

It was a pleasant and inspiring sight to see them com-
ing up in that lively way—Dick and Brad, June Arlington
and Mrs. Oliver, Rhoda and Robert Realf. The patter-
ing Of their horses’ feet sounded like a roll of drums,

But the baffled and weary boys who saw them coming
were not in the mood to enjoy the sight. Their interest
lay in the fact that one of the riders was Dick Merriwell.
‘They were glad of the opportunity of putting this puzzle
up’ to him.

“Oh, they’ve lost the trail,” cried Rhoda, delighted;
: “Chip has fooled them.”

“I guess that’s right, young lady,” Brad assented; “Chip’s
likely to fool ’most anybody, if he sets out to try for
it, He's sure stumped ’em.”

“They’ ve given up, and are waiting for us,”
interpretation.

“Tired out, maybe,” interpolated Realf, “Tf Chip. led
them round by that old pueblo; I should think they’d be
dead; and Chip Merriwell, too. Catch me running my
legs off that way for anybody. Some guys have got a
weer idea of fun. Why, I’d rather work.”
‘ “T reckon that would sting you up a lot,”
 atchim, ©
it was not the polite thing to say, but Brad seldom
troubled to be polite with a fellow he did not like; and
he liked young Realf no better than did Chip Merriwell.
€ master of the hounds. rose, his horn swinging at
gi s the: ne and talking arty dashed up

   
  

was June’s

 
  

  
  
 

~

Brad flung

 
 

 
  
 

  

TOP WEEKLY.

Dick admitted. ie if

  

“Got you stuck, eh?” Brad shouted,
Chip Merriwell. I knew he’d do it’? ert | : 7

“He’s cheated us,” snarled the grumbler, who, from the aS
first, had been growling. at the way Chip had conducted
the race, and was sure that now he had good reason
for his growling.

The riders drew rein.

“Of course he hasn’t cheated you,”
flash of indignation.

“Well, the trail ends right here!”

“Simply because you haven’t found it again,”
“T shouldn’t call that cheating.”

“Well, that’s like |

 

 

said June, with a

said June.

 

 

“There’s no trail beyond this to find,” said’ the young
fellow stubbornly. “It’s alloright to try to baffle us, but
it’s something different if no trail is left at all, and
nothing to explain it. We figured that perhaps his paper
had given out, but if that was so, it was his business J}
to stick up a notice where we couldn’t help seeing it, o@
saying that his paper had given out, and telling us just.
where from this on the course would be. But he’s lett?
no notice,” ;

 

    
     
       
     
  

   
 

Brad Buckhart flung Dick a look, recalling the man ie a
had seen at Dick’s hotel door, and his belief that the man .
was Hammerswell.

      
     
    

Dick understood the look, but, as ie’ had been, cae ee a
to the other members of the party about it, he made no.
other response than a return ‘look, which commanded —
Brad to still further silence. 5

“The trail must be farther on,” June insisted. ht

Rhoda Realf’s blue eyes were growing big and bright,
and her face was a bit pale.

“You don’t suppose anything can have hantened to.
him?” she said, remembering the trouble that. Chip and
Fisher had fallen into at the pueblo of Taos; a perilous —
time which she had been through herself, ag could never .
forget. 7 rf +

She thought of Hammerswell,

Robert Realf spurred his horse on over the hill, and-
began to look about there. Dick and Brad also rode on, ih
to get out of the crowd as much as anything else,

“That human rattlesnake gave us a Warning, as a rattle-
snake always does,” said Brad, “but we siotegreged it.”

“You mean that J did.”

Brad’s anger was so mixed with anxiety that he saat
to pour out his feelings on some one just for the relict,
of it, yet he checked himself.

“I wouldn’t say that, pard, nor think it,” he abaaneat a
change in his tone; “but he sure did sound his warning,
when he stopped there at your door last night. You kno
I suggested that he had eav esdropped and heard Chip talk:
ing about the route he would take, and I said he might
lay for Chip along the route somewhere. Doesn’t it look
as if he had done it? To a wild-eyed idiot like m
sure does.” — :

“You may be right—if the fellow was Hammerswell,”

      
         
     
   
         
       
     
     
     
 

nite’ a

    
       
     
     
     
       
     
   

 

  
  
  
      
 
     
  
 
 
  

        
     
 

He rode back to the group.

“You didn’t see anything of the trail ?” June eked

“Nothing,” Dick answered,

“You didn’t go far enough.”

“Realf has ridden farther along the hill, and if. it’s there,
he will no doubt find it.” .

“We've been all. down there, and all round,” deslerol (ag
the master of the hounds; “we’ve been one ‘that,
a trail could possibly be.” —

; f ‘

      
     
     
 
 
 

  

    
     
   
 

 

and it would puzzle us.

NEW,

~“Hasn’t it suggested itself to you,” said Dick, “that
Chip probably stuck up a notice somewhere here, and that
the breeze carried it away?”

“Oh, I know he wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t fair,”
June insisted.

“That’s all right,” said one of the hounds; “but if he
stuck up a notice here, he would have had to use a stick,
and there’s none sticking in a crevice anywhere here; or,
if he couldn’t find a stick, he would have laid his notice
gan on the ground, with a stone to hold it. We've looked
_ for the stick and: we’ve looked for the stone. If you can
_ find either, you can do more than we could.”

“Then something has happened to him,” Rhoda de-
clared, and a flame leaped into her cheeks. “Mr.——~—”

But she stopped, without speaking the name of Ham-
merswell. Something made her feel that it was unwise
and imprudent. She had not a shred of evidence beyond
that furnished by her fears.

Dick Merriwell dismounted. So did Brad Buckhart.
With the bridle reins over their arms, they walked about,
leading their horses, looking closely.

“No use trying to see tracks here,” Brad grumbled.

“That’s right,” Dick agreed.

“You'll soon begiti to believe that I saw Hammerswell
spying on you and Chip, and that he’s had his villainous
finger in this thing. If I’d had him in that hut at
Taos, as Swiftwing did, he wouldn’t have got away
from me without packing my lead under his hide. This
"was the thing I was afraid of Dick; something like this.
Why, that scoundrel would as soon kill Ghip as eat his
breakfast !”

Dick did not say much—there seemed nothing to say,
but his face was a bit pale, and there was a troubled
look in his eyes. v

Robert Realf came cantering back over the hillside.

“I found a trace of him,” he shouted exultantly, and he
held out in his fingers a bit of scarlet paper; “found that
over there, where I went.’

» “Just this piece?” said Dick, ;

“That’s all; I saw it shining on the rocks. ‘But it shows
he went that way. His paper must haye given out, but
he found he had that one bit left and threw it
there. He’s gone right on toward the town.”

The hounds were not ready to accept this belief
entirety.

down
in its

“He’s gone on to the town, all right,” one of them
agreed ; “but that paper was just carried over there by the
wind. The wind has given us trouble that way to-day;
_ sometimes it whipped all the paper away, where there were
smooth, bare places, and we'd find it scattered all round®
Hadn’t been for that,” he boasted,
“we'd have caught up with him long ago; it made us
lose a lot of time.”

Dick and Brad swung into their saddles, and all moved
on to the spot where Robert Realf had found the bit of
scarlet paper.

No more could be found there, however, and that made
it apparent that the wind had brought it.

As this had taken them on in the direction of Santa
Fe, and the hillside where the paper trail had vanished
had been so thoroughly searched, it seemed the best thing
to do was to go right on.

June Arlington and Mrs. Oliver were alarmed, and they

_ took no pains to conceal it, until they observed the white
face and pia eyes of Rhoda Realf.

f

Var 4Or WI

EEKLY. II

“Did you ever?” Mrs. Oliver whispered in an aside to
June.

“Yes, I think I did,” June admitted, too distressed to
be amused by the discovery that little Miss Realf was‘al-
most crying, fearing the worst had befallen Chip Mer-
riwell; “I’ve been in that position more than once
myself.”

“Oh, these Merriwells!” said Mrs. Oliver; “when they’re
not breaking their heads they’re breaking hearts! But it
does seem silly, in that light. Why, she’s only a very
young girl, June.” -

“She thinks she’s a young woman; and no doubt Chip
thinks she is. I don’t want to tell you that you’re grow-
ing old, Olive; but you do talk like it... I suppose that’s
because you’re married; perhaps, when a woman gets
married, she forgets some things that she once knew
very well.”

“Growing old,” Mrs. Oliver sniffed;
day of my youth!”

June laughed. Perhaps that was what Mrs. Oliver was
striving to bring about, for at once she declared that
June’s laugh sounded natural, and she felt better about it.

“We're going to find Chip Merriwell in Santa Fe. His
paper gave out, and the notice of it he must have left
was blown away or been carried away. I’ve been think-
ing that some Mexican came along and took the notice,
not knowing what it meant. If he also carried away the
stick that held it up, the evidence they’ve been talking
about so much would be gone, too.”

That was a new idea, and so inspiring that June gal-
loped to Dick’s side and acquainted him with her friend’s
brilliant inspiration.

“Maybe there’s something in that,” said Dick.
she’s right. But we'll know when we reach Santa Fe.”

“Tf it’s so,” Brad grumbled, “you'll never get these
hounds to believe it; they’ll always think that Chip
tricked them and left no notice. Some fellows might
do a thing like that and think it fun, but not Chip
Merriwell. If he couldn’t win fair and square he wouldn’t
want to win at all.”

“J don’t care anything about what these young fellows
of Santa Fe think, if Chip is all right,’ June declared.
“Tt’s a tendency of the Merriwells to heed altogether too
much the opinions of other people. But putting that aside,
I’m going to hope that Olive has found the explanation
of the mystery.”

“Right,” said Brad, “dead right, except in your general
proposition about the Merriwells; they don’t give a hoot
about the opinions of other people, if they’re sure those
opinions are wrong. That’s why I like them, you see;
they’re like the ramping steer from the plains of Texas, —
in that. If I know I’m right, I put my head down like ©
a charging bull and go through any barbed-wire fence
that’s before me. Frank Merriwell, Dick Merriwell, and
Chip Merriwell ditto and, also and likewise. And Miss
June Arlington being a young lady whose mind goes along
in the saiue sort of channel, I lift my hat to her.”

Which he did, with an appearance of grave politeness, —

As June dropped back to rejoin Mrs, Oliver and Rhoda
Realf, she heard Brad humming, in his reckless way, those
lines about Davy Crockett, the hero and martyr of the
Texas alamo:

“T’m in the hey-

“T hope

“’Tis word to all, when I am dead—
Be sure you’re right, then go ahead!’
That’s what old Davy Crockett said!”

 
 

“NEW

The riders and the boys on foot had scattered out,
singly and in groups, and were making a close search for
the confetti trail as they went across the hillside and down
into the sandy valley beyond.

It seemed likely that if Chip had passed this way, his
tracks would be found in the sand.

But no tracks were found when the sandy ground was
reached.

“Looks more and more like Hammerswell,” Brad
grumbled. “Why wasn’t it my luck last night to get the
fellow by the neck?”

Continuing on across the valley, they at last entered
the trail running from the Blue Bonnet Mine to the town,
and hurried along it, having seen no indication of Chip
Merriwell on the way.

On gaining Santa Fe, Dick and Brad, after leaving
their horses at the stable, went to Dick’s hotel; where Chip
was staying also, and looked for him there.

He had not. come in.

The few people who had waited at the point where the
hare-and-hounds chase began, intending to see the re-
turn of the runners, had declared that Chip had not come
back to that place.

The hounds who were not too tired to do it, or not
too disgusted, searched Santa Fe over, going to all the
likely places, thus assisting Dick and Brad in the hunt they

began as soon as they knew Chip was not at the hotel.

Chip was not in Santa Fe.

“Hammerswell !” said Brad, his eyes glaring.
4 it. ”

“T knew

CHAPTER VII.
JUNE’S ANXIETY,

Though night had now fallen, Dick Merriwell and Brad
- Buckhart continued their search. Two or three times they
rode out to the point beyond the town where the hare-and-
hounds race had begun, hoping each time that Chip had
got in and had reported to the few fellows who were
_ sticking it out there in the belief that Chip would get in
by and by.

Each time they were disappointed. And when they

returned to Santa Fe the last time, they were thoroughly

alarmed,
- Not knowing where to look for Herbert Hammerswell,
they were all at sea. He might be anywhere, and as that
meant he might be in Santa Fe, they began now to hunt
closely for Hammerswell, y
‘If we do find him, I'll choke the daylight out of him,”
f Brad threatened; “he'll. talk, and he'll talk spry and
proper, you hear me! Oh, why couldn’t I have got him
by the neck last night?”
- Though they raked the old town from plaza to its
is outermost adobe, they could not find Hammerswell.
An “We'll push the search to-morrow, as soon as it’s light
e ough,” said Dick, who could not conceal his uneasiness.
We'll go out to that hill again and start all over. There

ust be something out there to give us a clew; we didn’t |

look close enough, that’s all.”
“Right!” Brad chimed in.

out there to the grass roots.”
t was late when Dick set off for the home of the
vets, knowing that i was tee waiting there

TIP TOP

“We'll dig up ne _ ground

WEEKLY.

He did not need to be informed that, as Brad binds
come again from his Texas ratich to this point to see him,
Miss June Arlington had remained in Santa Fe with nee
friend Mrs. Oliver for the same purpose, as she “knew

Dick would return as soon as he was through with his ™

work in Oklahoma.

June was awaiting him, trying to read, and talking with
Mrs. Oliver. She came hurrying to the door as soon, as
she heard his familiar step.

“Heard anything?” was her anxious question. “vie
phoned a while ago that you hadn’t, but I didn’t know but —
that you had since then.” ;

“Not a thing,” said Dick, a
Mrs. Oliver heard the news, or the lack of news, and,
asked questions; then, being a discréet and wise woman,
she gave up the sitting room to June and Dick, aud made.
herself conspicuous by her absence. ‘

“Oh, this terrible business,
down here,”
soon as you can, The thought of Hammerswell, and the
other villains you’ve been encountering down here gives
me a nightmare.”

“You weren’t always so ‘atraid;” Dick urged.
“I’m not afraid,” she declared; “it isn’t that,

bit drearily.

But what's |

the good of it? You don’t have to make your living here, fi

or in this way. And some time——~
“Some time Ill get hurt?” tee
“I'm afraid you will.’ Seé this case! We don’t know
where Chip is, or whether he is living or dead. I’ll not be
able to sleep a wink to-night. It’s all’ right to face
danger when you have to, or need to—~”
“Which means here and right now. Brad and I will
run that scoundrel down to-morrow, I feel sure.”
“And perhaps find that he has killed Chip.
not going to telegraph to Frank?”

You're re

“Not until I have to; what’s the use of worrying hide“

and ace
own.’

“I wish he would give up this Merriwell ‘Company if
he won't, I wish you’d quit working for him.”

“Kind thoughts, my dear.” ‘

“Well, that’s the way I feel about it.” —

June was almost in tears.

It was late when Dick departed for his hotel.

‘ie oe in ae eens when Pick ant Brad, after a ser

They’ve een having troubles enouglt, of she

asd were waiting for them ‘d apcame
“I’m going with you,” said Fisher, “I’m only sorry 1
wasn’t with you yesterday.” -
Brad was inclined to smile at Fisher’s Catheters!
“A little wise owl like you couldn’t, have, done any
than we fei ° ang prin to him, i ;

igi But Realf has got aoimetisig! to tell you. It’s abou
an Irishman he met and talked with out’ by the Blue
Bonnet.” ;
“T didn’t think of it yesterday,” said Realf, “but after- a
ward it came back to me about him, and I began to won- ~

‘der if, he could have had sieht to do with Chip

did, and so may have attacked him. sa was a

‘ looking sort, you know—ignorant and all that, you

 

and this terrible ° country. Ba :
said June; “I want you to get out of it as
- so that there’s no telling where he is,

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

/

“Where did yost meet him?” said Dick.

“This side of the mine; I ¢an go with you and show
the place.”

“Did he tell you anything about himself?”

