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Show . - I ' Herewith is presented the seventeenth installment of a fiction serial dealing with eej I what might happen should European powers, after they bad settled their own differ- W cnces,wage war upon the United States. The author, one of the best fiction writers :j ' ' iB tbG counTy has based bis stor? uPn a thorough understanding of military, m naval, and internal conditions in the United States and upon a sound knowledge SI of military and economic history. The story will cause you to realize the critical fl I situation in which this country and you, your neighbors, and your family are placed 91 ') by the let-wellenough-alor.e attitude of the pacifists. l ' SYNOPSIS. fi 1 ,. Id Elffin, UK, live the Asliby family, consisting ' i of Nathan Ashby, owner of the Ashby Brass 01 f comrany anc h's wife; a daughter, Nellie, m.-ir-4 ried to Bob Wendell, a navy lieutenant; and Jim W ' Ashby, a bon, engaged to Agnes Ware. Nathan f Ashby is the archetype of pacifist, deaf to the 2 i warnings of impending danger to America. Out E of a clear sky a league of former European ene-m ene-m ' mie6 gives cause of war by sinking an American SJ tcout cruiser and then proceeds against unpre-S unpre-S i pared United States. The country is honeycombed 8 aith league spies. The Arizona, Bob's ship, Is i lunk in n terrific battle, and Bob narrowly os- capes death by swimming ashore. Jim, against i Agnes' wishes, enlists. A cabinet meeting is held and the politicians hedged about a weak president are driven forcibly from their offices sad their work given over to expert men. Jim, after training in Clucago, is ready to leave on a troop train for New York when he recognizee in tho disguise of an aviator a. girl he met In the bouse of the league spies, whither he had been Uken unconscious while running down a clew as , . to the organization of the spies. The girl tells Jim 1 lbs has turned patriot, which Jim docs not bo- Beve. As the troop tram leaves th suburban jtation tho girl leaps from the train and Jim IJtaps after hor. Jim stumbles upon the unconscious uncon-scious body of the girl and carries her to a house, from which she escapes. Jim later goes to New 1 York, The enemy already Is entering the city And bombarding it from the air. In a ware-. ware-. boose Jim's company is stationed. As the enemy crowds Brooklyn bridge to invade New York the Irldge Is blown up and the river filled with bodies. ) Again they try to cross in boats and destroyers 1 tear down upon them, splitting them asunder and crertumlnff them. i ; CbpyrJghti 1910: By The Chicago Trlbnno. THE shells! They were bursting ceaselessly, cease-lessly, furiously again about " N 94." That meant Houston was yelling it , 1 that tho attack ttos beaten back; tho ; reeent'3 men wero retreating; they were no I longer trying to land. The guns across the river shelled tho Amer- lean positions now to cover the retreat; they !' kept up the shell fire for half an hour longer i- In rovencc for the check. Then there was ! a cessation of tho fire, Jim Ashby, very weak, '' but glowing within with tho 6cnso of heroic '' achievement, turned about and saw Houston. i' The wooden legged man was kneeling beside ; Swcnson and caring for a hurt in " Swedy's " ' head. "Corporal," he said quietly, "the boys' on etch side of us got us through ; and the general ' could better have had us take more loss. Wo 1 must get the bayonet into our minds. Nest I time we must be able to bayonet ! " Not the next time, nor yet the next, nor the next waB company F a band of twenty-two twenty-two men now able to bayonet. " N 94," as "t building, was gone; " X 94 " had become purely a position a rampart of cot-,' cot-,' ton bales and ballast bags chinked up with bricks and stone from the debris of the warehouse: it was a section of firing trench which girded the Manhattan water- front from the Battery to the Bronx, and then along tho Hudson and the Harlem, too. ts the regent drew his lines -about the billion dollar fortress of Manhattan. It was ten days after that first assault, according ac-cording to Jim's reckoning the reckoning did . not agree with that of Kilbano, who knew it was eleven days that the infantry of tho regent crossed to Manhattan island near the eld line of Manhattan bridge. Tho regulars, Kho had held the line up there, must have I been killed ; and the American batteries about Bj there cither were destroyed or out of amniuni-m amniuni-m Uon. That was more likely, Jim thought, for "gj If twenty-two men at "N94" couldn't get y rifle cartridges except at night when someone crept to the opening of the subway the ar- tillerymen further away must be having their fc troubles. Or perhaps more of tho guns had 8 burst and killed. their crews- Guns were bursting burst-ing pretty often now, Jim knew; but that, wasn't strange; they were defective guns a I lot of two hundred guns made for the allies J during the European