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Show P ATRIA rilAXXIN'G MRS. VERNON CASTLE A , StOrV and SceTlGLriO OV DONALD PARR MILTON PILLS 5 SrV !1 tf3! 1 ?V T f f $1Z-YY-V Sl ID) X P ID) i A LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE And a cast of exceptional merit. jl ixW I I f" K INTERNATIONAL FILM SKRVICE. Inc. Head I nlS StOry SOW i fieri See . Under the direction of harton. inc. It All in Motion Pictures. A ROMANCE OF PREPAREDNESS CopVc,1t4Srsh,f,?er!eCrpaDy- I INTRODUCTION. Baron Huroki, chief of the Japanese secret service in America, conspiring to embroil the United States with Mexico, desires control of the great Channlng munition plants owned by Patria, last of "The Fighting Chan-nirgs," Chan-nirgs," and sole executrix of a $100.-000. $100.-000. COO trust secretly created by patriotic patri-otic progenitors to combat the national na-tional perils Inherent' in "unprepared-ness." "unprepared-ness." His schemes fail, thanks to Patria and her fiance, Captain Don-aid Don-aid Parr, whose determined opposi -tion at length drives v Baron Huroki into hiding. EPISODE X. WAR IN THE D OOP-YARD. In Time of Peace. Till-: banishment of Baron Huroki proved to be as complete an affair as heart could wish, a mystery as profound, as finished, as thorough- , going as could reasonably have been expected even of Oriental subtlety, cunning and Torehandedness, leaving no j room for doubt but that the head of the i Japanese secret service in the t'nited Ptates had long anticipated and planned against precisely such contingency as had at last driven him out of public life. Witness the secret passage connecting his residence in the Murray Hill Quarter with that which stood immediately back of it, fronting on the next downtown street an empty residence. Investigation proved that this property "had been the baron's ever since he had openly taken up his abode in the other house. Without the slightest considerable lead into that blind labyrinth of underground life wherein the Japanese had taken refuge, ref-uge, Patria's private bureau of investigation, investi-gation, under the direction of Donald Parr, worked tirelessly for weeks upon the problem, leaving no stone unturned in its efforts to track down the fugitives. With the assistance of the national secret service as well as of local detective forces, the drag-net was time and again cast and drawn in cities such as New York, Chicago Chi-cago and other centers of population boasting an underworld, with ' never a catch of significant value. The close surveillance maintained over the movements of Japanese and Mexican diplomatists and consular officers proved no less fruitless. In the end the tension ten-sion of espionage inevitably slackened, the prosecution of the search inevitably languished lan-guished through sheer want of any sort of encouragement. Even Parr, innately incredulous, suspicious, and solicitious for Patria's welfare, was drawn to stimit that Huroki must have fled the country. i He was at once glad and reluctant to believe this reluctant because he feared lest some disaster impossible to foresee develop through overconfidence; glad because be-cause with Huroki eliminated from the land, Patria was free once more from that persecution and peril of assassination which had been her daily portion ever since, in coming of age, she had been so unfortunate as to attract the attention of the Japanese-Mexican junta which, under un-der the leadership of Baron Huroki, had been stealthily active in fomenting trouble trou-ble between the United States and Mexico, Mex-ico, by way of preparing for the long-delayed, but ever-threatened, Japanese invasion in-vasion of our western and southwestern StBut if both Donald and Patria breathed more freelv as day followed day without overt attack upon the latter or any of her properties, thev did not permit themselves them-selves to be deceived- Beneath this truce both divined an -mceasing ebb and flow of intrieue like the tides that course beneath be-neath the thin armor of" an ice-bound estuary. Neither was fatuous enough to believe for an instant that, simply because their opposition had driven Baron Huroki into hiding, the forces which had actuated his machinations were idle in discouragement. discour-agement. Rather, they believed, those forces wrought now with an intensity of fell purpose augmented by the passion for revenge: the manifestation whereof, whenever when-ever and wherever it occurred, would be only the fiercer because of its long suppression. sup-pression. , , Impossible as it was to surmise in what quarter or manner that malign outbreak should be apprehended, Patria and her aides neglected no imaginable precaution feasible to hands lacking the recognition and support of a supine administration. The small arms and munitions factories, the ordnance foundries, arsenals and shlpvards owned by Channlng, Inc., were reorganized