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THE CLOVIS NEWS a szk 2d 3m IfK PART ONE. CHAPTER I. At the Telegraph. On the third day of August, 1870, I left Paris in search of John Buckhurst. On the 4th of August I lost all traces of Mr. lluckhurst near the frontier, In the village of Morsbronn. On August 5th, about eight o'clock In the morn ing, the military telegraph Instrument lu the operator's room over the tem porary barracks of the Third Hussars clicked out the call for urgency, not the usual military signal, but a secret sequence understood only by certain officers of the Imperial Military Police. The operator on duty therefore step ped Into my room and waited while I took his place at the wire. "Who Is this?" came over the wire In the secret code; and I answered at once: "Inspector of Foreign Division, Imperial Military Police, on duty at Morsbronn, Alsace." After considerable de lay the neit message arrived in the Morse code: "Is that you. Scarlett?" And I replied: "Yes. Who are you? Why do you not use the code? Repeat the code signal and your number." The signal was repeated, then came the message: "This Is the Tullerles. You have my authority to use the Morse code for the sake of brevity. Do you understand? 1 am Jarras. The Empress Is here." Instantly reassured by the message from Colonel Jarras, head of the bureau to which I was at tached, 1 answered that I understood. Then the telegrams began to fly, all In the Morse code: Jarras "Have you caught Buck burst?" I "No." Jarras "How did he get away?" I "There's confusion enough on the frontier to cover the escape of a hun dred thieves." There was a long pause: I lighted a cigar and waited. After a while the In strument began again. Jarras "The Empress desires to know where the chateau called La Trappe Is." I "La Trappe Is about four kilo metres from Morsbronn, near the ham let of Trols Keullles." Jarras "It is understood that Mad ame de Vassart's group of socialists are about to leave La Trappe for Para dise, In Morbihan. It Is possible that lluckhurst bas taken refuge among them. Therefore you will proceed to La Trappe. Do you understand?" I "Perfectly." Jarras "If Buckhurst Is found you will bring him to Paris at once. Shoot him If he resists arrest If the com munity at Ij Trappe has not been warned ok a possible visit from us, you will find and arrest the following Individuals: Claude Tavernter, late professor of law, Paris School of Ijw; Achille Hazard, ex-Instructor In mathe matics, Fontalnebleau Artillery School; Dr. I.eo Delmont, ex-Interne, Charity Hospital, Paris; Mile. Sylvia Elven. lately of the Odeon; the Countess de Vassart. well known for her eccen tricities. "You will affix the government seals to the house as usual; you will then escort the people named to the nearest point on the Itelglnn frontier. The Countess ( de Vassart usually dresses like a common peasant. Look out that "Look Out That She Does Not Slip Through Your Fingers." she does not slip through your fingers. Kepeut your Instructions." I repeated tbem from my memoranda. There was a pauxe, then click! click! the instrument gave the code signal that the matter wbb ended, and I re peated the slgnnl, opened my code book, and began to translate the in structions Into cluhor for safety's sako. Where the Vosges mountains towered In obscurity a curtain of rain Joined earth and sky. The rivers ran yellow, briuiful. foaming at the fords. Some where In that spoctral forest Prussian cavalry were hidden, watching the heights where our drenched divisions lay. Behind that forest a German army was massing, fresh from the combat In the north, where the tragedy of Wi embourg bad been enacted only the day before, In the presence of the en tire French army the awful spectacle of a single division of seven thousand men suddenly enveloped and crushed by seventy thousand Germans. The rain fell steadily but less heavi ly. I changed my civilian clothes for a hussar uniform, sent a trooper to find me a horse, and sat down by the window to stare at the downpour and think how best I might carry out my Instructions to a successful finish. The colony at La Trappe was, as far as I could Judge, a product of condi tions which bad, a hundred years be fore, culminated In the French Revolu tion. Now, In 1870, but under different circumstances, all France was once more disintegrating socially. Opposi tion to the Empire, to the dynasty, to the government, had been seething for years; now the separate crystals which formed on the edges of the boiling un dercurrents began to grow Into masses which, adhering to other masses, in terfered with the healthy functions of national life. First among these came the International Society of Working men, with all Its adulations the "In ternationale," as It was called. In Its wake trailed minor societies, some mild and harmless, some dangerous and secret, some violent, advocating openly the destruction of all existing conditions. With one exception, all those whom the police and the government regard ed as Inclined to violence left the group. There remained, with this one exceptions a nucleus of earnest, thoughtful people whose creed was In part the creed of