war. They hadn't bccn accepted on account of defects, so they'd been returned, and when this war came the army bad grabbed them, for at least they were guns ; they would shoot a good many times, maybe, ' before they burst. Suppose they were going 'J to kill the men who had to fire them! More Ij American men would be killed if the guns ) weren't fired, if riflemen were going to try to ' fight infantrymen and artillery without any i artillery support at all. Besides, if the Amer-( Amer-( IcauH used those defective, foreign guns the American factories could supply them with J sheila right away, without having to change a pattern or rip out a machine. They had" been making shells of the sizes for those foreign for-eign guns not the American sizes. So the guns had come to New York ; so the fortress 1 of Manhattan had had artillery and the riflemen rifle-men of the militia had some support against i tie shells from across the river. But too . toany of the guns had burst or run out of H ammunition even though they were using shells of the foreign pnttern and the regent's troops were across the river now and no one was stopping them or pushing them back. More men were coming over and more and more. Were all the guns on Manhattan out of business? Were all the shells used up? Were all the gunners killed? Ah, there I Some battery wrb waiting up. But the regent's men were coming on on toward the ramparts of " N 94." The twenty-two men there were becoming trained to holding a position ; or Winslow and Houston bad convinced them all that if a man tried to run be surely would be shot through the head. So, ns the regent's men moved on '"N 94," twenty-two rifles fired over the cot-.. cot-.. ton bales. "Bayonets now, boys! Bayonets! Stand up and give it to them! They're coming! Give it to them, O, stand and give 'cm the steel or you'll get it. Now bayonets ! Bayonets Bayo-nets !' The recruits could not all stand to that: some of them ran and were shot, not by Winslow or Houston, but by the regent's men ; -others fell down and tried to hide behind the cotton bales; but when Winslow jumped up on a bale to fight and Houston, stumbling a little because of his wooden leg, stood up also, others followed them. Paddy Kilbane, .for one, and, for another, Swenson, the ex-janitor. Jim Ashby fought beside him. Steel against Bteol I Kilbane was quick ; he lunged low and got a man before one got him. But Swenson was a bit slow ; he tried to club his musket and was thrust through. Yet the man opposite Jim was fighting with clubbed musket and Jim could not reach him ; Instead Jim went down, quite helpless, but not quit unconscious, and felt other men falling upon him. They did not move because they were uvuu , iuu, ua lie uiu uui mint;, wiu uuuiiiy cuu- sidered him dead also. They went over him and past him about business which they had yet to do further on. So Jim, utterly spent and nerveless, rested. T V REST. It was queer to rest with dead men on both sides of you and a dead rnau across your body ; but it was rest the first rest with nothing to do and ndthing to watch and wait for which Jim had had in ten days eleven, if Kilbane's reckoning was right. Jim moved some one's arm it was Kilbanc's arm so he could breathe a little better. Every one about him was dead ; he was sure of that. No ono moved, and when he called no one answered. Jim went to sleep. It was dark ; beside the white beams of searchlights sweeping the river and the greenish, green-ish, eerie flash of starshells breaking abovo the ruins, there was no light when he awoke. Whether it was just after nightfall or almost morning, Jim could not guess ; but nothing bad changed about him. Jim pushed away the body which had lain across him, and he sat up. The man who had fallen above him was one of the enemy. Ho had a canteen and a haversack, in which was an emergency ration and chocolate. Jim atq. and in the light of the next starshcll ho found another of the regent's dead and he ate that man's ration, too. and drank the coffco from both canteens. The food which had supplied company P for ten days had been foraged from under the ruins of a cheap, cast side grocery on what hud been Water street, and the supply had been very scant and irregular. The noise of artillery and the crash of shells breaking told that the battle for Manhattan was continuing this night, as upon every night before. There were no shells bursting about the water front; that was the only change. Jim found himself in a zone of ruin which neither side sought to further demolish. Perhaps Per-haps that zone now was behind the enemy's lines; certainly the center of the city, where the great, towering buildings of Broadway still showed their pointed pinnacles in tho light of tho starshells, was strongly held. Jim gazed from the towers down to the faces of the dead about him. Paddy Kilbane the Irish boy who bad been a shipping clerk till a couple of weeks ago and who had boen picked to try