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VALUE OF MAINE SWAMP ABNER DANIEL $ By .. . WILL N. HAR.BEN Author of “tOtJterfelt’" way and a charter before th(T road could be built, and I reckon they won't buy till they are sure of those things.” “No; It may take a long time and a lot of patience,” said Miller, "but your father could afford to wait if he can Copyright. 1902, by HARPER « BROS., Who Publi»h the Work in Book Form. All Rights Reserved • • t £ ^ 4* *H* •I*•S* ❖ * ** ’*• * •H* ❖ •M* ❖ *!• -V ❖ + ❖ CHAPTER XIV. T 1 ITE next morning Alan found Rayburn Miller standing in the door of his little office building waiting for him. “I reckon my message surprised you,” Miller said tentatively as be shook hands. “It took me off my feet.” smiled Alan. “You see, I never hoped to get you in- | terested in that scheme, and when I heard you were actually going to At- i lanta about it I hardly knew what to make of it.” Miller turned into his office, kicked a j chair toward Alan and dropped into his creaking rocker. “It was not due to you that I did get interested,” he said. "l>o you know, 1 can’t think of it without getting hot all over with shame. To tell you the truth, there is one thing 1 have always been vain about. I didn’t honestly think there was a man in (leorgia that could give me any tips about investments, but I had to take backwater, RUd for a woman. Think of that—a woman knocked me off my perch as clean and easy as she could stick a hairpin in a ball of hair. I’m not unfair. When anybody teaches me any tricks, I ac knowledge the corn and take otf my hat. It was this way. I dropped in to see Miss Dolly the other evening. I accidentally disclosed two things in an offhand sort of way. I told her some of the views I gave you at the dance in regard to marriage and love and one thing and another, and then, in complimenting you most highly in other things, I confess 1 sort of poked fun at your railroad idea.” “1 thought you had,” said Alan good naturedly. “But go on.” “Well, she tirst read ue a lecture about bad, empty, shallow men, whose very souls were damned by their past careers, interfering with the pure im pulses of younger men, and I’ll swear I felt like crawling in a hole and pull ing the hole in after me. Well, 1 got through that in a fashion because she didn’t want me to see her real heart, and that helped me. Then she took up the railroad scheme. You know 1 had heard that she advised her father in all his business matters; but, geewhil- iklns, I never dreamed she could give me points, but she did—she simply did. She looked me straight in the eye and stared at me like a national bank ex aminer as she asked me to explain why that particular road could not be built and why it would not be a bonanza for the owners of the timber land. I thought she was an easy fish at first, and 1 gave her plenty of line, but she kept peppering me with unanswerable questions till 1 lay down on the bank as weak as a rag. The first bMff she gave me was in wanting to know if there were not many branch roads that did not own their rolling stock. She said she knew one in the iron belt in Alabama that didn’t own a car or an engine, and wouldn’t have them as a free gift. She said if such a road were built as you plan these two main lines would simply fall over each other to send out cars to be loaded for ship ment at competitive rates. By George, it was a corker! I found out the next day that she was right, and that doing away with the rolling stock, shops and so forth would cut down the cost of your road more than half.” "That’s a fact,” exclaimed Alan, “and I had not i bought of it.” “She’s a stronger woman than I ever Imagined,” said Miller. “By George, if she were not on your string, I’d make a dead set for her. A wife like that would make a man complete. She’s in love with you, or thinks she is, but she hasn’t that will-o’-the-wisp glamour. She’s business from her toes to her finger tips. By George, I be lieve she makes a business of her love affair. She seems to think she’ll settle it by a sum in algebra. But to get back to the railroad, for I’ve got lots to tell you. What do you reckon 1 found that day? You couldn’t guess in a thousand years. It was a prelimi nary survey of a railroad once planned from Darley right through your fa ther's purchase to Morganton, N. C. It was made just before the war by old Colonel Wade, who, in his day, was one of the most noted surveyors in the state. This end of the line was all I cared about, and that