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Show I STORY J THE GIRL I !!jji rom c! HIS TOWN By MARIE VAN VORST Illustrations by M. G. KETTNER bl m (UjpjrltHL, IBID, Dj The Bubbs-MorrlU Uo.) 1 CHAPTER I. Dan Blair. The fact that much he said, because of bis unconscionable slang, was Incomprehensible In-comprehensible did not take from the charm of his conversation as far as the duchess of Breakwater was concerned. con-cerned. The brightness of his expression, expres-sion, his quick, clear look upon them, his beautiful young smile, his not too frequent laugh, his "new gayness," as the duchess called his spirits, his supernal su-pernal youth, his difference, credited . him with what nine-tenths of the human hu-man race lack charm. His tone was not too crudely western; west-ern; neither did he suggest the ultra east, with which they were familiar. American women went down . well enough with them, but American men were unpopular, and when the visitor arrived, Lady Galorey did not even announce an-nounce him to the party gathered for "the first shoot." The others were in the armory when the ninth gun, a young chap, six feet of him, blond as the wheat, cleanly set up and very good to look at, came in with Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, Lady Galorey, his hostess, greeted them. "Oh, here you are, are you? Lord Mersey, Sir John Fairthrope." She mumbled the' rest of the names of her companions as though she did not want them understood, then waved toward to-ward the young chap', calling him Mr. Dan Blair, and he, as she hesitated, added: "From Blairtown, Montana." "And give him a gun, will you, Gordon?" Gor-don?" Lady Galorey spoke to her husband. "I discovered Mr. Blair, Edie," the duchess announced, "and he didn't even know there was a shoot on for today. Fancy!" "I guess," Dan Blair said pleasantly, pleasant-ly, "I'll take a gun out of this bunch," and he chose one at random from several sev-eral indicated to him by the gamekeeper. game-keeper. "I get my best luck when 1 go It blind. Right! Thanks. That's so, Lady Galorey, I didn't know there was to be any shooting until the duchess duch-ess let it out." To himself he thought with good-natured amusement, "Afraid I'll spoil their game record, maybe!" and went out along with them, following the insular in-sular noblemen like a ray of sun, smiling on the pretty woman who had discovered him In the grounds where he had been poking about by himself. "Where, in heaven's name, did you 'corral' word of his own the dear boy, Edith? How did he get to Os-dene Os-dene Park, or in fact anywhere, just as he is, fresh from Eden?" "Thought I'd iet him take you by surprise, dearest. Where'd you find Dan?" "Down by the garden house, feeding the- rabbits, on his knees like a little boy, his hands full of lettuces. I'd Just come a cropper myself on the mare. She fell, I'm sorry to say, Edie, and hacked her knees quite a lot. One of those disguised ditches, you know. I was coming along leading her when I ran on your friend." The young duchess was slender as a willow, very brunette, with a beautiful, beauti-ful, discontented face. "I'm going to show Dan Blair off," Lady Galorey responded, "going to give the debutantes a chance." Placidly nodding, the duchess lit a cigarette and began quoting from Dan Blair's conversation: "I fancy he won't let them 'worry him;' he's too 'busy!' " "You mean that you're going to keep him occupied" The duchess didn't notice this. "Is he such a catch?" Neither of the women had walked out with the guns. The duchess had a bad foot, and Lady Galorey never went anywhere she could help with her husband. She now drew her chair up to the table in the morning room, to which they had both gone after the departure of the guns, and regarded with satisfaction a quantity of stationery sta-tionery and the red leather desk appointments. ap-pointments. "Sit down and smoke if you like. Lily; I'm going to fill out some lists." "No, thanks. I'm going up to my rooms and get Parkins to 'raassey' this beastly foot of mine. I must have fallen fall-en on it. But tell me first, is Mr. BlrJr a catch?" Lady Galorey had opened an address ad-dress book and looked up from It to reply: "Something like ten million pounds." "Heavens! Disgusting!" "The richest young man 'west of some river or other.' At any rate he told me last night that It was 'clean money.' I daro say the river is responsible re-sponsible for Its cleanliness, but that fact seemed to give him satisfaction." The duchess was leaning on the table ta-ble at Lady Galorsy's side. "Dan's father took Gordon all over the west that time he went to the states for a big hunt In the Rockies. He got to know Mr. Blair awfully well and liked him. The old gentleman bought a little property about that time that turned out to be a gold mine." With persistency the duchess said: "How d'you know It is 'clean money,' Edith? Not that it makes a rap of difference," dif-ference," she laughed prettily, "but how do you know that he Is rich to this horrible extent?" Lady Galorey put down her address book impatiently; "Does he look like an impostor?" The other returned: "Even the archangel fell, my dear Edith!" "Well," returned '.ier friend, vthis one Is too youn to have fallen far," and she shut up her list In desperation. despera-tion. The duchess sat down on the edge of the lounge and