out iu the infield with the "Cubs" had been thrust through tho heart. Tho bayonet had puBhcd from bis pocket a scrap of lace, all crimson now. Jim recalled it the handkerchief Paddy had found in the seat of the train which had belonged to ono of the beautiful refugees who had fled to Chicago. So Paddy had kept it, the guerdon from his unknown lady for whom ho had fought. Well, the Irish boy's gallantries were over. Ue was very bold and handsome, as the starshcll showed him; there seemed almost a smile on his lips, nc lay ns he would have liked to He if one of those blushing little colleens, who came to the camp in Chicago, should come to see him now. Swedy Swenson who had curried cur-ried his rifle like a mop was bayoneted through and through. He was-not at all neat now ; Swcdy would not like that. Swedy had it, . . r written a letter a few days before ; Jim found it and put it in his pocket Winslow was dead, too, so was Houston every man of the company, except Jim, who had faced that charge; the others were dead, too those who could not face it. Their shrinking could not save them every one was killed when the assault succeeded. Jim gazed with awe at Houston's face. He had been ashamed before Houston, living ; he was more ashamed before Houston, (lend. The wooden legged man had fallen on his side, with an arm extended before be-fore him, a finger pointing. It pointed toward the towers where the shells now were breaking. ' " Go there I" Jim seemed to hear Houston's voice order. " Go there ; if you ain't n damned coward and a quitter, go ! " Jim did not realize before that so far as his brain had been forming a plan It was of escape es-cape from the city. " All right, old fellow," he promised Hous-tou. Hous-tou. " I'll KO there." THE INNER FORT. He took a rifle and was fumbling about dead men's belts and bandoliers for cartridge--when he heard some one approaching. He crouched very still and waited. A starshcll blazed and showed him a girl's slight figure bending over the bodies at the other end of " N 94." Jim watched her dazedly, amazed. ' She was alone ; besides himself she $jvas the only living thing in the light of the starshcll. Its light burned out, but the girl continued her search in the darkness. She worked slowly in Jim's direction, examining each still form. Jim waited for another BtarehcJl to show her to him again; she was quite closo now. She was a girl of 22 or 23, he guessed, with clear cut features; she wore shirtwaist and plain skirt and she was without hat. She looked like an American girl. That definition included. in-cluded. Jim realized, Marion Marlatt as well as Agnes. She might be of the other side; but Jim believed she was not. She had come to Winslow's body now and was turning it over. " Those men are all dead," Jim addressed her quietly. She straightened and looked about quickly, but without starting. "Where arc you?' aha asked In a low, gentle voice. " Here." Jim stood up. " " You are hurt?" ' " No ; I was just resting here. " I sec." She came closer and gazed at him. She showed no surprise that he, unhurt, un-hurt, had lain there to rest. Sho simply took his hand and began leading him away. She guided him, by the flare of the starshells, over the dC-bris, away from the river toward the great granite and brick and tile pinnacles of the city, where the searchlights were playing. There wero none of the regent's soldiers about, she told him. The assault, which had t swept over "N 94" had broken down soon afterwards; after-wards; tho enemy were killed or taken or driven back, but the Americans had not yet reformed their positions along that part of the water front. Jim stumbled over something it was just a body and fell down ; now that he knew that the enemy weren't about him he was content to lie there where he fell, but the girl would not leave him alone. She tried to pull him up by physical force, but her strength was not euough, so she sat down beside him and got him to talking. He told her first about Kilbane Kil-bane and Houston and then about his father and Nellie and Bob, about Mart and, yes, about Agnes and Marion Marlatt. This girl she told him her name when he asked it, but he could not remember it had wonderfully wonder-fully gentle but tenso little hands; she kept hold of his hands all the time and held him hard when his mind wandered. Once, when he cried, she cried, too. Then he got up. She led him throngh choked, debris. strewn streets, with smoldering ruins on both sides, where sentinels challenged them and she answered an-swered and was allowed to lead him on ; she led him past charred ruins and great, gaunt heaps of brick and stone and plaster and steel beams, where men searched with electric flashlights; flash-lights; she led him Into a street a wide street, a ragged, eerie, spectral caricature of Broadway, where she was challenged again and where a great gun was firing. It was a long barreled gun of the sort seen on warships, war-ships, but