“Yes, he did; he said he was a descendant of Irish
kings, and that his name was Barney Mulloy, and he was
looking for work, and——”

“What? Barney Mulloy?”

_ “Qh, then you know him—or have heard of him! I
tell you he was a roughneck. Why, that fellow would
do anything.”

Brad’s eyes had lighted, with Dick’s.

“Barney Mulloy!” said Dick. “Why, Brad, that’s the
name of Frank’s old Irish friend that went to Fardalé with
him. I wonder if it can be the same fellow? If it is,
Realf, he’s all right.”

“It can’t be the same,” said Realf, with his air of know-
_ ing everything. “TI tell you this fellow was a roughneck.
_ He tried guying me, and he was ignorant.”

“Great horned toads!” said Brad. “Barney Mulloy!
We've got to connect up with that fellow. He went to the
‘mine? Then we're likely to find him there, or hear of
him.”

Before going to the i. for the horses, Dick tele-
hs: phoned this bit of news to June Arlington, where it was
-- received by Mrs. Oliver, who reported that June was not
“up yet, |
_ “I think she didn’t get to sleep until nearly daylight,”
said Mrs, Oliver.

“Don’t trouble to tell her until she comes down,” Dick
urged. “It, may be another Barney Mulloy. And we
may not find him, anyway. Realf says he was a pros-
pector, which indicates that he may have wandered on,
But we're going
out to the place where young Realf saw him, and then
_ if we can’t find him, nor get any trace of Chip, we're
going on to the mine.
_ »~*Say to her that Mr. Realf may go out later; though
_ [ haven’t seen him, to know about that. Anyway, the man
that Realf bought the mine from is out there, thinking
he is holding possession, and inclined, as you know, to
make a fight to continue his possession. Chip may have
- gone to the mine, or been taken there by some one, if
he got hurt; we were too stupid, ot too much excited, to
think of that yesterday. I wish there was a telephone
ff line to the mine, but there isn’t, Anyway, tell June that
she will hear from us before the end of the at Good-

”

”

He hung up ‘the receiver and went out to meet Brad
ind Fisher and Realf.
. Then they proceeded to the stables to wen horses for

ss Galloping out through the sleepy Mexican portion of the

wn, past the ancient church of San Miguel, the college,
_and the bishop’s gardens, they struck into the country
before the people of Santa Fe were fairly awake. Yet,
now and then, out of the doors and deep windows of the
‘adobe or black eyes peeped at them, showing that

On. their way they encountered a Pueblo, driving before
him. two gray burros laden with great bundles of stove
“wor 0K that was being taken in to sell to some of these
‘same. Mexican housewives,

They’ stopped the Pueblo and iene? engree calsate

‘why he had disliked Barney Mulloy.

to elicit any information he might possess. He was a
dark-skinned, black-eyed fellow, with his black hair tied
with a strip of red flannel, and he was intelligent, He
showed interest, for he had seen the runners, but he had
no news of the boy who had played hare.

“First failure,” said Brad. “But you couldn’t really ex-
pect anything there. I never saw a Pueblo who knew
enough to come in when it rained.”

“You forget Swiftwing,” Dick reminded.

“Oh, he doesn’t count, he has been to school. I’m talk-
ing of the undiluted native, the fellow who won’t even
believe that the world turns round, because, he says, if
it did, all the mud huts would fall off. Still, I don’t
think Swiftwing is such-a-much, or he wouldn’t continue
to herd with that crowd up at Taos, simply because he was
born there. Why doesn’t he get out into the world and
make something of himself? That’s what he was edu-
cated for, wasn’t it?”

“I thought,” said Dick, “he was educated chiefly so that
he could go back to his people and help them rise a
little.”

“Stuff,” said Brad, with beautiful inconsistency, “you
can’t educate or lift up a Pueblo, Might as well talk
about prying a Mexican out of his dust heap,”

Brad had a lot of the prejudices of a ranchman, and
he couldn’t shake them off.

It was the kind of talk that pleased Robert Realf, whose
prejudices were even worse, for they were founded in
superciliousness. He believed that the fellow who is
not born to purple and fine linen can never hope to get
even the meaning of that delectable condition. That was
Barney had hu-
morously and pleasantly boasted of an unbelievable an-
cestry, though he had been in the rough clothing of a
prospector and had a whimsical Irish brogue and an
Trish face. So, of course, he was a “roughneck,”

When they were’ approaching the Blue Bonnet Mine,
with the sun well up in the sky, Realf turned out of
the trail, and led them over to the place where he had
his talk with Mulloy, It was a sheltered spot, so’ that
the indentations in the sand were still there,

“This is it,’ he said triumphantly; “here’s where we
were lying as we talked. I think he went down to the
trail from here, and then he probably went on round by
the trail to the mine.”

The tracks that Barney Mulloy had left indicating that
this was true, they returned to the trail, and rode on to
the mine.

Here a smashing surprise awaited them.

A man was seated in the little office that’ was a part of
one of the mine buildings.

And the man was Herbert Hammerswell, whom Pistins
had seen at Taos, and who had held him a prisoner in
a hut there with Rhoda Realf. Hammerswell had been
captured in that hut by Swiftwing and Chip and the elder
Realf, and then had escaped by hurdling through the
door. ."

Doc Fisher knew him at a glance.

CHAPTER VIII.
DISCOVERIES.

Hammerswell had the air of a gentleman eae
Smooth-faced, well-dressed, his flushed features hid x?

masklike appearance, while his eyes were furtive. Hez

 
 

14 | NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

ing their horses, and seeing the riders through his win-
dow, he recognized them at once.

“A parley or a fight?” he snarled.
either.”

He swung his chair in behind his desk, laid his re-
volver on the desk, and sat down in the chair, facing the
door. He was smoking a good cigar in the most non-
chalant manner possible when Dick and Brad dismounted
and came up to the door, leaving Fisher and Realf in
charge of the horses.

Brad’s lips drew back in a disagreeable snarl when he
observed the revolver on the desk. Dick Merriwell’s face
held an enigmatical smile that hid well his surprise.

“We're looking for the man who claims ownership here,”
said Dick, as he entered.

“You're looking at him, you mean,”

“You’re Herbert Hammerswell?”

“That’s my name. Glad you know me.”

“Well, where is the man who was here a day or two
ago?”

“Don’t ask me,”
out, and he left.”

“He swindled you, then, for he had nothing to sell.”

“So?” said the villain, removing his cigar and looking
at it. “That’s news.”

“You didn’t know that he had sold out to Ruel Realf?”

“He said he hadn’t; that Realf had wanted to buy, and
wouldn’t give his price. I offered hitn what he asked, and
he took it and cleared out.”

“You have papers to show that?” j

“Whether I have or ‘not is none of your business,”
_Hammerswell returned coolly, “I deny your right to ques-
tion me about it.”

Brad came pushing in, red-faced and angry.

“See here,”
up at Taos and got the boys into trouble there, and came
up against John Swiftwing.”

Hammerswell laughed.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“l’m Brad Buckhart, from Texas.
measure, all right.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Buckhart.
and cool down.” ¢

“Do you deny it?” Buckhart stormed.

“IT don’t have to deny anything, do I?”

“Why, you villain——”

“Harsh words butter no parsnips, Mr. Buckhart. If you
haven’t anything more to say than that | shall wish you
good morning.” ‘

Brad glared and choked.

“We can arrest you for that matter up at Taos and take
you to Santa Fe,” Brad sputtered, when he got his

“Y’m ready for

said Hammerswell.

said Hammerswell; “I bought him

We've got your

Take a chair there

breath.

“Oh, can you?”

“Sure we can.”

_ “Confiderice is a good thing—sometimes; I really like
_ to see confidence in‘'a young man, Mr. Buckhart.”

_ “We didn’t come to bandy words,” Dick cut in; “this
question of who is the owner of the mine, and all the
rest of it, can wait for another time. We're searching
for my nephew, Chip Merriwell, who was in a hare-and-
hounds race yesterday, and dropped out of sight not a
great distance from this place.”

ou think I’ve hid him in my pocket?”
“We thought perhaps you had seen him, and could

he barked, “you’re the scoundrel that was.

give us information ; that is, we + hoped the man you
say you bought the mine of could do so.”

“Sorry to say, Mr. Merriwell, that I know nothing about
this hopeful nephew.”

Dick was looking Hammerswell straight in the eyes,
having managed to capture his furtive gaze, and he saw —
that Hammerswell spoke the truth; there was a lifting
of the lids in surprise. Hammerswell did not know any-—
thing about Chip Merriwell’s disappearance. Dick was a

reader of faces, and that was what Hammerswell’s face a

and eyes said.

As for the other matter—the Pres re purchase of the
mine—Dick knew that Hammerswell was lying, but he
didn’t care to take up that question.

“Would you mind asking your men here if they have
seen or heard anything of a young Tene in running
costume ?”

“T will, at the noon hour, when they knock off work.”

“Then would you let us go into the mine and ask them
about it?” ;

“Not on your life, Merriwell; I wouldn’t trust you that
far. I begin to see that your claim of a lost nephew
is but a ruse to get into the mine.”

He laid his hand on his revolver.

“T think you know where_he Ie ‘re holding him
here!” Brad charged.

“Your opinion is a matter of inditgrente to me,”
Hammerswell, resuming his smoking.

Brad would have leaped on him, even though threatened ”
with the revolver, but Dick’s voice stayed him.

“We'll go outside and talk it over, Brad,” he said

“What, and——”

But Dick turned and left the office, and, incite Dick’s
support, Brad followed, frothing his rage.

“Are you going to lie down that way,” Brad fumed,
“when, in all probability, he’s got Chip in the mRihe,. or er
killed him ?” Pogo

Another thought coming to Dick, he returned to” the
door. as

“Day before yesterday there was an Irishman coisa ,
here; he said he was coming to this mine to ask for
work, or gave that impression to young Realf, with whom
he talked. Can you tell me anything about him?”

“Well, there wds an Irishman came here and asked for
work, but I told him I had nothing for him to do, as
I had a full crew, and he went on his way. That’s all: Zs
know.”

Brad was walking off, angry and seatad 7

“Dick,” he said, when Dick joined him, ‘I don't under-
stand you.”

“Hammerswell doesn’t know anything ‘about Chip?”

“He doesn’t? What makes you say that?”
“T saw it by his face, when he was perrcnst about
it, ”? ,
“That all? I. saw only the sneering ‘took of a villain
He knows all about him.”

“He doesn’t know a thing,” Dick Insisted,

“Why wouldn’t he let us go down and question the
men, then ?”

“He was afraid we were here to trick him in some
way.”

“Well, maybe so; but I would have gone down, asking
no questions and walking right over him.” \s
“T’d have backed you in it, even at the risk of a ‘slug
of lead, only I saw sy he knows aplhiag about Chip

said

i

 
    
  
  
  
  
   
  
   
   
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
   
  
       
     
       
     
     
   

i, ‘ y ;
“You ‘can’t ‘say that Pm in the habit of backing down
from danger when-there’s- need that I shouldn’t; but when
there’s no’ néed, When nothing is to-be accomplished, what’s
the use?”

 

8, “You're right, of coursé”’ Brad reluctantly admitted;
ny “you ‘always are, and I’m a wild-and-woolly fool. But,
ag honest,“ my fingers are twitching yet, [ was so crazy. to be
7” at that scoundrel.”

a They were talking when they rejoined -Fisher and
ce Realf.

“Hammerswell i is Holding the fort,” Dick informed them,
r€ “and he*knows no more about Chip than we do; not as
F much.”

(3 “You mean that.he’s holding the*mine?” said Realf.
re “That's what I mean. The other man isn’t there. Ham-
1S -merswell says he bought the mine of him, and that your
father’s claim isn’t good.”

“W-h-a-t? He’s taken the mine and is going to hold it

o against father?”
: “He’s sure trying to run off with the Blue Bonnet,”
7 said Brad humorously.
v hy ; ~ “Why, father won't stand that.’ He'll fight him first.”
Bike “Looks like he'll have’to,” said Brad.
ahs He turned to, Dick.
n “What now?” he asked.’

“We're going over to where that trail ended yesterday,
d and see what we-can do there.”

ii “What about Mulloy?” Realf asked.

         
   
       
     
       
     
       
       
     
     
     
     
     
         
       
     
     
    
   
        
       
       
    
       
 
  
     
   

 

- Dick reported what Hammerswell had ‘said on_ that
point.

Fisher’s fair face and bluish eyes were troubled, His
anxiety about Chip Merriwell was increasing.

_ *D wish’ you could have talked with the men in the
- mine,” he urged,
"We're not through here yet,” said Dick.
' “Tn passing on: toward the gravelly hillside; where the
confetti trail had been lost, they approached from a dif-
; ferent point. eb $49

‘In doing this they made the second startling discovery
of the day.

In a hollow not far from the mine, whick they would
not have looked’ into but for the close search they were
making for Chip Merriwell, they found aman lying un-
conscious, and at first they thought he was dead. “Some-
thing, it might have. been a bullet, had struck him on top
of the head, tearing the scalp,°and his hair was matted
_ With blood. He was in the rough clothing of a pfos-
“ <pector, and young. Realf identified ‘him as the Irishman
or we had said his name was Barney Mulloy.

_ But even before this identification,
‘booed down on ‘his’ knees beside the man and was mak-
ing a swift examination, slipping his finger to the man’s
wrist the first thing.
“Not dead,” he announced, “but mighty feeble heart
action; somebody get~some water. Anybody got any
stimulant? I’ve got a drug in my medicine case that I
can use a drop or two of, but I'd rather have am ree
stimulant.”
; Dick flung into his saddle and galloped back to. the
mine for water, fearing to trust Brad to do it.
Meanwhile Fisher got out his pocket case, containing
3 instruments and a few remedies, chiefly of a simple char-
‘acter, and began his efforts to restore the man to con-
“sciousness.
© Bisher's entire manner Had eee instantly. Sg was

 

  
     
      

 

NEW TIP TOP

Doe Fisher had

  

WEEKLY.

 

15

no longer a follower of anybody, but the leader, who
gave directions as if he expected them to be obeyed, and
had no thought of sparing himself or any one élse in the
work that had fallen to him.

For Fisher was a born surgeon and doctor. He was
one in every respect in a time: like this. And he became
at once so absorbed in this “case” that he almost forgot
about Chip Merriwell, yet forgot Chip no more thas he
forgot himself.

Seeing that Dick Merriwell seemed slow in returning,
Fisher pried the man’s teeth apart and let a drop from a
small vial fall on his tongue. Then he let another drop
fall in the same way.

“A really marvelous stimulant,” he said,
gerous oné, being a violerit poison in large doses.
going to help him. Ah, here comes Dick!”

Boldly ‘invading the office where Hammerswell still sat
smoking, Dick had announced the finding of a man seri- 3
ously hurt, demanded water, and had been given it. He
came back with a big bottle of it, and a basin.

“I saw no towel there, but we've got handkerchiefs.
Here you are, Fisher,” he said. ' t

Dick Merriwell had once declared that. an expert may
be, and often is, a man who knows how to value and
use the work of other experts. He quite willingly ad- :
mitted that when it came to medical or surgical knowl- ;
edge, Doc Fisher knew more in a minute than he did
in a week, so he stood ready to help Fisher, be ordered
round by him, or do anything he suggested to aid the
unconscious man, who, in all probability, he thought; was
Frank’s old friend; but whether he was or not, stil a
man in need of assistance, and possibly at the point of —
death.

“This water is just the stuff,” said Fisher, and, yanking
out his own soiled handkerchief, eyed it dubiously and
sniffed it,

“Somebody give me.a cleaner handkerchief,” he beggéd.

Dick tendered his.

“Not much cleaner, if any, Fisher, but we can’t be par-
ticular now. Seriously hurt, isn’t he?” * ;

“IT hope not. His pulse is already better, also his res-
-piration. I want to look at this wound.” .

