strings of a pink sunbonnet under her oval him divest himself of the diving suit with chin. reasonable celerity. III. The afternoon sun beat down on the dumpdock, where the derrick swung like a stumpy gallows against the sky. A dozen hardfaced, silent quarrymen sat around in groups on the string-piece; Farrely raked out the fire in the rusty little engine; Finn and Dyce whispered together glowering at Lefty Sawyer, who stood dripping in his diving suit while Lee unscrewed the helmet and disentangled the lines. Behind Lee, Helen Pine sat on a pile of condemned sleepers, nervously twisting and untwisting the strings of her sunbonnet. When Sawyer was able to hear and to be heard, Lee listened, tight-lipped and hard-eyed, to a report that brought a ma licious sneer to Finn's face and a twinkle of triumph into Dyce's dissipated eyes. "The safe is smashed an' the door open. Them there eight cashboxes is all that "What you goin' to do?" asked Finn, coming up. "Is it your place to ask questions?" said Lee, sharply. "Obey orders or you'll regret it!" "He's goin' down himself," whispered Dyce to Sawyer. The diver cast a savage glance at Lee and hesitated. "Take off that suit," repeated Lee. Finn, scowling with anger, attempted to speak, but Lee turned on him and bade him to be silent. Slowly Sawyer divested himself of the clumsy diving suit; one after the other he pushed the leaden-soled shoes from him. Lee watched him with mixed emotions. He had gone too far to go back now he understood that. Flinching at such a moment meant chaos in the quarry, and he knew that the last shred of his authority and control would go if he hesitated. Yet, with all his heart and soul, he shrank from going down into the sea. What might not such men do? Dyce held the life line. A moment or two of suffocation!-would such men hesitate? Accidents are so easy to prove, and signals may be easily misunderstood. He laid a brace of heavy revolvers on the dock and smiled. a thousand tons seemed to fall from his feet, and the dusky ocean I can see." He pointed to the pile of steel boxes, still glistening with salt water, and already streaked and blotched with orangecolored rust. "There are ten boxes," said Lee, coldly; "go down again." Unwillingly, sullenly, Lefty Sawyer suffered himself to be invested with the heavy helmet; the lines and tubes were adjusted, Dyce superintended the descent, and Finn seized the signal cord. After a minute it twitched; Lee grew white with anger; Dyce turned away to conceal a grin. When again Sawyer stood on the dock and reported that the two cash-boxes were hopelessly engulfed in the mud, Lee sternly bade As Dyce lifted the helmet upon his shoulders, he caught a last glimpse of sunlight and blue sky and green leaves a brief vision of dark, brutal faces of Helen Pine's colorless frightened face. Then he felt himself on the dock ladder, then a thousand tons seemed to fall from his feet, and the dusky ocean enveloped him. On the dump-dock silence reigned. After a moment or two Finn whispered to Sawyer; Dyce joined the group; Farrely whitened a bit under his brick-red sunburn and pretended to fuss at his engine. Helen Pine, heart beating furiously, watched them. She did not know what they were going to do what they were doing now with the air tubes. She did not understand such things, but she saw a line suddenly twitch in Dyce's fingers, and she saw murder in Finn's eyes. Before she knew what she was doing she found herself clutching both of Lee's revolvers. Finn saw her and stood petrified; Dyce gaped at the leveled muzzles. Nobody moved. After a little while the line in Dyce's hand twitched vio lently; Finn started and swore; Sawyer said distinctly, "Cut that line!" The next instant she fired at him point blank, and he dropped to the bleached boards with a howl of dismay. The crack of the revolver echoed and echoed among the rocks; a silence that startled followed. Presently, behind his engine, Farrely began to laugh; two quarrymen near him got up and shambled hastily away. "Draw him up!" gasped the girl, with a desperate glance at the water. Finn, the foreman, cursed and flung down his lines, and walked away cursing. "Take the lines, Noonan," she cried, breathlessly. "Dyce! pull him up!" When the great blank-eyed helmet appeared, she watched it as though hypnotized. When, dragging his leaden feet, Lee stumbled to the dock and flung one of the two missing cash-boxes at Dyce's feet, she grew dizzy and her little hands ached with their grip on the heavy weapons. Sawyer, stupid, clutching his shattered forearm, never removed his eyes from her face; Dyce unscrewed the helmet, shaking with fright. "There, you lying blackguard!" gasped Lee, pointing to the recovered cash-box, "take them all to my office, where I'll settle I'll find the with