Thursday, May 24, 1928
THE TIGER TRAIL
by Edison Marshall
Illustrations by PAUL FREHM
1 CHAPTER I
Tampa is always quiet in midas- j
ternoon. It is always a tranquil
time of day, and the best way to ;
spend it is to sit and drink manj coiu
drinks of lime and lemon.
I used to spend it that way except
when out on calls. Jefferson Davis
Lincoln, who w'atches over me and
answers my bells and sweeps my of
fice and with inimitable bows guides j
my patients to their chairs, can make (
as refreshing a concoction out of a ,
little lime juice and mint and seltzer - j
water as can be imagined.
Perhaps the story of Southley
Downs should begin with that August
afternoon beside Useppa island. Al- j
exander Pierce and I were tarpon
fishing. : _ I
When I think of Alexander Pierce j
it is always \v.ith a fishing rod in
his hand. He was at his best then.
To see him on the street one could
easily guess that he w'as a fisherman,
but never a detective. There is no
practice in the world that leaves its
mark upon a man’s face more clear
ly than fishing. Pierce had that
mark. He had singularly quiet eyes
—eves that looked farther than most
telescopes, but yet not seemingly
keen or alert. He had a lean, weath
er-beaten face, scribed and rescrib
ed with lines. His hair was curious
ly thin —and people rather expected
it to be gray. But when he remov
ed his hat it was seen to be rather ,
light brown and fine.
“So you go back to your work to
morrow,” I said. “I'm sorry you
can’t stay longer.”
“Not as sorry as I am, doc,” he j
replied. “If it’s between fish and
thieves, I choose fish every time.
They are more gentemanly, and
require a finer art. One’s daily
bread, you know! But why don’t
you stay and fish without me?”
“Fishing for tarpon with anybody
except Alexander the Great would
give me no thrill at all,” I told him
“I’d sooner go to my house party.”
“Dancing' around in a ballroom ’
when you could be dancing around 1
on the sea with a tarpon! By the
way, where did you say you were
going for this riotous week?”
“To a big old manor house in the
interior—Southley Downs.”
“Southley,” he muttered. “His j
name doesn’t happen to be Peter
Southley, does it?”
“That happens to be his name.”
“An old man —seventy-five years
of age—white-haired, heavily built,
about as tall as you, with a peculiar j
nervous twitch to his eyes?”
“That’s Peter Southley. I don’t
know him well. I met him at my
club in Tampa, w r hen he was visit
ing the Martins. And I can’t under
stand what made him ask me. I
got the letter just a couple of days
ago, and he promises fishing and
shooting and golf of the best. Asked
me for a full week, and even seemed
a trifle hectic about it —as if he
wanted me very badly. I’ll stay a
day or two, at least.”
“Queer thing”, he muttered.
“Such a queer thing. But there
doesn’t seem to be any further!
doubt.”
I was scorched by curiosity; but
2 knew* enough not to ask questions.
“You’re a sort of a trustworthy
quack. Long,” he remarked at last.
I began to be hopeful; but I knew
my cue.
“Very blundering, I’m afraid,
Alex.”
“Of-.course your years are against
you—only thirty-three. Yet they
say that you have a cool hand with
a scalpel. Steady hand mean
steady nerves, and steady nerves
means you’re to be trusted in a
pinch. You handled that Wildmash
problem pretty well, too. Tell me
—have you any deep, personal re
gard for this man Southley?”
“Not really.” I’d barely met the
man. “I did think he was a kindly
old chap; very agreeable, and with
a fine taste for vintages.”
“I rather thought that might de
scribe him. Long, I want you to
keep, your eyes open when you are
at his house. I want you to watch
—all the time.”
“Alexander, you are the last man
5n the world to ask me to do any
thing that is the slightest breach in
loyalty between a guest and his
host.”
“I rather hope I am, Long—yet a
detective gets remorseless. I must
guard against it. In this case—well,
in this case, I should say it was quite
otherwise. Maybe you don’t know
what I mean. I’m not sure that I
know myself. I have rather vague
ideas—instincts, I guess you’d call
them. I can’t tell you what prompts
them. I don’t know myself. Any
way, you can be sure that I don’t
want you to take any position un
becoming a guest.”
“Then tell me—what am I to
do?”
He went on as if I hadn’t ques
tioned him. “Perhaps I’m playing
a blind lead; but my instincts tells
me otherwise. It is simply this.