With Dick’s help he got the man’s teeth apart again, —
and poured some of: the water down his throat, .~

“Good!” said Fisher. “Now for this injury.” And he
began to feel tenderly of the lacerated scalp; then began
to wash away some-of the clotted blood.

“Filled with sand,” he grumbled; “looks as though he
had plowed with his bleeding head through the and, or
been dragged through.” i

Brad, as he had done before, began to look about fox a
tracks.

“I guess the wind has blown the sand about here hie’
said, “and effaced his footprints, or the footprints of the —
one who brought him here, if it was done. It seems —
that maybe he just fell down there and hurt himself.”

“Hard to tell,” said Fisher; “maybe I can judge later.
The skull isn’t crushed, nor even fractured, I think, and,
if it isn’t, he is not going to be in so bad a way. oe
a little water in his face, Mr. Merriwell.”

Dick obediently did as requested.

Dipping the handkerchief again into the basin, in which
he. had poured some of we water, Fisher _Soettinaed a

“and a dan-
But it’s

 

 
 

 
    
     
 

NEW ‘TIP TOP WEERLY.

He worked half an hour, but though at that time the
man was noticeably better, he was still deep in uncon-
sciousness, and Fisher peremptorily declared that he must
be hurried into Santa Fe.

“Can’t you rig up a stretcher of some kind?” he asked.
“It’s going to be a long pull to walk, isn’t it? But I
don’t see how else-we cat) manage it. We can start off
with him, and some one can gallop into town and shoot
the ambulance out this way, and we'll meet it.”

While Fisher still worked to restore the unfortunate
man to consciousness, or, at least, get him in better
shape for the trip to Santa Fe, Dick Merriwell and Brad
Buckhart constructed a blanket hammock to be swung’ be-
tween the saddles of two horses. It was of: the kind
used in such emergencies.

As soon as it was finished, Barney Mulloy was placed
in it; Dick’s horse and Doc Fisher’s being chosen for
the purpose. Then Brad Buckhart galloped off to Santa
Fe to hurry out an ambulance.

,

CHAPTER. IX.
CHIP MERRIWELL.

When Chip Merriwell returned to, conscioushess, after
the heavy fall on the hillside which had. brought his
hare-and-hounds run to-a sudden stop, he was in dark-
ness and bewildered.

His first thought was that he was out -on the hill,
and had lain there, senseless, until night overtook him, In
a way, this was quite as strange as anything could be, as
it indicated that the hounds had not followed and found
him, and as he had tried to leave a good trail, he did not
see how it could have happened.

“But that must be the way of it,” he coffeluded. “Gee,
how! my head hurts! J must have tried to bore a hole
in the ground with it, when I fell.”

When he twisted about to get into a more comfortable
position, he found that his body was sore and aching, as
well as his head.

”

“That’s on account of the run,” he thought; “I was
wet with perspiration when J fell, I needed a bath and
a shower, I couldn’t cool off as I should, and now my
muscles are drawn into ropes and knots.”

He was still wondering, in bewilderment, why the hounds
had not found him, when he discovered that there was
no stars in the sky he supposed to be over him. That
was a strange thing. The stars shine rather steadily
through the nights of New Mexico. The people there

A ; call it the Sunshine State, boasting that it has more than

three hundred days of sunshine in a year; and it has

about as many clear nights as clear days.

Chip had never yet seen the New Mexican sky over-

- cast, and to find around him an absolutely starless night

- Was unexpected.

“If there was the slightest breath of wind I’d think
it was blowing up a storm,” he reflected; “but there’s no

wind.”

Then Chip made another discovery as he was twist-
ing about trying to find a star in the. sky.
wrapped in a blanket.
 “T hope I’m not nutty,” he muttered, as his fingers ran

over the warm fiber; “hope that tumble hasn’t made me
ie loony. No, this is a blanket! Now, how did that

He was

had only his tight | running clothes on: Fendi ity; In addis )
tion, he discovered, when he had thrown the blanket aside,
that the place he was in was damp and cliilly,,dnd:that the .
air was close and foul, with a moldy odor. Also; that he? re
had been lying on clammy rocks, oe

“Br-r-r-r!_ I needed this blanket, all right. rit thank
the kind friend that gave it to me when I meet him,
Br-r-r-r !”

He drew the blanket round him, and sat up, shivering.

“Ym in a cave,” he said; “that’s where I am—in:a
cave.”
He began to crawl round, feeling theStone under him;
and reaching out his hands to find the walls that he was
sure inclosed him.

“T couldn’t have crawled into this place, and I sure
couldn’t have put this blanket over me. Wonder where I
am, and what time it is?” ,

He crawled on for some time before his hands struck”
against a wall of stone, Then, very cautiously, he. be-
gan to creep along the wall, fearing a hole: that he
might be plunged into.

He was brought to a halt. by a moaning sound and a
wild. muttering of words, which he,could’ not locate.

.They seemed far off. They sent a chill through him, and»

caused. him. to draw the blanket he. had Beat tee
closer about him, : a

“What does that mean? Or ‘has my head? gone gunk ?:
It sure hurts enough. I don’t thiak I an: be: dreaming,
And. I: know I haven’t drunk any of that dope’ that gave
Fisher the willies out at-Taos. According to’ Fishér, the’
things. he saw and the things he felt cate ‘out of the ‘
belfrys.” \

Tite tmhoaning and the muttering ‘oa chip’ again..-

“Some one in here, sure, and not far from me!” iy:

This so inspired him that he. lifted up his voice,
calling. ty Pa

The mutteripg rose again as if in answer to” his BN
So Chip yelled still louder. lin

Chip might have gone on calling, if, after a little while, .
he had not seen the flashing of a light:

The hopes this raised were quickly dashed by his dis-
covery that the°man approaching with a light was Her-
bert Hammerswell, with whom he had passed such an
unpleasant experience in the hut outside of Taos.

Hammerswell was coming along a timbered gallery,
suggesting a mine gallery. The light came from a Tittle
lamp worn on his hat.

Chip Merriwell was quite sure he could expect no. sid
from Hammerswell—nothing but enmity ; therefore he —
ceased his cries, and lay flat on his face watching the man
who came toward him.

Shortly the light winked out, and Chip was again in
darkness, except that he beheld a glimmer,/on, the black —
walls; so he knew he had been looking through a hole, —
and the light had winked out because Hammerswell had
passed out of range.

Chip wanted to crawl up tothe hole which had aie
disclosed in this unexpected manner, but: feared to be-
tray himself. Yet almost instantly came the thought ‘that
Hammerswell knew he was there, for he must have placed —
him there. He was Hammerswell’s. prisoner! ; iets)

If so, Hammerswell had found him out-.om the hill and
had. ecg him to this place, wherever it was. Chip.
wondered now,if he was not in the Blue Bonnet Mine. |

 
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY. 17

If he was, it did not explain Hammerswell’s presence
there. ;

By the time Chip had crawled cautiously to the hole
in the wall,.Hammerswell and his light had passed on
and away. Darkness reigned again.

Then Chip heard the muttering and moaning again, and

a rougher voice saying something. That rougher voice
was Hammerswell’s, he was sure.

Being at a loss to know what to do, Chip Merriwell
for a time did nothing, except lie quietly, listening. The
words, or conversation, whatever it was or meant, died
away soon. ,

Lying close by the hole, Chip waited for Hammerswell
to return. He did not expect that Hammerswell, after
making a prisoner of him here, could be appealed to suc-
cessfully for assistance; he only hoped that the light of
his lamp, as he passed by, would illumine the place.

When Hammerswell did not return, Chip was placed in
a quandary.

“T’ve got to get out of this,” he decided;
that gallery and find a way out somewhere. This is a
mine, and it must be the Blue Bonnet, for I don’t know
of another mine here.” .

It was easier said than done. The hole he had looked
through was. not large enough to admit his body. It

_ seemed ‘to be a small gap in a rocky wall, probably made
by the falling out of a stone.
he could enlarge it.

Though he again heard at intervals. the groaning and
muttering, he was afraid now to call out. He believed

that his calling had drawn Hammerswell, and he did
not want him to come again.

Chip was forgetting the stiffness and soreness andthe
headache that had distressed him, and his* excitement
made him stronger. He was resolved to get out. He
had been brought in there, and at the place where he had
been brought in he might get out. So he continued to
crawl on, searching for a door or an opening of some
kind. om

When he had lost a good deal of time in this way, ie rose
to his feet and walked slowly and carefully back, search-
ing for the hole he had so hastily abandéhed/ Here he
heard again the muttering and moaning, and he ventured
to call again, this time more cautiously.

There came an answer, making Chip’s heart jump.

“Who is it?”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Chip, still cautious. “But
I seem to be in a tunnel or cave or something of that
kind, and am at a small hole, which I can’t get through.
I don’t know how I got in here.”

He waited, with jumping heartbeats, for a reply.

“T think I know where you are. Go toward your left
fifty feet or so, and you'll find an opening.”

Chip had gone toward the right.

CHAPTER X.
HAMMERSWELL’S PRISONER.

After having felt his way cautiously along the wall,
‘Chip came to a break ‘in- it.

Before him was a darkness almost stygian enough to
‘make a black cat look white, Chip felt out with his feet,
sliding them over the rocky floor, and put his hands
out before him. For the first time in his life he gained
- gome knowledge of what it must mean to be blind,

“I can follow |

Chip did -not see how

Fearing to venture on into the unknown gloom, he
called again softly.

“I’ve found that opening,” he said, after calling, “but I
don’t know where to go; I can’t see a thing in here.”

Then the voice came again, not as clearly as before—
Chip could not understand the words; but it helped to
give him the direction. °

This bit of new experience taught him another thing.
In total darkness it is difficult to locate sound, if it is
faint or far off, or walls interpose. The walls that he
could not see threw back little echoes of the voice, mul-
tiplying it.

So Chip called again, and, standing silent, tried to get
the true direction. When he thought he had it, he dropped
down on hands and knees and began to crawl toward the
voice.

It was a slow method of progression, made slower
by the care he was forced to take. He had to feel out
every foot of the way, to prevent the danger of tumbling
into some chasm or hole.

Now and then he called softly, and received answers,
sometimes bewildering, at other times apparently clear
and reaching him directly.

Thus guided, Chip pushed on slowly and patiently. Then
the voice became all at once clearer, and the cree
more readily determined.

A few minutes afterward he was beside the man who
had called. The.man was lying on the clammy floor, and
he was bound.

“Who are you?” the man asked, in trembling tones.

“Chip Merriwell—Frank Merriwell, junior.”

“Merriwell!”

There was a queer note in the voice.

“You're tied,” said Chip; “perhaps I can get the ropes
off. Too bad I haven’t a knife with me.”

““How—how did you get in here, Merriwell?”

“J don’t know,” said Chip. “I was doing a running
stunt out on the hills and fell—struck my head, I guess,
and went to sleep. When I woke up, I was in here,
wherever it is.”

“This is the Blue Bonnet Mine.”

“T thought so.”

“That scoundrel, Hammerswell, must have brought you
in here; that’s his name, but he’s been calling himself
something else. He put me in here, and put these ropes .
on me. If-I can get out I'll make it hot for him. I’m
nearly dead. How long have you been in here?”

“T don’t know,” said Chip.

“And I don’t know how long I’ve been in here; the
last time I saw daylight it was Wednesday.”

“It was Wednesday when I was making my race and
fell and hurt my head.”

“Then it must be Hammerswell’s work, that you’re in ~
here. You don’t know who I am?”

“T’ve been wondering.”

“I’m the owner of the mine—Tillson.” '

“Qh, you’re the man who sold the mine to Mr. Realf!”

“That’s what you heard, is it? Well, I didn’t.”

Chip was fingering the knots, trying to untie them. The
fear of the return of Hammerswell was on him, and he

_was hurrying. “There were a dozen questions he wanted

to ask, but this was not the time for it.

This man; if he could untie him, being familiar with
the mine, would be able to lead the way out. His denial
that he had sold the mine to Realf was not unexpected.

 
 

i

18 | NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

Chip. knew there was a troublesome controversy on that
point, with whose details, however, Chip was not well
versed. What he knew was that Realf had given the
man a check on a New York bank, in whole or part
payment, and that Tillson, after promising to sign and
turn over the proper papers, had, in one way or another,
contrived to evade doing so. Realf was on the point of
bringing suit to oust him,

Chip knew, in addition, that the casual examination
which Dick had made of the mine had convinced him
that Realf had been defrauded, through the false repre-

sentations of, a man “*he had employed to pass on the-

mine’s value. This man being supposed by Dick to be
in with Tillson,

Dick believed, perhaps without adequate proof, that
Tillson was a scoundrel, who had employed the notorious
Herbert Hammerswell to negotiate the sale of the mine
to Realf, and that Realf, in some unaccountable manner,
had “fallen” for Hammerswell’s talk, and had _ been
skinned.

If this were so, Tillson had now been done up by the
- bigger rascal, and was held by him as a prisoner some-
where in the depths of the mine.
~ Chip also recalled a statement hé had heard Dick make
to Brad Buckhart that he thought the mine was a failure,
if not a fake; that this was not the silver-mining section,
though some silver had been found, and the mine owner
had tried to develop it, and, instead, had sunk money in
the effort, and had been looking for a “sucker,” on whom
he could unload.

It was not Chip’s fight, however, and he really had not
paid a great. deal of attention to it, chiefly because he
had been rather sickened by Robert Realf’s boasting about

his father’s new mine, but also because he had suddenly ~

been more interested in Robert’s comely sister than he felt
he ever could be in all the mines and promises of mines
in the State of New Mexico,

Chip hardly realized that he was thinking at all, as
these reflections slid through his active brain, while he
was tugging and straining at the knots that held Tillson
‘a prisoner. His active mind was never still, but instantly

attacked every problem that confronted him.

“My, they’re set tight!” he said, stopping to rest and
get the cramps out of his fingers. “He tried to tie you
up for keeps.”
 -*Pve probably tightened them by trying to loosen them.
I wonder if you couldn’t find a knife on me—in my

pocket? I had one, but I’m afraid Hammerswell took it.

The scoundrel went through me like a highwayman.”

_“He’s a bad man, I guess,” Chip remarked, beginning
to search for the knife, “I can’t find it,” he added, when
he had run through Tillson’s pockets. .

“Tf I haye to stay here he'll kill me, and I’ve been
‘wondering why he hasn't,”

- “Very few men are willing to go as far as that. Small
crimes will, at the worst, only send them to the pen,
‘but if a murder is proved against them, they'll croak.”

Chip’s fingers were working at the knots again. Also,
he set his teeth to them.

“Tell me if I hurt you!”

Bite away! I’d be willing to gnaw my own arm off,
ike a trapped rat. You can't hurt me.”
That made him do it ?” Chip demanded, as he stopped
gain breath.
don't know.” _

stp

oak, been a hero!

Chip, sure that Hammerswell was in a desperate plight,
thought he knew why. Hammerswell’s dastardly ‘work at
Taos bulked very large in-his eyes, so that Chip was sure
he was, wanting to get out of the country. And, of
course, he needed money. Therefore, it séemed to Chip
that Hammerswell had resorted to the dangerous expedient
of seizing the mine, and that he would try to hold it ~
long enough to squeeze some money out of Realf. Then —
he would hastily get out of the country. That meant that —
he would have to keep Tillson out of sight until his —
purpose was accomplished. It seemed to explain why,
in addition to his fear of committing murder, he had not
slain Tillson; he did not need to slay him. —

Chip found tugging at the knots with his teeth smother-
ing work, and had to stop now and then. to get” ‘breath,
though driven so hard by the incitement ‘of fear and is
anxiety. But he was: encouraged. Fiber strands were —
coming away as he pulled and tugged), -and the knot he
was working on was growing softer. He was reducing
it ‘by destroying it. He was ‘sure that he was giving
Tillson a good deal of pain, bat As often as “he atopped;
Tillson begged him‘ to go on.