the Internationale, the ureed of universal brotherhood, equality before the law, purity of in dividual living as an example and an incentive to a national purity. To this Inoffensive group came one day a young widow, the Countess de Vassart, placing at their disposal her great wealth, asking only to be re ceived among them as a comrade. Her history, as known to the police, was peculiar and rather sad: at six teen she had been betrothed to an el derly, bull-necked colonel of cavalry, the notorious Count de Vassart, who needed what money she might bring him to maintain his reputation as the most brilliantly dissolute old rake In Paris. Her dossier for, alas! tbe young girl already had a dossier was inter esting, particularly in its summing up of her personal character: "To the naive ignorance of a con vent penslonnalre, she adds an Inno cence of mind, a purity of conduct, and a credulity which render her an easy prey to the adroit, who pluy upon her sympathies. She Is dangerous only as a source of revenue for dangerous men " It was from her salon that young Victor N'olr went to his death at Auteull on the 10th of January; and possibly the shock of the murder and the almost universal conviction that justice under tbe Empire was hope less drove the young Countess to seek a refuge In the country where, at her house of 1 Trappe, she could quietly devote her life to helping the desper ately wretched, and where she could In security, hold counsel with those who bad chosen to give their lives to the noblest of all works charity and the propaganda of universal brother hood And here, at La Trappe, the young aristocrat first donned the robe of democracy, dedicated her life and for tune to the cause, and worked with her own delicate hands, for every morsel of bread that passed her lips. But the simple life at La Trappe, the negative protest against the Em pire and all existing Bocial conditions, the purity of motive, the serene and Inspired self-abnegation, could not save the colony at La Trappe nor the young chatelaine from the claws of those who prey upon the Innoceuce of the generous. And so came to this Ideal communi ty one John Buckhurst, a stranger, quiet, suave, deadly pale, a finely molded man, with delicately fashioned hands and feet, and two eyes so color less that in some lights thev appeared to be almost sightless. In a month from that time he was the power that moved that community even in Its most Insignificant machin ery. With marvelous skill he con structed out of that simple republic of protestants an absolute despotism. And he was the desiiot. An Intimation from the Tullerles In terrupted a meeting of the council at the house in Paradise; an arrest was threatened that of Professor Iteclus and the Indignant young Countess wus requested to rutin to her chateau of La Trappe. She obeyed, but Invited her guests to accompany her. Among thoso who accepted was lluckhurst. About this time the government be gan to take a serious Interest In John Buckhurst On the secret stuff of the Imperial Military Police were always certain foreigners among others, my self and a young man named James Speed; and Col l Jarras had already decided to employ us in watching ftuck 'mrst, when war came on France like a bo It from the blue, giving the men Author of "Cardiganllie Conspirators" Maids-at-Arms'etc CQPVRJGHT gV ROBT. W of the Secret Service all tbey could at tend to. There Is no reason why It should not be generally known that the crown Jewels of France were menaced from the very first by a conspiracy so alarm ing and apparently so irresistible that the Emperor himself believed, even in the beginning of the fatal campaign, that It might be necessary to send the crown Jewels of France to the Bank of England for safety. On tbe 19th of July, the day that war was declared, certain of the crown Jewels, kept temporarily at the palace of the Tullerles, were sent under heavy guards to the Bank of France. Every precaution was taken; yet the great diamond crucifix of Louis XI. was missing when the guard under Captain Siebert turned over the treasures to tbe governor of tbe Bank of France, Instantly absolute secrecy was or dered, so the news of the robbery never became public property, but from one end of France to tho other tbe gend armerie, the police, local, municipal, and secret, were stirred up to activity. Within forty-eight hours, an Indi vidual answering Buckhurst'! descrip tion had sold a single enormous dla- "Across the Meadow," Said the Young Girl. mond for two hundred and fifty thou sand francs to a dealer In Strasbourg, a Jew named Flshel Cohen. An hour after he had recorded tbe transaction at the Strasbourg Diamond Exchange be and the diamond were on their way to Paris, in charge of a detective. A few hours later the stone was Identified at tbe Tullerles as having been taken from the famous crucifix of Louis XI. From Ftsuel Cohen's agonized de scription of the man wbo had sold him the diamond, Colonel Jarras believed be recognized J-jhn Buckhurst But bow on earth lluckhurst had obtained access to the Jewels, or how be had managed to spirit away the cross from the very center of the Tullerles, could only be explained