Alden F. Bradshaw

“ When I think of the way my wife and kids have been cheated by a sneak thief of a minister, it puts murder in my heart, it does! I won’t talk to you, for fear I’ll forgit and take the law into my own hands. Geddap, Jenny.”
The man’s old mare responded to the command and a lash of the whip, and jogged away, dragging the rickety old wagon in which sat the angry Hank Low alone.
The clergyman turned, with a sigh, to his companion.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Claymore,” he said, “that all is not as it should be in this matter.”
“Pooh!” returned Claymore easily; “you mustn’t mind the howling of such a wild man. ”

“ Nick’s hat flew from his head, and he felt a wave of heat cross his brow, which had been singed by a rifle bullet.
His hand caught his revolver, but before it was drawn another shot came, and the horse staggered and fell dead without a struggle.
Nick slipped off quickly, ran a few paces, and fell. Then he lay still and watched.
Not another sound came from the bushes across the road.
“Confound them!” thought Nick, who was not scratched, except for the slight mark on his forehead. “Why don’t they come out to make sure of their business?” ”

“ Kerr,” he said. “The evidence is sound, as far as it goes. But it don’t go quite far enough. The difficulties I refer to are the fact that so many men know that I am here, and that the only man who can say that Judson was murdered is dead.”
“I see,” said Kerr.
Folsom turned pale.
“You think, then,” he said hoarsely, “that it was not a case of murder at all?”
“I didn’t say so,” responded Nick; “but this I will say, for, as I am in it now pretty deep, there’s no use in concealing my thoughts from you two—but you mustn’t let it go any farther.”
“Certainly not, Mr. Carter.” ”

“ What is more pleasing than to be able to walk erect, to look your fellow men straight in their faces, to feel so good you cannot avoid getting up on your toes and stepping out at a lively gait, your face radiant, eyes glistening and so full of life and hope and joy, that all mankind is made happy by coming in contact with you? ”

“ He winked affably to Keene, as Thorpe hastened from the room, then turned to growl in the face of the innocent physician:
“Send to town for a detective, eh? Carr, you infernal sawbones, don’t you think I’m equal to getting at the bottom o’ this affair?{45}”
“Why, yes, Mr. Bragg,” stammered the startled physician; “but I made the suggestion only——”
“It was a cursed innuendo, no matter what ’twas made for!” protested the doughty constable. “Looking arter crime and criminals is my bread and butter, Doctor Carr, the which I’ll not let you nor any other bonesetter whip from ’tween my teeth. ”

“ That the person you suspect may be guilty, is not the same person you fear may be implicated, is at once suggested by your haste in procuring the aid of a special detective. If the guilty one were likely to be involved, you would have at first examined the case more calmly.”
“That is true enough,” laughed the attorney. “But why do you infer my interest to be in a lady?”
“If it were a man, you would be less anxious to relieve him of what you fear may be a distressing situation. Men can face such things more easily than women,” added Keene significantly. ”

“ Why not go along to the hotel openly?”
“Patsy,” said Nick, as he pretended to consult a pocket time-table, “if the guilty man was one of that fifty, don’t you think it likely that he would shadow Folsom and Kerr and follow them to the station to see if I came?”
“Gee, yes! I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And, if he did so, of course he’s seen me.”
“Sure.”
“And he wouldn’t follow the others out, but would wait to see what became of me.”
“That’s it.”
“Well, then——”
“You needn’t say any more, Nick. I’m on. I’ve spotted every man who has been in sight since we stepped off the train.” ”

“ They were silent for a moment, and then Jack muttered:
“I’d have liked it better if he’d paid us for the other job and not asked us to tackle the detective.”
“Pooh! what scares you so?”
“Nick Carter. Ain’t that enough?”
“Nick Carter’s dead.”
“Do you believe it, Nat?”
“I’m going to tell Claymore so.”
Jack shuddered.
“I see you don’t believe it,” he said; “but I hope Claymore comes along and believes it. Then he’ll pay us, and we can skip before the cuss comes to life.”
Nat Hamilton smiled.
“He won’t come to life if he’s dead,” he remarked coolly, “any more than the preacher chap will.” ”

“ Soon its long, creeping rootlets descend along the outside bark of the supporting tree, and finally reach the ground. Soon nothing is left between them but a rotting shell. The murder is accomplished, and the garroter has usurped the place of its victim.
That queer air plant known as Spanish moss kills many a fine forest tree with its solemn, gray tendrils. Like ivy, it robs its host of light and air and ends by slowly smothering its victim.
Occasionally plants not burglars by nature are forced to assume that rôle. ”

“ High up in the snows of some great range he will perish miserably of cold and starvation, looking down on a huge shallow sea, beneath whose tossing waters will lie the whole of the races of the world. ”