to a degree of the highest efficiency, ef-ficiency, each working three shifts of employees em-ployees every twenty-four hours. Existing' Exist-ing' contracts with the allies for war material ma-terial were filled, renewals and further orders were refused. Great stores of arms and ammunition began to accumulate and were held against that day when, plunged uuoxpectedlv into war. this nation should find itself in urgent need of equipment for the hordes of untrained volunteers who would spring up in its defense. And whereas nothing could persuade a purblind people to prepare physically for the trials and stratus of warfare, nothing noth-ing could prevent Patria, or any other patriot, from putting the men on the payroll pay-roll in shape to tight for their homes. Very quietlv the Plattsburg scheme was put into effect at Powder Town, in accordance ac-cordance with the promise Patria had made her employees at the time of the strike. Under the supervision of Captain Parr the employees were organized into companies, out through a course of setting-up drills, and instructed In the use of arms all on' full pay for the time demanded de-manded for these exercises. Almost immediately im-mediately the success of the experiment was assured by the response of the men. their eager interest mid willingness. Within a month they were marching, counter-marching, performing the manual of arms and scoring on the rifle range, all creditably. The force of private police who had formerly been maintained for the protection of the properties was. as a separate body, done away with merged into the forces of the employees. With this encouragement, Patria caused the experiment to be put into effect ef-fect at all the Channings plants. Its success was uniform. In a space of time incredibly brief the half a million men employed by C'lmnnincs in various capacities capaci-ties were organized and rapidly approaching ap-proaching a state of military efficiency. In the- main they drilled as infantrv. hut machine-gun companies were likewise formed, and selected crews were trained in the manipulation of the great pieces of artillery that were turned out by the Chunnings foundries. More than this a small, but capable, corps of aviators was gathered together and exercised in the vast plains comprised in the Charming ranch properties along the Mexican border. In short, al! that could he accomplished townrd tha orennmt inn of this rointrv for war by private citizens whose efforts were unsanctioned by the government, was done by Patria with the assistance j of Donald Parr their staff of aides. : Despite t heir most determined efforts to cloud these matters in secrecy, how- . ever, the news leaked out. Fharp-nose ; reporters, denied admittance to the : grounds of the various Channings works, 1 lurked in the ofiing with ears a-priek , for every hint and every syllable of in- j cautious gossip. Inevitably there dawned . a day when the news was bruited to the ! world. It was the day preceding that on which Patria purposed starting, in her private car, for the border ranches, to see for herself her-self what was the truth about the situa- j tion in the southwest, as well as to in- I spect her flying corps, take personal in- j struction in aviation, and supervise such j preparations against armed invasion as 1 might, in her judgment and Donald's be deemed wise. What was really going on along the border anil south of it was masked in rumor, ru-mor, misinformation and official censorship. censor-ship. The country's half-trained and ill-equipped ill-equipped militia had been mobilized and transported to the southwest; following which it had accomplished by all reports re-ports precisely nothing. Across the Rio Grande a war-hardened banditry grinned sardonically tind wiggled the fingers of a hand whose thumb was planted on Its nose. By way of divertisement from time to time it slaughtered a few American citizens or ambushed a troop of United States cavalry. Meantime an administration adminis-tration which was catering to the pacificist vote by advertising that it had kept the country out of war had authorized armed invasion of alien lands without the formality for-mality of declaring war. Thrust down into the heart of a hostile country without with-out adequate support, Pershing was kept dangling impotently at the end of a wavering wa-vering line of communication like the marionette which he, as an. individual, 1 emphatically was not. NThe de facto government gov-ernment of Mexico was insolently demanding de-manding his withdrawal. And Villa, whom he had been charged to bring back "dead or alive," was far more alive than dead, and busily organising anew his army of outlaws and planning fresh raids on American soil, new outrages on American citizens, both men and women. To look into these conditions, then, to find out for herself how grave the danger was of invasion following the