it was mounted upon n truck, which stood on a car trad; and moved away after the gun had been fired up into the air. The girl turned with Jim Into a building wherc except that the glass was gone from windows and doors everything was all right. An electric elec-tric light was burning and an elevator was running. A car waB waiting on the ground door. The girl led Jim into it and immediately imme-diately it descended with him to an electric lighted room where two men were at a table, with books beforo them. They looked up, and one arose and examined Jim while ths other asked him questions. The girl was gone then. One of the men led him away to a room where other men were sleeping and there was a cot waiting for Jim. He lay down upon it and went to sleep. ' " SAVE HD.lflnL.1T WHO CAN. Ulion the second morning after that ho was given rifle and cartridges again and assigned to a company, and ho took hiH part once more In the defunse of Manhattan. HLs company It was a non-descript of fragments of companies from New York and Connecticut militia with a few Vermont boys and a couple more who had belonged to a Chicago regiment was among those garrisoning the inner citadels. They helped move the American field guns from floor to floor and fire the foreign guns till they burst; they helped hide the positions in the great, steel girdcrcd buildings ns the enemy's shells stripped the beams bare ; they helped remove batteries and mill tary1 stuff from building build-ing to building as slowly, patiently, systemat-icallj' systemat-icallj' the regent's gunners battered the steel cliffs of Broadway down ; they helped serve the great naval guns which fired from the streets over the shattered city heights; by night they helped dismantle the destroyers, the cruisers, and the other war craft which had been in Brooklyn navy yard before the siege and the others from tho ocean which had run to refuge in the Hudson. This gave more guns and more Bhclls, and as they wero mounted on freight trucks and moved each time after they . wero fired, the regent's artillery officers had a hard time finding them. These guns, with tho mines in the hnrbor and In the river. were(Pj able to keep the regent's ships away even, aft-jrv " the harbor dofenses, attacked from the' rienr, ; had fallen. But now Manhattan fortress v , completely isolated ; the regent held not oifiy Long Inland and the Bronx and the narrow; neck of upper Manhattan itself, but be occupied also the Jersey shore and the Jersey end of the tunnels which for days had been the solo means of moving men and supplies to and from Manhattan. From high up on the Metropolitan tower the regent's guns had blasted away the brick and stone, but moBt of the steel framework still stood Jim gazed at conquered country beyond the Manhattan moats. In that circle within his horizon there lived or had lived one-sixteenth of the population of the United States. Tho millions of Manhattan had disappeared. dis-appeared. Ordered away by the American army 'authorities, driven in headlong flight by the regent's shells, they had fled as Jim himself him-self had observed by the thousand as fur as Chicago; by the tens of thousand they had gained Ohio and tho Ohio valley; by tho hundred hun-dred thousand they bad traveled and trampod and plodded to upper New York; the last millions mil-lions had moved In desperate, desolate migration migra-tion to add to the misery of the millions In Brooklyn borough, captured and half burned, and In Jersey, nlso occupied by a hostile army, and throughout the rest of that circle of vanquished van-quished land. i . HI lift i ' Am ! What was the gain of all tho despair; the , IS, j agony, and woe of those millions driven pan- , Ki 'ij pers from their homes? What was the gain '1113 of th thousands of soldiers and of civilians ! E)f women and men who had stayed to help the 'lllmi soldiers, slaughtered In tho hopeless fight for ! jljliflf i Manhattan? ,i ifl Jim watched from the towers and Tinder- i iJHrll stood. The regent's mighty army was closing i 'iSIHi In upon Manhattan, but till Manhattan was 1 ' ljJBj ':; taken hiB army could not go on. Jim had no i , jRa) ; cenCTB of the men holding tho island ; he i i jji doubted whether any one knew the number ' u3 now; but he noticed that, after tke Pennsyl- !' (111 ' vanla tunnels arm das, 1mmC all the sol- j ; jjj dicrs left wero militia and recruits. They " ' lIiHt ' wero tho national guardsmen and the recruits j IjjH of New York, of Connecticut, of New Jersey, ,.' IjHr ' With the city regiments from Ohio, Indiana, ' "j W. and Illinois. The regulars who had taken tho i; ' jjjlj shock of tho first assaults and stiffened the lm ' militia till they had begun to stand, had al- f I M most disappeared. They could not have been ''Jilli all killed; they must have been withdrawn. j And, by wireless, word came to the Man- villi 3 battan garrison of where the regulars bad ;i jJlK j gone. They were inland with