Chip’s chief fear was that Fasbtierwigett ost return
before he could release the prisonér. *) Or that Ham- |
merswell would enter the tunnel where he had lain, aid,
finding him not there, would beat a search’ by the light ‘|
of the lamp. a

Finally, Chip so weakened ‘the knot by wee ont
strands that he was able to untie it: Hi

“Let me get at the one on-my legs now,” said - Tit. te
son, working his hands and arms to get the cramps out —
of them; “you're fagged out. But you've been a heme, Oey,
?? .

* son’s voice trembled.
Chip had felt chilled even with the blanket on ie ik
he roused up in the other tunnel, but now he was ag

in a heavy perspiration, and the foul and confined eae
felt s9,warm that he had a sense of suffocation, He lay ¥
back “aginst the» wall, trembling, quite willing that “Till
son should free the other knots if he could. —

‘Tillson was skillful, and started the knot; ~but had’ “ye
call on Chip to set his teeth in at the last. ;

Then this knét came loose, and, after some further work,
Tillson was released, lee

“Free!” he said, standing up and stretching his arins
and legs. “Free again!”

The tone held as much of vindictive joy as of
for he was thinking of Hammerswell and how
get even. *

“Come,” he said; “we'll get out of this—if T can wal "id

Staggering hee he led the way, and, though app
ently weak from the suffering he had undergone, he ‘s
a pace, that, in the darkness, Chip found a Hers one.

reckoning with Herbert Pacha y
sut, before they were out, a: light fee Rr
toward them.
“Hammerswell!” Tillson gasped. “Down—down, ‘boyt
It’s a fight now if he finds us, and he’s armed.” :
Chip dropped down, and, sliding his hands round, fein,
and grasped a small stone. Tiflson scrambled over and

Ane

crouched against the wall, and, though Chip could 1

see him, he pictured Tillson as preci like a cat, Te

to spring.

 

+
ii
-NEW TIP TOP

In a moment more Hammerswell came “into view, the
lamp on his hat sending a faint light on before him.
Apparently, he was on his way back to the point where
he had left Tillson.

He was unsuspecting, and when he came swinging past,
Tillson leaped out and on him with a cry. Though un-
prepared, Hammerswell was not overthrown. The men
grappled. Tillson, weakened, was bent back, and _ still
back, as if his spine was being strained to the snapping
point ; then he went down with a cry under Hammerswell’s
rush.

- Chip had seen it all by the flashing light of the little
lamp. Rising, he hurled the stone he held straight at
Hammerswell’s head.

Flying a bit high, it struck the lamp and the hat, and
tore them off, hurling them away, and the lamp snapped
out as it clattered to the stone, plunging them in dark-
ness. \

The quick darkness, and the surprise of it, for he had
not known that any one was with Tillson, caused Ham-
merswell to relinquish his hold and spring to his feet.

Tillson staggered up, slid to one side, past Hammerswell,
and began to run in the direction he had been going. Chip
dived by, also, following the sounds of Tillson’s thudding
feet.

With a roar.of rage, Hammerswell swung round and
fired into the’darkness, aiming at the sounds, The bul-
let struck the wall close by Chip’s head. The revolver
flashed and roared thunderously again. Where the bullet
struck that time, Chip did not know, except that it had
not struck him. He was running wildly, trying to keep
close at the heels of the man who was” plunging on be-
fore him in what seemed blind recklessness. €

But Chip knew that Tillson was familiar with the® ‘ping,
' that it was safe to follow him, and this he was doing:
though he could hardly get away from the feeling that
‘he was rushing straight into a stone wall, the darkness
~ was so thick.

Then a gleam of light came, that increased rap idly, and
by it he saw Tillson running ahead of him” through a
timbered passage that led out to the light—the glorious
light of day.

CHAPTER XI.
BARNEY MULLOY’S STORY.

Howtoms over by Doc Fisher and by the hospital surgeon
and nurses, Barney Mulloy had regained consciousness in
the ward of the hospital into which he had been hurried.

The hair had been-clipped away from his ragged scalp
wound, which was then seen to have been made by the
course of a bullet.

Mulloy’s mild, Irish-blue eyes roved round a bit wildly
on his strange surroundings, then fell on the face of Rob-
ert Realf, who was peering in. A queer smile lighted
- Mulloy’s pale face.

“Arrah! Here ye are ag’in, wheriver it is, When
I sane ye befure ye was listenin’ to me lyin’, whilst I was
lyin’ on th’ hot sand, d’ye recollict? \I dunno whin that
was afiny more than I know where I am; ’twas a wake
ago, annyhow.”

’“You’re in the hospital in Santa Fe,” said Realf.
“Oh, Oi am? Th’ walkin’ must have been good, thin.
Let me see! Where was I whin I was last? Oh, I know
now.” . .
“You're talking too much,”

Fisher cautioned.

WEEKLY. 19

Mulloy turned and curiously saereed the young fel-
low who had spoken.

“Oi am? Who ar-re yez, annyhow, that says ut? I
know whin I’m talkin’ too much, and whin I ain’t, without
a b’y bein’ naded to tell me. Whist, now! I was out at
the Blue Bonnet! Ain’t ut a daisy name f’r a mine? Th’
Blue Bonnet. Hah! Whin it’s p’inted out to ye it makes
ye tink ye’re goin’ to a millinery store.

“Yis, I’m recollictin’ now. Ould Hammerswell was there,
d’ye mind, Th’ baste av the worruld that he is, too. Th’
same felly that thried so har-rd to kill Frank Merriwell.
I'll niver fergit it! And whin I asked him f’r work, he
didn’t know me—at foorst. By and by he did, and ’twas
thin that he shot me.

“But befure that—what was ut that kem befure that?
Ah, I know now!”

“Don’t you think
urged.

you're talking too much?” Fisher

“Away wid ye! Talkin’ too much, is ut? I couldn’t.
If I don’t talk, me head will be shplittin’ open wid the
pain av kaping me mouth Shut.. Let me think. Yis, I’ve
got it. It’s like wan av these games—now ye say it and
now ye don’t. But I’ve got ut. "’Twas young Frank
Merriwell, rist him.”

“He’s dead?” ,

“Who says ut? Not me. But he was nigh dead, out on
th’ hill, whin I kem on him there. I had heard enough.
Hammerswell had too much whusky, and he’d been sayin’
he was goin’ to kill aff th’ Merriwells. But he was not
in the mine thin; ’twas impty.” 2

He lifted himself and looked round,

“You'd better lie down;
for you,” said Fisher.

staring.
let me smooth your pillow

“Lie down is ut? Away wid ye! I’ve got to tell it,
For th’ b’y is out there now—in th’ mine, where I put
him; where I hid him so that Hammerswell couldn’t find
him, d’ye mind. He had no clothes on him hardly—on’y
a runnin’ suit, like 1 used to wear mesilf.”

Fisher. looked at Realf, staring in.

“Get Dick Merriwell,” he said.

Realf turned and bounded away.

“’Twas cold in the mine, and I left me blanket with
him, Whin I got out I was startin’ aff f’r Santa Fay, whin
Hammerswell follied me and shot me. He’d got back
whilst I was gone into th’ mine, and he’d found out that
ut was me, Barney Mulloy, and not Pat McCarthy, and
he let drive at me,

“Since thin I’ve been livin’ in th’ thropics, bathin’ me
head in boilin’ pitch, until now; though th’ pitch is still
there, d’ye mind. That I’m livin’ is a surprise to me.”

“They found you out there, and brought you in,” said
one of the nurses,

“I’m guessin’ ut. Who was it?”

“Mr. Fisher here, and Dick Merriwell, and some others.”

“Whurroo! And the b’y was right there in the mine,
yell notice, whin they did it. And he’s there now, if he
hasn’t been found and killed be Hammerswell. I’ve-got to
go out to that mine.”

“You can’t get out of bed,” warned Fisher.

“Oh, I can’t! D’ye hear that, now? From a b’y!
says I can’t?”

He swung his feet round to rise, and lifted his heady
then dropped back, attacked with faintness and a swim-
ming sensation.

‘Who

 
 

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

“Ye’re right,” he said; when he could speak; “I can’t.
But somebody has got to do ut!”

Fifteen minutes later Dick Merriwell and Brad Buck-
hart. were on fast horses and galloping toward the Blue
Bonnet Mine.

When they came back they brought with them Chip
and Tillson,

They had not been able to find Hammerswell.

The course of events had shown that whoever had spied
on Dick and Chip in Santa Fe, it had not been Ham-
merswell,

There were no workers in the mine.
sent away all of Tillson’s employees,
had come.

Hammerswell had
and no others

CHAPTER XII.
JUNE’S APPEAL,

June Arlington was a spirited young lady, as well as a
loving and lovable one. For a good while the feeling
had been growing in her mind that Dick Merriwell, whom
she expected to marry some time, ought to get out of
the dangerous business in which he was engaged. It
seemed to her that Dick had had his full fling at
adventure.

The tingling call of adventure which had come to her
as/ well as to Dick and had led her with him into many
wild regions and perilous situations had lost its strength
somewhat as she grew older, and with its gradual sub-
sidence there had come to take its place the desire for a
home of ker jown, with Dick Merriwell as the head of it.
But the gratification of this natural desire seemed now
almost as far off as ever. Tees

Dick was working hard, for a good salary, and had
hopes that he could reéstablish, to a large degree, his
former position of independence. Yet it seemed to June
that there was no necessity for him to work so hard. He
had lost his fortune in the Valdivian revolution, in which
he had staked all in his efforts to protect the interests

of herself and her brother. Her fortune had thus been
_ saved, and she felt that it was as much Dick Merriwell’s
as it was her own, if he would only consent to share it
_ with her,

However, knowing Dick so well, and prizing, too, his
‘independence, she had put off saying this, until now she
could put it off no longer,

' He had run over to Oliver’s to see her that evening,
and they were sitting up late, talking, a talk that natu-
_ rally had in it a good deal of love-making. He had
been telling her, in the winning way that had so long
held her captive, how much he appreciated the fact that
she had remained in Santa Fe so that be could readily
see her again.
_ “Sweetheart,” he said, “I’m longing always for the time
; when we shall not need to be separated at all.”

_ “Why do you need to postpone it, then?” she had asked
him, taking him by surprise.

_ His arm was about her, but she twisted out of it and
looked him in the face.

“Necessity,” he said.

“Of course I know what you mean, Dick; yet, really, 1

don’t appreciate it,” she urged. “There is no necessity.”
“lm a poor man, you know.”

imply because you flung your fortune away in help-

Chester and me. You were independent before that.”

“T’m not likely to forget’ it,” he said, laughing, “since “
you keep’ telling “tne about it. But I’m not independent
now. Frank needs me, so he says, and is paying me a_
great salary for the work I do; and I’m saying all of as
I can. His business down here is developing into a tre-
mendous success, and he is. making money. I’m) planning
to buy into it, and so‘reap profits above my salary;
double the thing up, you see. I think I can make. it;
I know I can,” : ‘

“But you don’t need to. And you know I’ve been want- —
ing you to get out of this dangerous work.”

“That isn’t like my June,” he said, “to be afraid oF: any-)
thing,”

“T’m not, for myself, but I am for you. You see how
different that is. And I want a home. “When we're mar-
ried, whatever I have is yours; you know that. /It’s yours,
anyway, by every right, because you saved it.. I would
not have a cent, if you had not, helped me,” } is ™

“I hope I deserve that,” he said, laughing again,

“You know you do,- Dick; you know .you deserve it,
and that I mean it. So I ask again—why is it neces-
sary for you to go on working, in a this dangerous vi a as
you're doing?”

*You wouldn’t want to marry me if I had ork

“Dick Merriwell! After all this time, don’t you; know
me any better than that? I’d marry you if you hadn’t a
cent, if you never expected to have a cent, even if you.
couldn’t earm a cent; and we’d go to Denver, or some
place, wherever you liked, and you could engage in some"
sort of business there if you wanted to—” irae

“On your money!” ee

“On your own money—it's yours,”

“June, I’d like to.”

“That sounds better; for if you'd like to, you ‘cand!
VE like to, but I can’t!” x

“The old Merriwell pride!”

“You can call it that, but it seems to me it’s the Mert
well self-respect.”

“Dich,” you make me angry.”

Dick caught her in his arms and held her stoua™

“You mustn’t say that,”

“T have to speak what is. in my mind, don’t you, seep
June declared. y @ ys,

“Sweetheart, you’ ‘know that I must have a feeling of .
independence; it seems somehow necessary to a /
haps other men don’t feel that way, but I do. P
understands that perfectly. He’s generous, and, at» os
from me, he would take me into full partnership, anes
a cent, but he knows I wouldn’t accept it, and he doesn’t esi
humiliate me with the offer. He gfves me a chance to, ¢
make money; offers me a big salary, and virtually says,

“go out and earn it.”. And I’m earning it, with a profit, be

again”
“How much will you have, at the end of a “yea
two?”
“Probably not much, according to your standard; but a.
good nest egg. Enough, I hope, so that we can marry.” —
“And what am I to do with my money, then?” * —
“Buy dresses with it, jewels, do anything you like ; and
let me go on my way, doing the best I can, and trying to
make a man of myself. We're going to be very. happy)
then, June.” | *
“But I want you to quit this pei ont business,” Jane %
begged.

 

 
 

 “Brank Merriwell,

( there in the now blistering heat.
<e

‘Cre ot
aA ,

af L didn’t.

‘NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

a*

Seeing that she was in tears, he drew her again into his
arms. 5)
“{ will, sweetheart,” he promised, “by and by.”

“You're going to stay here and face that villain, Ham-

4 be »
-. merswell, again?”

“T’vé got to, if he is here to be
see Realf through this snarl h
wouldn’t want me not to.

faced; I’ve got to
é¢ has got himself into. You
It would be playing the coward
You wouldn't like to do that, any more
than Ta want to do it and you know that you
wouldn’t.” :
“Perhaps not,” she confessed; “but, Dick, let me help
you! Tl loan you the money to buy an interest in the
Merriwell Company if you will let me.”
* “Couldn't do it,” said Dick; “1 couldn’t take a loan from
my sweetheart. If I want to borrow money, I'll go to a

bank.”

me
inyself ;

“ “Dick, how stubborn you are!”

“Think so?” he said) and he smiled as he kissed her
“well, you aren’t’ even a little bit, are you?”
THE END,
Junior’s, New Foe; or, The Santa
Fe‘ Cross Country” is the title of the story which will
conclude the adventures of the Merriwells in this section.

Tt is a stirring, vivid narrative. You will find it in the
next issue ot Tie Tor, No. 115, out October 20th,

ae —

-

Bob Storm on the Bridge.

By Ensign Lee Tempest, MW; S. A. %

. 7 a

(This interesting story was commenced in No. 113 of the NEW TIP
Tor WEEKLY. Back numbers can be obtained from your news
* dealer or the Wage rey )

CHAPTER VIII.

STORM’S NEW BILLET.

Bristie Storm, the log book in his hands, dropped into
the cutter, and was rowed back to the battleship, waiting
There ensued a talk
with. the rear admiral in his cabin, during which the
strange. log was closely studied, and then a consultation
among the commanders and lieutenants of the Delaware.

. All seemed to know of Pennanter—of that great firm’

f armament chandlers, which is always to be found
ehind any warlike move of rebels or adventurers. Most
f the officers were familiar with the Brazilian destroyer
Pernambuco, from having seen photographs and tables of
er displacement, speed, et cetera.

But none—not one—had ever heard» of the Maestro,
Roc, or of the Free Republic, the Council of Elders, or
Pierre Tributor !

“Tt must be a country of very Primitive government,”
hazarded Lieutenant Commander Briggs, “to be under the
rule of patriarchs, as these Elders must be.”

Roc? Seems as though I’ve heard that name before,”
“But whether he’s an Indian of

eit
Tigo

ai

hundred years ago, made it extremely risky to take a
ship out of New Orleans!”

“But documents say’ he pirate at all,”
objected Captain Winship, “but a smuggler, who reformed
and did good work for us in the War of Eighteen-twelve.”

