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Show HH C5e JOT i,fL OF THE Il i W ! lit- JSP Mpm w yMmi copy&f?fr, 792.0 &y litte:, 2370 coA7jrrr. eific ocean. He began to search for Linkville. . Time was when Linkville was one of the principal towns of O-egon. Dan remembered the place because some of the time-yellowed letters his grandfather grand-father had sent him mid been mailed at a town that bore this name. But he couldn't find Linkville on the map. Later he was to know the reason that the town, half-way between the sage plains and the mountains, had prospered and changed its name. He remembered that it was located on one of those great fresh-water lakes of southern Oregon; so, giving up that search, he began to look 'for lakes. He found them in plenty vast, unmeasured unmeas-ured lakes that seemed to be distributed distrib-uted without reason or sense over the whole southern end of the state. Xear the Klamath lakes, seemingly the most imposing of all the fresh-water lakes that the map revealed, he found city named Klamath Falls. He put the name down in his notebook. The map sbowed a particularly high, far-spreading range of mountains moun-tains due west of the city. Of course they were the Cascades; the map said so very plainly. Then Dan knew he was getting home. His grandfather had lived and trapped and died in these same wooded hills. Finally he located and recorded the name of the largest city on the main railroad line that was adjacent to the Cascades. The preparation for his departure took many days. He read many books on flora and fauna. He bought sporting sport-ing equipment. Knowing the usual ratio between the respective pleasures of anticipation and realization, he did not hurry himself at all. And one midnight he boarded a west-bound train. He sat for a long time in the vestibule vesti-bule of the sleeping car, thinking in anticipation of this final adventure of shooting days when this man was young. So it came about that when. Dan's train stopped at Cheyenne, h found a telegram waiting him : "Any relation to Dan Failing of the Umpqua divide?" Dan had never heard of the Umpqua Ump-qua divide, but he couldn't doubt but that the sender of the wire referred to his grandfather. He wired in tha affirmative. The head of the Chamber of Commerce received the wire, read it, thrust it into his desk, and in the face of a really important piece of business proceeded to forget all about it. Thus it came about that, except for one thing. Dan Failing would have probably stepped off the train at his destination wholly 'unheralded and unmet. un-met. The one thing that changed his destiny was that at a meeting of a certain widely known fraternal order the next night, the Chamber of Commerce Com-merce crossed trails with the Frontier in the person of another old resident who had his home in the farthest reaches of the Umpqua divide. The latter asked the former to come up for a few days' shooting the deei being be-ing fatter and more numerous than any previous season since the days of the grizzlies. "Too busy, I'm afraid." the Chamber Cham-ber of Commerce had replied. "But Lennox that reminds me. Do you remember old Dan Failing?" Lennox probed back into the years for a single instant, straightened out all the kinks of his memory in less time than the wind straightens out the folds of a flag, and turned a most interested face. "Remember him !" he exclaimed. "I should say I do." The middle-aged man half-closed his piercing, pierc-ing, gray eyes. Listen, Steele," he said, "I saw Dan Failing make a bet once. I was just a kid, but I wake up in my sleep to marvel at it. We had a full long glimpse of a black-ttail bounding up a long slope. It was) just a' spike-buck, and Dan Failing s,aid he could take the left-hand spike off with one shot from his old Sharpe's. Three of us bet him the whole thing in less than two seconds. With the next shot, he'd get the deer. He won .the bet, and now if I ever forget Dan Failing, I want to die." "You're just the man I'm looking for, then. You're not going out till the day after tdmorrow?" "No." "On the limited, hitting here tomorrow tomor-row morning, there's a grandson of Dan Failing. His name is Dan Failing, Fail-ing, too, and he wants to go up to your place to hunt. Stay all summer and pay board." Lennox's eyes said that he couldn't believe it was true. After a while his tongue spoke, too. "Good Lord," he sid. "I used to foller Dan around like old Shag, before he died, followed Snowbird. Of course he can come. But he can't pay board." It was rather characteristic of the mountain men that the grendson of Dan Failing couldn't possibly pay board. But Steele knew the ways of cities and of men, and he only smiled. "He won't come, then," he explained. "Anyway, have that out with him at tlie end of his stay. He wants fishing, fish-ing, and you've got that in the North fork. Moreover, you're a thousand miles back " "Only one. hundred, If you must know. But Steele do you suppose he's the man his grandfather was before be-fore him that all the Fallings have been since the first days of the Oregon Ore-gon trail? If he is well, my hat's off to him before he steps off the train." The mountaineer's bronzed face was earnest and intent in the bright lights of the club. Steele thought he had known his breed. Now he began to have rfftubts of his own knowledge. "He won't be ; don't count on it," he said humbly. "The Failings have done much for this region, and I'm glad enough to do a little to pay it back, but don't count much on this eastern boy. He's lived in cities; besides, he's a sick man. He said so in his wire. You ought to "know it before you take him in." The bronzed face changed ; possibly a shadow of disappointment came into in-to his eyes. "A lunger, eh?" Lennox repeated. "Yes it's true that if he'd been like the other Failings, he'd never have been that. Why, Steele, you couldn't have given that old man a cold if you'd tied him In the Rogue river overnight. Of course you couldn't count on the line keeping up forever. But I'll take him, for the memory of his grandfather." "You're not afraid to?" "Afraid, h 1! lie can't Infect those two strapping children of mine. Snowbird Snow-bird weighs one hundred and twenty pounds and is hard as steel. Never knew a sick day in her life. And you know Bill, of