through the theory of accomplices among the trusted Inti mates of the imperial entourage. And if there existed such a conspiracy, wbo was involved? My chase after Buckhurst began as soon as Colonel Jarras could summon me; and as Buckhurst had last been heard of in Strasbourg, I went after him on a train loaded with red-legged, uproarious soldiers. I tracked Buckhurst to Morsbronn, where I loBt all truces of him; and now here I was with my orders concerning the unfortunate people at La Trappe, staring out at the dismal weather and wondering where my wild-goose chase would end Half an hour later I rode out of Morsbronn, clad in tbe uniform of the Third Hussars, a disguise supposed to convey the Idea to those at La Trappe that the army and not the police were responsible for their expulsion. A moist, fern-bordered wood road attracted me; I reasoned that It must lead, by a short cut, across tbe hills to the military highway which passed between Trois-Feullles und La Trappe So I took It, and presently came into four cross-roads unknown to me. This grassy csrrefour was occupied by a flock of turkeys, busily engaged in catching grasshoppers; their keeper, a prettily shaped peasant girl, looked up at me as I drew bridle, then quietly resumed the book she had been read ing. "My child." said I. "will you kindly direct me, with appropriate gestures, to the military highway which passet tho Chateau de la Trappe?" CHAPTER II. The Government Interferes. "There Is a short cut across that meadow," said tho young girl, raising n rounded, sun-tinted arm, bare to the shoulder. "And, after that, you will come to a thicket of white birches." "Thank you, mademoiselle." "And after that," she mid, Idly fol lowing with her blue eyes the contour of her own lovely arm, "you must turn to the left, and there you will cross a hill. You can see It from where we stand" A deadened report snook the sum mer air the sound of a cannon Or ad fetes CHAMBERS CHAMBERS COPYRIOMT tj very far away, perhaps on the cita del of Strasbourg. Without turning my head I said: "It Is difficult to be lieve that there Is war anywhere In the world Is It not, mademoiselle?" "Not If one knows the world," she said. Indifferently. "Do you know it, my child?" "Sufficiently," she said. She had opened again tbe book which she had been reading when I first noticed her. From my saddle I saw that it was Moliere. "Why do you tend turkeys?" I asked. "Because It pleases me," she re plied, ralBlng ber eyebrows in faint displeasure. "For that same reaBon you read Monsieur Moliere?" I suggested. "Doubtless, monsieur." "Are you what you pretend to be, an Alsatian turkey tender?" "Parbleu! There are my turkeys, monsieur." "Perhaps," said I, "but I have asked you a question which remains par ried. Who are you?" I demanded.) "Oh, a mere nobody in such learned company," she said, shaking her head with a mock humility that annoyed me Intensely. "Very well," said I. conscious every moment of her pleasure In my dis comfiture; "under the circumstances I am going to ask you to accept my escort to La Trappe; for I think you are Mademoiselle Elven, recently of the Odeon theater." "Monsieur," she said, "do you ride through the world pressing every peasant girl you meet with such ar dent entreaties? Truly, your fashion of wooing Is not slow, but everybody knows that hussars are headlong gen tlomen 'Nothing Is sacred from a hussar,'" she bummed, deliberately, In a parody which made me writhe in my saddle, "Mademoiselle," Buld I, taking off my foruge cap, "your ridicule Is not iho most disagreeable Incident that I expect to meet with today. I am at tempting to do my duty, and I must ask you to do yours." "And if I refuse?" "Then." Bald 1, amiably, "I shall be obliged to set you on my horse." And I dismounted and went toward ber. After a silence she said, very seri ously, "Monsieur, would you dare use violence toward me?" "Oh, I shall not be very violent," I replied, laughing. I held the opened watch in my hand so that she could see the dial If she chose. "It is one o'clock," I said, closing the bunting-case with a saap. She looked me steadily la th eye. "Will you come with me to La Trappe?" She did not atlr. I stepped toward her; she gave me a breathless, defiant stare; then in an instant I caught her up and swung ber high into my saddle, before either she or I knew exactly what had hap pened. She was clever enough not to try lo dismount, woman enough not to make an awkward struggle or do any thing ungraceful. In silence, I led the horse forward through the open gate out Into the wet meadow. As for my turkey-girl, she sat stiffly In the saddle, with a Amines and de termination that proved her to be a stranger to horses. I scarcely dared look at her, so fearful was I of laugh ing. So we went on. The spectacle of a cavalryman In full uniform leading a cavalry horse on which was seated an Alsatian girl in bright peasant cos tume appeared to astonish the few people we passed. NATIONS OF WIDE DIVERGENCE Albanians and Turks Have Not, and Seemingly Never Can Have, Anything In Common. "Perhaps one of the reasons that the Albanians have never really sub mitted to the Turks lies In a funda mental