you once and for all! other to-morrow." Nobody replied. Lee, flushed with excitement and triumph, stripped off his diving dress before he became aware that something beside his own episode had occurred. Then he saw Lefty Sawyer, bedabbled with blood, staring with sick, surprised eyes at somebody a woman, who sat huddled on a heap of sun-dried sleepers, sunbonnet fallen back, cocked revolver in either hand, and, in her dark eyes, tears that flowed silently over her colorless cheeks. That night Lee made a speech at the quarry. The men listened placidly. Dyce, amazed that he was not discharged, went back to nurse Sawyer, a thoroughly cowed man. Noonan, Farrely, and Phelan retired to their shanty and got fighting drunk to the health of the "colleen wid' the gun; the rest of the men went away with wholecome convictions concerning their Superintendent that promised better things. "Didn't fire Dyce-no, he didn't," was the whispered comment. Lee's policy had done it's work. As for the murderous mover of the plot, the plausible foreman, Finn, he had shown the white feather under fire and he knew the men might kill him on sight. It's an Irish characteristic under such circumstances. Lee walked back from the quarry, realizing his triumph, recognizing that he owed it neither to his foolhardy impulse, nor yet to his mercy to Dyce and Sawyer. He went to the house and knocked at Helen's door. She was not there. He sat alone in his office, absently playing with pen and ruler until the June moon rose over the ocean and yellow sparkles flashed among the waves. An hour later he went to the dock, and found her sitting there alone in the moonlight. She did not repulse him. Her innocent hour had come and she knew it, for she had read such things in romance. It came. But she was too much in love, too sincere, to use a setting so dramatic. She told him she loved him; she told him why she had come to the Porte-of-Waves, why she had remembered the kiss and the promise. She rested her head on his shoulder and looked out at the moon, smaller and more silvery now. She was contented. Under the dock the dark waves lapped musically. Under the dock Finn, stripped to the skin, plunged silently downward for the last cash-box, trusting to sense of touch to find the safe. But what he found was too horrible for words. "Hark," whispered Helen; "did you hear something splash?" Lee looked out into the moonlight; a shadow, a black triangular fin, cut the silvery surface, steered hither and thither circled, sheered seaward, and was lost. Then came another splash, far out among the waves. "The Collector of the Porte," said Lee; "he is making merry in the moonlight." OUT AN APPRECIATION OF THE WEST. APROPOS OF THE OMAHA EXPOSITION. BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE, Author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" "The Real Issue," and the Boyville Stories. UT West, beyond the Mississippi, in the open country where men grew famous fighting Indians a generation ago, there is a modern civilization. Wanting a better term, we call this civilization Anglo-Saxon. Democracy built it, and it is holding a festival in a bend of the Missouri, just outside of Omaha. A few hundred acres of land are covered with gay architecture. There is a lagoon half a mile long. In its water perhaps half a score of festive white staff buildings are reflected. Near by are the State buildings, constructed in varying tastes from tolerable to very bad; and then, of course, there is the Midway; there is an Indian camping ground, whereon a thousand Indians, of "every kindred, every tribe," from Alaska to Florida, are quartered. There are the pens and the stalls for a live-stock show and the incorporeal hereditaments thereunto ap pertaining. Of course the Trans-Mississippi Exposition is not so magnificent as the World's Fair at Chicago. And yet the halfmile vista down the lagoon at the TransMississippi Exposition discloses nearly perfect examples of staff architecture. Nothing at Chicago surpassed it as a picture. Several million dollars have been expended. Private and corporate capital has helped the national government to make this show in a small measure worthy of the civilization which produced it. So, the ideals of the promoters of the Exposition were set high. For this is no new civilization, this civilization of the new western country. It was conceived thousands of years ago. Its leaven was working among men when Ariovistus crossed the Rhine and fought with Cæsar. Perhaps the germs of the force which bound the Helvetians together lives in the soul of the Anglo-Saxon to-day. Some sentient power has wrought a marvelous change in the prairie lands in the span of years that measures a man's life. Where the Indian's council-fires burned in the days of Jackson, the