“Well, whatever Jean Lafitte was,’ Admiral Salter put
in, “he is the man referred to in this log as ‘the Maestro,
who is dead.’”

was never a

After that attention turned once more to the strange and
puzzling log book. .There wére twenty-three pages beside
that first. page with its electrifying entry. And in a
crowded, bent-backed those studied page
after page, sentence after sentence of it.

group, officers

It was all- puzzling, strange, almost unbelievable. Again
and again mention was made of the Maestro, Roc, and the
Elders, .No explanation of their or reason for
their. titles was given, but the seemed to be
that the Council of Elders was. subordinate
terious Maestro.

identity
intimation
to the mys-
at least, such sinister
“suns enough for

On every page appeared once,
phrases as “suitable for our
the Work we intend,”

purpose,”

Near the end of the entries it was said that the Jean
Lafitte had run into Barbados Island, and there in the
dark of night received on board the Remington rifles and
the cartridges and other ammunition that had been deliv-
ered in Bridgetown by Anthony Pennanter & Co.

Then the assemblage turned on Bob. He had to report
that, despite his hands-and-knees search through the
cramped quarters of the derelict, he had seen nothing of
these munitions of war.

Thereat a party of investigating officers went aboard the
Jean Lafitte. When they, returned a half hour later, it
was to report that they had found the ammunition boxed
up in barrels labeled “Cement,” and the rifles crated under
the name of “Sewing Machines.”

“It’s filibustering, I say,” said Captain Winship, when
they were once again assembled in the admiral’s cabin,

“Reyolution’s my bet,” conjectured a lieutenant. “Some
South or Central American revolutionists bought , and
stocked up this destroyer. Why, there are enough guns in —

that hold to arm half our crew!”

“That’s why I hold for gun-running—because of those
guns!”

“How about smuggling?”

“Or slaving?” }

“Yon're right,” indorsed Briggs, the stout lieutenant com-

mander. “The days of blackbirding are not entirely past.
Why, otherwise, those machine guns?”

Admiral Salter chuckled from under the ends of his
white mustache.

“Gentlemen, I think you are all too conservative. I’m

sure this derelict was rigged up for out-and-out piracy, —

and that this Roc is a modern buccaneer !” :

They all laughed at that. Then the grizzled old sea dog —
went on: Nase

“The thing to do is to bring this derelict into the near-
est port. It is too valuable and seaworthy a craft to sink
with our eight-pounders. Once delivered into the hands of »
the government, we'll Jeave the solving of this sinister mys-
tery to them. We haven't the time for koe it seems—
the brains!”

A mene smile adnan this last crack, which aukly

 
 

: ie

faded when it was seen that the rear aikiole had placed
his hands on the shoulders of Bob Storm.

“Storm, here is a new and important commission for
you,” said the grizzled veteran soberly. “Board this
steamer again, take command of her, and‘ sail ker, derelict
that she is, into New Orleans, the nearest large port!” .

The ensign was astounded. Not only had the orders
come all of a sudden, but Bob had not expected them.

However, he pulled himself together. “Yes, sir,’ he
said, and saluted.

“A detail of twenty men will act as your crew. Doctor
Murray will accompany you, ‘as well, for it may be that
this destroyer was abandoned because of yellow jack. It’s
all a matter of supposition, of course, as this landlubber
of a Tributor doesn’t enlighten us one little bit on the rea-
son for the desertion of the ship.”

“And who, sir, will be my second in command?” Storm
knew there would have to be another line officer to relieve
him in commanding the derelict and the crew of twenty
men.

The old man smiled.

“Oh, I think I will please you there!” he said. “I have
chosen for that berth your bosom friend, Midshipman
Ralph Stafford.”

CHAPTER IX.
THE MENACE OF MUTINY,

At sundown, after a day spent in coaling, receiving sup-
plies, getting final orders, and selecting a volunteer crew,
Bob Storm stood on the bridge of the derelict destroyer,
Jean Lafitte, and gave the command which started that
steel ship off on its unescorted cruise.

“Get under way!”

At that order, the destroyer dipped her new American
flag in salute and farewell to her grim and mighty pro-
tector, then was off, at fifteen knots speed, on the lonely
run into New Orleans.

For a while the natty little craft nosed along in gallant
fashion, The sensation was exhilarating to Bob. He was

-used to the slow, steady march of sea-shouldering battle-

ships. Now, the way the little destroyer reeled'and tossed
to its scuppers in the long swells proved a source of sur-
prise and delight to him.

But soon a queer, empty feeling began to assail the pit
of the ensign’s stomach; his head whirled, and he was
almost seasick. It was that way with nearly every other
man in the crew. They say in the navy you are cured or
killed in a month on a destroyer.

The gold lights faded from the sky. Tropic night
closed swiftly down. And underneath a thousand stars
the Jean Lafitte threaded her way between coral-teethed
keys and by many a low, black craft that smacked of
smuggling as much as of sponging. .

The next day broke golden and gorgeous. The slim ship
still held under fifteen knots, albeit it was capable in a
pinch of twice that speed. And all day, Storm and Staf-
ford alternated watches, for a small craft like the de-
stroyer needed more attention than a huge battleship.

The two junior officers, despite the fact that this free-
_ lance gruise threw them so close together, were no longer
the firm pals they once had been. A coolness as of ice
separated them. And nothing Bob did in the way of
breathing’ upon it seemed to have any effect.

Stafford was still sore,

He did not show open enmity

a

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

to his superior ofttet, but he rebuk ee all kindly ovartinte
from Bob, and appéired to be ruminating sullenly on how
he “supposed his friendship had been outraged. . é
However, Storm, through the force of circumstances,
was compelled about nightfall of the second day after
leaving the Delaware to take Stafford into. h’s confidence.
They stood together on the low bridge of the destroyer.
“Mr. Stafford,” said the young ensign commander, me
fear we are facing a mutiny of the crew!” oes

“Mutiny?” Stafford was startled almost completely out
of his right attitude.

“Yes, mutiny.” Storm’s voice was low and tensey..*The
first night 6ut I chanced to overhear the watch speaking
their fears of yellow jack and beriberi.”

+i

“But the ship has been fumigated thoroughly.” £

“I know, but that’s only one of the fearp of the men. ‘3

They do not like this ship or this cruise.”

“Oh, all flatfoots dread derelicts.”

“But this is not the regular superstitious fear all sailors”
have of derelicts Our crew think this is a ghost ship—a
sort of Flying Dutchman of the accursed Jean Lafitte.”

“What? Well, I’ll-be keelhauled!” was all. Stafford, in
itis astonishment, could: say. ett 5

Bob explained. a

“You see, somehow it leaked out to the crew that eis,
ship was dubbed after the French pirate, Jean Lafitte.
And their sailor yarns now have it that this is a ship Jean,
Lafitte fitted out in Brazil for another venture in buccas
neering on his old cruising grounds, the Gulf of Nee f

“But Jean Lafitte has been dead a hundred years.”,

Storm laughed.

* “Some histories have it that he rounded out a long ‘ae
“an Brazil, dying from old age over fifty years ago. Others —

that on his last trip, almost a hundred years ago, his ship
and all his crew, including himself, was engulfed by the
sea. But our grew seems to have taken no reckoning of *.
either of these legends,” fey

“What do they believe?” Yin,

“They have a hazy idea bout the pirate coming tae
like a pera -dying Kida of “Blackbeard, to harry th
coast. They’ don’t appear to”bé able to see the anachronism |
of a modern steel destroyer amid the medieval atmos-—
phere of their superstitious, buccaneering, yarn.” ;

“But who started the rumors? Who knew ee
about Jean Lafitte?”

“Why, that old sea dog, Deadeye Jones, of course.
know him, don’t you?”

To be sure, Stafford did.

You ;

That bent and rickety old
navy man was as famous and well known to every officer”

and flatfoot in the service as Fighting Bob himself.
hair was as white as sea foam, his face bronzed and fur-

towed by a thousand wrinkles, and, although not over

sixty years of age, navy talk had it that he was’ four.
score and ten. He was a great yarn spinner, and, by the
same token, was not a Stickler for truth,

“And that’s) how I sees Jean Lafitte’ I heard him teliig
the dogwatch last night,” mimicked Storm seriously. “ ‘I
sees that dirty garlic-eatin’ lubber of a Frenchman with
these here two deadlights, and I haven’t cocked my “hat —
across the hawse of a slicker craft. And you can kiss —
the Book on that? iH

“And then the old rascal opened that left eye of his, _
which he always keeps tightly shut, in one blue, piercing

 

 

is, «RS
 

 

ee TIP TOP WEEKLY.

flash, and, at that, no one of his hg: rers possessed the
courage to contradict or even disbelieve him.”

After a silence, Stafford said:

“But mutiny is unheard of in the American navy. These
f wild fears would have to take more solid shape ere our
-. men‘would attempt that.”
“know that. But the awful menace of it forced me

- te Speak of it.to you. -Were we not so near New Or-

‘ leans—were the cruise one day longer—I would fear mu-
tiny in earnest!”

CHAPTER X.
MUTINY—OR WORSE!

“PWhen Stafford went below at two bells in the dog-
watch, and Bob took the deck alone, the coast of Louisi-
aha was visible through the night glasses. A half hour
“Jater, the destroyer was slipping through the bare passage-
“way between two palm-plumed keys, when, of a sudden,
from the. island to starboard shot up a single red shaft
of light!

Another. followed from the beach of the opposite key..

Then ensued feverish darkness, while the Jean- Lafitte
made out of the passageway and left the islands in its
_ wake.

. Storm stood astounded, not knowing what to make of
the lights. It was obvious they were signals, Was it some
colony of spongers, pearlers, or smugglers? And were
they signaling: him?

Just; then, looking back, Bob was startled to see frantic

- signals being exchanged between both keys, ‘as though

“torches were being flashed and wigwagged by many
hands:

» “What can it mean?” Storm asked himself. “Were. they. 4

watching for me? Are they surprised that I should pass.

them right. by? Do they mistake me for some other
ship? I wonder Hello! What's this?” »

Out of the blackness of the fo’c’s’le hedd at his: feet
came as clear and calm as a note on the ‘Phip’s dell a
voice, saying: tS
“Men, I’m not spieling any ‘big. yords, but we've got to
o somethin’! I can’t stand ‘the’’strain no J@mger. The
fear*that yellow jack, or beriberi, or the awful things

eadeye tells us of, may get us any minute on this

Ria ship makes my heart black. I’mi‘not usin’ a big
dictionary word that’s taboo among gentlemen of the
ea, but, men, we've got to do somethin’ [Se

i ‘Storm gasped.
“Good heavens!

e€ means mutiny !”

Storm swung on his heel.

“That's what I’ll do!” he decided.

n and find out just how far this thing has gone.

‘see what course I'll follow.”
he young ensign strode off the bridge and down the

’ ladder. Then, just as he put foot upon deck, men seemed
to rise up all about him.

“Mutiny ! !” he cried, and, in sheer surprise, fell back.

_ And then Storm made out that these men were not

members of his crew!

ee were dark and qesparare of face.

I didn’t think it was as bad as this!

“T’ll go down to the
Then

About their
Rings

they build houses

Two of the cutthroats made to grasp Boh. But by this
time the young had recovered. He knew he was
not dealing with a mutinous crew, but with beach com-

behind. So he did not stop to

ensign

bers from the two keys
parley.

Ot shot his left fist, and a dark, black-mustached fel-
low reeled to the deck. Plunk! And his right fist lifted
a smaller assailant off his feet and sent him sprawling on
his back on the deck.

A furious imprecation rang in Storm’s ears. “He got a
glint of a huge, villainous-looking buccaneer—of a cut-
lass in his hands that was flashing in-descent. And then a
streak of red! And, like a felled ox, to the deck top-
pled Robert E. Storm, ensign, U. S. N.!

CHAPTER XI.
ROC APPEARS.

Bob Storm returned to consciousness to find a bandage
about his aching head. As was polsiccaa by a huge and
tender lump under the folds of the bandage, that “blow
from the cutlass had been ‘with ‘the flat of the blade, ‘and
had merely served to render him senseless. ©

It was broad day and monstrously hot. Hé“was lying,
full dressed, on a bed in a light, airy room, the floor of
which was formed of immaculate white cane. The sun
and a hot zephyr breathed in upon him through a broad,
open window opposite where he lay. He looked out.

Quite a drop beneath the room in which he lay a-won-
dering, a road commenced and. marched, straight and flat
and broad as a city street, but ‘unpaved and sun-baked,
sainte the shaking mists of the distance. On each side it
was picketed by a row of tall and luxurious trees. And
“behind these Bob glimpsed the yellow roofs of what he
took to be small, two-storied houses set in regular align-
ment along the road.

He propped himself higher in the bed. And then he
made out that the yellow houses were not two-storied, but

-were raised to give an appearance of that height on stilts

or piles of cane.

“Must be a tropical settlement,” he muttered. “I know
this way among the gulf bayous, not
only for coolness, but against storms and tidal waves, and
to protect themselves from the deadly moccasin.” ;

He held his aching head.

“But who are the people who live here?” he puzzled.
“Where are they? How did I come here? Why, there’s
not a sign of life.”

But just then, from far off down the scorched street,
a dog barked. Then the blistering silence of high noon
prevailed once more, and nothing stirred.

Storm lay in a sort of trance, dully feeling the ieee
bing pain in his head, while the breathless heat of the’
noontime gave way to the Aight, cooling breeze of after-
noon.

Still, no life showed without. At last Storm aroused i
sufficiently to get out of the bed. He walked lightly,
though with a reel, across the yielding cane. floor to the
door. This,. unlike the rest of the room, which was
formed of cane, was composed of boards.

Storm flung it open. Then he saw at the bottom of the

cane steps leading up to the door the remy figure of He -

squat, burly man.
4 uae fellow sat up, and rubbed his eee, then looked ‘at

 
 
  
   
  
  
   
  
    
   
    
    
    
 
 
 
  
   
 

NEW

 

the navy man.

waist.
“By gar,” he said, rising to his feet;
sleep you wake me out of!
Storm made no answer,

What for you come?” + °
but stood his ground.

not escape.
_ The ruffian started up the stairs.
“ “Go back,” he snarled.
you !”

Defiant and cool, Storm stood in the doorway.

“Hands off!” he ordered.

A battle impended.
of the stillness of the place.

 

  

of pleading.

“Go back queek! The Maestro comes! Roc, he comes!”

And he pushed the surprised Storm back into the room,
and closed the door.

Storm thought.

Roc! .Wky, that was the man of mystery named in the
log book of the Jean Lafitte! He was the Maestro, and
probably the one that had to do with holding Bob a
prisoner !

“Why,” exclaimed the ensign, “we must have fallen in
with the same crew that fitted out the Jean Lafitte! And
Roc-——”

Storm, swung about to face the opening door.

i eee

CHAPTER XII.
AN AMAZING SCOUNDREL.

A strange figure appeared in the doorway. Storm was
no Lilliputian; he stood over six feet in his shoes; yet,
at that, this newcomer towered a half foot ‘at the least
above him. And he was huge _ proportionately—Her-
culean shoulders, arms like iron levers, and chest arched

like a hogshead.

For all his size, however, the fellow was a young man.
From his large, bold-featured, though not unhandsome,
face, Storm judged he was not more than five years -his
senior.

His skin was leathery and bronzed; a certain over-
whelming pride seemed to lurk somewhere in his face, and
altogether Bob quickly came to. the opinion that he was a
half-blood, French and Indian.

And this. splendid animal of a man was garbed in the

_ Same outlandish attire Storm had glimpsed. in the dark of
the night before, and noted on his. squat, burly guard. It

_ was a costume that smacked like nothing more than piracy,
_ the vanished Brethren of the Coast, and the Spanish
Main.

A red bandanna ’kerchief swathed his large head, and

from beneath the folds of this, long, black, curly locks
_ fell to his shoulders. As he moved forward, the huge
‘rings pendant in his ears sparkled and showed from un-
der the hair, Moccasins shod his feet; the yelvet, bell-
shaped trousers of the old buccaneers incased his legs to
the knees, and his waist was encircled by a flaring red
_ sash,

“I am Roc,, the Maestro,” he said, in a deep, roaring
voice, and with a great show of pride and self-sufficiency.

