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X. 5 7J.r i n w:, " E ISPRING IS HEREl ? ? 4k &? 4k and you want to freshen up your t* J home in keeping with the season. ^ See my new lines of ?f ? & ? ed Room Saits, Felt Mattresses, Hammocks, ? ? Rugs and Mattings and Refrigerators. 5 J i keep constantly on hand a com. g 43 plete line of : : : : 24 1 COFFINS and CASKETS \ 43 * S 43 and am prepared to render my 2 services day and night. Jfr 1 L. J. STACKLEY, I 49 THE FFRXITFRE MAX. jj ? KINGSTREE, - - S. C. ? *99999999999999999999999999999999* , g AND ( St0re 5 15 * 1 j j Hotels 2 jr Public buildings 2 $ 7/foderate Cost 2 jj {Perfect jfcting. g . 2 Gasoline Engines for any purpose. U ills Parlor Market| ^ i i i ' ^ J? Dressed Meats. Fish, Game, Poultry ? J Oysters, Eggs and Full Line - - g ? C-xoceries &' H ?ALSO-?jj f* hides wanted highest market ? $ ? ?=? - prices paid, cx ? t Tlx? DFarlor lv?ax2r?t>, ? ? T. B. Arrowsmith, Agent., ? ^ KINGSTREE S. C. ? BLIZZARD HARDWARE' CO. IS THE HOUSE. fj 11/E are headquarters for all <Z: j |jv- W kinds of Hardware, Guns, VMs! ??; j |P - Cutlery, Pumps, Piping, Steam I 1 i | j j [fl"* Fittings, Belting, Pittsburg Per1 1 I 1 1 nf ~ feet Fence, Baib Wire, Crock^ EEjrE | ) - | j jjif: ery and Glassware, Cooking 11 ' *?1 1 Stoves, Builders Material of all kinds, N. C. Pine Shingles, Paroid Koofing, Sash, Doors, Blinds, Lime, Cement, Paint. Farming Implements, Stalk Cutters Cole Corn and Cotton Planters, Guano Distributors. : : : : SEE US BEFORE PLACING YOUR ORDERS. Yours very truly, BUZZARD HARDWARE CO. LAKE CITY, S C. "A dollar saved is a dollar made" There is no better way to save your dollars than by dealing with - J. L. Stuckey, the old reliable live-stock man. I have a splendid line of * Bills J'p ill Bib, that in view of the hard times am offering at 10 per cenl above cost. A nice bunch of HORSES and MULES always on hand at prices to suit. J# L. Stuckey, ukecity,s. c. r 3 C0NQIES1 By BOOTH Author of "Cherry.** " COPYRIGHT. 1?05. BY * I t (Continued from last week.) CHAPTER VL THE day broke with a scream o wind out of the prairies ani such cloudbursts of snow tba Joe could see neither bank o the river as be made bis way down th big bend of ice Toe wind struck s bitterly that now and tben be stopper and, panting and gasping, leaned hi weight against It The snow on th ground was caught up and flew Ilk sea spume in a hurricane; it swirle about him, joining the flakes in th air, so that It seemed to be snowlni from the ground upward as much a from the sky downward. Fierce as 1 was, hard as it was to fight througB snow from the earth, snow from th sky, Joe was grateful for It, feelinj that It veiled him, making him safei though he trusted somewhat th change of costume he had effected a Beaver Beach. A rough workman'i cap was pulled down over his ears an( eyebrows; a knitted comforter wai wound about the lower part of hii face; under a ragged overcoat be won blue overalls and rubber boots, and li one of his red mittened hands b< swung a tin dinner bucket He bent his body against the win< and went on, still keeping to the bad ways, until he came to the alley whlcl passed behind his own home, where however, he paused only for a mo ment to make a quick survey of th< premises. A glance satisfied him; hi ran to the next fence, hoisted himself wearily over it and dropped into Rogei Tabor's back yard.' The place seemed empty, and he wai on the point of going away when h< heard the click of the front gate and saw Ariel coming toward him. At th< sound of the crate be had crouched close agaiust the side of the house but she saw him at once. She stopped abruptly and, throwing the waterproof back from her head Iboked at him through the driven foi of snow. One of her hands was stretched #towarJ him involuntarily, and it was in that attitude that he long remembered her?she look^i ar I Undine of the snow. Suddenly she-ran to him, still keeping her hand outstretched until 11 touched his own. "How did you know me?" he said. "Know you!" was all the answer she made to that question, "fome into the house. I've got some coffee on the stove for you. I've beeu up aad down , (ho street waiting for you ever sluee it began to get light There's no one here." .. - ?: 4^.