Caucasian's dream of beauty has found a fleeting shape in the white city that rises out on the plains to-day. But of the savage and establishes peace and proclaims a feast in the midst of a land lately taken from the desert. And the schoolhouse is the holy of holies whence the high priest of Democracy shall come, clad in the habiliments of grace and power, to work the marvels and to fulfil the prophecy made to mankind by this prairie vision of Omaha. At night, twenty thousand electric lights Every June leaves the standard of popular paint a scene from fairyland upon the waters intelligence higher than the preceding Sepof the lagoon. The temples that stand there tember found it. This Trans-Mississippi is a are erected to appease the gods of the latter growing country in more ways than one. days, the gods of machinery, electricity, the And this quickening is not directed chiefly liberal arts, and all their kith and kin. toward material things. Something more What name that power shall take which has than a "building boom" has made this West. wrought this wonder; whether man shall The school-house is not a commercial temple. worship the sentient force as Democracy, It is turning men's minds toward “reason Destiny, or God, is a theme for philosophers and the will of God." It is the sign by to discuss and to settle if they can. which Democracy shall conquer. with the manifestations of its works before him, no one can deny the presence here of something wise and mighty. At the very least the miracle of this Omaha Exposition, rising in what but yesterday seemed one of the earth's waste places, should strengthen the faith of Anglo-Saxons in the potency of their race and its institutions, even as the apostles of the Christ were filled with faith, seeing the signs and wonders of old. Cor Scholars who have spent much time in research say that 350 years ago Coronado came up from Mexico through this TransMississippi land, looking for gold, as behooved a good Spaniard. The scholars say that he halted in central Kansas, on one of three hillocks at the junction of the Kansas and the Blue River. Agents of the Smithsonian Institution have located the exact spot where Coronado planted the great wooden This civilization is not crumbling. Popular cross and took possession of all the land for education has crystallized the mortar in this the King of Spain. It is on a rise of ground edifice which Democracy is building. It is that overlooks to-day a peaceful, prosperous a house built upon a rock. The child of the valley. The cross has been mold these three farmer has the same number of years' school- centuries. Democracy was attracted, as ing, and exactly the same schooling, that perhaps the Spaniard was attracted, by the the banker's child has. The two youths thrilling beauty of the scene. And near start in life with equal opportunities. When the spot where Spain's cross stood, Demthe recent call came from the President for ocracy has put its emblem, the little, low, volunteers for the army, every man who white school-house with green blinds. offered to enlist in one western State could onado and his men were a greedy pack, lookread and write. Democracy builds the school- ing for the Seven Cities of Cibola. They house, and the school-house perpetuates were blinded by their lust for gold, and they Democracy. Fifty cents of every dollar juggled with the cross. The love of gold paid by the citizens of the West in direct was not strong enough to break down this taxation goes to maintain schools. The wilderness. They who came three centuries other half-dollar is divided into little piles to promote the general welfare in other departments of government. Monarchies, principalities, and powers tax their citizens to the verge of revolution, and prime ministers are proud if the King's treasure is large enough to buy guns and iron ships and drilled men and powder and lead to hold an armed peace and avert famine in a land civilized for centuries, flowing with milk and honey. Democracy buys a blackboard and a hickory pointer, and hires a soft-voiced girl to handle them. With these arms and accoutrements, Democracy goes into the camp later and brought the school-house, came "to make the West the homestead of the free," came to put His word Who sanctified the cross into the legal conscience of the people. The lagoon at Omaha is the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual beauty of that high endeavor. Therefore the dweller in the Trans-Mississippi country should keep ever in mind the image of what might have been if Spain had not ceded Louisiana to France. That image might inspire the American heart to the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. For the Spanish idea, that indefinable |
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