 

TIP” QP WEEKLY.
He was short, thick-featured, and bearded.
About his unkempt head was knotted a red bandanna;
rings were in his ears, and a red sash encircled his stout

“she’s. one fine

He
realized the fellow was a guard on watch so that he should

“Go back queek—or I make

And then a great shout arose out
Instantly the burly guard
changed his attitude from one of menace almost to that

 

“And I have come fo ask your health, mOnSiCUsy and to. Es :
speak of things that may interest both of us.’ '
He advanced with huge strides toward: Bob. a we ice
“T hope you have slept well, monsieur. I assure you Io 4 BS ‘
meant it not in bitterness, that blow on the head. I hope ; ay
with the sincere hope that you bear me no ill will for that. Res..
What else could I do?”

So this was the gigantic fellow who had struck’ Stérm
down. He seemed a man of some education, He spoke,
not in a dialect or patois, like the ruffan on guard, but
only with a slight French accent. It was evident that he
was possessed of a certain learning and culture, as is s the,
way of leaders and rulers everywhere.

 

 

  

Storm found tongue. PG Ne le
“No, I suppose I should bear you no ill feeling” fen
that blow you gave me in the press of the fight... But
what I do resent is your boarding of my vessel! How.
dared you act the buccaneer on a ship of the United.»
States ?” ¥
The huge fellow laughed in a way to shake the cane
building.
“Ah! But that was magnifique! |You ask buccaneers

why for they act like buccaneers! \Oh, oui, oui! You
want to know how we, the owners of the Jean Lafitte,
dared to board our own beautiful ship and take pos-
session——”

“But it was a derelict, and now belongs to the United Hs
States, which salvaged it. The WU. S: S, Delaware dis-
covered the derelict, and dispatched me and a prize crew ,- 0? a XG

 

 

abit ett nis

 

 
 
      
     
     
 

to take her into New Orleans.” p tt
At that, for some reason or other, the/gigantic creature th
threw back his bold, handsome head, and laughed roar- — fi
ingly, : d
Storm flamed up, Advancing. upon dhe comic-opera
eae he demanded: i

  
     

“What have. you done with my crew and the ship?
What do you-tean by keeping me a prisoner here? TI
am an‘offieer ‘of the United States navy! How dare you
hold and insult’ me in this w ay?”

The Maestro drew, himg¢tfjmp to his great height, Tied
his head, and, smiling triginphantly, answered :

“Mofisieurs you ask by what right I. dare capture a ship —
commanded by a United. Statés naval officer~by what
right I dare imprison that officer and his crew? » Well, I, »
Roc, the Maestro, say, by the right of might! ‘Look! \? * :

And, grasping Bob’ by the wrist, he swung him toward | .
the window.

     
         
       
         
     
      
      
    
   
      
     

Storm looked out as he was bidden. He witnessed ‘a
far different scene from the former dead picture, Men
were all about—on the road, in the doorways, and on the
stairs of the bungalows on stilts, and leaning in STOHpS | <e
against the rows of palms. bs

They were most of them short, squat, powerful felis
lows, with bullet heads and shocks of coarse black hair— —
of the type of the ruffian on guard before Bob’s doors}
though a few were giants of the stamp of the Maestro.”
Here and there were a few very old, white-bearded men.

It appeared certainly a cosmopolitan community. For,
while most seemed of a French cast, some were swart and
lean like Spaniards, quite a few had the high) sharp
features peculiar to Indians, and the red head and flaxen %
tow of Celt and Teuton were not missing, while blatk
negroes were not only numerous, but noisy and aotice.

     
        
      
          
 

 

 
         
               
  

  

    
 
 

  

  
And all were garbed alike in the -wild and primitive
tO re style of the Maestro—red bandannas about heads, crimson
sashes for belts, and green and yellow bell trousers. The
ostentatious display of firearms added to the picture of
riotous, piratical color.

“There are nigh three hundred of these men; wild,
rough fellows—cutthroats, you probably would call them!”
The Maestro was explaining in Bob’s ear. “All strong
‘men, with no love but the love to fight! And they all—
every man of them—obey the slightest command of Roc!
I am their. Maestro !”

“Bat what are you?” the ensign broke in.
smugglers, beach combers—or what?”

. The fellow drew up proudly.

~ “We, monsieur, are the Free Republic.”
“The Free Republic? But what
.~*Tt is ah outlaw community which owes allegiance to
Fwn0 ‘country and Pays revenue to no government but its
3 .0wn.”

 

“Pirates,

 

“But aren’t we’somewhere along the gulf coast of the
United States? Therefore, in United States territory?”

“Ves, monsieur, you are right,” Roc said slowly. “We
are on an island embraced. by the territory claimed by the
United States of America—by the State of Louisiana, in
fact. But——”

“Then, doesn’t the United States collect taxes?
you obey her laws?”

Roc shook. his head decisively. :
|. “We obey no laws but our own. The United States
tried once or twice to collect revenue of us, but we hid
.in the canebrakes, and they failed! Now she wishes to
forget we are here—and that is just what we most of.all
desire!”

Stormistared in wonder, almost disbelief, out the win-. :
dow. He noted that the men all seemed moving down.
the road toward a huge cypress at the farther end. They
- clambered down from the houses, ee the
“road, and formed about the immense tree. ig
- “What means that?” his Sees forced’ hi nhs: ask
_ of the silent Maestro.
“Oh, that is the court.
month after the full moon—and, hence, court “day.

At Storm’s look of wonder, Roc added:

 

Don’t

x “

 

 

  
 

 

  

Fo. dip is the first day of, the

” .

   
   
   
   

- y “Oh, we have our laws, too, and enforce them. All
em offenders must answer on this day to the charges against
‘3 - them beneath the Judgment Tree. We have no prison,
es but if a man is drunk and the court finds him guilty, he
coe is put in a shallow boat full of water until he is sober
q 2 or repents. That is a good plan, no? And for other

  

“slight offenses there is flogging and ducking in water, and
f so on. ”

“Who compose the court?”

“The Cotsncil of Elders.”

_ Storm was startled. “The Council of Elders! se
heard that name before. ,
“Oui, monsieur; the Council of Elders. They are the
five oldest men of the colony, each no less than seventy

       
       
    
     
         
   
     
         
         

He had

 
 

a years old. They second me in ruling, but I am the real
nd iy master of the Free Republic!”

f : “But why are you not at the court, delivering judg-
ds ~ ments?”

The Maestro smiled grimly.
“Oh, that is one of the conditions.of our government.
I am the Maestro, the dictator, the czar of this island,

  

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

 

25
yet I have nothing to do with the laws. I am the war
chief. I never go near the Council Cypress.”

Of a sudden, he went black in the face and furious.
He shook his fist at the crowd under the tree.

“Maestro as I am,” he cried, “I am forbidden to go
near the Judgment Tree! And—perhaps at this moment
they ——”

He grasped Bob by the shoulders.

“The Maestro is elected or dethroned once a year by
popular vote!” he roared. “Right now those men may be
voting to dethrone me and shoot me to death!” &

CHAPTER XIII.
ROC SHOWS HIS HAND.

Storm could scarcely believe his ears:

“What! I thought you were master here!”

“Tam. That is, these men do whatever | command, or
I can have them shot. But they hold that power to re-
move me from office over my head. I would take that
away from them. I am ambitious. I would hold full
sway. here.”

His commanding face lit up in the fury of his ambitious
dreams.

“And I would make the sons of the, buccaneers Jean
Lafitte left behind him when he sailed away, not smug-
glers and wreckers, as now, but scourges of the seas, as
were the brethren of the old days!”

Storm started.

“You don’t mean you'd start buccaneering nowadays—
in the twentieth century!”

Roc laughed shortly.

“Why balk at the truth?
piracy in this twentieth century!

He turned suddenly on the ensign.

“And you, Captain Storm, are the man for me!”

That was\like a bomb to Bob.

“What—what do you mean?”

“That I have decided you are the very man for my
venture.”

“Venture?” cried Storm.

The Maestro laughed.

“No, not piracy. I’m not ready for that yet.”

“What then?”

“Oh, just a little matter of smuggling.”

“Smuggling?”

“Oui; of course.
Lafitte for.”

At last it was out.
as a smuggling ship,

That’s what I mean—to start

hed

“Do you mean piracy?”

That’s what we bought the Jean
The steel destroyer was to be used.

“We have long been smugglers,” the gigantic Roc took
it upon himself to explain.

into New Orleans and the bayous along the coast. But;

alas! never have we smuggled on the grand scale I plan to °

initiate with the Jean Lafitte. For now we have the
smuggling ship of my dreams: a steel-steamer, stout and
strong, swift as a shadow and as elusive!
the one man to run, to command her!”

The young ensign was startled to a point where he Sul

not think. All he knew was that he, Bob Storm, a naval’

officer of the United States, was slated to command the

Jean Lafitte on her smuggling ventures,
“From the start I knew you were my man,” he heard
Roc saying, as in a dream. “You have the battle light of

“Many a sloop we have run

And you> are

+ ;
+

  

 

 
 

NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

the born commander in Last night, when we
overwhelmed you, you showed no hesitancy or indecision
in fighting us. So ] careful, even in the flare of
the fight, to stun, not stab you, with the flat of my cutlass.
Then I had you brought here to my house.”

“But my men?” it suddenly struck Bob to ask.

“All twenty of them are securely imprisoned.”

“You said you had no prison. Where

“They are on an island surrounded by canebrakes—the
worst jungle imaginable. It is some distance off in the
‘swamps. Only one path leads into it, and that is dangerous
to traverse unless you are well acquainted with it.”

“And Ralph Stafford, and Doctor Murray?”

“Both are in this village. Doctaire Murray to treat us
for yellow jack and snake bites; and your second in com-
mand, Monsieur Stafford, is quartered at the other end
of the town. And you aré”the guest of the Maestro him-
self—in his house—for you are to have the honor of
commanding the Jean Lafitte!”

Storm tried diplomatically to refuse that honor.
 “Haven’t you another man in all your three hundred
who can run this destroyer?” stp
“Ah nol My men ate all rough fellows. They can
run sponging sloops and sail smugglers, but they are lost
on a steamer. That's why the elders were against. the
‘steamer ‘at first. It was only: with the hardest efforts I
realized my ambition.”

your eyes.

was

“But who did you intend for the ship’s captain?”

“Myself. Of course, I would have to learn how to
handle the vessel from the Brazilian officers, but this is
quicker. You, a United States naval officer, shall run the
Jean Lafitte!”

“But what if I-refuse?”

Roc smiled.

“Ah! But you will not refuse the honor! Look! Here
{release you from imprisonment—the fate of all your
‘compatriots. I make you captain of- your own. ship—
something it would take years to achieve in the ‘service.
‘And also it is not piracy I intend yet; it is only smug-

 gling?» i

He grasped Bob almost pleadingly by the lapels of his
coat. .

“And what do you do, captain? Simply stand on your
bridge and give orders to your own engineers and fire-
“men. We have none among “us, and.so must use your
“men.
like any
“But isn’t that a poor move, to put yourselves into the
Phecita of your prisoriets? What if we should betray you
at our first chance?”

Roc’s face went grim.

“You will not want to betray us! You will be paid
too well for that!’ And you will be killed if you turn
erepantag Y "9

~ He looked full at Storm.
' “And now, captain, will you be one. of us, and take
‘command of thé Jean Lafitte? Everything is yours if you
do. Refuse, and all that is terrible will befall you!”
- Storm drew himself up. His nerves were tense; his
“course resolved upon. Grimly calm, he said:
ra Oe eRe, ot Ne
Roe took one huge step backward from him. He leaned
det. and gazed, as though in disbelief, into Storm’s
‘fixed eyes," a pe

My met will pilot you, and do all the dirty work,

_rescuer’s approach as a. challenge, to fight.

with a- gpranz forward,
towered over
“You refuse! You reftise to take command?” bee
He laughed. All of a stidden, as in the quick, tem-
peramental changes of an insane person, he broke- off,
and laughed bitterly. ye
“What a fool I am! Your words. are—wind! fae
my prisoner. You must do whatever I say. And I say

this very night you will be captain of the Jean Lafitte L” 2

Then, mighty. oath, he
1 }

Bob*<

TO BE CONTINUED.

ONLY A COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION.

She was an aristocratic but vinegar-faced lady, and sie
had called ‘on her friend, Mrs. Grindstone.

“He’s a charming little fellow, Mrs, Grindatoggit Ha
said, referring to Willie Grindstone, junior. “Only: five
years old, you ie You'll give me a kiss, won't Lo ,
Willie?” eof

Willie did not evince any signs of. gaaarncss % comply.
with the request, but he kissed her.

“That’s a good boy,” said the visitor; “but what are you.
holding in your hand so tightly?” cate

“It’s a quarter mamma gave me,” said. the cent be
Willie; “she said she ’spected you’d want to kiss me, :
and I wouldn’t do it for less.”

A BULLDOG’S NATURE.

A savage-looking bulldog, which belonged to a schooner a
lying at a wharf in San Francisco, fell into the bay un-,
noticed by any one on board. + After vainly peer
seramble up the vessel's side, he caught- hold. with. his
teeth on a rope attached to a Jeraat boat lying alongside.
Then he attempted to place his forefeet on the line to use
it as a rest, but in this he was again unsuccessful, for every
time he made the attempt the small boat would. back, the’ ;
ropeswould. sag, and the brute would duck heneath the
surface. Pcaidines ie

Every time he comesidfleatiti, he was ; tage the
teeth ‘withiea Art of athlike grip to the line. This ex-
ei'cise,” withott . beneficial tesults, seemed to exhaust him
even more than his attempts to reach the deck of the —
vessel. For a few moments he. rested, then, turning his —
ugly face and his wicked eyes toward those, on-the wharf,
he set up a howl. A New foundland leaped into the water,
true to his instinct, and swam toward the struggling bull-
dog. The latter, also showing his nature, regarded. the
Releasing his ©
hold on the painter, he turned and not only Pits Ai
on the defensive, but growled and ee na

fighter,  dealiatne that his edad intention: was no
preciated or understood by the brute that had given ‘s
nae of distress, turned and swam to = boat ste 4

on it, and howled anew. eye this time some. ‘tle!
longing to the schooner seized the rope, hauled the

ering brute alongside, and, seizing him by the skin of t

neck, hauled him on Ree

 

 
 

~

“¢ Any Boy Can Buy It.

_ * Dear Eprtor: I am a constant reader of Tir Top, and
I think it is one of the best weeklies in the world for
“boys, and the price is so small any boy can buy it. The
first Tip’ Top that I read was “Frank, Junior’s, Desert
Race.”

Please tell me the measurements for a boy age twelve
years eight months, whose height is 5 feet 3 inches.

I can hold out for two miles. Respectfully yours,

. James M. Kerr.

1790 Market Street, Lexington, Ky.

Your correct measurements should be: Weight, 107.5
pounds; neck, 12.4 inches; chest, 30.4 inches; chest, ex-
panded, 32.9 inches; waist, 25.3 inches; forearms, 9.2
- inches; upper arms, down, 8.6 inches; upper arms, up, 10.2
“inches; thighs, 17.3 inches; calves, 11.9 inches.

Fishhook Causes His Death.

‘James J. Glennon, while fishing off the Fourth Avenue
Bridge, at Janesville, Wis., with a steel rod, caught ~his
hook on an electric wire under the bridge.

He reached over to knock the hook from the wire, and
the fishing rod came into contact with an uninsulated
‘ portion of the wire, killing him instantly.

Two companions, in trying to release him from the,wire,

also received shocks, which ee them into the river.
. a rae ;

_ A Friend from ‘Ghicago. Br% ee eR
DEAR ae I have been reading Tir Hop for Acaity
three years, and I feel I have the right to write you a
~ letter which I would like to see printed in your Applause
column. I get Tie Top every week, and would feel ony
if I had to miss an issue.
I see you are giving away post cards, and I ould

like to have some. Your friend, LESTER ANDERSON.
5046 West Ohio Street, Chicago, Ill.