** ? ? She led him to the front door, where he stamped and shook Jalmself. He Was Bnow from head to foot. She wasted no time In getting him to the kitchen, where, when she had removed his overcoat, she placed him in a chair, unwound the comforter and, as carefully as a nurse, lifted the cap from his Injured head. When the strip of towel was disclosed, she stood quite still fpr a moment, with the cap In hei hand. Then, with a broken little cry, she stooped and kissed a lock of his hair which escaped, discolored, beneath the bandage. "Stop that!" he commanded, borriblj embarrassed. "Ob, Joe," she cried. "I knew! ] knew it was there, but to see it! And it's my fault for leaving you. I had tc go or I wouldn't have?I"? "Wbere'd you hear about ItV* h< asked shortly. "I haven't been to bed," she answer ed. "Grandfather and I w<^ up all night at Uncle Jonas', and Colonel Flit croft came about 2 o'clock, and he told us." . . "Did he tell you about Norbert?" "Yes?a great deal." She poured cof fee into a cup from a pot on the stove brought it to him, then, placing som< thin slices of bread upon a gridiron began to toast them over the hot coals " " * --IJ V/%?.1 .oet fVlAllMi "ine coionei suiu ium .wmciv iuv,ue,~ he wouldn't get well," she concluded "and Mr. Arp said Norbert was tin kind that never die. and they had quit< an argument." "What were you doing at Jonas Ta bor's?" asked Joe, drinking his coffee with a brightening eye. "We were sent for," she answered. "What for?" She toasted the bread attentlvel; without replying, and when she decicJ ed that It was brown enough piled It o ft warm plate. This she brought to lilt and, kneeling In front of him, her e bow on his knee, offered for his cor slderation, looking steadfastly up a , his eyes. He began to eat ravenously. ! "What for?" he repeated. "I didn suppose Jonas would let you come i his house. Was he sick?" "Joe," she said quietly, dlsregardin his questions?"Joe, have you got t run away?" "Yes, I've got to," he answered. "Would you have to go to prison I you stayed?" She asked this with breathless tensity. "I'm not going to beg father to hel I me out," he said determinedly. "H said be wouldn't, and he'll be spare | the chance. He won't mind that; n< body will care! Nobody! What do< anybody care what I do?" "Now you're thinking of Mamie!" st cried. "I can always tell. Whenevf you don't talk naturally you're thin) H E ======.? ro/CANAAN TARKINGTON, 'Mon*ieur Beaucaire," Etc. HARPER t* BROTHERS ... I | Ing of her!" He poured down the last of the oof ; fee. growing red to the tips of his I ears. "Ariel." he said, "if I ever come back"? ' "Walt." she Interrupted. "Would you d have to go to prison right away If they * caught you?" 1 "Oh, it isn't that" he laughed sadly. e "But I'm goiug to clear out. I'm not 0 going to take any chances. I want to d see other parts of the world, other 8 kinds of people. 1 might have gone, 8 anyhow, soon, even if it hadn't been 8 for last night. Don't you ever feel that 3 way?" 8 "You know I do," she said. "I've told 1 you?how often! But, Joe, Joe, you 8 haven't any money! You've got to have t money to live!" "You needn't worry about that" re8 turned the master of $7 genially. "I've f saved enough to take care of me for. a '. long time." 8 "Joe, please! I know It isn't so. If t you could wait Just a little while?only ' a few weeks?only a few, Joe"? 1 "What tor?' s "I could let you have all you want 8 It would be such a beautiful thing for 8 me, Joe. Ob, I know how you'd feel, i You wouldn't even let me give you that 8 dollar I found in the street last year, but this would be only lending it to 1 you, and you could pay me back some time"? "Ariel."' be exclaimed and, setting his empty cup upon the floor, took her by the shoulders and shook her till the empty plate which had held the toast dropped from her band and broke into fragments. "You've been reading the 'Arabian Nights!*" "No, nor' she cried vehemently. "Grandfather would give me anything. He'll give me all the money I ask for." "Money!" said Joe. "Which of us is wardering? Money? Roger Tabor give you money?" "Not for awhile. A great many things have to be settled first." ' "What things?" ' "Joe," she asked earnestly, "do you f think it's bad of me not to feel things 1 I ought to feel?" ' "No." "Then I'm glad," 6be said, and something in the way she spoke made him start with pain, remembering the same words, spoken in the same tone, by another voice the night before on the veranda. "I'm glad, Joe, because I , seemed all wmng to myself. Uncle , Jonas died last night, and I> haven't J been able to get sorry. Perhaps it's ! l>ecau8e I've been so frightened about : you, but I think not, for I wasn't sorry , oven before Colonel Flitcroft told me about you." , -k! - - i "Jonas Tabor dead!" said Joe. "Why. 1 I saw him on the street yesterday!" "Yes, and I saw him Just before I i came out on the porch where you were. I He was Aere In the hall. He and i Judge Pike had been having a long i talk. They'd been In some specula? tions together, and It had all turned ' out well. It's very strange, but they ' say now that Uncle Jonas' heart was weak?he was an old man, yon know, almost eighty?and he'd been very anx1 lous about his money. The Judge had ' persuaded him to risk it, and the shock of finding that he'd made a great deal ' suddenly"? 1 1 ' a ? .a <iAmA nK/v/>lr 1 vG nearu uc u uau uiui rauic ouwa I before," said Joe, "when he sold oat to ( your father." "Yes, but this was different, grand, father says. He told me it was in one of those big risky businesses that . Judge Pike likes to go into. And last I night it was all finished, the strain was . over, and Uncle Jonas started home. I His bouse Is only a little way from the Pikes', you know, but he dropped down In the snow at bis own gate, and some . people who were going by saw him ; i fall. He was dead before grandfather ? got there." She put her hand on the boy's arm, and he let it remain there. Her eyes t still sought his with a tremulous appeal. e "God bless you, Ariel!" he said. "It's e going to be a great thing for you." "Yes?yes; it is." The tears came - suddenly to her eyes. "I was foolish !. last night, but there had been such a long time of wanting things, and now? ^ fa Vior n nrl T ran ro"? ttuu liun (lauuiaiuvt "You're going, too!" Joe chuckled. y "It's heartless, I suppose, but I've i- settled it We're going"? n "I know," he cried. "You've told me n a thousand times what he's said ten I- times a thousand. You're going tc i- Paris." :t "Paris! Yes; that's it To Paris. where he can see at last how the great t ones have painted?where the others n can saow him! To Paris, where we ran studv together, where be can learn g how to put the pictures he sees upon o canvas, and where I"? "Go on," Joe encouraged her. "I want to hear you say it You don't If mean that you're going to study painta lng. You mean that you're going to learn how to make such fellows as EuP gene ask you to dance. Go ahead and e say It." <1 "Yes?to learn how to dress," She > said. -s Joe was silent for a moment. Then he rose and took the ragged overcoat ?? from the back of his chair. "Where's jr that muffler?" he asked. She brought It from where she had * placed it tc dry, behind the stove. "Joe," she said huskily, "can't you *alt till"? "Till the estate is settled and yor can coax your grandfather to"? "No, no! But you could go with us." -To Paris?" "He would take you as his secretary." "Aba!" Joe's voice rang out gnyly as he rose, refreshed by the coffee, toast and warmth she bad given him. "You've been story reading, Ariel, like Eugene. 'Secretary!'" "Please, Joe!" "Where's my tin dinner pall?' He found it himself upon the table where he had set it down. "I'm going to earn a dishonest living," he went on. "I have an engagement to take a freight at a water tank that's a friend of mine, half a mile south of the yards. loans ijroci, 1 m guiug iu gti uwa; from Canaan!" "Wait Joe!" She caught at his sleeve. "I want you to"? He disappeared in a white whirlwind. CHAPTER VII. THE passing of Joseph from Canaan was complete, it was an eranishment for which there was neither sackcloth nor surprise, and, though there came no news of him, it cannot be said that Canaan did not bear of him, for surely It could hear itself talk. The death of Jonas Tabor and young Louden's crime and flight Incited high doings in the National House windows. Many days the sages lingered with the broken meats of morsels left over from the banquet of gossip. Very little of Joseph's adventures and occupations during the time of his wandering is revealed to us; he always had an unwilling memory for pain and was not afterward wont,to speak of those years which cut the hard lines in. bis face. The first account of him to reach Canaan came as directly to the windows of the National House as Mr. Arp, hastening thither from the station, satchel in hand, could bring it This was on a September morning two years after the flight, and Eskew, it appears, had been to the state fair and bad beheld many things strangely affirming his constant testimony that this unhappy world increaseth in sin; strangest of all, his meeting with our vagrant scalawag of Canaan. "Not a blame bit of doubt about it." declared Eskew to the incredulous conclave. "There was that Joe, and nobody else, stuck up in a little box outside a tent at the fair grounds and sellin' tickets 'There tea* that Joe, and nobody else, stuck up in a little box outside a tent." to see the Spotted Wild Boy!" Yes, It was Joe Louden! Think you Mr. Arp could forget that face, those crooked eyebrows? Had Eskew tested the recj ognltlon? Had he spoken with the outcast? Had he not! Aye, but with such peculiar result that the battle of words among the sages began with a true onset of the regulars, for, according to Eskew'e narrative, when he had delivered grimly at the boy this charge, "I know you?you're Joe Louden!" the extraordinary reply h^d been made promptly and without change of countenance, "Positively no free seats!" "What's the matter with you?" Mr. ! Arp whirled upon Uncle Joe Davey, j -who was enjoying himself by repeating at Intervals the unreasonable words, "Couldh't of be'n Joe," without any explanation. "Why couldn't It?" shouted Eskew. "It was! Do you think my eyes are as fur gone as yours? I saw him, I tell you. What's more, that boy Joe '11 turn up here again some day. You'll see If he don't. He's a seed of trouble and Iniquity, and anything of that kind is sure to come back to Canaan." Mr. Arp stuck to his predlcuo lor several months. Then he began to waver and evade. By the rnd of the second year following Its ilrst utterance he had formed the habit of denying that be had ever made it at all and, finally having come to believe with all his heart that the prophecy had been deliberately foisted upon him and put In his mouth by Squire Buckalew, became so sore upon the subject that even the hardiest dared not refer to It in his presence. Eskew's story of the ticket seller was the only news of Joe Louden that came to Canaan during seven years. Anoth' er citizen of the town encountered the wanderer, however, but under circumstances so susceptible to misconception that in a moment of illumination be dei cided to let the matter rest in a golden silence. This was Mr. Bantry, and the i cause of his silence was the fact that his meeting with Joe occurred in the i "Straw Cellar," a tough New York resort, In which neither of them should I have been. I CHAPTER YIII. J EUGENE did not Inform Caman jfl or any Inhabitant of his ad* H venture of the "Straw Cellar/' . flH nor djd any hear of hla meeting : with his stepbrother, and after Mr. Arp's adventure five years passed Into ?H the Imperishable before the town heard ^H| of the wanderer again, and then it heard at first hand. Mr. Arp's propb- H ecy fell true, and he took it back to hlgA, bosom again, claimed It as bis own the morning of its fulfillment Joe Louden had come back to Canaan. The elder Londen was the first to know of bis prodigal's return. He was alone In the office of the wooden butter dish factory, of which he was the superintendent when the young man came in unannounced. He was still pale and thin. His eyebrows bad the same crook, one corner of bis month the same droop. He was only an Inch or so taller, not enough to be thought a tall man, and yet for a few moments the father did not recognize bis son, but stared at him, inquiring his business. During those