local folk remark the mist, thanks to heat, on the moors. You note how well versed these travelers are in local history; how much interest they take in the scenes along the way.

Now and then, rough, craggy walls cross the moors oddly. Then a townBagelt is traversed, with the church rising o'er all. You note some children in a meadow on the hills that are rising; then your attention is taken by strange heaps of slag here on the moors. Meanwhile the haze increases and things grow more and more desolate in the view. The sights and scenes from the windows, nevertheless, are notable in that probably more tourists pass them, view them, every year,

a huge manufactory of pig lead, graced with one of the tallest brick chimneys rising from a compound of small brick structures you ever have seen. On your right come more meadows, divided from you by the moor, and houses are more abundant: these of a grey brick, here in Wales.

At once the spelling on signs, station and otherwise, begins to puzzle. For example, at one place, tourists leave for the LLETy Hotel; you remark how the double L's are both capital and learn to pronounce such as if F, if you can. Stone walls are built on each side of the track to some great factory; then the train rumbles into Mostyn, pronounce it as you will.

At your right, some small sails at the edge of the river, where the tide's out, mark interesting connections with the train. Near here Henry VII. escaped the soldiers of the second Richard; you, however, are more interested in the conversation of your soldier seatmate, who's opened up a chat, as the folk here do always, with another man and discovers they've a mutual friend in a member of the Rhodesian police. Wherever you go, on these railways of Britain, you're sure to be brought into close personal touch with all the bounds of the empire.

Far off, on the right, a great steamer plows her way on the estuary; another connection with the railway system

northeast end, too. You come in actual sight of the Irish Sea along here, and the small white lighthouse rising up over the sand and across the hills bespeaks the care Britain exerts for her precious shipping.

This chances to be a smoking compartment in which you sit, plainly marked so, and women taking seats here must permit the smoking, if or no. Still, you note how the Welsh, before lighting their pipes, ask the sole lady with you if she objects to the

same.

The train, by and by, goes through Prestatyn, and again you study its spelling. spelling. Then, at the left, there's a good view of the Moel Fammam and

high water; this built by Robert Stephensoon in 1848. Conway, with its famous castle, the long tunnel under Penmaenbachy; more giant mountains, more splendid scenery succeed.

It's Wales as you've read of it, the Wales you expected, and you'll have all you can do just to look at the views. You wonder that they don't put on observation coaches, that there isn't some cicerone to point out things as you go.

Some day this will become one of the scenic routes of Europe; until now, the menage has had no time for that! It knows every tourist to Britain "does" Chester and that if he goes on to Wales he must go by their line, so why care? Thanks to the world-war and the things that will follow, the

tourist armies will doubtless be deflected from Europe for long years to come. When, again, sanity has come to the continent and travelers return, we may look for many innovations, brought in with restoration, not the least of these along the lines of the railway regime!

But, meanwhile, you're content to bowl on to Carnarvon. In peace times there's a monotone of glorious mountain scenery all the way. In war time you'll be shunted off, again and again, to make way for troop trains and be indeed lucky if you get there at all. Either way, it's an experience. well worth the having; in fact, few roads of like length are more interesting, the world over, than this one, the highway 'twixt England and Wales.

This story has been blamed for its lack of a moral. People seem to expect one so to put to the rack the facts in the case that they will shriek out some well-tried message. Some have behaved as if they thought the moral here, but faulty. Colonel Loree of the Solar Selling Company, however, thinks the affair rich in the hic-fabula-docet ele

So does Williamson, soliciting agent for the Mid-Continent Life; and so emphatically so-does the MidContinent itself. Trudeau, the "breed" guide, has had so few years in which to turn it over in his slow-moving mind as he has lain rolled in his blankets while the snow sifted through the moaning pines, that he has not made up his mind. As for Foster Van Dorn and Gwendolyn, their opinions-but the story itself is not long.

Williamson says that when he left Van Dorn's office with his application, he was as near walking on air as insurance men ever are. People had been so slow in writing their autographs on

the dotted line-and here was a sixfigure application, with a check. These accompanied by the wide-eyed Williamson, exploded into the mid-December calm of the agency headquarters like the news of a Tonopah strike in the poker-playing ennui of a Poverty flat.