Nig Escapes Through Mob of Two Hundred,

With a double strength guard about the prison, and a
mob of nearly two hundred men at a respectful distance,
‘Sam Marshall, one of the negroes held in the jail. at
Eufaula, Okla., charged with the murder of Johnson
‘King, a farmer, not only made his escape from the jail,
but also slipped through the mob and was gone before
they knew anything about it. He has not been recaptured.

Deserves Much Credit,

Dear Epitor: J have read your famous weekly. for

eight years, and I think Burt L. Standish deserves much

redit for his interesting stories.

well.

son, La., have never seen an ostrich in the flesh,
“nothing of one that races, and the first appearance of

I like all the characters, but I would rather read about
the old crowd.

I would like to ask you a question. What has become
of Doris Templeton? She surely was too fine a char-
acter for Tip Toppers to lose.

The new series about the “Merriwell Company” have
started in fine, but let us hear more of the old crowd, espe-
cially Frank, senior’s, friends.

I would like a set of postal eafds, if you have any left,
and your latest catalogue. _

I must close this lengthy letter now. With three cheers
for Burt L. Standish, and Street & Smith, I remain, a
loyal Tip Topper, HERBERT SCHWANDT.

1913 Twenty-second Street,‘Superior, Wis. 7

You will hear more of Doris, Herbert. Glad that you
think that the Merriwell Company series has started in
Burt L.. Standish is giving Tre Top readers the
very best that is in him, and I think that you will find,
that as time goes on, the stories will grow better and
better.

Woman Owns Racing Ostrich.

Mrs. Joseph T. Landry, of race-horse fame, has added
another fleet-footed traveler to her string of winners. It
is an ostrich, and is in training. Many persons in Donald-
to say

Mrs. Landry’s bird on the track in an exhibition of
speed will be eagerly awaited.

®

Likes Dick and Doc Fisher.

I have taken Tip Top for quite a while
I like to read about Dick Merri-

Dear EpITor:
now, and like it fine.
well and Doc Fisher.

Please send me some post cards and a catalogue of Tre
Top WEEKLY, if you have any to spare. Three cheers for
Mr. Standish and Street & Smith. Yours truly,

Los Banos, Cal. CHARLES QUENTINI.

Sunflower Crop Brings $85 ftom Single Acte.

The culture of sunflowers is the newest wrinkle among
the farmers of Spencer County, Ind. Almost 3,000 acres
were planted in sunflowers this year. The new crop, which
brings between $60 and $85 an acre, is a good substitute
for tobacco.

The cultivation of the sunflower resulted from the
successive failure of the tobacco crop. The cultivation —
of sunflowers is the same as that of corn, and the seeds
are thrashed much like wheat. The plant grows eight to
ten feet in height, and the harvesters go through the ©

‘ fields in wagons, cutting off only the pods, which are

 
NEW TIP TOP WEEKLY.

placed in barns, to be thrashed when there is little farm
work to be done, Single pods yield as much as a peck
of seed.
; Couldn’t Get Along Without It,
I have been reading the Tre Tor for two
Wouldn’t know what do do with-
Harotp Wess.

Dear Epitor:
years, and like it fine,
out it. Yours truly,

Rogers, Texas.

Walsh Invents New Curves That Fools,

Ed Walsh, the Chicago American League come- sank
pitcher, has blossomed out in a new role, Walsh has be-
come an inventor and discovered a new pitched ball—a
combination ctirve and spitball that has helped him return
as a winner.

Just how Walsh thtows this new ball is a secret, but
suffice it to say it is a combination of the old spitball
that helped make him’ famous and the curve ball. It
might. be described as a curve spitter.

“Does Walsh throw the spitball any more?” is a ques-
tion heard often of late, . Several baseball scribes in the
East contended Walsh, hagPtiscarded the spitball entirely
and had recourse to the curve exclusively. If-Walsh had
discarded the spitball and had lost much of his old speed,
why was it that he was able to puzzle great batsmen like
Eddie Collins and “Stuffy’ McInnis on a simple curve

ball? This was a question that naturally followed and

baffled several critics on the recent trip of the White Sox :

in the East.

The explanation of this is that Walsh has developed
a new delivery. In his long layoff he had plenty of
time to experiment. When he appeared against the East-
: ern clubs recently, the impression was given at first that
he would be knocked from the slab.

Walsh took things so matter of fact and seemed to exert
himself so little in delivering the ball that fans and
scribes thought they saw the end of the Big Moose, but
_ Walsh went right on winning and conting back, baffling
tt opponents as though he had all his former speed to_
mix with his spitter. The explanation, again,
new combination ball developed by practice and long ex-
 perimenting. It’s a delivery peculiar to Walsh, although
he denies his right to copyright it.

Walsh undoubtedly lacks some of the old speed that
helped him make a smoke-ball wizard and a rival of
“Walter Johnson and Joe Wood, but he is pitching just
as effectively as Johnson and is outshining the Boston

Red Sox hurler, several years his junior, in major-league
u y J

experience. Why is it that Walsh can win with as much

ease as Johnson, who possesses his old speed because he
i‘ asa’ t seen the long service that Walsh has? The answer
is again Walsh’s new discovery.

Walsh, however, has all his former brains, cunning, and
ability to puzzle and outguess the batsman, characteristic
of him in his palmiest days. He has retourse to strategy
in the pinches that no other veteran pitcher, with the
exception of Christy’: Mathewson, can command.

‘When Matty began to grow old in service and feel
himself slipping, he had recourse to all the krowledge
at his command to baffle the batsman and keep him in the

me. He began more and more to make his brain accom-
plish much of the work his right arm hhd performed.

Walsh, too, is doing that very thing. He has resorted to
his inventive turn of mind to help him out in a tight
Pinch, Hé has succeeded. |

is the- 2

‘One scribe was gettain Walsh didn’t throw a. single
spitball any more. Fans haye asked whether Walsh used
the spitball, whether he resorted to the curve exclusively,
whether he had as much speed as formerly and whether ©
he has come back to stay for several years. .

Walsh uses thespitball, but it is a new one. Umpires —

who have officiated behind Walsh declare he employs the Bk

spitball often. He uses it, in fact, more than any other
delivery. :

Following are some of the facts about Walsh worth
mentioning :

He has regained almost sales control,

He puts the batter in a hole, instead of getting in deep
places himself.

He pitches faster than he ‘used to beth he realli
he must worty the batter more than formerly, and to io
this he must put them over more. This speeds Hip the,
gatne. bi

He has invented a new delivery, with which he ig,
starring as a come back. It»is a combination of the”
curve ball and the spitter.

Eddie Collins, “Stuffy” McInnis, Rube Oldring, and —
“Birdie” Cree, four of the leading batters in the Ameri- —
can League, failed to eet a hit in the East off Walsh’s
new delivery.

Sends His Approval.

Dear Epitor: As I have been a reader of Tip Top for
the last two years, I would like to. express my approval
of it.

I think it is the best magazine published for anywhere be
near the price. en

If you have any more y ost cards, I al you would
please send me a set.

I am fifteen years four days old, and five feet seven
inches tall. Won’t you please tell me what my correct
measurements should be?

Hoping to see this in print, and wishing the greatest ©
success to Burt L. Standish and to Tip Top, I remain,

New Market, Towa. KENNETH: ABBOTT.

Your correct measurements Should be: Weight, 137 ee
“pounds ; neelé 13.9 inches i: chest, contracted, 34 inches;

chest, expaiile », 37-4,nches ; : waist, 29.3 inches; forearms,
“10.8 inches ; upper arms, downs, 10.6 inches; upper arms,
up, 12 inches; thighs, 20.1 inches} calves, 13.7 inches.

/Russia a Big Nation.

In crs, Russia, Great Britain, a France are known
as the Triple Entente—the word “entente” meaning an un-

_derstanding—and Germany, Austria, and Italy comprise th
‘Triple Alliance.

However, were it not for the large popu
lation of Russia, the Triple Alliance probably would |
able to. overwhelm the entente. Germany alone has. three-
fourths as many inhabitants as Great Britain and Franc
together, and Austria and Italy add roundly 86,000,000
to this number. The great population of Russia, howe
brings the total strength of the Triple Entente
000,000, against 152,000,000 for the Triple Alliance.

‘Fears that the time is rapidly approaching when the
poptilation of Germany, like that of France, will become

- stationary, or even go back, have been dissipated for the

present by an estithate of the Imperial German Statisti
Office putting the population of the empire at the erid. of
the first half of torq at 67,812,000, This compares wi
66,981,000 in the previous year and shows an increase the
a i Bi Heke haha Vg See, RS ab aan

 
gS ee

NEW TIP

samie size as was recorded from 1912 to 1913, and ex-

ceeding the gain from 1911 to 1912 by 44,000.
‘Comparisons with the growth of the population in

France give striking figures. In 1872, following the
ike Franco-German War, Frante had a population ‘of about
36,000,000, only 5,000,000 less than Germany. In 1911 she
fad less than 40,000,000, and the number has declined since

then. Thus her increase in forty-two yeats has been

“less than 3,000,000, against an increase for Germany of
_ 26,000,000.
bi s Hello, Will Mathall.

Dear Eprror: I have been a reader of Tir Top for
_ twelve or fifteen years. I began to read Tie .Tor when
» Frank. Merriwell lost his fortune and was forced to leave
os ‘school, and go in the roundhouse as engitie wiper. I have

followed him through his troubles and triumphs.

_A boy friend and I bought Tie Top together, but years
ago we drifted apart, and I often wonder if he is a reader
of the good old Tip Tor yet. His name is Will Mathall.
“-I would love for him to see this in print, and let me
hear from him. I hope to see all of the old characters
_ back in the Tip Top again. What has become of Bart
_ Hodge, Bruce Browning, and the rest of the old crowd?

~ If you have any more post cards to give away, I would
thank yow very much for a set. Yours truly, |

Caperton, W. Va. A. C. ALEXANDER.

Nursing Bottles for Pigs,
- When his pure-bred Duroc-Jersey sow increased the
five stock on his farm, at Marshfield, Wis., by giving
virth to eighteen little pigs, C. L. Butler found it neces-
cary to take some of the animals away from her and
feed them by bottle. He came to town and bought half
i a ‘dozen nursing bottles.

The Old Cry.
I have been reading Tip Top for the
T like the

Dear Eprtor:
past two years, and I like it very. much,

about the maerriveetis. Please, send me a oe of Tre Tor
st cards and a catalog ai oblige, a F, F
Brighton, Mass. : sei ie «i he
; ' Mas er

Bees Injure Men on Roof,

While working on a roof on a new house that they were
constructing in Rock Valley, Cal.,
ce and J. is Peterson were attacked by a swarm of

A Good Build,

a. Proressor FourmEN: I have been a eadee of”
Tip Top for a number of years, and I now take the
“Tiberty to ask you a few questions about my measure-
ments. I am thirteen years and four months old; height,

f t 1% inches; weight, 103 pounds; neck, 1234 inches;

‘right,
ches; left, 6%

inches ; chest, normal, 29 inches; ex-
panded, 31% inches.

What are my weak points? What
Will strengthen them? Please send a set of your. post
cards. Hoping I will see this in print, 1 remain,
we _ Rochester, N.. Y, Henry | ‘D. Rowrer.
ae There is nothing the matter with your “measurements.
You have a mighty fine build. Of course, in theory, the

Samuel Rodd, a_ ‘con-

“lazy afternoon recently.

ber

TOP WEEKLY. >

Oe

measurements of the muscles of the eke, érth and the
right leg should be ex actly: the same, but this is seldom
the case, and, if there is. only a shade of difference, the
defect is unimportant.

Comes Neat Making Record.

Dick Hoblitzell, Boston American first sacker, spent a
He almost fied the low put-
out record made by Jiggs Donahue of the White Sox.
Hobby had two chances; Donahue’s fecord was of the
one-chance variety.

Hoblitzell’s first putout came in the second inning. The
second came with one down in the ninth, when he tossed
out a batter.

The Boston outfielders caught thirteen fly balls, Speaker
leading with eight. ,

Likes Frank, Senior, Best.

Dear Eprror: Please send mé a set of Tip Top post
cards.- I have been a reader of Tip Tor and New MeEpaAvL
Liprary for the last three years.

I prefer Frank Merriwell,.senior, to the other Merri-
wells, although I like them alfyg¥iqurs truly,

Saugerties, N. Y. RicHARD SCHOTT.

A Freak Swimmer.

Henry Kliounsky, of New London, Conn., who has
more freak swimming records to his credit than any other
long-distance man, recently swam fifteen miles in the North
River, New York, with both hands and feet shackled.
He was trying to swim a distance of thirty-three’ miles,
but a heavy wind, which caused a high sea, made him
abandon the attempt until some future date. He made
the fifteen miles in six hours. Last year Kliounsky swam
eight miles shackled and pulling a rowboat with seven
passengers,

Welcome to the Fold.
Dear Eprtor:~

right in to make up for not starting earlier
~ by getting back numbers. If I would be called a good
judge of boys’ literature, I would willingly swear that
the Merriwell stories are the best lot of stories that a

- true-blooded American chap could ever hope to get. If

12% inches; left, 12% inches; wrists, right,

you grudge a bit of space for this letter of mine, you
don’t have to publish it, but please, at any rate, print —
in the Compass my following poem: *

A Rah! Rah! Rah!
Three long cheers
For the Merriwell clan.
Boo! Hoo, hoo,
Clancy dropped my tears
The Merriwells were so gran’.

Seems poor, doesn’t it? But, all the same, it expresses —
my feelings when the Owen Clancy stories appear. As —
you are getting tired reading this trash, I guess I'll close,
.a true Tip Topper, Ciark Lewis, —

59 Livingstone Avenue, Yonkers, N. Y. HF

Foul Was Not Damaging Blow. r

A slow moving ‘ ‘movie” film has settled the question

at issue in the recent Smith-Carpentier fight. Pictures
of the fight show Seely that Gunboat was on his soe

 

I have been a satisfied reader of Tre ”

Owen Clancy stories, but they can never equal those ae Top WEEKLY for a miserable little three months, and Se

‘+am starting
     

  
      
 
 

*the ‘eure he cA, nine and that in ie’ iF im. for myself, I have always been satisfied, ever whign
last round ‘Smith: strisck , entier on the side of the ‘you changed to the Owen Clancy stories. Some iy a
head twice while the latter was falling. The film shows® make remarks about the covers. I myself think they ans i ae:
Smith striking a light blow, which glanced off the French-» a great improvement on the old style.