prospective withdrawal of the American troops from Mexican territory, and to make due provision pro-vision to protect her own properties since she would in all probability be prevented pre-vented by administrative ukase from extending ex-tending such protection to others was the main purpose of Patria's contemplated ' journey. i And because she had become one of the I widely-advertised personalities in the United States, since her accession to sole control of Channings, Inc., she had caused her plans to be made with all possible secrecy. se-crecy. None the less they had become public property. While she dressed for her last trip to Powder Town, to review her employees em-ployees there, a newspaper story advised her that she could hope to make few-moves few-moves without the knowledge of the people. peo-ple. Beneath a portrait of herself, in display headlines, she read: MISS PATRIA CHAN NT NG America's Bertha Krupp, who is rapidlv converting her extensive ex-tensive arms and ammunitions factories fac-tories into armed camps, forsakes society so-ciety to safeguard her vast properties in the southwest Is reported to have said she will spend ?100,000,000 to protect pro-tect this country against peril of Japanese influences in Mexico. Over this the girl shook an exasperated head. Impatiently she threw the paper aside It was too bad, she thought not that she wasn't hardened to personal 'publicity, but that she was not permitted to do anything in the interest of her country coun-try without having her plans communicated communi-cated by the newspapers to the enemy. She made no doubt that Baron Huroki Hu-roki presuming that he were still in hiding somewhere within the radius ot metropolitan newspaper circulation was reading with keen interest that selfsame self-same story. And she was right. Manv miles awav, in a dead little house In a dead little side street in Jersey City, seated on the floor of an apartment cunningly cun-ningly transformed by means of screens into the semblance of a room in a Japanese Jap-anese house a room from which e very-ray very-ray of dayiight was jealously excluded Huroki was curling a lip over the headlines head-lines which made Patria's secret his and all the world's to boot. For many minutes he sat pondering, as still and immobile as one of the graven gods which, secretly, he worshiped. When at length he moved ft was merely to clan his palms together thrice; this done, he relapsed into movelessnoss. Nor did he stir so much as to turn Jjis head when his summons was answered. A cringing, servile creature in Japanese robes slipped noiselessly into the room and stood at attention, announcing himself him-self bv one word in his native tongue: "Master ? Huroki thought for another moment before be-fore he spoke. "What are today's reports, Kato?" "Thev say that we are apparently safe. All efforts at pursuit have been abandoned. aban-doned. The Channlng girl is at her hotel in New York. Captain Parr spends most of his time in the Channing factories near Powder Town. It is certain that no sort of watch is being kept upon this house; not once Elnce we took cover here has one of the Channing investigators approached this neighborhood." The baron nodded approvingly. "Order my roadster to the door. Fetch dusters, caps and goggle masks for yourself your-self and me." "It is an order." Kato Baid no more, and his tone was colorless; yet in the barely perceptible hesitation lie evidenced about putting, these orders into effect, Huroki sensed' an unuttered criticism: Was this wife on his part 7 In response he touched the newspaper on the Moor beside him. "You have read this story, Kato?" "Excellency yes." "Do you believe it is true that this girl is converting her factories into armed camps?" "Our reports show that the Channlng employees everywhere are beimr drilled persistently and made familiar with rifle practice." "In other words, they are being made into a private army of trained men. ready to be offered to the country's service in event of war." "ExeelU-ncy yes." "I must .see tor myself. A dancemus precedent: shouM many American captains cap-tains of industry adopt ibis scheme the United States will hae a standing ormy too toon, far too soon. We must find I some way to discourage this vnung wh man some wav to sterilize her efforts toward to-ward prepared'nes before she can prove tn em practicable." Kato bowed assent. After another moment mo-ment Huroki dismissed him upon bis errand. er-rand. He went swiftly, discharging his commission with that efficiency which had rendered him Huroki's most valuable lieutenant, and his most trusted, mean as the man's caste was. Within ten minutes the two, thoroughly masked against recognition in their motoring mo-toring garments, left the house and took their places Kato at the wheel in a Jiiah-powered motor car of the roadster type. For a time, en route, their way ran parallel with railroad