“ Folsom eagerly; “if there’s a ray of hope for a different explanation, in the name of Heaven speak up, man!”
“Mr. Judson had a bitter enemy,” said Claymore.
“An enemy! Do you know this?”
“I heard a man threaten to kill him this morning.”
For an instant Mr. Folsom was too astonished to speak, and stood with his mouth open, staring at Claymore.
Then he brought his fist down on the clerk’s desk with a bang, and exclaimed:
“Then, I’ll be responsible for tracking that enemy to the ends of the earth, if necessary. I’ll telegraph for Nick Carter to come. ”

“ My last name is Carter.”
Low started.
“From New York?” he gasped.
“Yes.”
The farmer shook from head to toes. He laid his trembling hands on Nick’s arm, and began:
“Mr. Carter, I’ve hearn tell of you that you’re keen and hard when it comes to criminals, but you’re straight with innocent men. I swear——”
“You don’t need to,” interrupted Nick; “you are as innocent as I am, and I know it. I believed it when I started out to see you, but I am going to arrest you for murder, nevertheless.”
“Mr. Carter, I don’t understand! What will my poor wife say?” ”

“ Or, last, and perhaps dreariest fate of all, the human race may outlive other mammals and last until the sun, as some day it must, grows dull and cold, and vegetation dies from the chilled earth. The miserable remnant of earth’s people must then slowly die out after ages of an existence to which that of the Eskimo of to-day is a paradise. ”

“ Supposing these earth cracks develop more slowly, they may suck away the water without devastating explosions. Then the last man’s fate will be the worst describable. He will die of thirst. The scene of his death will probably be the great valley in the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, off the Brazilian coast, halfway between Rio Janeiro and the Cape, where now six miles of green water lie between the steamer’s keel and the abysmal slime beneath. ”

“ Large Crops Vindicate Colorado Dry Farmers.
The farmers from the Central States, who have visited Logan County, Colo., this year, or passed across its broad acres in automobiles or on the trains, have opened their eyes with wonder at the beautiful fields of grain of every description, sugar beets, alfalfa and wild hay, vegetables, and other products of the soil. They have seen excellent crops growing, not only in the valleys, but on the broad plains of this country that a few years ago were the haunts of the Indians, buffaloes, and the coyotes. ”

“ Unless by some huge and universal cataclysm the whole race is swept at once into eternity, it is but reasonable to suppose that man, like any other race of animals, will disappear slowly, and that eventually there will be but a single human being left—some old, old man, grayheaded and bearded, and left to wander alone in a solitude that may be imagined, but not described. ”

“ I never charge up favors against my friends. But I am confronted just now by a case which, while I am still ignorant of the immediate particulars, I fear will require exceedingly shrewd and delicate handling.”
The expression on the face of the chief inspector changed slightly.
“Is it a criminal case, Mr. French?” he asked quietly.
“It is a case of murder, Chief Watts, or so, at least, it is here stated,” replied Mr. Hamilton French, one of the brightest of Boston’s legal lights and a noted criminal lawyer. “Here is a telegram I received less than ten minutes ago.” ”

“ A cantilever bridge consists of two inverted trussed beams, each balanced on a pier, one part extending over the river and the other to the shore, where it is firmly anchored in solid, heavy masonry. The ends extending over the river toward each other from the opposite piers are joined by a short truss in such a manner as to permit expansion and contraction consequent on changes of temperature, and yet be proof against vertical or lateral pressure. Such a bridge, it is said, sustains scarcely any strain in the center of the span. Each half of the entire bridge is self-balanced on its pier ”

“ She flatly declared that she’d not even think of it.”
“Whatever it may have been like,” replied the lawyer, “the girl proved inflexible. The family broil, however, brought out the fact that she was in love with another, a man named Jeffrey, who is a carpenter by trade, and is said to be an honest and reliable fellow. I have seen him but once. If he is as good a man as he looks, I don’t blame the girl for her choice.”
“Did Mr. Moore give his consent to the girl’s marriage to Jeffrey?” asked Keene carelessly. ”

“ A great dull-green bunch grows flourishing profusely on the bare limb of some half-starved apple tree. If you cut them off the apple bough, you will find the roots of the parasite have sunk deep into its substance, and are drinking up the juices which the roots of the apple tree have secreted far down in the earth below. ”

“ Then Patsy went out, and Nick returned to the table.
“Excuse me,” said Nick, again. “I don’t mean to interfere with your handling of the case. Mr. Kerr——”
“Oh, bless you!” exclaimed Kerr; “that’s what we all want. You do just what you think best, Mr. Carter.”
“Thank you. I was going to say that I had forgotten something, and sent my assistant out to look after it. Now, as to this time mark, it is very important. I can see that.”
“Of course,” said Kerr, encouraged by the great detective’s tone. “The testimony of the clerk cannot be doubted. ”

“ PLANT BURGLARS—READ RIGHT THROUGH BEFORE SUSPECTING YOUR TULIP BED.
Big animals kill and eat smaller ones, and they in their turn feed on others smaller still, down to the very lowest and tiniest creatures known. This every one knows. What is not so easily realized is that a similar savage struggle for existence is always going on in the vegetable as well as the animal world. Certain plants feed on others, robbing them of their sap and juices, and eventually killing their prey as surely as does the lion when he buries his sharp teeth in an antelope’s neck. ”