Less than a year ago, the detective
agency with which I have unofficial
connections would have paid me the
biggest fee of my lifetime to find
this same. Peter H. Southley. Only
his name isn’t that, or anything like
3t. It is, in reality, Andrew Las
son.”
“You mean—that the old man is
going under an alias?”
“I’ll correct that a little. T don’t
know that hi s real name is Andrew
Lasson. I don’t know that it isn’t
Southley. Names don’t much mat
ter, vou know. At sundry times
ive been known through the West
as Amos Schmidt, His real name
I may be Southley, and it may be
| Lasson, and it may be something
! else. All I know is for a long J
period of time the man who calls :
himself Southley was known as An- j
; drew Lasson. I know that he land
ed in America forty years ago as j
Andrew Lasson. Wnat his name was
before that, I don’t know. I know’
that about a year ago inquiries came
from a certain man in England to
find at all costs Andrew Lasson. The
I fee was to be tremendous, most of
I which was to be paid a year after
we found him. The man’s name was
Roderick —at least, that’s what he |
told us. His signature was that of j
;an old man. After a while hi s son
|— a big, dark, goodlooking man of
j about thirty-five—came to see us
I personally. Well, we started to work.
We traced just long enough to dis
cover that Andrew Lasson had mov
ed South from New York as Peter
H. Southiey—when Roderick called
us off. He said he’d found his party
himself.”
“Perhaps it was just some legal
mix-up—heir to an estate, or some
thing? Souhley is tremendously
wealthy.”
“Possibly. But I did get interes
ted. I never saw such a tireless pair
of hunters as these Rodericks were.
And when you’re down for this week i
| end party I want you to keep ears!
and eyes wide open—and, of course,;
i lips closed.”
j The journey to Southley Downs
is distinguished by some of the
i most beautiful scenery in Florida,
: but I didn’t look at it. I
The porter showed me my seat
at the seaboard station, and it is un
believably true that ten minutes
had passed before I ever noticed the
dainty little hat on a girl almost the
length of the car anead. And it is
a queer thing- that my first thought
after noticing it was that ten min
utes had been wasted? There is no
accounting for the vagaries of the
human mind. It wasn’t that I’m the
1 kind of man that can stand before ;
1 a shop window and spend an enjoy
able ten minutes gazing at creations ,
, of millinery.
There was a feeling from the first
that if it should only be lifted off!
, it would reveal a great, lovely heap |
|of shimmering brown hsir, arching:
a ryce as pretty and piquant as the !
eyes of man could wish to see. It
was just that kind of a hat.
The train stopped at a station, j
and a man in the opposite- row of j
: seats from mine left the train. His '
chair was considerably nearer the
front of the car than mine, so I
slipped into it. The girl’s profile
was plainly visible to me now.
She wore a little tailored suit of
blue, and her silken bag indicated
a week-end visit with a girl friend
or the shore. It was one of those
pretty conceits that girls love, cut
up into a hundred delectable pock
ets for toilet articles. I could not
I watch her so intently now. I pre
tended to gaze out of the window,
but the panorama slipped by me
without leaving a single impression
!in my memory. Then, turning once
more, our eyes met. >
All at once I saw that her color
was gone. I watched her more in
tently. The fatigue of the journey,
combined with some nervous strain
that I could not understand, were
havingr an actual, tangible effect on
her physical being. I began to feel
glad that I was a doctor. Her posi
tion had changed, too. I had to
look twice to see what she was do
ing.
She no longer stared at the back
of the seat. She was sitting up
right, almost rigid in her chair, and
her eyes were on the landscape out
side the window. I followed their
line of sight, and saw at once that
we were passing through some great
country estate. An enormous house,
a great white palatial structure of
style of long ago, perched upon a
near-by hill. It looked as big as the
castles of Europe, and on the hill
side were clustered such outbuild
ings as stables and garages. There
were wide sweeps of meadow, a cur
ving driveway, and in the most as
tounding contract the deep fastness
of tropical jungle. For we were in
the interior of southern Florida, as
verdant a place as is to be found
in all of North America.
Human senses are not entirely
reliable. On the witness stand I
could not swear exactly what I saw.
As if caught in the frozen fascina
tion with which the girl watched !
the passing panorama, I was still
following the line of her vision. It
seemed to me that I caught a glimpse
of something yellow in the thicket
—a curious, brilliant yellow in great
splashes of color. It was just a
glimpse, and yet I had dim reasons
for thinking that the yellow form *
was living.