tracks. For as much as a mile the roadster paced a light special spe-cial train. Then, admonished by Huroki's touch on bis sleeve, Kato modified the speed and permitted the special to draw ahead. As it did so Huroki Identified Identi-fied unmistakingly the slight, girlish figure fig-ure that sat alone on the observation platform. plat-form. So Patria Channing was likewise bound for Powder Town ! Even had he been without a mask, the face of the Japanese would have betrayed be-trayed no trace of emotion. Yet eight of the girl had set astir in him passions which had for some time lain dormant dark passions bred of hatred and chagrin. For, alone among the many men and women wo-men with whom he had come in contact in the course of a long and active and varied career. Patria had proved a stumbling block to his ambition, stubbornly stub-bornly opposing her puny strength to his and overcoming him, persistently thwarting his shrewdest schemes and paying rib penalty. His arrangements were now all made for a furtive, unostentatious exit from the country which Patria had made too hot to harbor him longer. He was, in effect, being driven out by this insignificant insig-nificant wisp of womanhood outlawed, a failure, disgraced, ' in ill favor with his emperor. And he had been prepared to go without with-out further attempt -io balance his score with Patria. But this accidental encounter encoun-ter of which the girl had remained so serenely unconscious made him change his mind. Secretly he determined, before be-fore the special had rounded a bend ahead and vanished from his view, upon one final essnv to avenge his wrongs ere he fled. An hour later it stood empty with engine en-gine idle on a by-road near the summit of a hill overlooking the little valley in which lay Powder Town. Twenty feet above it, in the cover of a group of trees on the hilltop, Huroki and Kato were looking down into the valley, with the aid of binoculars, the Japanese reading read-ing plain confirmation of all the newspaper news-paper alleged concerning Patria's activities activi-ties in the cause of preparedness. On the open space that lay between the group of factory buildings and the towm, upward of five hundred men in semi-uniform and bearing arms were performing per-forming evolutions with a snap and a precision pre-cision that spoke well for Donald Parr's system of training. Huroki's face darkened. Down the road from the railway station sta-tion came a motor car. In it sat Patria Channing. As it appeared the men in : training responded quickly to snapped orders or-ders and arrayed themselves in long ranks for review, presenting arms as the car came to a pause at a little distance before them. Alighting, Patria was welcomed by Captain Parr and a group of officers. After walking the length of the front ranks, Patria returned to the motor car" and took from the tonneau an object resembling, re-sembling, at a distance, a pole, half of whose length was sheathed in ' black wrappings. With this in hand, she addressed briefly the nucleus of her private forces. Having Hav-ing spoken, she offered the pole to the officer commanding under Captain Parr. At the same time a color guard advanced from , the ranks. Unsheathing the flag, the commanding officer held it high, its brilliant colors radiant in the autumnal sunlight, before delivering it to the color guard. A great roar of cheering broke out In the ranks and was carried clearly to the ears of the watchers on the hilltop. With an angry gesture Huroki turned and strode hack to his roadster. "Drive home," he ordered, "follow the railroad tracks as closelv as vou can. I must find some way. " The Trestle. ' A mile or so beyond the ridge-pole of the hills wailing in the little vallev. the road dipped down into another vallev, rather more shallow, which the railroad spanned by means of a long high trestle. Through this valley meandered a river, broad but not deep, some two hundred feet below the trestle at this, its highest point. Well watered though it was, this valley offered little temptation to the agriculturist. agricul-turist. Its soil was somewhat sterile and thickly sewn with outcroppings of rock. Nevertheless, one farmer a Japanese had thought well enough of it to establish estab-lish a home near one end of, the trestle. This optimist was a Japanese. His utmost ut-most efforts, aided by those of hia familv and one or two helpers of his own race, wrung but the barest livelihood from the soil. Yet he persisted, year in and out, patient and uncomplaining. It is a singular fact, to be Interpreted at the whim of the reader, that any great railroad work in the United States seldom lacks a Japanese neighbor, such as this toiling little farmer. It is not known that these hardv tillers of the soil have stores of dynamite or other high explosive cached conveniently; but If they had, they could reudilv at an hour's notice cripple the transportation transporta-tion facilities of this country and render efforts to rush troops to the western sea-1 sea-1 boa I'd futile. j At the duelling of the Japanese farmer in quest ion. Baron H uroki alighted from (his motor car, and engaged his country-1 country-1 man in a conversation which engrossed i both till well past noon, at which time ; Patria Channing s special train was observed ob-served crossing- the trestle, horn e ward -j bn :nd. I When, it h;id passed from sight, Hu- roki's course of action was mapped out to the last detail. Summoning Kato. he delivered to him certain insiruclions, srmip by word of 'mouth, others written on .