“ This, when they fall, makes them stick in the crannies of the bark of such rough-coated trees as the apple, the poplar, and, more rarely, the oak, and there each grows and begins anew to starve and strangle its host. In the ground a mistletoe seed cannot live, and soon rots away. ”

“ The ice rises steadily from the edge to the center. At that center it cannot be less than twelve miles in thickness—twice as thick as Mount Everest is high. Southern latitudes are growing warmer, and this ice cap is known to be cracking. Suppose it splits. Imagine the gigantic mass of water and ice that will come sweeping up north over the oceans and continents of the earth! Where, then, will the last man breathe his final gasp? ”

“ The cantilever principle is again introduced in the famous Forth Bridge. At a distance of six hundred and eighty feet from the ends of either approach viaduct are the north and south cantilever piers, with their great arms stretching out to and joining with the girder approaches. In the opposite direction the cantilever arms extend for six hundred and eighty feet toward Inchgarvie, and come within three hundred and fifty feet each of meeting the arms of the cantilever built on that island. This cantilever pier is founded in the bottom of the shallow water close to the west of the islet. ”

“ Nick Carter’s hope that he will soon come across Donnelson again is fulfilled, for he meets him in the mysterious case which is described in this story, and in which the ingenuity of Carter is taxed to its utmost. There is a blind man in this story, and he proves to be a puzzle to the great detective for some time. He will puzzle you, too. ”

“ The proportion of newcomers among the foreign whites in 1910 (37.5 per cent) is much larger than was the case ten years before. The census of 1900 enumerated 10,341,276 foreign-born persons, of whom 2,609,173, or 25.2 per cent, had arrived in the United States after 1890. The reason for this larger proportion of newcomers in 1910 lies in the greater immigration of the decade which preceded the last census enumeration.
During the period from January 1, 1910 to April 1, 1911, the bureau of immigration recorded the arrival in the United States of 8,248,890 immigrants. ”

“ The well as generally drilled is termed a six-inch well, and is cased with iron casing to about eight hundred feet below the surface, where the surface water is packed off with a packer such as is used in oil wells.
The salt water is pumped from the well into a cistern, which is generally elevated on the side of a hill near the plant, and is carried in copper and wooden pipes by gravity to the salt surface. Where wood log pipes are used the sight is a very unusual one, as they are laid on top of the ground, and run in every direction from plant to wells. ”

“ But it is to hot countries you must go to see plant crime flourishing unchecked, particularly the forests of Central America. An especially cruel sinner is one well known to us by name, the India-rubber tree. ”

“ But long, long before that time man will be extinct, will have disappeared so utterly that not so much as the bleached skeleton of a human being will be visible on all the millions of square miles of the surface of this planet. ”

“ Italy Wants Porter Charlton for Lake Como Crime.
The long wait of Porter Charlton behind the bars of a New Jersey prison for the final word as to whether he must return to Italy to answer for the murder of his wife at Lake Como, two years ago, is drawing to an end. The supreme court will take up Charlton’s case.
Charlton’s appeal is the most-noted murder case before the court. Diplomatic officials of Italy and the United States have become involved in the matter. The decision of the court will be looked to as a guide in diplomatic intercourse. ”

“ In West Virginia the newcomers represent 68.2 per cent of the foreign-born white, the largest proportion found in any State, but this is the only State in the South Atlantic division with a noticeably large proportion of recent immigrants. Without West Virginia the division as a whole would show a smaller proportion of newcomers than the country generally. States in which the recent arrivals form more{71} than the foreign-born white are, besides West Virginia, Arizona with 54.9 per cent, and Wyoming with 51.7 per cent. ”

“ The day is not, as is commonly supposed, the time required by the earth to make one turn on its axis, but the interval between two successive passages of the sun across the meridian—that is to say, the time which elapses after the sun is seen exactly south in its diurnal course through the heavens before it is again seen in that position. ”

“ Claymore and his companion, by making secret tests of the soil, had come to the conclusion that this worthless end of Hank Low’s farm was the best place in the State for oil wells. So they bought several acres for next to nothing.
It might be supposed that their next step would be to sink wells and build a refinery, or a pipe line. But such things cost money, and neither Claymore nor his partner had any left to speak of.
They had to raise it, and in this task they had the assistance of the Reverend Elijah Judson.
The clergyman had not been in Colorado when Hank Low’s land was bought. ”

“ It is safe to say that every one of those who viewed the grand display will be a booster for Logan County. They will tell that they saw cabbage raised in Logan County that measured 48 inches in circumference and corn that is equal to any they ever saw raised in the Missouri Valley or any of the corn States. They will also tell that they saw potatoes that would make Eugene Grubb, the expert in the Grand Valley, go into ecstasies. They also will tell that they saw pumpkins, watermelons, and other garden and field vegetables that would be a credit to a tropical country. ”