was almost as level as a floor along the river and down the valley into the north end of town. It’s a bonanza, my boy! Why that big bottle of timber land has nev er been busted is a wonder to me. If as many Yankees had been nosing about here as there have been in other southern sections, it would have been snatched up long ago.” “I’m awfully glad to hear you say all this,” said Alan, “for it is the only way out of our difficulty, and some thing has to be done.” “It may cost you a few years of the hardest work you ever bucked down to,” said Miller, “and some sleepless nights, but I really believe you have fallen on to a better thing than any I ever struck. I could make it whiz. I’ve already done something that will astonish you. I happen to know slight ly Tillman Wilson, the president of the Southern Land and Timber company. Their offices are in Atlanta. I knew he was my man to tackle, so when I got to Atlanta y eterday I ran upon if It were accidental. J invited him to lunch with me at the Capitol City club; you know I'm a | nonresident member. You see, I knew if I put myself in the light of a man i with something to sell, he’d hurry away from me, but I didn't. As a ; pretext I told him I had some clients up here who wanted to raise a consid- ! enable amount of money and that the | security offered was tine timber land, i You see that caught him; he was on ; his own ground. I saw that he was ! interested, and I boomed the property to the skies. “The more I talked the more he was interested, till it was bubbling out all over him. He’s a New Englander, who thinks a country lawyer without a Harvard education belongs to an effete civilization, and 1 let him think he ; was pumping me. I even left off my g's and ignored my r's. 1 let him think ; he had struck the softest thing of his : life. Pretty soon he begun to want to know if you cared to sell, but I skirted that indifferently, as if I had no inter est whatever in it. I told him your fa ther had bought the property to hold for an advance; that he had spent years of his life picking out the rich est timber spots and buying them up. Then he came right out, as I imped he | would, and asked me the amount you ; wanted to borrow on the property. 1 ; had to speak quick, and, remembering that you had said the old gentleman had put in about $20,000 first and last, i I put the amount at $25,000. I was ; taking a liberty, but I can easily get you out of it if you decide not to do it.” j “Twenty-five thousand! On that land?” Alan cried. “It would tickle | my father to death to sell it for that.” ! “I can arrange the papers so that you 1 are not liable for any security outside ; of the land, and it would practically ! amount to a sale if you wished it, but | you don’t wish it. 1 finally told him that I had an idea that you would sell out for an even hundred thousand.” “A hundred thousand!” repeated Al- ; an, with a cheery laugh. “Yes, we’d ( let go at that.” “Well, the figures didn’t scare him a ; bit, for he finally came right out and asked me if it was my opinion that in ; case his company made the loan you , would agree to give him the refusal of the land at $100,000. I told him I ■ didn’t know, that I thought it possible, | but that just then I had no interest in ; the matter beyond borrowing a little i money on it. He asked me how long I was going to stay in Atlanta. I told ' him I was going to a bank and take the night train back. ‘The banks will stick you for a high rate of interest,’ i he said jealously. “They don’t do busi 1 ness for fun, while really our concern happens just now to have some idle ! j capital on hand. Do you think you could beal. 5 per cent?’ I admitted that it was low enough, but I got up as If I was suddenly reminded that the banks : close early in the afternoon. T think I i we can make the loan,’ he said, ‘but I must first see two or three of the di- ! | rectors. Can’t you give me two hours?' I finally gave in and promised to meet j him at the Kimball House at 4. I went to a matinee, saw it half over and went in at the ladies’ entrance of the hotel. I saw him looking about for me and dodged him.” “Dodged him?” echoed Alan. “Why”— Miller laughed. “You don’t suppose I’d let a big fish like that see me flirt ing my hook and pole about in open sunlight, do you? I saw by his man ner that he was anxious to meet me, and that was enough. Besides, you can’t close a deal like that in a minute, and there are many slips. I went back i to the club and threw myself on a lounge and