--craps of paper ; in Japanese characters, and dismissed , him with an injunction lo make all pos-. pos-. sihle harte upon his various errands, i Huroki himself retired to an afternoon 1 of i naet Ion in the bouse of his eom-, eom-, patriot. I Put Kato put in one of the busiest aft-I aft-I ernoons in his experience. In person, by 'telephone and through aides, he communicated com-municated the orders of Hnron Huroki to half a hundred industrious .lapane.se geu-1 geu-1 1 erne 11 am :a 'My n.nd in eons pi cuonsly cn-t;agcd cn-t;agcd in small ways of business throuch-iO.il throuch-iO.il an area hounded 'n the north by Harb-m. on the east, by the remotest fastnesses of Brooklyn, on the south and west by the city of Philadelphia. ; He likewise found time to visit a small , but seaworthy private yacht which lay j at anchor off Pauius Hook. j It was dusk when, weary, but indomit- ; able, he reappeared at the Japanese farm, beneath the trestle, delivered his report , to Baron Huroki. and drove on into the darkness, : By that time nearly a hundred motor i cars were converging from every point of ; the compass upon the little valley occu- j pied by the Channing powder mills. Kach of these cars was occupied by at least five impassive Japanese, all re- ( servants of the Japanese army, many of, them veterans of the war with Russia, wdiose topcoats covered a complete in- j fan try equipment for light route march- j ing. i In the bottom of each car lay at least j five modern magazine rifles. ( Timing their progress to reach a cer- 1 tain point at a certain moment, they j moved sedately through the twilight and ! the darkness, attracting no attention. I Between re veil and eight these cars came, together in a lonely stretch of countryside coun-tryside adjoining the valley of Powder Town. The driver of each reported to Kato personally, then parked his car in the fields by the roadside. Checking off each arrival on a compact tally sheet, Kato at length extinguished the pocket flash -lamp by which lie had worked, and having consulted his watch gave the word to march. At precisely twenty minutes to eight o'clock the last file of armed Japanese trotted past him and disappeared in the gloom. Ho delayed before following only long: enough to plant a small rocket in the 1 earth and touch a match to its fuse. j Soaring up niao the night on a course which kept it invisible to the inhabitants of Pow der Town, the rocket broke at an t elevation which permitted it to be seen from the vallev of the. trestle. ; At sight of It Baron Huroki, standing on the porch of the Japanese farm- house, uttered an inarticulate sound of satisfaction, pocketed his binoculars and, going into the house, took up the tele- 1 phone and gave the number of the Ritz- , Carlton in New York. i At eighteen minutes to $ Patria Channing Chan-ning paused in the act of completing her toilette for dinner to answer the teie- 1 phone. 1 "Yes," she called. "This is Miss Channing. Chan-ning. Who are you?" Out of the mystery of the night a voice responded in accents oddly familiar yet oddly unrecognizable: "Your men have mutinied in Powder ! Town. They are rioting and shooting up the town. Captain Parr and others are besieged In the office building of Mill No. 5, in momentary danger of being blown up." The voice ceased abruptly. There was the click of a receiver hung up. The girl's distracted efforts to get the connection , renewed failed utterly. In panic she ; threw the instrument from her and be-i be-i gan to tear off her frock. "Fetch me a traveling suit," she ordered or-dered her maid. "Then call up the railroad rail-road and tell them to have my train ready for immediate service. I'm going out to Powder Town as quickly as I can." Twenty-three minutes later she boarded her special at Jersey City. As the train pulled out of the yard a furtive little Japanese dodged away between be-tween the tracks, left the yard and, seeking seek-ing the first saloon, addressed himself to the telephone. Having received definite word that Patria was on the way, Baron Huroki hung up, left the Japanese farmhouse and superintended the letting off of a great rocket. This last, rising to a great height at high speed, was plainly visible In. Powder Towm when it exploded. Kato saw it