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TWENTY-NINE
By J. H. CONNELLY.
(Copyright, 185 W. by American Press Associa
tion.]
CHAPTER VI.
The business under Miriam’s manage
ment throve as it never did before. She
had to employ two more salesmen, and
her store was thronged all day long with
t-tnftlv ■'-'to whn szrrsisdL
ings and cheery words for her. And
there was no more trouble now in either
getting credit or meeting bills, for Mrs.
Alvord had speedily attained an enviable
reputation as possessor of the tliree great
requisites to business success—viz, en
ergy, judgment and honesty. To the
unvarying truthfulness, fair dealing and
courtesy ruling in her establishment,
perhaps as much as to continuance of
popular sympathy, was attributable the
fact that she practically monopolized the
local trade, while James Cronin, shunned
and despised, sat alone in his desolate
store and meditated curses. But the
strain of conscious responsibility and
actual physical toil devolved upon her
severely taxed her strength, and only her
sublime devotion to duty and love sus
tained her forces.
One evening on returning home from
the store she found awaiting her a letter
from a Hew \ork girl, Miss Clara War
ing, who was her classmate and most
intimate friend at school. The day had
been one of unusual exertion, for in ad
dition to all her routine duties she was
compelled to arrange affairs so as to per
mit her absence during two or three
days for attendance upon the trial of her
unfortunate husband, which was on the
docket for the morrow. Recognizing the
writer of the letter in its superscription,
she laid it aside, feeling too tired and
preoccupied with anxious thoughts to
care for Clara’s pleasant trifling and
girlish gossip.
After supper she sank into a reverie,
contemplating the possibilities of a
gloomy future consequent upon John
Alvord’s condemnation, which seemed
inevitable notwithstanding his inno
cence, concerning which her mind never
harbored a question. When at length
she roused lie. .. ‘.o seek much needed
rest, Miss Waring’s letter again caught
her eye, and mechanically she took it
up and carried it to her room, where she
opened it and read while she undressed.
Her dress and shoes were off, her corset
loosened and her back hair down by the
time her casual and fitful glances had
covered the first page. Then, as soon
as she had turned the leaf, some
thing caught her notice which fixed her
attention, and she stopped undressing.
This is what she read:
Brother Calvert starts on the Etruria for Eu
rope on Wednesday morning, as the doctor
says nothing will build him up again like an
ocean trip, and little the wise physician know
how much good Cal expects from it. 1 don’t
know whether I wrote you about it, probably 1
forgot to, as v,e all were in such troub.c, hut
he has been very low with brain fever, the con
sequence of a terrible beating lie received ul
tiie hands of a couple of highway robbers in
Boston one night in August. He had come
down from Bar Harbor in pursuit of Millie
Dessaix, whose mother just hates him and
took her daughter home right ifi the height of
the season on his account. 1 suppose they
would have killed him if it had not been for
som- stranger coming to his rescue. He main
tains they were robbers, but I just believe that
old Mrs. Dessaix is not a bit too good to have
hired them to heat him.
When he got home the next day, he was still
dazed, and noon the fever came on, and ln
thought he was still standing at Millie’s win
dow talking to her, and, oh! what sweet thing,
he said. It seems funny enough now, but i
didn’t then, I toll you, for we thought we were
going to lose him, and we think a great den!
of our Cal. And while he was sick Mrs. Des
saix took Millie away to Europe. We have
just lu-ard that they are In Nice, and that's
why Cal is so satisfied the doctor is right in
prescribing a sea voyage for him.
“But,” exclaimed Miriam, speaking
aloud in her excitement, “lie shall not
go! He must he the very man John has
been seeking all this time! And he
‘starts on the Etruria for Europe on
Wednesday morning.’ Tomorrow! No.
He shall not go. He must come to Bos
ton and save the man who rescued him.”
In haste she commenced dressing herself
again, planning as she did so. “I will
telegraph immediately to Clara, and she
ivi'll detain him. "Wild 1 must let Mr.
Hurd know. It will not do to wait until
morning. Sometimes those steamers
start at daylight. He must he reached
tonight.”
She ran to the Western Union Tele
graph’s company’s office, seized a blank
l’apidly wrote a message and handed it
across the counter to a sleepy looking
elderly man in charge, saying, “Elease
put that through at once. It is very im
portant. ”
He took off his spectacles, wiped them
carefully, put them on again, read the
message and then replied with drawling
deliberation:
“I'll probably get it off for you some
tune tomorrow forenoon, but I can’t
promise to afore then.”
“Why will it not- go tonight?”
“Look at that spikeful. It’s just
cram full up to the top with press dis
patches to newspapers, that have got to
be sent off tonight, and there’s nobody
here to help me but that gal, and she’s
pretty slow, and I ain’t over fast myself.”
- "Dispatches to newspapers!” she
echoed in astonishment. “From here!”
“Yes. There’re a hundred reporters
here, it seems to me. from Boston and
everywhere else, and every blessed one
°f them would like to send a hundred
columns of matter, I guess.”
“But— what about?”
“The rescue of that fishing smack by
her crew from the Canucks, who took
' i *' r #s a prize under their headlands
law. The crew recaptured her, sailed
her out of St. John’s in a storm and just
got home today, and the whole country
a PPtars to have gone wild about it.
Her coming was telegraphed ahead two
days ago, and the reporters have been
here writing ever since. I don’t suppose
H get off more’n half they’ve piled on
me.”
“But this is a very short message and
important as a matter of life and death.
Lou can surely get it through.”