"What's that, Williamson?" ejaculated the cashier. "Five hundredyou don't mean thousand ?"

"Why, confound you," sneered Williamson, "look at that application!"

"Let me see it!" panted the manager, bursting in. "Foster G. Van Dorn; half a million! Holy cat, Williamson; but this will put you and the agency in the lead, for good for it, Williamson?"

Is he

"Why, don't you see that check?" inquired the lofty solicitor. "I tell you, fellows, there's always a way to land any man. Why, for a year, I've-by George! I'm forgetting to send Dr. Watson over to make the examination. Van Dorn's going on a hunting trip,

and we've got to hustle, and get him nailed before he goes!"

The manager stood by Williamson during the telephoning. "Who is Mr. Van Dorn?" he asked, as the agent hung up the receiver.

"President of the Kosmos Chemical Company," replied Williamson. "Sonin-law and enemy of Colonel Loree of the Solar Selling Company, you know," Isaid the cashier.

"Oh-h-h!" replied the manager, as if recalling something. "I remember the 'romance' in the newspapers; but I thought the young fellow was poor. Fixed it up with the colonel, I suppose -the usual thing."

"Not on your life!" replied Williamson. "Loree would kill him if he dared -old aristocrat, you know; but Van Dorn's too smart for him. You remember he was an engineer for Loree's company, and met the daughter on some inspection trip. Love at first sight-moonlight on the mountainsrunaway and wedding on the sly father's curse-turned out to starve, and all that."

"I remember," answered the manager; "but it doesn't seem to lead logically up to this application."

"Well," went on Williamson, "Van Dorn turns up with a company formed to work a deposit of the sal-ammoniac, or asphaltum, or whatever the stuff the Solar Company had cornered may be, and began trust busting. The colonel swore the new deposit really belonged to his company, because Van Dorn found it while in his employ, and called him all sorts of a scoundrel. But the young man's gone on, all the same, floating his company, and flying high."

"I heard that Loree was sure to ruin him," interposed the cashier.

"Ruin nothing!" said Williamson. "It was a case of the whale and the swordfish. Van Dorn's got him licked -why, don't you see that check?"

"That does look like success," replied the manager. "I hope his strenuous life hasn't hurt his health-Watson is fussy about hearts and lungs."

"That's the least of my troubles," re

plied Williamson. "Van Dorn's an athlete, and a first-class risk. There's nothing the matter with Van Dorn!"

And yet, Trudeau the guide, far up in the Minnesota woods, looked at the young man and wondered if there wasn't something the matter with Van Dorn. They had come by the old "toteroad" to the deserted lumber camp armed and equipped to hunt deer. Most young men in Van Dorn's situation were keen-eyed, eager for the trail and the chase-at least until tamed by weariness. But Van Dorn was like a somnambulist. Once Trudeau had left him behind on the road, and on retracing his steps to find him, had discovered him standing by the path, gazing at nothing, his lips slowly moving as if repeating something under his breath-and he had started as if in fright at Trudeau's hail. had been careful to give Trudeau his card, and admonished him to keep it; but he seemed careless of all opportunities of following up the acquaintance. Most of these city hunters were anxious to talk; but what troubled Trudeau, was the manner in which Van Dorn sat by the fire, wrote in a book from time to time, and gazed into the flames. Now that they had reached the old camp, Trudeau hoped that actual hunting would bring to his man's eyes the fire of interest in the thing he had come so far to enjoy.

He

"I'll fix up camp," said he. "If you like, you hunt. Big partie Chicageau men ove' by lake-keep othe' way."

"How far to their camp?" asked the fire-gazer.

"Bout two mile," answered Trudeau.

"Chicago men?" queried Van Dorn. "How many?"

"Mebbe ten," answered Trudeau; "mebbe six. She have car on track down at depot. Big man-come ev'ry wintaire. Jacques Lacroix guide heem, Colonel Lorie-big man!"

"Colonel Loree! From Chicago?" cried Van Dorn.

"Oui, yes!" replied Trudean. "You know heem?"

"No," said Van Dorn.