Incompatabillty between the Albanian and Turkish character." says a returned traveler from the Balkan. "The Turks are melancholy, even tragic. The Albanians declare for happiness. The story is told of some Albanian soldiers who saw a performance of Karagues, in which a love story was acted, but without bringing the lovers together at tho finish. The Albarlans wouldn't have It for a mlnuto. They nourished their revolvers and yelled: "Make them happy! Make tnem happ!' And happy they had to be made before peace could reign again. The Al banians live in a high, mountainous country, with deep rtlloys In be tween ranges. Even In times of peace they are in constant warfare with the Turks. Thore will bo a 'frontier inci P.T. COLLIER f We met a dozen people In all, 1 think, some of them peasants, one or two of the better class a country doctor and a notary among them. "Why do all the people I meet carry bundles?" I demanded of the notary. "Mon Dleu, monsieur, they are too near tho frontier to take risks," be replied. "You mean to say they are running away from their village of Trols Feuilles?" I asked. "Exactly," he said. "War Is a rude guest for poor folk." And so I left him also staring after us, and I had half a mind to go back and examine his portfolio to see what a snipe-faced notary might be carry ing about wlih him. The lazy road-Bide butterflies flew up In clouds before the slow-stepping horse; tho hill rabbits, rising to their hind-quarters, wrinkled their whis kered noses at us; from every thicket speckled hedge-birds peered at us as we went our way. At length, as we reached the sum mit of the sandy hill, "There Is La Trappe, monsieur," said my turkey girl, and once more stretched out her lovely arm. There was no porter at the gate to welcome me or to warn me back; the wet road lay straight In front, barred only by sunbeams. "May we enter?" I asked, politely. She did not answer, and I led my horse down that silent avenue of trees towards the terrace and tbe glassy pool which mirrored the stent of stone. "And here we dismount," said I, and offered my aid. She laid her hands on my shoulders; I swung her to the ground, where her sabots clicked and her stiver neck chains Jingled In the silence. "Is that bouse empty?" I asked, turning brusquely on my companion. "Tbe Countess de Vassart will give you your answer," she replied. "Kindly announce me, then," I said, grimly, and together we mounted tbe broad flight of steps to the esplanade, above which rose the gray mansion of La Trappe. (TO BE CONTINUED.) His Plea. The Hon. John R. Boomwallor, the well-known statesman, having arisen In the middle of tbe night and discov ered Ink Judson, an undesirable citi zen of 8enegamblan descent. In his henhouse, proceeded to upbraid him lustily. "But, uh hoi' on. bou'able! Loogy yuh a minute; data tootT S"sX al" expostulated the malefactor. 1 Owen right up dat you's kotchre In de act yassah. I 'knowledges de cawn but dess lemme 'scuaably tx yo', ash: As yo' Is a membuh o' de leglslater and a pow'ful pompous one dey tells me, too bow kin yo' find It In yo' heart to holler dls-uh-way at a po', mltzable, Ignunt nigger, for tryin' to make a dishonest dime or so In de on'y way be knows how?" Judge. Peculiar Japanese Frog. The Japanese frog Is a creature measuring between fifteen and twenty five Inches. The skin of Its back is pale blue sod by night looks dark green or olive brown. Tbe frog re mains motionless during " e day, with eyes sheltered from the light and with belly up, clinging to its support by ad hesive cushions and by its belly, which Is provided with a sticky covering, and It is hardly distinguishable from tbe objects that surround It. At night fall It begins its hunt for the mam moth crickets on which It feeds, ma king leaps covering seven feet of ground. Harper's Weekly. dent,' and then over the border Into Montenegro flee Ue Albanians. The Montenegrins help them In their ef forts at reprisal against the common foe, the Turk. Albanians are great on blood feuds. The Italian vendetta Is a mild diversion beside tbe Al banian blood feud. The English wom an, Mary Kill th Durham, traveler and war correspondent, Is a friend of tbe Albanians. She often lives among them and Is their trusted friend. Overwhelmed With Work. Along In tbe '60s Pat Casey pushed a wheelbarrow across the plains from St. Joseph, Mo., to Georgetown, Colo., shortly after that be "struck It rich;" in fact, he was credited with having more wealth than anyone else in Colo rado. A man of great Bhrewdness and ability, he was exceedingly sensitive over bis inability to read or write. Ono day an old timer met him with: "How are you getting along, Pat?" "Go 'way from mo. now," said Pat, genially, "me head's bursting wld busi ness. It takes two lid pincils a day to do me wurruk." Everybody's Magazine. MAHER, COLO., WOMAN SAVED FROM KNIFE , Mrs. Ora Porter of Maker, Colo., suffered for twelve yeara with stom ach and liver troubles. Her case was diagnosed as gall stones and she was advised to undergo an operation. She got Mayrs Wonderful Remedy time. The first bottle proved to her what tbe remedy would do. 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