raised her expres-' expres-' sive eyes to Lady Galorey, who once more looked at her sarcastically, and went on: "Gordon liked the old gentleman; he was extraordinarily generous- quite a type. They called the town after him Blairtown; that is where the son 'hails from.' He was a little lad when Gordon was out and Mr. Blair promised prom-ised that Dan should come over here and see us one day, and this," she tapped the table with her pen,, "seems i Feeding the Rabbits, on His Knees Like a Little Boy. to be the day, for he came down upon us in this breezey way without even sending a wire, 'just turned up' last night. Gordon's mad about him. His father has been dead a year, and he is just twenty-two." "Good heavens!" murmured the duchess. Lady Galorey opened her address book again. "Gordon's got him terribly on his mind, my dear; he has forbidden any gambling or any bridge as long as the boy is with us. . . ." Her companion rose and thrust her hands into the pocket of her tweed coat. She laughed softly, then went over to the long window where without,, with-out,, across the pane, the early winter mists were flying, chased by a furtive sun. ' "Gordon said that the boy's father treated him like a king, and that while the boy is here he is going to look out for him." Over her shoulder the other threw out coldly: "You speak as though he were In a den of thieves. I didn't know Gordon's Gor-don's honor was so fine. As for me, I don't gamble, you know." Lady Galorey had decided that Lily's insistent remaining gave her a chance to fill her fountain pen. She was, therefore, carefully squirting In' the ink, and she flushed at her friend's last words. Lady Galorey herself was the best bridge player in London, and cards were her passion. She did not remind the lady In the window that there were other games besides bridge, but kept both ber tongue and her temper. After a little silence in which the women followed each her own thoughts, the duchess murmured: "I'll toddle upstairs, Edie let you write. Where did you say we were going to meet the guns for food?" "At the gate by jhe White Pastures. There'll be a cart and a motor going, whichever you like, around two." "Right," her grace nodded; "I'll be on time, dearest." And Lady Galorey with a relieved sigh heard the door close behind the duchess. Wiping her fountain pen delicately with a bit of chamois, she murmured: "Well, Dan BIslc i tit of Edon, poor dear, If he met her by the gate." A fortune of a round ten million pounds was a small part of what this young man had come Into by direct Inheritance In-heritance from the Copper King of Blairtown, Montana, For once the money figure had not been exaggerated, exagger-ated, but Lady Galorey did not know about the rest of Dan's Inheritance. The young man whistling In his rooms In the bachelor quarters of Os-dene Os-dene Park House, dressed for dinner without the aid of a valet. When Lord Galorey had asked him "where his man servant was," Dan had grinned. "Gosh, I wouldn't have one of those Johnnies hanging around me never did have! I can put on my stockings all right! There was a chap on the boat 1-came over In who let his man put on his stockings. Can you beat that?". Blair had laughed again. "I think If anybody tickled my feet that way I would be likely to kick him In the eye." Dressing In his room he whistled under un-der his breath a song from a newly-popular newly-popular comic opera; and he Intoned with a clear young voice a line of the words: "Should-you-go-to-Mandalay." Out through his high window, If he had looked, he would have seen the misty sweep of the park under the faint moonrlse and fine shadows tht the leaves made In the veiled light, but he did not look out. He was dressing for dinner without a valet and giving a great deal of care to his toilet; for the first time he was to dine In the house of a nobleman and in the'presence of a duchess; not that it meant a great deal to him he thought it was "funny." In Dan Blair's twenty-two years of utterly happy days his one grief had been the death of his father. As soon as the old man had died Dan had gone off Into the Rockies with his guides and not "shown up" for months. When he came back to Blairtown, as he expressed ex-pressed It, "he packed his grip and beat it while his shoes were good," for the one place he could remember his father had suggested for him to go. Blairtown was very much impressed when the heir came in from the Rockies Rock-ies with "a big kill," and the orphan's ease did not seem especially disturbed. dis-turbed. But no one in the town knew how the boy's heart ached for the old man. When Dan was six years old his father had literally picked him up by the nape of the neck and thrown him into the water like a pup and watched him swim. At eight he sent the boy off with a gun to rough camp. Then he took Dan down in the mines with the men. His education had been won In Blairtown, at a school called public, but which in reality was nothing noth-ing more than a pioneer district school. On Sundays Dan dressed up and went with his father to church twice a day and in the week days his "father took him to the prayer meetings, and at sixteen Dan went to college in California. Cali-fornia. He had just completed his course .when old Blair died. Then he inherited fifty mtilion dollars. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |