Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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n ■ ► i Adventurers’ Chib «< fTanting in Russian >» By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter F EW bodies of men have ever attracted so much attention as the Canadian “Mounties” and few have ever had so much written about them. The Mounties have been the center of many a tale, both true and of the Actionized variety. This one is true—told by a man who once was a Mountie himself. It’s an actual page out of the Canadian Mounted’s history, and the man who is telling us about it is Constable Walter D. Fast of Chicago. Walt served for five years with the Mounties—from 1929 to 1935. And the events which make up this strange tale happened in 1935. Walt was stationed at St. Paul de Metis, in Alberta. He was out on a routine patrol one July day, riding along a lonely trail, when he saw smoke rising from a clearing up ahead. He put the spurs to his horse and headed for the clearing. As he came closer, he could see fire and suddenly a hoarse scream came to his ears over the still summer air. Trapper’s Cabin Was Blazing. At a gallop, Walt pushed toward the blaze. The screams grew fainter as he approached. He dashed into the clearing to find a small trap* per's cabin burning furiously. 1 Even as he approached, the cabin’s walls began falling. The screams of the man inside, fading to a low moan, stopped abruptly as beams and timbers dropped on him. By the time Walt got across the little clearing, the cabin was burned nearly to the ground. There was absolutely no hope for the man within. Walt began seeing to it that the fire didn’t spread, and at the same time he began wondering why the man who had died in the rums didn’t get out of that cabin. There was something strange about It. The cabin was a one story affair, and its occupant had only to step out of the door when It caught fire. If the fire started near the door and blocked his exit In that direction, be could easily have crawled out of a window. True, the poor devil might have been so ill that he couldn't move, but if so. what was he doing alone in that condition in a lonely cabin in the woods? Walt rejected that theory. Darned few people get so sick they can't move when fire is bearing down on them. Things Looked Very Suspicious. Walt reported the Are and the man’s death, and then waited for the embers to cool down. The Mounties went over the mins of that The Victim's Charred Body Was F cabin with a fine-toothed comb. The investigation disclosed some mighty auspicious facts. The victim's charred body was found and examined. The poor fel low's hands had been tied behind his back with wire, and bound behind him to an iron bedstead! There was evidence of foal play all right But It? The clacs found la the cabin didn't help to answer that qi tion. There wasn't a shred of evidence pointing to anyone la the neighborhood. The Mounties made further investigations. They learned from folks in the vicinity that the dead man had quarreled with one of his neighbors —a Russian—who lived a short distance from his cabin. Walt went to the Russian's home. The Russian came out in front of the house and Walt started asking him questions. It was just a routine questioning There wasn't the slightest bit of evidence to link the Rus sian to the crime, and Walt had no hope of getting any results from his questioning The Russian answered questions readily enough. There was no sign of guilt in his face. As the questioning proceeded it seemed to Walt that the fellow had an air-tight alibi. Sure, he had quarreled with the dead man. The Russian admitted that. But he hadn’t been anywhere near the victim’s home on the day it burned down, and he had his wife to prove it by. She Said Something in Russian. It all looked pretty hopeless, but Wah kept asking questions. And the more he asked the more he became convinced that the Russian was in nocent of any connection with the hideous crime. No matter what Walt wanted to know, his suspect had a ready answer. And then, as Walt was about to give up, the Russian’s wife came out of the house and stood listening. Walt asked a couple more questions, and the woman moved closer. Suddenly she began talking to her husband in Russian. As she began to talk, Walt gave a sudden start. Then he controlled himself and waited. He waited until the woman had finished talking— and then he walked over to the Russian and slipped the handcuffs on him. He knew then what had happened to the poor devil who had been burned alive in that blazing cabin! Walt took his prisoner to headquarters, locked him up and charged him formally with the crime. Canadian justice moves rapidly, and it was not long before the Russian was brought up for trial. At his trial Walt testified, and it was chiefly on the testimony he gave that the fellow was convicted, and sentenced to hang. And hang he did, too. Canadian justice is stern as well as swift, and there are mighty few pardons granted. iony w derer was convicted? The wh/e secret lay in the Rssian’s wife. She had come out of the house while Walt was questioning her husband and had spoken to him in Russian—without knowing that Walt spoke Russian too! And what she had said was: "Don’t t.ell the policeman you killed him. Say what we agreed to say and they will never be able to prove it on you.” / ©—WNU Service. And what was the testimony /vhich Walt gave and by which the mur- Greyhound Speed A greyhound can outrun a horse at short distances, and at top speed will hit about 45 miles an hour, Lit erary Digest says. In top racing condition a dog should weigh ap proximately 60 pounds and stand from 21 to 28 inches at the shoulder. Whether chasing ostriches in South Africa, deer in South Wales or me chanical rabbits in Florida grey hounds run by sight, not by scent. Memorial Tablet Below Sea The only memorial tablet to be placed below the surface of the sea, it is believed, is the inscribed bronze plate that marks the spot, in Keala- kekua bay off the island of Hawaii, where Capt. James Cook, the Eng lish navigator and explorer, was killed by natives in 1779. Laid in 1928, says Collier’s Weekly, the tab let is always covered with water, even at low tide. Picturesquely attired as • bold, bad but beautiful buccaneer, Fern Arnold, pirate theme girl of the 1939 Golden Gate exposition, is shown entering the picture under a tri umphal arch of ski poles held by pretty ski enthusiasts st Yosemite Lodge, Calif. Miss Arnold was the first exposition beauty to try Yo semite’* famed ski run. c •••• >.■ ' ^ - ' ♦ ••• : •' i Bedtime Story for Children By THORNTON W. BURGESS PETER RABBIT'S GLAD SURPRISE. T T HAD been many days since any * of the little people of the Green Forest had seen or heard anything of Mrs. Grouse and all but two or three had made up their minds that Sammy Jay was right and that Farmer Brown's boy really had killed her and eaten her for his din ner. Tommy Tit the Chickadee didn't believe it. Chatterer the Red Squirrel remembered how he had been kept a prisoner and treated ever ao kindly by Farmer Brown's boy and ha didn't quite believe it. Mrs. Grease Ws Oat Right la Freat of Peter. Anyway, he had hope that it wasn’t so. Peter Rabbit tried not to believe it. But as one day followed another Peter's doubts grew until at last he felt that he almost had to be lieve it. Now, all this time Jack Frost had stayed in the Green Forest and on the Green Meadows and kept the icy crust he had made over the snow as hard as ever, which, of course, made it dreadfully hard for the little people who live there and must eat to get enough food. They were hungry most of the time and had to spend every minute that they were awake in hunting for food. Only those who sleep most of the winter didn’t mind. But at last Jack White Birds on Blue r % m ii mm This afternoon frock with an Eton jacket top is made of a widely spaced silk print in navy blue with white birds. The trimming is hand drawn white handkerchief linen with Frost grew tired and went away. Just as soon as he left, jolly, bright Mr. Sun saw this and he set to work to melt that hard, icy crust until there wasn’t a bit of it left. Then it snowed again, a soft, light fluffy snow that fell in the night. The next morning Peter Rabbit was hopping through the Green For est, lipperty-lipperty-lip, when sud denly he saw something that made him give a gasp and tit up very straight. Then he looked and looked, rubbed his eyes to make sure that he was seeing right, and looked again. What was it that he saw? Why it was tracks, queer looking tracks that led straight under a great thick branch of hemlock tree, and they looked, they certainly looked, very much like the snow- shoe tracks of Mrs. Grouse. Peter felt as if he must be dream ing. Ha stared and stared and stared. "What's the matter with you. Peter Rabbit? Didn't you ever see my snowshoe tracks before?” asked a voice from under the hemlock tree. And then Mrs. Grouse walked out right in front of Peter. Peter’s big eyes opened wider than ever. ’•Oh!" he cried. "Is is it really and truly you. Mrs. Grouse?” he cried. "Of course, it is me! Who else should it be? Is there anybody else who looks like me in the Green Forest?” he cried. "No—no,” replied Peter slowly, as if even yet he wasn’t quite sure, "only Sammy Jay said that you had been killed and eaten by Farm er Brown’s boy and—and—” "And you believed it!” snapped Mrs. Grouse. "I should think that by this time you would have learned never to believe what Sammy Jay says. You ought to know that he's the greatest mischief-maker in the Green Forest. Do I look as if I had been killed and eaten?” Mrs. Grouse ruffled up her feathers and strutted back and forth in front of Peter. Peter laughed joyously. "Not a bit! Not the least little bit!” he declared. "But where have you been all this time? Do tell me all about it! This is the gladdest aurprise I have had for a long time.” Then, Mrs. Grouse told Peter all about how Farmer Brown's boy had taken her home when he found her ao weak that she couldn't fly, and had fed her and made her as com fortable as he knew how in the henhouse all the time that the hard, icy crust had lasted in the Green Forest, and then how he had taken her out and let her go and had laughed to see her whirr away into the Green Forest. Peter listened with his big eyes opened their widest and his long ears standing straight up. "Then Tommy Tit and Chatterer were right, and Farmer Brown's boy isn’t half bad!” he cried. "He isn’t bad at all,” declared Mrs. Grouse. • T. W. Burgeu — WNU Service. The Shoemaker's Last By DOUGLAS MALLOCH -Bu rn. Whltmmm First Aid a. lo the Ailing House SOUND-PROOFING U NLESS a house is built to pre vent it, sounds will travel, through walla and floors to an un pleasant degree. When sound-proof ing is wanted, it can best be ap plied while the house is under con struction. In a finished house, sound proofing is not always possible, be cause some of the sound is carried through the framework. An inside wall usually consists of wood studs, to which the plaster or other surfaces are attached on both sides. Some of the sound is carried through by the studs, and more by the vibration of the parts of the walls between the studs. Packing the spaces in the walls with rock wool or other material will cut down some of the sound, but not all of it. For a greater degree of sound-proof ing, a second wall can be built on one side of the offending wall. This consists of studs, ‘ttf be surfaced with stiff insulating boards, or bet ter yet, with lath and a kind of plaster that absorbs*sound waves. This wall should be separated from the main wall by an inch at the closest points; there should be no actual contacts between them. The same idea can be used to reduce noise through a ceiling by the build ing of a false ceiling that is no where in contact with the one above. Noise through a floor can also be deadened from the upper side by laying stiff insulating boards, and placing a new floor on top. Linoleum is more effective as a sound deaden- er than a ’'ew floor of wood. Sound-pcuofing a door requires the deadening of the sound that passes through the door itself, and also the packing of the joints all around the door with sound-proeflng ma terial, such as thick felt. The <’.oor can be covered with a sheet of in aula ting board. Some makes of these boards are especially treated to absorb sound waves. A sheet around the edges. Strips of thick felt can be had, suitable for filling the spaces around a door. Noise may be carried through a house by the heating and water pipes; the click of a water meter, for instance, or noises from an oil burner or a stoker. These noises can be reduced by bracing the pipes to check vibration and by pipe cov ering. ® By Roger B. Whitman WNU Service. I ’VE studied the state of the nation, Considered the case of the poor, And wondered what new legislation Is needed to re-reassure. And here is the step I’d be taking: I think that a law should be passed— There ought to be some way of making < The shoemaker stick to his last. I’m hot one of these view-with- alarmers, But the man I’d get rid of with thanks Knows more about farming than farmers And more about banking than banks. J ' There ought to be some way of list ing A man by his trade in the past, There ought to be some law insist ing The shoemaker stick to his last. There are places for all of us, broth er, And matters for straightening out, But not in the place of each other, And things we know nothing about. Depression? Well, one thing will da it. Will make it a thing of the past: To each have a trade, and go to it, The shoemaker stick to his last. Q Douglas Nalloch.—WNU Sonrtca. THS UUf GUIGS A or TOUR RJUTD 9 By LBicBBtBT K. Davis • Public Ladgar. iaa. P URPOSE has been called the mainspring of progress. But the Master of our destinies has not de creed that progress should be made by each of us in the same manner. Such is clearly indicated by the va riety of forefingers which come un der the observation of tha analyst of hands. Each forefinger and its type indi cates with amazing clearness the way in which its possessor formu lates his or her purposes and puts them into action. The Scholarly Finger of Jupiter. The outstanding characteristics of this type are its extremely irregu lar contour and pronounced Inclina tion toward the second Anger. These indicate e high degree of concen tration and reflection. While the forefinger of the overcautious type crooks rather than bends toward the second Anger, the scholarly type not only bends toward it but almost leans against it throughout its entire length. When viewed from the back, the scholarly type has a bony wrinkled look that immediately differentiates it from all other types. The nail of this type may vary, on some fore fingers being broad and squared, on others long and narrow. In either case, the nail itself is often found to be ribbed in its structure. When analyzing a hand with this type of forefinger, you may feel safe in placing its owner as a man or woman who has plenty of sound purpose, but one who puts it to work only after careful study and dissec tion of all facts relating to a wortlv while objective. WNU Servlet. Dust Storms Are Hard on Lovers y*y' m m Yi real bine he lace. The hat is navy j should be cut to the sue of the blue felt with white pique. and attached to a by I The great dust bowl of the Southwest Is preparing for recurrence of the dia«ytrous duet storms and residents of the threatened localities are These are effective protection from the duet, but lovers as may be