who had been waiting for precisely that signal and scrambled to his feet. Applying a whistle to his lips, he blew a single blast. Immediately the field in which he had been lying at length became peopled with the shadowy shapes of his countrymen. A second blast set them in motion. In utter silence but for the rattle of accoutrements ac-coutrements and the thudding of their feet they bore down at a double-quick on the "unsuspicious little town which they had surrounded in the darkness. In three minutes more t he vanguard of the raiders debouched In the main street of Powder Town and charged up it, shooting a bayoneting all in their path. Taken completely off their guard who had, for that matter no reason to anticipate antici-pate anything of the sort, the terrorized inhabitants fled before this general assault as-sault like leaves before a great wind. In five minutes the Japanese were in complete and undisputed possession of the town and were firing lis houses. The glare of these flames against the sky was synchronous w ith the calling of a bugle in the main yard of the Channing factories. The first refugees had just arrived and begun to gasp out their tales of horror. Parr, summoned from what had been intended as his final council with the officers commanding Fatria'f private army, prior to ids departure for the southwest, had needed to hear no more than half a dozen words before be gave tiie order to sound a general call to arms. Thanks to their long and faithful drilling, drill-ing, the men of the night shift, dropping whatever work they h;ui in hand at t he. moment, assembled under arms in t he yard in record time. The flames of the second house to be fired in the town were Just beginning to leap above the rising ground that separated the factories from the settlement when Pairia's men doubled out of the main gateway, Donald at their head. Half way to the town they got t heir first taste of warfare, encountering there in the darkness a very considerable budy of Japanese, outnumbering them two to one. They responded nobly, deploying in open skirmish order at tiie words o, command com-mand and throwing themselves Hat upon the ground before a t temp' Ing to return the fire of the raiders. Thorn; h her and there a man fell, dead or vuin ' d, not one looked back. Their capunities, if anything, seemed the one thing needed 1o stiffen their determination to drive bm-k the enemy. And the aernrncv of their fire proved so galling that the first line of Japanese was qniek to uivf. ground and retreat upon the bnrntntr town. There, in the seorching. Ha me-ilhimined streets, the combat hei-nni" a hand-to-hand affair, the ra tders. alt hoiiKh tlicv suffered heavily, glviii;;. to begin with, almost an mueh punishment as thv received, re-ceived, but ineh by ln b yielding-. The niHln st.reet whs littered with de;id a nd wounded when at lengt h 1 hey broke ,uvl fled, hotly pursued by Donald and his men. P"yond the town the pursuit bream" more or a runnine t-'kir,r,'th. the rid- ers endeavoring desperately to stem the pursuit long enough to enable them to regain re-gain their motor cars. Hoth sides had suite red heavily. In the end it was with but a handful of his original command that Donald pressed the pursuit across the ridge-pole of the hiiis anu down into the open neids where the motor cars 01 the raiders had been parked. There a final stand was made, a des-per;ite des-per;ite resistance opposed to Parr's men till the last Japanese had found a place in the car which he hoped would bear him to safety. Then, as the final car swept out of the field and down the road, spitting spit-ting fire from half a dozen riiles, the pursuers pur-suers swarmed upon the field and took possession of the abandoned cars. Comman-ieering the first that came to hand. 1 arr jumped in with four of hts men and resumed the pursuit. Other cars, laden to t he running boards with employees of Channings, followed. A running run-ning lvutle of racing ears swept out through the sleeping countryside and. in due course, down into the vallev of the trestle. As his car took the down grade Rt the top of its speed, the nearest car of the fugitives, leading it by a bare two hundred hun-dred yards, Donald saw the headlight of a locomoi ive sweep through the cut at the far end of the trestle like a sword of ! light slashing the night. ; Then, traveling at a fast clip, the train I ran out on the trestle a light train, he remarked, consisting of a single coach in 'addition to the locomotive and tender; in short, a special, such as Patn was accustomed ac-customed to use. Py this time his motor car had descended de-scended to the bottom of the valley and crossed the bridge that spanned t lie river. Ten seconds la ter a sudden premonition drew his attention to the train; he looked up just in time to see the locomotive shoot out at a sharp angle from the trestle, tres-tle, twist and fall, dragging