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and the sister who is waiting, hoping that you will change and come back home. You can have your every wish if you will give up your present associates and wife."

A low cry escaped Minnie's lips, but the two men-father and son-paid no attention to her.

"You can have everything you want," he continued. "As for you," turning to Minnie, "if you release him I will give you five hundred dollars a month for the rest of your life, whether you marry again or not. Besides that, I will give you a large bonus, the interest of which will amount to about half as much. What do you say? This is a matter of business-not sentiment."

"Dad, what you ask is impossible. I can't do it. I can't give up my wife. I thought that you loved a man and hated a cad, and yet you want me to do exactly the thing that you dislike. What will you think of me? What will my friends in the old set think of me? You'll say that you approve of it, but down in your heart what will you think of me? Do you think that I have so lost my character and self-esteem as to give her up, and for what? To further the social ambitions of my mother and a sister who is not content with an American for a husband, but wants a title because her father has millions. Is that the true American spirit?"

Minnie had stood at one side, when suddenly the baby, awakened from his sleep, began to cry. "Hush, darling," she whispered as she took him in her arms and nestled him closer. "Don't cry. Hush, Philander, dear." The name Philander struck a soft chord in the grandfather. He did not know that his son was a father. He stood gazing in surprise at the soft bundle of humanity. He was on the verge of surrendering, when with a strong effort he pulled himself together. All this All this was not lost upon the son, who was quick to press his advantage. "Look, father," he said, "there is the reason.' But old Andrews did not trust himself and looked away.

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"I'll tell you what I'll do, John," he

said with a gulp. "Return, and I will make you superintendent of the works, and I will give your wife one hundred thousand dollars in addition to the five hundred dollars monthly," he said magnanimously.

"Yes," Minnie returned bitterly. "You toss your filthy earned money to me, and yet you refuse to give those poor, starving laboring wretches five cents more per hour. It won't make such a large hole in your income, Mr. Andrews. Why can't you give them a fair chance to live. It's all they ask. You think that to win the strike will put a feather in your hat. Do you ever realize that you will some day meet your Maker? What will your defense be? That you endowed schools and built libraries? That you established hospitals? Do you think that will offset the fact that you refused to give your men five cents more an hour and allowed them to strike and starve?

"And you want to take my husband away." The elder Andrews glanced away. "You want to take him back to the society he loathes. Do you think, Mr. Andrews, that the girls there can give him a love stronger or better than mine? Do you think that they can be more faithful to him? Love," she said, with contempt, "love is a commodity to be bought and sold like so much merchandise, is it? You want to know what real love is? I swear to you, Mr. Andrews, that I married John without any knowledge or any suspicion of whom he was. came among us and he made good. I liked him, and I fell in love with him, and now you want to take him away from me." The baby began to cry, and she turned her attention to him.

He

The grandfather looked at her and the baby. He glanced at his new daughter and found after a critical inspection that she was good looking After all, what had he against her?

He sat in a kitchen chair, with his head on his breast. Son and daughter looked at him, and neither spoke. The man's thoughts traveled back twentyseven years twenty-seven years! How short those years seemed. He

A PSALM OF HOPE.

remembered as if it were only yesterday when he, a student at Harvard, met and fell in love with pretty Olga Downs, a clerk in a candy store near the campus. He remembered with distinct clearness how, following the ceremony, he had telegraphed to his father for his blessings, and how the latter had wired that he was disowned unless he gave up his wife. Then he left school and went to work-and how hard it was to make ends meet, but they were happy. Oh, so happy, and then the baby came-little John, they named him. What joy is so great, so unparalleled as that of being a father. What magic sweetness in that word, "father." Then his father heard

one

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of it and came and bundled the little family into his auto and took them home with him. As his father had said: "After all, happiness is not measured by the amount of money one has."

And here was the exact reproduction of twenty-seven years ago. A reproduction, even to the baby boy. He suddenly lifted his eyes and beheld a picture. Father and mother were looking at their child, and the look on their faces was of indescribable brightness. With a sob that issued from the very bottom of his heart, the grandfather folded the little family to his breast.

"You win, son," he whispered huskily, "you are a chip of the old block."

A PSALM OF HOPE

The wind may whimper, and the water sob;
The sky may scowl, and blighting frost may rob
All earth of color; while, where wet crags be,
The wheeling sea-fowl cry catastrophe.

Yet, calm, unswayed by wind, untouched by frost,
The soul holds safely that the flesh has lost.

Electric memory fills the void with rays
That join the bliss of past and future days.

So, when the breeze is musical again,
And snarling Winter keeps his polar den,
Blue, green and gold their varied forms employ
To sow the mind with seed for future joy.