the militia iMj of the other eastern states and the Wi ' men from the west drilling and hardening and !i jffl training a field army while the men Jn Man- W 'i hattan still held the enemy's first expedition- ''lift i ary force closo to the coast ' ;l fS I So the surrounded regiments fought on. The ; j8 ' civilians, who had remained for different dn- j! j ties after the beginning of the siege, had dis- ': I Sff - appeared also; there remained of the women i ! h( ' only those who would not leave the wounded J h and dying in the improvised hospital wards in ijafc j the subbasements far below the streets. !' Whether the 'girl who led him from " N 94 " j j WJ was among these Jim did not know ; he did ! aft not see her ngain, and when he inquired for her u 3k I he , was not able to make definite enough de- ;: i w scription for identification. He never saw j . S ' again the men to whom she brought him. . ,r . fjj '. 'Sometimes, as he lay alone cringing under ;'j m j the shock of shell fire, he questioned whether ii K ' she had ever come to him, whether she might ' J m not have been a fancy, a delusion. Some men j ( 2i went quite mad under the shock of the shells; !i IK i more were mildly insane for a few days and j( j then sometimes died suddenly and without I i " J mark of wound or hurt upon them or lay par- W ' "alyzed; others cringed or leaped and shrieked I wk- for the shells to stop for the guns to stop I ' W I only a little while, just a few moments to I ' S I have silence. But tho shells never stopped ; day K , and ui"ht ceaselesslv thev came till the mad 1 ',IH men rushed down to the cellars and shut them- W selves up in furnace fireboxes and office vaults I i l U so they would hear the guns no more ; and j JwjJ j there they died, still shrieking when there was J M B no one about to hear, shrieking for the shells ti to stop till they ceased for them forever, I Kl Still the sane fought on. . I ml The Croton aqueducts were cut; the men ' jB& drank water stored in tanks and bathtubs or IBS brought from the reservoir in the park. Thoy ' !jwf foraged from under the burned and shattered j K J buildings; they cooked with the kindling of ,' 'jw! mansion panels and ballustrades, of tenement ' Hf floors and walls. i I Then their lines about the city broke and : 'Ml' the garrisons of the trenches, falling back ; j mt j upon the gaunt, battered skeletons of the great Iu j steel buildings, became city guprlllas. They 'jn fought from upper floors, from basements; j: 1 they made forays through the subways : they i K mined the streets and blew up battalions of ,! the enemy as they advanced to occupy a j ym I square. From building to building they fought ' jfj i and, dying, made the regent pay. At last, i"!9l ' where the Americans gathered, came tho order J m, ' from Bainbrldge: " Let every man save him- j K I self as he can." j ?H I It meant that, though here and there a 1 SI I building held out or a cellar was garrlfloned, g M ? tho fortress was taken. It no longer served rffSs to hold any great force of the enemy; hb 9ul ships were at the ruins of the quays. j'lfj? i II 9 (ill ON Tiil" HUDSON. j I Mljf That night, In scattered bandB or one by j J Ml enc, the kist of the garrison of Man- 1 j JLt hRitan -crept out of their hiding places "! jK to make their ways down to the nud- j, ( sy son., Jim Ashby ho had lost all rank in re- jj j Bjj cent'days was one of those who reached the ! J 'river near where had been the Chelsea piers. ljl (UThere was a sort of tunnel through the dCbris ' j Mtt ijlhere which was not known to the regent's j , gjj Gentries or was not well watched. Jim found , w the passage, and, creeping buck, led other? j ''iff through it to the water. One of those who (I JRJi followed him was a girl. Jim saw her profile ! Raj,1 before a glint of light and she saw him ;' for ; - K$ she waa real! But he dared not even whisper. '. jttj Yet ho kept close to her and when he gained t Kb the water again he took her with him upon IJffl'r j the raft which he prepared. 7 j j It was a dark, dismal, chill October night t P 1 with a mlBt rolling up tho river from the Sfi J Bca ; tho fog carried every sound and mag- ( , 'J 2j. j nified each footfall on the shore; there 'itfttf" came the challenge and firing from patrol j, '.j;ffjJ boats which told that some of tho raft wero ' J jft ' discovered; but the mist kept tho circle of j . i vision close to tho boat lanterns and baffled j i even tho searchlights on the shore. The tide j .B was flowing, strong and fast; the current M caught Jim's raft and bore it out to mid- lp stream; the tide took it up the river. The iW- ;j wind lapped the water over the boards, drench- 6 jJBf f ing Jim through and drenching the girl who jj j jj lay beside him; he rolled a bit closer. ; ' What are you doing hero?" he whispered, ' jjj . his lips almost touching her chek. "You , ' should have stayed or left long age l" ,'RjJJ TO BH CONTINUED.! J 1 iK ' W ' JF 'I I' 'Ei |