  
     
   
   
       
         
  
   

  
   
  
   
 
       
  
 
    
  
 

    
   
   
     
 
  

__ man’s shoulder while the latter was kneeling. Number ninety-eight was certainly great, for it seems
cs good to have the Merriwells together again. I have tray-
“Tip Top” Sets the Standard. eled quite a bit ardund the world, and always make sure |
Dear Epiror: T haye been a constant reader of Tip Top that I have my weekly Tip Top. i
for some time, and find it a clean, healthy, lively boys’ Hoping to see this in print, and with long life to you ee
_ magazine. No othitr boys’ magazine I have read comes both, I remain, a most satisfied reader, H. G, B. OH e.,
halfway up to it. Trp Tor sets the standard for boys’ Stockton, Cal. ee
magazines. It is a magazine that every true ‘American Thank you, H. G. B. We try to give you the best that
boy takes keen delight im reading. I therefore recom- iS in us, and a pat on the back and words of praise cet-
mend it to all my friends, tainly sound good to us, for we are only human, just,
If you have any cards left, will you kindly sea me alike the rest of you. I, Burt L. Standish, always try
set, and the catalogue of the. Mepav Liprary. make each story better ‘than the last one, but, of course
Wishing Burt L. Standish, and Street & Smith a long 1 know I often fail to do so. Then, one reader will
and ever-pleasant life, I remain, your true Tip Topper, think a-certai story the best I ever wrote, while an-_
Newark, N. J. oh IrvinG Marks. other will think it the worst. So, I try to round out a°
yw. ; story that will contain things of interest to all my-
Hendtix Plays ee Roles readers. fits
Claude Hendrix, Chicago Federal Léague pitcher, staged , "3
a Frank Merriwell stunti wet He was in the grand _ Failing Mother Will Send “Canned” Letters ie
stand on leave of absence when he saw the hurling staff A unique correspondence is soon to begin between
of his team mortally wounded by the Kansas City crew. United States District Attorney Reames and his mother...
He piled out of the standin the seventh inning, slipped Reames has just returned to Portland, Ore., from
into a suit, and entering the game with the Chifeds only Berkeley, Cal, where jhe visited his mother. He made
a run to the good, held the Kansas City crowd runless. the elderly Mrs. Reames a present of a dictograph, tak-—
' ‘ing it with him from Portland, where it had been given
Will Never Miss a Copy. . a thorough trial in his office. ~
Dear Epiror: I thought I would write and let you Mrs. Reames’ sight is failing with advancing age, so

    
 

Bt Stew what I think of Tip Tor. I have been a reader of She is finding it difficult to write or read letters—and
your ideal publication ever since Frank was in Yale, and ] _ letters between, her and her son are weekly necessities to
think it is an A Now 1 paper for any boy to read, and both. | i
I am sure that I wilt? never miss a single copy if I can Now, when Mrs. Reames wishes to write a letter to her
help it. I like the New Tre Tor Weexty, but I prefer SOM in Portland, she will put a blank record on the dicto- of
the old ones better, as they contain more about the Merri- $taph and talk to him to her heart’s content. ;
wells. , j The records will be sent by express or parcel post to I
_ Why not Han a grand reunion and Have all the old Portland, and_Mr. Reames will “read” them on 5 one dicto- )
_ bunch together? Also, give us more of the girls. Please _ graph in his office. er

do not think that I am trying to run the Tip Top, for this we He will “write” to his mother in. the same way

   
    
    
       
        
   
   
  

      
 

    

  
   
   
  

- is only a suggestion from me. Please send me a set of ae Pdrer Er >
those cards if you have any to spare. ; ‘ a S sRef6iv
Thanking you in advance, and hoping to see this in ‘A revolver. “desigtieth or the nervous woman to cavty >
the Compass, T remain, sincerely yours, Gar Kine. in her vanity bag is’ probably the smallest weapon of its
412 South Main Street, Akron, Ohio. 3 kind in the world. From the tip of the hammer to the

 
 
     

me end of the barrel it measures about three inches, and it
Veteran Pitches Fine No-hit Game. ie he a Steel bullet, about twice the size of a pin’s. head.
Joe Doyle pitched a no-hit, no-run game at Elmira, N :

Bae recently, disposing of the twenty-seven men who faced Awful! Lye Eats His Clothes.

him in order, and Elmira easily defeated Syracuse by a While William Peterson, of Minneapolis, Minn., was
score of 6 to 0. Manager Freddie Payne was the only ‘Be the fe at the Riverside baths, an attendant was clean-
i

man to reach first, getting on in the fifth through an g the incleees. He threw some disinfectant, containing |
error. The pitcher then made a wonderful stop on the 4”

next batter and doubled Payne at second. Doyle was a
‘member of the New York Yankees a few years ago.

   
  
       
       
        
     
 

soon noticed a burning setitation:, and, looking down, dis-

      
 

 
  
 

: / . covered about half of his trousers had beem “eaten” away.
Always Interesting. ue ran Bs Ls foie as i a pee a ‘says.
Dicks Epiror aNp Burr L. StanpisH: I have been a his suit. , a ie ees ollats trOnAme city

 
 

reader of Tip Top Werxty for about fourteen years, and
have always found it most interesting from start to a Baby Breaks Ancient “Hoodoo,”
finish. AY wee infant, i in swaddling clothes, saved the vedetnan
_ Icouldn’t resist the temptation to write to you when I , breakfast of Mr, and Mrs. Adolph Manne from being a
read the Compass this morning, and found how some failure at Sacramento, Cal. When the wedding party sat
readers continue to growl, and are never satisfied. down to the breakfast, the observant bride counted thirteen —

 
  

 
  
   
 

 
 
   
        
 

 

 

psig pee

Gialiniz iat

 

“baggers, five three-baggers,. and four home runs.

NEW TIP TOP

The.bride balked at remaining at: the feast, and all

oa

guests,
the guests were unwilling to miss the ftin®

Then one of the party thought of ‘the-baby next door.

The mother’s consent was gained, and the youngster was
propped up in a chair in the seat of honor, thereby remov-
ing the superstitions of the bride arene ee

Champion Child Climber?

Dorothy E. Miller,.aged five years, of Asheville, N. C.,
claims to be the champion child mountain climber. She
has scaled all the smaller peaks in the vicinity of, her
home, and several of the high ones, including Mount
Mitchell, the highest point east of the Rocky Mountains.

On one of her trips she climbed Craggy, 6,100 feet;
Blackstocks Knob, 6,386 feet; Gibbs, 6,611 feet, and Mount

“4 Mitchell, 6,717 feet, all without assistance, and on her re-

turn trip to this city climbed three other peaks. Her. en-
tire trip took four days.

The child enjoys: the trips into the mountains ol is
delighted with the prospect of a trip. She is the daughter
of Mr. and Mrs. Allen G. Miller. Her father has. ex-
plored the mountains of Mexico, California, and the
Sn ary ies

, Potyaive Hits | es a Genk Hes

“Fort Bayard; N. Ms saw a reat olde€ashioned slugging
bee- recently when its team was beaten 16 to 14 by the
Silver City. -club. . A> total of ‘forty-five hits. were: made
inthe game for |sixty-nine bases, there being two two-
Fort
Bayard * made- sg ii of .the hits, good for prs
Any hoa

Some Fish Story.

jy, Leo Kelly, director genetal of Portage Lake, Mich.,
has solved one of the oddest of mysteries.

Kelly operates

the motor-boat ferry service. A few weeks ago Kelly

observed a mysterious disappearance of gasoline from his

reserve tank in the boat. Each night a gallon or more
of gasoline disappeared. ‘

Kelly, searched for leaks, tested his valves, and could”
hot find the cause of the shripkage,, in the supply. He,

began to suspect that - some one
the night.

Watching ‘his vessel to learn We feduse a ike ea of
gasoline, he heard an odd’ sound ‘undér the keel, and, cast-
ing his’ light down to the- surface of the water, he saw an

oC. i ducing

eighteen-pound pickerel. sucking gasoline from the escape’

pipe’ at’ the water line.

Nothing Else Like This Fish,

Long Beach, Cal; has added a new fish to its list
of curiosities caught from the pier. It has these’ “speci-
fications” :

Six inches long, two inchés wide; same width whole
length of body. Body flat and transparent, like a jelly-
fish, No bones except rib, Mouth of a toad. Near
legs. where tail ought to be. Fills with water when

__ it swims:

Government Baseball Dream of. Professor.
Professor J. E. Wrench, of the University of Missouri,
a history teacher, believes that within twefty-five years
the United States government will take over all the base-
ball leagues in the country and run them as a govern-

EF LX. ’

ment enterprise, Congress, mating appropriations for the
purchase of players. «©

He believes that the govetnment then will furnish base-
ball games to the public at cost, and that the players
will be on a civil-service basis.

Professor Wrench got the idea from the ancient chariot
raging in Rome, when the emperor took sides.

Pfofessor Wrench thinks that many of the complaints
against present-day sport are due to th® commercial fea-
tures. He is an ardent baseball fan.

Horrors of Modern Warfate.

Vivid pictures of the horrors.of war are given in “The
Human Slaughterhouse,” by William Lamszus, master of
a German public school. The book was suppressed by
order of the kaiser, although @irculated in other countries.
An American edition was published with a preface by
Alfred..Noyes, who declare# that “for every touch of
horror in its pages the actéal records of recent warfare
could supply an obscure an#bloodstained mass of details,
which if it were once laid before the public, would put
an end to militarism in a_y¢

Here are a few quotatfote Sthe book, the first quo-
tation being a description of 4° battlefield:

“They. had grown rigid in death in grotesque postures,
as. if. death had been trying..to. pose figures here. -There
are.certain schemes of death that are always. recurring—
hands outstretched, fingers clawing. the grass, fallen for-
ward on the face; that fellow over there lying on his back
is holding his hand pressed tight against his abdomen,
as if he were trying to stanch the wound.

“All the bodies lying about here, as if bleating up .to
Heaven, have got glazed eyes. They are lying as if they
were outstretched in the abattoir. Vell, to be hit and fall
down dead—there’s nothing to nll a fuss about that!
But to be shot through the chest, to be. shot through the
belly, to burn for hours in the fever of your wounds, to
cool your mangled body in the wet grass, and to stare up
into the pitiless blue heavens ‘because your accursed eyes
gO on tefusing #0 glaze over yet.

“I turn away,from them. I force myself to look past
these mocking, grotesque poses, plastiques, of death.”

Here is his description of a charge: “The earth has,
oOpened-her mouth, lightnings, crashes, and thunderings,
and the heaven splits in twain and falls dawn flame! The
earth whirls upward in shreds men and the. earth
blaze and hurtle through the air like catherine wheels

- and then a crash,.a° maddening uproar
strikes us full in the chest, so that we reel backward to
the ground, and half consciously struggle for breath in
the sand and now the storm is over

the pressure of the atmosphere relaxes off our
chest we breathe deep only scattered,
dancing flames now and squibs fireworks. .. .

“There rises a noise of screams and yells, an uproar
so unnaturally wild and unrestrained that we cringe up
close to one another. and, trembling, we see that
our faces, our uniforms have red, .wet stains, and dis-
tinctly recognize shreds of flesh on the cloth. And among
our feet something is lying that was not lying there before
—it gleams white from the dark sand and uncurls . . .
a strange, dismembered hand and there
fragments of flesh with the uniform still adhering to
them—then we réalize it and the horror overwhelms us.
Outside there are lying arms, legs, heads, trunks .

 
v

are ifs S
gy an manglec aie the

crying to Heaven.” a

#, *

i cont e at Caen retes, Wis., a aie of aenths anda “s

Since White’s easy victory-over Joé Azevedo htre ie

Emile Zola,.:11 his great work on the Futon Pr (ssi ia g week, when the referee stopped the bout to save Azevedo

conflict, “The Downfall,” gave a horrifying descriptionyox*
war's cost.
when the wounded : awere: brought in after-a battle in tha
war, forty- four yy
move the most callous to behold the
or wretches, some with a a
esrhets gird with the purple hue

others uttered. pie cing Mctes of anguish; some there were
who, in their semiconscious condition, yielded themselves
“to the arms of the attendants with a look of deepest terror
ome their eyes, while a tee, the minute ‘a hand was laid

“At the extremity of the
by a clump of lilac byfshe
- morgue, whither they cal
were removed from the
- order to make room fo :
~ served to receive thea
victims.

“In the vast drying room

standing open, not only. was e\ 9
- “was no more room upon the lit
, down on the floor at the end of @# S/ ,artment.

“There were but two tables,4g*s urgeon’s own and
‘another, presided-over by one 64 ‘ssistants; a sheet
had been hung between them, to . the patients from
each other. Although the sponge Kept constantly at
work, the tables were always red,
were emptied over a bed of daisies ey steps away, the
clear water in whichya single tumbler of sd hot
to redden, seemed 6 be buckets of ‘unmixed d, tor-

* “a hat set up a kind of
e bodies of the dead, which

i Hing, and this receptacle, also
d plete ahd wae of the

te a Of Which 4 was
‘d occupied, but there

at had been shaken

rents of blood.” is gaits,

Brother and Sister Uni “ip

‘After searching in vain for years. for his sister from:
whom he was separated when both were “children, George.
’ Kirchman- accidentally heard that she was in Sheridan,
Wyo. He called at a local hotel and asked to see a young —
woman by the name of Miss Jessie Leitz. She proved. to
be the lost sister. Miss Leitz assumed the name of -her’
mother’s second husband, she having been ‘taal nes her,

*

mother when her parents separated. . Rey

Fighting Bulls Stop Taio.

Two bulls, loaded in a stock car, consigned from, Lander,
Wyo., to Moneta, Wyo., furnished the train crew of a
freight train with a thrilling spectacle when one animal
broke loose and attacked the other, Although tied, the

_ attacked bull was more than holding its own when the
animals were separated after the train had been stopped.
_ The noise made by the maddéned beasts was heard by the
train crew above the noise of the engine and moving cars,
i

‘Ritchie and White May Box in Labor Day Bout.
It is probable that Willie Ritchie, who recently lost the
— lightweight championship to Freddie Welsh, will box
_ Charley White in San Francisco, in a twenty-round bout

fon Labor Day. The contest will have special significance, $e:

for if Freddie Welsh retires from the ring and joins the
British army, it will 6 a championship affair. White

The folowing is his description of a scen Wer hailing White as a real champion.
t

ithe buckets that :

i

Ok

from ‘knockout in the eighteenth round, the fans here

He injured both »
pe hands in thes, early noms and fought under a big
handicap, |

 Home-tun Hitter to Chicago,

Another future great, now playing ball with the Mil:

waukee, Wis., club of the American Association, has been

hooked for. service with the Chicago White Sox. He is

Outfielder Felch, who is now batting for an average: of
.299. The Chicago club is supposed to have paid $12,0

i‘

for him and agreed to~give Milwaukee an’ infielder and 5

an outfielder at the close of the present season.
made fourteen home runs this year.

Wins Game With Fingers Broken,. .

While pitching for the Flippin, Affk., teata against the
Yellville Reds, Tige Moran in catching a batted ball broke —
three fingers on his left hand. However, he would not
leave the game, and after ‘that fanned every batter’ that,
faced him, his team winning 4 to 0. When the game was _
over his. hand was swollen to about three times its, no:
See me ‘

m gr as Spikes: Aid to Race Hoiin.

Matt Koch, a Cincinnati, Ohio, blacksmith, has just, pet-
‘fected a spiked horseshoe that may Pea ttodice the style:
of shoes now worn by spfinters. : a ps,

» Koch, ‘discussing his idea, ‘Says: ie

“Spiked shoes help’ sprinters. Why shoxlda' spice
shoes help racing horses? With. this question in’ mind, ©

I set about three years ago trying a spiked horseshoe that: es

would aid the running horse and increase his speed. .

believe. I have finally discovered the process, I de
“I make’ the shoe the same way any other’ racing shoe.

is made and place four spikes in the plates, ]

trouble for a time getting the spikes just rig

1 equipped. several Horses with the perfect

and in private trials they made a mile i

better time than hee vere récord.”

? Pw
Vee

Pelecad to ;
three years ago )Charles Weeghman left Richiaod,, a
Ind. for Chicago, Hl, with five dollars in his pocket.

Jy he returned home worth more than a millior

_ dol la and heading a team of the Federal League.

- "brought his Chicago club for an exhibition game with tl
Jocal club. It was known as Weeghman Day and the
largest crowd ever at the local park turned out to Breet

aes and —— F
“Chick” ng, of Cincinnati, Ohio, the only pitcher: who

= ever. “struck out twenty-seven men in one game, pitched
for Richmond. The Chicago team won with a score of

2 to 0, Weeghman,made his. fortune in the’ restaurant:
busitiess, starting in-after he left Richmond as. a waiter.
| He is s Supposed to be the man who furnished | oe ambst

of the, money, to keep the Federal League going.
——— -
OLD COINS Anta

piid for U. 8. Eagle Cents dated 1856. We:
pay a@ CASH premium on hundreds of old coins. Send

9 cents at once for New Illustrated Coin Value Book,
i x 7) Jt may mean YOUR fortune. Rin
CLARK & CO., Coin Dealers, Box 67, LeRoy, N.Y.