It might have been just a gaylv
colored plant, or a flash of bird
wings, or even a tawny dog. I
should say that its size might corre
spond to that of an enormous hound.
It might have been a yellow' calf,
or perhaps only the sunlight against
dark water. It didn’t matter, any
way. The only thing that did mat
ter, or that I remembered for hours
afterward, was that the girl sudden
ly slipped down to the floor in a
dead faint.
an instant she was in my arms,
u remember how she came
there. I have no remembrance of
In leaping to her chair or
picking her up. She was simply
there when I again looked into her
face, her slender body against my
.breast, her head resting on the mus
cle of my left arm, her white face
‘ uplifted, and unconsciousness upon
her.
j If I had a single impression as I
; carried her to the women’s room, it
! was certainly not of her weight. She
! seemed to have no weight at all. But
i I did see the lovely shadow her eye
• lashes made against the whiteness
of her face.
The woman picked up the silken
week-end ba e - that the unconscious
girl had carried and drew the cur
tain for me. She was a large,
cherry-faced matron, capable and
determined, and under ordinary cir
| cumstances I would have felt per
' fectly safe in leaving my patient in
her hands. But in this case, I went
to work to effect the recovery my
self. It was the most simple form
of ordinary faint; so.I sent the wo
man for smelling salts.
“Maybe she’s got some in her
bag,” she suggested.
I peered into the pretty conceit
that the woman had brought, but I
found no perfumed salts. It was
a far different thing that met my
eyes. I like to think that my face
gave no sign, that the woman had
no inkling of the little shiver of
wonderment that went through
every nerve.
What I saw would not have been
unusual under difierent circumstan
| ces. In the bottom of a trunk, or
1 pushed into the cushions „of an auto
i mobile seat, or even in a suit case,
1 perhaps I would not have glanced
twice at it. But in this bag, with
the most intimate articles for daily
. use, it seemed incongruous to a hor
rible degree.
It was a dark, ugly automatic pis
toi, brand-new, and with a full
magazine of cartridges.
Reviving the unconscious g\M
was the work of a moment. But it
almost made me miss my station.
Her eyes opened and rested upon
me. I do not know with what
white- magic that glance was in
stilled. But it went deep into me,
and left a curious warmth and ela
: tion. I kno wthat no other eyes
had ever looked at me in quite that
; way, or had the same effect upon
me. Perhaps it was their curious
; darkness, or even the haunting sor
j row that could not possibly be de
! nied.
(Continued Next Week)
How often in the stilly night,
| I’ve barked my shins on every flight
i And cursed the irony of it—
That I, and not the light was lit.
FOR SALE
1,000 acres of land for sale near
Moncure, Chatham county, N. C., 30
miles w r est of both Raleigh and Dur
ham. It is divided into tracts at 18
to 357 acres. Some clay land aad
some gandy land. It’s well wooded
and some cleared. Several with
houses and improvements. Average
price from $lO to sls per acre. 30
years in which to pay. If you live
in central North Carolina come to
see rather than write. If you have
land for sale confer with me.
W. W. Stedman
Moncure, N. C.
Political Advertising
NOTICE
I hereby announce my candidacy
for Register of Deeds of Chatham
county, North Carolina, subject to
the will of the Democratic party to
be expressed in the June primary.
This March 20th 1928.
D. E. MURCHISON,
Gulf, N. C.
FOR SHERIFF
To the Democratic Party
of Chatham County:
I hereby announce that I am a
candidate for nomination for Sheriff
of Chatham county, subject to the
action of the democratic primary.
Yours with best wishes,
G. WALKER BLAIR.
. ANNOUNCEMENT
I announce myself as a candidate
for Sheriff, subject to the action of
the Democratic . primary, June 2nd.
I shall very much appreciate your
support, and if elected will serve you
| DR. J. C. MANN |
< ► O
;t the well-known <►
d k
<t will be at Dr. Farrell’s Jt
it office, Pittsboro, Tuesday <[
!t May 22, and at Dr. <►
it Thomas’ Office, Siler City
!t Thursday, May 24, from it
!► 10 a. m. to 3p. m. it
THE CHATHAM RECORD
to the best of my ability.
Respectfully.