began to smoke and read an afternoon paper. Presently became in a cab. I heat'd him asking for me in the hall and buried my head in the paper. He came in to me, and I rose and looked stupid. I can do it when I try. if it is something God has failed at. and I began to apologize. “He didn’t seem to care. ‘If it had been a deal of your own,’ he said, with a laugh, ‘you’d have been more prompt,’ and I managed to look guilty. Then he sat down. "‘Our directors are interested,’ he i said confidentially. ‘The truth is, there I is not another concern in America that i can handle property as cheaply as w<‘ can. We happen to have a railroad ; about that b-n th up in ea<t Tennessee | that h.is played oc.t. and you see w j could move it to where it would do some r nod.’ “As sosm . be * bl : a that i knew he was our tuoni. i*«>: es. 1 saw trade in his eye as nU as an arc light. To j make a long tale slan t, he is coming ■ up here tonight, and if your father is willing to accept the loan he can get the money, giving only the land as se curity—provideil we don’t slip up. Here’s the only thing I’m afraid of. 1 When Wilson gets here, he may get to making inquiries around and drop on to the report that your father is dis gusted with his investment, and smell a mouse and pull off. What I want to do is to get at him the first thing after breakfast in the morning, so you’d bet ter bring your father and mother in early. If we once get Wilson’s twenty- five thousand Into it, we can eventual ly sell out The main thing is the loan. Don’t you think so?” “I certainly do,” said Alan. “Of course a good many things might in terfere. We’d haye tp get a right of "Tircnty-Jh'r thousmul! On that land/" get bis money back by means o’f the loan. 1 tell you that’s the main thing. If I had offered to sell Wilson the whole thing at $25,000 he never would have come up here, but he is sure now that the property is just what he is looking for. Oh, we are not certain of him by a long jump! It all depends on whether he will insist on going over there or not. If he does, those moss- backs will bu st the thing wide open. If he comes straight to my office in the morning, the deal may be closed, but if he lies around the 'hotel taTUng, somebody will spoil our plans, and Wilson will bang off to make bis own terms later—if he makes any at all. It’s ticklish, but we may win.” "It is a rather ticklish situation,” ad mitted Alan, “but even if we do get the loan on the property, don’t you think Wilson may delay matters and hope to scoop the property in for the debt?” “He might,” Miller smiled, “if be didn’t want to move that railroad somewhere else, and, besides, your fa ther can keep the money in suitable shape to pay off the note in any emer gency and free himself.” “I don’t know how to thank you, old man,” answered Alan. “If you had been personally interested in this, you could not have done more.” Miller threw himself back in his chair and smiled significantly, “Do I look like a man with nothing in it?” he asked. “But you haven’t anything in it,” re torted Alan wouderingly. “That’s all you know about it,” Mil ler laughed. “If the road is built, I’ll make by it. This is another story. As soon as I saw you were right about putting a railroad into the mountains I began to look around for some of that timber land. I didn’t have long to wait, for the only man that holds much of it besides Colonel Barclay— Peter Mosely, whom Perkins fooled just as he did your father—came In. He was laying for me. I saw It in his eye. The Lord had delivered him to me, and I was duly thankful. He was a morsel I liked to look at. He opened up himself, bless you, and bragged about his fine body of virgin timber. I looked bored, but let him run on till he was tired; then I said: “Well, Mosely, what do you intend to do with your white elephant? You know it’s not just the sort Barnum is looking for.’ “He kind o’ blinked at that, but he said: Tve half a notion to sell. The truth is, I’ve got the finest investment open to me that I ever had. If I could afford to wait a few years, I could coin money out of this property, but 1 believe in turning money quick.’ “ ‘So do I,’ said I, and watched him flirt about in the frying pan. Then I said, ‘What is the price you hold it at?’ “ T thought,’ said he, ‘that I ought to get as much as I paid.’ “ ‘As much as you paid Abe Tomp kins and Perkins?’ I said, with a grin. ‘Do you think you could possibly sell a piece of land for as much as those sharks? If you cau, you’d better go in the real estate business. You’d coin money. Why, they yanked two thou sand out of you, didn’t they?’ “ T don’t really think Perkins had anything to do with it,’ he said. ‘That’s just a report out about old man Bish op’s deal. I bought my land on my own judgment.’ “ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘how will fifteen hun dred round wheels strike you?’ “ T believe I’ll take you up,’ he said. T want to make that other investment.’ So we closed, and I went at once to have the deed recorded before he had a chance to change his mind. Now, you see. I’m interested in the thing, and I’m going to help you put It through. If your folks want the loan, bring them in in the morning, and if we can manage our Yankee just right we’il get the money,” This story will be continued in next Friday’s issue. He Learned a Great Truth, It is said of John Wesley that he once said to Mistress Wesley: “Why do you tell that child the same thing over and over again?” “John Wes ley, because once telling is not enough.” It is for the same reason that you are told over and over again that Chamberlain’s Cough Remedy cures colds and grip; that it counter acts any tendency of these diseases to result in pneumonia, and that it is pleasant and safe to take. For sale by Cherokee Drug Co.; L. D. Allison Oowpens. Ten Aereii From Which nn E*- Trnmn Expect* *l,.',»»(* a Year. Five years ago Hob Carley came to this town as a tramp too ill to travel, says a Glenburg (Me.) dispatch to the Philadelphia Press. After reeuperat- j Ing be spent the winter in cutting and shaving hoop poles, earning a living and having $10 coming to him In the | spring. With this he bought ten acres of alder grown hoop pole swamp and be gan to burn rough alder wood into charcoal, which he sold in Bangor. He used the crooked sticks for making rustic lawn furniture—settees, chairs and rude swings—all of which found quick sales among the summer visitors who owned cottages. Later in the season he reaped tons of cattail Hags, the leaves of which are used by coopers for chinking in between their new barrel staves and which sold for $00 a ton, ten times the price of ordinary meadow hay. The next winter he again turned his ener- gies to making hoop poles. Owing to the rapid growth of the alders, he learned that the sprouts would grow from the size of a lead pencil to four and five inches in di ameter and be fit for cutting in ten years. By dividing his land into ten lots, each containing an acre, and cut ting off one every year, he could keep up a succession of fuel and charcoal 1 for all time. This summer Carley has built a house costing nearly $2,000. It is fin- j Ished and paid for, and the owner has money in two banks and Is getting an Income of $1,500 a year from a strip of swamp land which was not thought to be worth returning thanks for and sold for about enough to pay for making out the transfer papers. Just now the citizens think the ex- tramp is one of the most successful men in town and have offered to elect him to the legislature. Dyspeptics fire made every day by their own carelessnes*. , ’Cure that case of Constipation and Indigestion before it becomes chronic. Take RA*ffiM>fllS end Tonic Pellets, the only remedy that assists Nature and does not get in her way. Strong purgative* gripe, and make confrmed invalids. Ramon’s act gently and leave the system independent of drugs. Sample and BooHlet Free. 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Write of Venire Facias for Thirty- Petit Jurors for October Term, A. 1903, second week: J. T. Baines, Timber Ridge. Joe Daniel, Gaffney. K. O. Huskey, Gaffney. J. II. Ruppe, Maud. W. W. Gaffney, Gaffney. F. H. Dover, Antioch. Wofford Price, Ezells. Z. J. Petty, Timber Ridge. T. L. Brown, Gaffney. I). J. Wilson, Blacksburg. M. D. Amos, Gaffney. J. A. Northey, Gaffney. W. C. Lipscomb, Thickety. N. S. Allison, Grassy Pond. R. E. McCraw, Gaffney. J. A. M. Estes, Wilkinsville. J. W. Vassey, Ezells. E. G. McCulloch, Star Farm. J. E. Patterson, Draytonville. J. M. Lovelace, Ezells, B K. Humphries, Gaffney. C. F. Inman, Sarratts. J. G. Kendrick, Sarratts. W. O. Johnson, Gaffney. R. S. Spencer, Draytonville. E. W. Harris, Macedonia. A. L. Peeler, Gaffney. O. A. Osborne, Blacksburg. J. F. Patrick, Gaffney. J. L. Clary, Macedonia. J. R. Season, Gaffney. J. D. Pryor, Turner’s Price Martin, Blacksburg. G. W. Eaker, Butler’s. A. B. Gaines, Gaffney. A W I )nircr«‘tt Gaffnev. A Great Record. 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