its tender ,and coach with it. The crash of the wreck tilled the valley like a thunderclap, followed by a hissing of escaping steam and t he groans and screams of the injured train crew. Instinctively Donald shut off the gasoline gaso-line and jammed in the emergency brake, bringing his car to a halt within thrice its own length. As it stopped he Jumped out and began to run across the fields toward the wreck, his companions at his heels. A cold fear gripped his heart. What if that special were Patria's? Of a sudden his super-excited senses detected the faintest echo of a cry from overhead a cry in a voice that he knew only too well. Stopping short, he looked up. Still at. some distance from the foot of the tres-I tres-I tie, he saw its gaunt skeleton stlhouet-j stlhouet-j ted against the moonlit sky, etched In black on a shield of silver. Staring, he heard the cry repeated he- ' fore he detected the figure of a woman hanging by her hands from the telegraph wires that were strung along the supports of the trestle, a few feet below its roadbed. road-bed. The woman or girl; Donald never for an instant doubted she was Patria was struggling valiantly to pull herself up to a cross-piece immediately above her head. While he watched, heart In mouth too far away to reach her in time to be of any assistance she succeeded, lifting herself by main strengt h bodily to the cross-piece. But t hat effort apparently proved too much for her; once she had gained that giddy support she seemed to faint, and hung over it like a puppet, head on one side, feet on the other. By this time other cars filled with Patria's Pa-tria's employees had come up. Some stopped, their occupants . running across fields to the scene of the wreck. Othera kept on. In the back of his consciousness Parr was aware of a brisk fusillade of ' si lots up Hie road. Put to this ho was indifferent. Calling the nearest men to follow him he hurried on to the foot of the trestle and began to climb ono of its legs, selecting this as a quicker way to the top than the one alternative by ascending ascend-ing the hillside to the end of the structure. struc-ture. It proved a climb of heartbreaking difficulty. diffi-culty. None the less, he persisted until, panting and a-nuiver in every limb, ho t hrust his head and shoulders between the ties, rested a fraction of an Instant, then drew himself up to the top of the trestle. ' Half a dozen steps took him to a point, three feet above the cross-piece. He found that the girl had come out of her faint and struggled to a sitting position. The face she lifted to the moonlight on hearing his cry whs the face of Patria. Kneeling, he offered her a hand. Pb made no move to clasp it, but clung with both hands to her support. Her lips moved, for mi instant Inaudlhly ; it. was with some difficulty that she succeeded suc-ceeded in articulating. "I can't," she gasped "I daren't I'm afraid dizzy" At t hat moment t wo men joined Donald. Don-ald. Pidding one sit on his legs, ho t u rn ed and swung himself ha ck w ard s. head down, over the abyss. Thus he was able to grasp the girl round the body. Kxerting every ounce of Htmngth fn him he dragged her up. inch by Inch, till the other man, kneeling above him, was able to catch Patria beneath the armpits arm-pits and so ease the strain on Donald. After that it was a matter of seconds before she had been lifted to the narrow, footway that ran along the ties Just outside out-side tbo rails. Subsequent Invest iga t ion proved That the tiain had been deliberately v recited, one of the ra Hh having been pried Inosn and cast from the trestle to the valley. If there were any question In the mlndtj of Patria and Donald o to the authorship author-ship of ibis outrage it was answered to their sa t isf;ict Ion in the course of the next few hours. The exchange nf shots Donald had heard i mined in lely a f ter the wreck hud been caused by a skirmish between a car con la Ining bis first assistant, Kylcy, and severa I of the ""ha nni ngs employees and a second car whmh they had overt a kn as it swung into the ro.id from the bine loading to the little Japanese farmstead. farm-stead. I n t he second ear. before It could gather speed enough to draw away, Hyloy had dist ineilv re' ok ni v. ( both Iiaron Huroki and his erealuie, Kato. The stein ehase I hat enmied was traditionally tradi-tionally long and ended only ut salt water. wa-ter. Closely pnrwued -too elosely to permit a stop the fnritiveM had shot their mint mi-nt top speed fiom the Up of a bluff Into thf Atlantic, ktiping from if In midair. Hyley and his companion had arilved at (lie "point where HiiioUi'n car had bdt Holld land In time to cf two h-ad bobbing bob-bing in 'die moon's walu1! on the wafer, J swimifiincr out. pref-ent ly to he picked up by a boat from a yacht whb'h, as soon j as the bout had jchirnfd to ft) had sv-aml i-wiftlv out to rc:. I (To be continue' ) |