"No. I've got my orders, and if it
Was only one word, and that was to save
a man’s life”
"It is.” *
“Still I wouldn’t dare send it out of
its towu. But you might send it over
the Be* Franklin line down street.”
She ran to the rival office, only to find
it closed, dark, deserted. The hope
flashed upon her that she might reach
Boston by a late train in time to send
her message from there ere daylight,
uud she made all haste to the railroad
station for that purpose. But the night
watchman at the station told her the
last train for the night had gone. There
would he none until morning, not even a
through express which might be flagged.
Bewildered by the seeming obstinacy
of malevolent fate and growing desper
ate, she retraced her steps to the Ben
Franklin office with just a vague glim
mering of hope that perhaps the operator
might simply have absented himself for
a moment to get a piece of pie or some
thing else when she was there before.
Wherever lie had gone, lie had not re
turned. Hearing a buzz of voices in the
grocery store next door to the office, she
pushed open the door and looked in. A
dozen men sat aoout on boxes and bar
rels talking.
“Does any one here know the operator
employed in the telegraph office next
door?" she demanded loudly, and they
seemed to reply in chorus, “Yes, we ail
do.”
“I’ll give $5,” she proclaimed, “to the
first one who finds him and brings him
to liis office."
They scattered like a flock of birds
among whom a stone is thrown. Only
the storekeeper remained, and he looked
uneasy.
Within five minutes the operator was
brought, his captor leading him by the
collar and not letting go his grasp until
he received the reward.
“There’s no use fetching me,” protest
ed the young man. “I gave ‘good uiglif
to the main office and was cut off more
ii.. j t v*
' - '■N'igssi
Leading him hy the collar.
than an hour ago. All the papers rep
resented here seem to belong to the As
sociated Press, which is bound to send
by the Western L 111011. Anyway they
have not offered me anything, and when
I got through my commercial work 1
was shut out.”
“Du ,\uu mean to say you cannot com
municate with the main office in Bos
ton.”
“Not until they choose to switch my
wiro on again, any more than I could
with the moon.”
For one short minute Miriam felt her
self defeated and despairing. Then sud
denly her mind reverted to something
she had once been told by a girl of her
acquaintance who learned telegraphy, a
trivial little fact, as it seemed at the
time, but now looming up in enormous
importance, and her hope revived again.
“Here,” she said to the operator, with
an air of decision that compelled obedi
ence, “get inside your office and light
up. Give me the name and address of
the night superintendent of your district
in Boston. Thanks. Now sit down at
your desk, copj r that message on one of
your blanks ready for sending and re
main before your instrument ready to
respond if it calls you until I return.”
He followed her directions, but men
tally questioned her sanity while he
did so.
Again she presented herself at tke
Western Union office, wrote another dis
patch and offered it, simply saying,
“Send that at once, please.”
“I told you afore, miss,” replied the
elderly drawler, “you couldn’t get any
thing through here tonight.”
“Yes, I know you did, but that will
have to go."
“Will have to? Why?”
“Because it is, as you will see, a death
message, and as such under the rule
takes precedence of and breaks anything
on the line. Give the signal ‘29’ and
push it along.”
“i don’t know anything about any
such rule.”
“Look for it, and you will find it. And
do so quickly, please, because it is ur
gent.”
He dragged out from under the counter
where it bung by a looped string from a
i* til his little, book of rnles and slowly
thumbed over its leaves, while she
watched him with not a little anxiety
>est she or her informant had made some
nistake as to the basis of fact upon
which she was acting. But, uo. He
had evidently found something, for he
held the page up to the light to get a
better Anew of it and followed each line
with a forefinger while he read in si
leiiCG.
“Gosh!” he exclaimed after reading it.
“I never knew afore it \\ r as there. Nev er
had any use for it and must have for
gotten it if I ever saw it.’
Making no further objections, he took
the message and tlie pay for its trans
mission, seated himself at an instru
ment, and breaking the press dispatch
already on the wire commenced click
ing out the signal—two dots, three
dashes, space, four dashes and one dot
constituting the telegraphic “29. W hen
it Avas acknowledged in Boston, he sent
Miriam’s message:
Mr. Batters.bee. Night Sup’t Ben Franklin Tel.
Cos., State st., Boston:
Randall Crane died here tonight.
be done with his body? Answer immediately
by your own line. B. Lindsey.
The name signed was that of the oper
ator waiting at the other office, lo him
she trotted back, and he was just
opening his mouth to protest
against being uselessly kept sitting the*o
Avhen a vigorous “rat-tat-tat, racial
tat” from the instrument before him ah
most made him bound from his chair in
surprise. He responded to the sum
mons, which Avas the signal of his sta
tion, and received the to him puzzling
queries, which he translated word by
word as they were impetuously rattled
off:
Who in blazes was Randall Crane, and what
in thunder have I got to do with his body?
B ATT lilts 11KE.
Miriam, smiling, notwithstanding the
gravity of the situati nri 9 dictiitvd tllC jg
ply:
Hold on and take three Important messages.
“AH right,” answered Mr. Battersbee,
whose quick comprehension grasped at
once the trick by which communication
had been opened through tho rival line.
So Miriam got her messages off—one
to her friend Clara Waring; a second to
Calvert Waring himself, a thrilling ap
peal written iu prodigal disregard of
rates, and the third to Lawyer Hurd,
conveying the joyful news that the miss
ing Avitness lmd been found and Avithout
doubt would be in court on tho second
day of the trial to establish her hus
band’s innocence.
[to be continued.]
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