course." Disappointment turned into rapture at sight of the wild country and through warm welcome accorded by Silas Lennox, Dan Failing's host, characterize the next installment install-ment of this story. (TO BE CONTINUED.) ifPP fif p o SYNOPSIS. Warned by his physician that he has not more than six months to live, Failine; sits despondently on a park bench, wondering where he should spend those six months. A friendly squirrel practically decides the matter for him. His blood is pioneer blood, and he decides to end his days in the forests of Oregon. Ore-gon. .Memories of his grandfather and a deep love for all things of the wild help htm in reaching a decision. CHAPTER I Continued. The squirrel was very close to him, and Dan seemed to know by instinct that the movement of a single muscle would give him away. So he sat as if he were posing before a photographer's photogra-pher's camera. The fact that he was able to do it is In itself important. It is considerably easier to exercise with dumb-bells for five minutes than to sit absolutely without motion for the same length of time. Hunters and naturalists acquire the art with training. It was therefore rather curious cu-rious that Dan succeeded so well the first time he tried it. He had sense enough to relax first, before he froze. Thus he didn't put such a severe strain on his muscles. The squirrel, after ten seconds had elapsed, stood on his haunches to see better. First he looked a long time with his left eye. Then he turned his head and looked very carefully with his right. Then he, backed off a short distance and tried to get a focus with ' both. Then he came some half-dozen steps nearer. ' A moment before he had been certain cer-tain that a living creature in fact one of the most terrible and powerful living creatures in the world had been sitting on the park bench. Now his poor little brain was completely addled. He was entirely " ready to believe be-lieve that his eyes had deceived him. Bushy-tail drew off a little further, fully convinced at last that his hopes of a nut from a child's hand were blasted. But he turned to look once more. The figure still sat utterly inert. in-ert. And all at once he forgot his devouring de-vouring hunger in the face of an overwhelming over-whelming curiosity. He came somewhat nearer and looked a long time. Then he made a hnlf-circle about the bench, turning his head as he moved. He was more puzzled than ever, but he was no longer afraid. His curiosity had become be-come so Intense that no room for fear was. left." And then he sprang upon the park bench. Dan moved then. The movement consisted of a sudden heightening of the light in his eyes. But the squirrel squir-rel didn't see it. It takes a muscular response to be visible to the eyes of the wild things. The squirrel crept slowly along the bench, stopping to sniff, stopping to stare with one eye and another, just devoured from head to tail with curiosity. curi-osity. And then he leaped on Dan's knee. He was quite convinced, by now, that this warm perch on which he stood was the most singular and interesting in-teresting object of his young life. It was true that he was faintly worried by the smell that reached his Nostrils. But all it really did was further to incite in-cite his curiosity. He followed the leg up to the hip and then perched on the elbow. And an instant more he. was poking a cold nose into 'Dan's neck. But if the squirrel was excited by all these deve'opments, Its amazement was nothing .ompared to Dun's. It had been the most astounding incident inci-dent in the man's life. He sat still, tingling with delight. And In a single flash of inspiration he knew he l.ad "onie among his own people at last. He knew where he would spend his last six months of life. His own grandfather had been a hunter and trapper and frontiersman In a certain vast but little known Oregon Ore-gon forest. His son had moved to the eastern cities, but in Dan's garret there used to be old mementoes and curios from these savage days a few claws and teeth, and a fragment of an obi diary. The call had come to him at last. Tenderfoot though he was. Dan would go back to those forests, to sprd his last six months of life among the wild creatures that made them their home. CHAPTER II. The dinner hour found Dan Tailing in the public library of Gitoheapolis, asking 'he girl who sat behind the desk if be might look at maps of Oregon, Ore-gon, lie remembered that his grandfather grand-father had lived in southern Orotron. Ue looked along the bottom of his map and discovered a whole empire, ranging rang-ing from gigantic sage plains to the 1 uur. 10 d'.'nse forests along the I'a- He Couldn't Find Linkville on the Map. his life. He was rather tremulous and exultant as he sank down into his berth. He saw to it that at least a measure meas-ure of preparation was made for his Coming. That night a long wire went out to the Chamber of Commerce of one of the larger southern Oregon cities. In it, he told the date of his arrival and asked certain directions. He wanted to know the name of some mountain rancher where possibly he might find board and room for the remainder re-mainder of the summer and the fall. The further hack from the paths of men, he wrote, the greater would be his pleasure. And he signed the wire witli his full name: Dan Failing, with a Henry in the middle, and a "III" at the end. He usually didn't sign his name in quite this manner. The people of nitchenpolis did not have particularly particular-ly vivid memories of Dan's grandfather. grandfa-ther. Hut it might be that a legend of the gray, straight frontiersman who was his ancestor bad still survived in these remote Oregon wilds. The use of the full name would do no harm. Instead of hurting, it was a positive inspiration. The Chamber of Commerce Com-merce of the busy little Oregon city jvas not usually exceptionally interested inter-ested in stray hunters that wanted a boarding place for the summer. Its business was finding country homes for orchardists in the pleasant river valleys. Itut it happened that the recipient re-cipient of the wire was one of the oldest old-est residents, a frontiersman himself, and it was one of the traditions of the Old West that . friendships were not soon forgotten. Dan Tailing I bad been a legend in the old trapping and |