Bad mothers Good-from Sorrow's pain is born
Fair Sympathy; but no envenomed thorn
Can spring from Good; so one day all shall be
Good, naught but Good, in continuity!

H. ARTHUR Powell.

The Colonel

By Florence Landor

T

HERE was no more familiar figure than the Colonel on Market and Kearny streets. His massive head, bowed low, as though he carried all the sorrows of his dumb world, his long, drooping eyes red to the rim of the haws, and deep brown in their pathetic gaze, were the fine signs of his canine aristocracy. His His wide, shambling gait, his smooth lemon and white coat with its burnt chocolate shadings, and his ponderous, studded brass collar, were as usual and as much to be expected down town as the gray evening mist or the cool summer wind over the bay.

In those days the Colonel was a feature of the City by the Golden Gate, and whenever he failed to make his daily appearance on Kearny and Market streets down to the Clock Tower, a thousand wondering enquirers mentioned the fact.

And if the Colonel was the friend of thousands, he was life, death and religion to his owner, Rogey O'Dell, and Rogey was a bad man: the boss of Chinatown, the proprietor of The Deluge saloon, the secret political boss of every precinct south of Market street, he was still a man looked up to as a king by many men who rarely, if ever, make a mistake when called upon to judge the human countenance. In his early days he had been the trusted gun-man on the paycars, sitting night and day on his barrel with his loaded Winchester on his knees. The cases of dust always went through, and the great express companies learned to send the precious metal on the cars which were

under the guardianship of Rogey O'Dell. Later he had been sheriff in three administrations, and during his term of office even Chinatown wore an outwardly respectable appearance. No highbinder, murderer or nitro-glycerine artist attempted to hide in Chinatown then, for if his men failed to get them, Rogey himself went down. below the "dead line," and the criminal always came out with him, dead or alive.

The Colonel was a present, when a six-weeks'-old puppy, from a famous millionaire among the '49ers, whose life was preserved by the unflinching nerve of Rogey. When the dog was sixteen months old and as strong as a mountain lion, he was brought into the city from the ranch, and became O'Dell's inseparable companion. Night and day, walking the streets or running out to the ranch in his big red car, the dog was by his side.

It was hard to tell if Rogey was a bad good man, or a good bad man, both qualifications seeming to fit him equally well. He loved his old parents, and kept them well supplied with all the comforts of life. He refused to marry, many times, because his life and business forbade it. He had never been known to go back on his given word. What private sins he had shall not be told, seeing that they concern none but himself. And he loved the Colonel as his life.

It was the Mayoral election of 19— oh, well, what's the odds? We won't go into details or personalities; to any of those who have resided for a time by the Golden Sea and felt the glamor of its Magic City, the picture

THE COLONEL.

will be true, and the players obvious.

Dan McMurty, at the head of the straight Labor ticket, was the favorite in the betting. A more bitterly resented and hate-brewing partisan it would be difficult to find the world over. Yet his power over the unions was outwardly unchallenged. His opponent, John Loveday, was a kind, Christian gentleman with a real claim to culture and breeding, a shrewd wit and a passion for honesty. Behind him were the Democratic forces and the Association of Good Citizens. The Republicans, for once, were out of it in this election, so far as their showing went at the polls. The election hung on the huge labor vote south of Market street. Here Rogey O'Dell was the master of the situation.

It was generally known that Rogey bore Dan McMurty and his factions no love. One of McMurty's hirelings, posing as editor of a labor journal, had insulted Rogey's married sister, and carried away the marks of his anger in livid slashes over his brutal countenance. And worse than this, even, a certain Chief of Police in a labor government had caused the Colonel to be locked up in the dog pound. It nearly broke Rogey's heart till the dog was released.

As the election drew near, the partisans of McMurty kept watch and guard over O'Dell, for it was known that he intended to swing the vote south of Market street for Loveday. It was also known that on the eve of the election, Rogey would give a damaging statement to "The Times," covering the lives and records of Dan McMurty and his lieutenant, big Gustav Bjornson, the Swede. Rumor also stated that Rogey himself in his red car would visit every precinct and every ward boss on the fatal morning. They had information to the effect that he was holding back his statement to "The Times" till the evening before election, while he persuaded Loveday to agree to several minor appointments for his friends, and also give him a written promise that he would be no party to anything framed up to scat

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ter union forces after his election. That Loveday would do this was apparent from the determination with which he set out to win the labor vote away from the domineering McMurty and his swashbuckling henchmen.