few seconds of unrecognition Mr. Louden was somewhat favorably impressed with the stranger's appearance. "You don't know me." said Joe, smiling cheerfully. "Perhaps I've changed In seven years." And lie held out his hand. Then Mr. Louden knew. He tilted back In bis desk chair, his mouth falling open. "Good God!" he said, not noticing the outstretched band. "Have you come back?" Joe's haDd fell. "Yes. I've come back to Canaan." Mr. Louden plainly received this as no pleasant surprise. "What for?" he % asked slowly. "To practice law, father." I "What?" "Yes," said the young man. "There ought to be an opening here for me. I'm a graduate of as good a law school as there is in the country." Mr. Louden leaned forward, c hand on each knee, bis brow deeply corrugated. f / "Who do you think In Canaan would put a case In your hands?" "Oh, I don't expect .to get anything Important at the start, but after awhile"? "With your reputation?" * "But that's seven years ago, and I | suppose the town's forgotten all about it and forgotten me too. So, you see, I can make a fresh start That's what I came back for." "I don't believe," sAid Mr. Louden, with marked uneasidess, "that Mrs. Louden would be willing to let yon live with us." "No," said Joe gently. "I didn't ex-' pect it Well, I won't keep you from your work. I suppose you're pretty busy." "Yes, I am," responded his father promptly. "But I'll see you again be fore you go. I want to give yon some advice." "I'm not going," said Joe. "Not going to leave Canaan, I mean. Where will I find Eugene?" "At the Tocsin office; he's the assistant editor. Judge Pike bought the Tocsin last year, and he thinks a good deal of Eugene. Don't forget I said ? to come to see me again before you go." Joe came over to the older man and held out his hand. "Shake hands, father," he said. Mr. Louden looked at him out of small Implacable eyes, the steady hostility of which only his wife or the imperious Martin Pike, his employer, could quell. He shook his head. "I don't see any use in It," he answered. "It wouldn't mean anything. All my life I've been a bard working man and an abiding man. Before yon got in trouble you never did anything you ought to. You ran with the low-* est people in town, and I and all your*- -' folks were ashamed of you. I don't see that we've got a call to be any different now." He swung round to his desk emphatically on the last word, and Joe turned -away and went out quietly. " -? ?* hrl?rht mnrnln? to I>Ul Ik nao a ?? o ? which he emerged from the outer doors of the factory, and he made his way toward Main street at a lively gait As he turned the corner opposite the National House he walked Into Mr. Eskew Arp. The old man drew back angrily. "Lord 'a' mercy!" cried Joe heartily. "It's Mr. Arp! I almost ran yon down!" Then, as Mr. Arp made no response, but stood stock still in the way. staring at him fiercely: "Don't you know me, Mr. Arp?" the young man asked. "I'm Joe Louden." Eskew abruptly thrust his face close to the other's. "No free seats!" he hissed savagely and swept across to the hotel to set bis world afire. Joe looked after the irate receding figure and watched it disappear into the Main street door of the National House. As the door closed he became aware of a mighty shadow upon the pavement and, turning, beheld a fat young man wearing upon his forehead a scar similar to his own waddling by, ? ?1 aw j%.w?aa nnnn V?lm Willi CJCB UACU upvu U.MJ. "How are you, Norbert?" Joe began. "Don't you remember me? I"? He came to a full stop as the fat one, thrusting out an under lip as his only token of recognition, passed balefully i on. Joe proceeded slowly until he came to the Tocsin building. At the foot of the stairway leading up to the office^ he hesitated for a few moments. Them, he turned away and walked towaiB^ the quieter part of Main street. Moot of the people he met took no notice of him. only two or three giving him second glances of half cognizance, as though he reminded them of some one they could not place, and It was not until he bad come near the Pike man- i sion that he saw a full recognition in M the eyes of one of the many whom he M knew (Continued on page 7.) ?