At a little council of war held in the parlor of McMurty's house it was unanimously decided that O'Dell must be got harmlessly out of the way at least two days before election. How to achieve such a daring piece of kidnaping was a puzzle beyond their solving till Big Gustav introduced a stranger, Charlie Meols. He was a huge, lumbering carthorse of a man, with wide, saucer-like eyes, black and expressionless like those of a deer. He was in need of money. A real estate deal in the city, by which he had attempted to swap his ranch in the hills of Sonoma County for city property, had left him stranded after the sharks had got through with him. He had appealed to Bjornson, whom he had known back in Minnesota, and the big Swede had offered him a job. The power of Meols over animals may be attributed to the fact that he was of Dutch and Indian blood, and came from a race of trappers. When he heard that he could make a couple of thousand dollars by getting O'Dell harmlessly out of the way for a few days without anybody in the city being any the wiser, he promptly agreed.

For several days later he was seen in "The Deluge," spending money freely, making friends all round and especially with the Colonel, whom he fascinated by a score of winning ways and clever tricks. Early one evening, three days before election, he left the saloon and the Colonel followed him to the door, and rising on his hind legs. shook hands with him and said his canine "good-night." But this time he followed beyond the swinging mahogany portal led by some exquisite lure. In the clenched right hand of Meols was a piece of luscious meat, and streaming from this morsel of red joy was a fragrant, intoxicating odor. It rose to the heavy, sensitive nostrils of the dog till his eyes swam, his

brain reeled with delight, and all sense of his home surroundings left him. He followed Meols slowly and pathetically down Kearny street; always before his nose was that odorous aniseed, the cause of many a great dog's downfall. Opium to the Chinese, hashish to the Arab, alcohol to the Teuton and aniseed to the hypersensitive nostrils of man's wisest companion! Near the corner of Market street they met Bjornson cruising slowly past in his seven-passenger touring car. The road was clear. Meols opened the door, jumped inside and the Colonel followed as meekly as a lover behind the skirts of his lady. Bjornson turned the car toward the water-front and sped on into the mist. From somewhere behind them a whistle shrilled through the night: it was O'Dell calling the Colonel, but the dog was caught in the meshes of oblivion, unconscious of all but that mysterious bit of meat, which he now caressed between his paws in the tonneau of the car. A few minutes later a powerful gasoline launch left the water-front near the foot of Harrison street, and rushed throbbing into the night. Aboard it was Meols, the Colonel and a friend of McMurty's at the engines. They were headed for Tiburon.

Then the cunning of Meols was fully revealed. He had realized that the only way to get O'Dell out to some lonely spot by himself was to make him believe that some one had poisoned or stolen the Colonel. Two hours later the launch and the party returned to the dock. After a little search they found a gamin of the water-front selling papers, who was ready and willing to take five dollars to do an errand for them. They were careful to keep him in the dark as to their real purpose. They told him they were friends of Rogey O'Dell's and had stolen the Colonel for a wager. He would earn his five and another piece from Rogey by going to the saloon and telling him how he had found out where the men were taking the dog. The hiding place was an old

barn on a deserted farm out beyond the ocean beach. He was also to describe the man who had the dog, Charlie Meols. The gamin pocketed the money, and went to "The Deluge." He found O'Dell pacing up and down the saloon floor like a madman. Rogey lived under the constant dread that one of his numerous enemies would kill the Colonel. The information imparted by the newsboy, which he said he had got by listening to Charlie Meols in a saloon on the water-front, fitted the gloomy suspicions of O'Dell to the letter. He gave the boy a tenspot, jumped into his car and was off at top speed for the ocean beach, quite devoid of thought or care for his own worthless hide.

The barn and the deserted farm were a myth concocted by Meols to get Rogey alone in his car out on the lonely road beyond the Cliff House.

O'Dell was speeding along to the point described to him by the gamin, when his searchlight picked up a powerful automobile thrown across the road with two men in goggles, leather caps and raincoats, busy on what seemed a breakdown; their front wheels were jacked up, and they were busy with wrench and hammer. O'Dell was forced to pull up. A fever of anxiety caused him to curse this unforeseen delay. He jumped from his car and ran over to lend a hand. Neither of the men turned or spoke. He moved past them and tried to locate the damage, when a blow over the left ear from a wrench dropped him senseless.

*

Several hours later a dog and a man came to their senses in a lonely cottage on the wooded hill above sleepy little Tiburon. In the man's head was a dull throbbing of blood pushing against the contusion above his left ear. His tongue, like a piece of sodden leather, pressed fretfully against the gag which covered his mouth, and his stiffened limbs racked themselves in futile efforts against the knotted cords which bound him hand and foot. In the dog's head was a sense of shame

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