W. T. JOHNSON.
FOR REGITESR OF DEEDS
To the Peoplp of Chatham County:
I hereby announce myself a can
didate for the Register of Deeds of
fice of Chatham county, * subject to
your approval in the Democratic pri
mary in June 1928. If I am renom
inated and elected to succeed myself
in office, I shall endeavor to render
the best service possible. Thanking
you for the past support given me,
and soliciting a continuance of the
same in the coming primary,
I am yours truly,
C. C. POE,
ANNOUNCEMENT
I do hereby announce my candi
dacy for nomination of Commission
er of Chatham County, to be deter
mined in the Democratic primary to
b eheld in June.
W. T. BROOKS.
ANNOUNCEMENT
I do hereby announce my candi
dacy for nomination of Commission
er of Chatham County, to be deter
mined in the Democratic primary to
be held in June.
R. J. JOHNSON.
ANNOUNCEMENT
I do hereby announce my candi
dacy for nomination of Commission
er of Chatham County to b edeter
mined in hte Democratic primary to
be held in June.
C. D. MOORE.
ANNOUNCEMENT
I hereby announce myself as a
candidate for county commissioner,
subject to the action of the Demo
cratic primary June 2nd. I shall
will be appreciated.
EUGENE. E. WALDEN.
ANNOUNCEMENT
I hereby announce myself a can
didate for county commissioner, sub
ject to the action of thp Democratic
primary of June 2nd. Your sup
port will be appreciated.
Respectfully,
Robert t. Farrell.
ANNOUNCEMENT
At the solicitation of many friends
I hereby announce myself as a can
didate for county commissioner, sub
ject to the action of the Democratic
primary of June 2. Your support
will be appreciatted.
Respectfully,
J. B. MILLS.
LEGALS
NOTICE
Having qualified as the adminis
trator of the estate of the late G.
S. Williams, deceased, this is to no
tify all persons having claims against
said estate to present them to the
undersigned on or before the 10th
day of May 1929, or this notice will
be pleaded in bar of their recovery,
and ail persons indebted to said
estate are requested to make imme
diate settlement of the same.
This the Bth day of May, 1928.
J. R. LASSITER,
Administrator.
A. C. Ray, Atty.
ADMINISTRATOR’S NOTICE
Having qualified as administrator
of the estate of B. F. Tyson, de
ceased, I hereby warn all persons
having claims against the estate to
present them duly proven on or be
fore April 23, 1929, or this notice
will be pleaded in bar of their re
covery. All persons owing the es
tate will plese make early payment.
This 23rd day of April, 1928.
L. A. TYSON, Administrator.
May 31-6tp
NOTICE OF SALE OF REAL
ESTATE
Under and by virtue of the power
of sale contained in a decree made
and entered in that certain special
proceeding now pending in the Su
perior Court of Chatham County,
North Carolina, entitled “J. H. Nor
wood, administrator of Jennette
Tripp, deceased -vs- E. W. Tripp, et
als,” the undersigned Commissioner
will, on Saturday the 2nd day of
June, 1928, at 12:00 o’clock noon,
in front of the Courthouse door in
Pittsboib, Chatham cotfnty. North
Carolina, offer for sale to the high
est bidder for cash all that certain
tract or parcel of land lying- and be
ing in Baldwin Township, Chatham
County, North Carolina, adjoining
the lands of C. A. Tripp, J. R. Mann,
Annie Burns, et als’, and bounded
and described as follows, viz:
Bounded on the north by C. A.
Tripp; on the east by Annie Burns;
on the south by M. B. Cole and A.
W. Norwood land; on the west by J.
R. Mann, near the Mt. Pleasant road,
about eight miles from Chapel Hill,
known as the Emeline Tripp land,
and deeded to Evender Tripp for
the purpose above stated, estimat
ed to certain 106 acres, more or
less, SAVE AND EXCEPT FOUR
TEEN (14) acres heretofore sold
off to E. T. Tripp.
This the Ist day of May, 1928.
W. P. HORTON, Commissioner
NOTICE OF SALE OF REAL
ESTATE
Under and by vritue of the power
of sale contained in that certain
special proceeding now pending in
the Superior court of Chatham coun
ty, North Carolina, No. 365, entitled
“Annie Crump, administratrix of
Oliver Crump, deceased, vs. William
Crump, Elijah Crump, et als,” the
undersigned commissioners will, on
- - -- - -
Saturday the 26th day of May, 1928
at 12 o’clock noon, in front of the
courthouse door in Pittsboro, Chat
ham County, North Carolina, offer
for sale to the highest bidder for
cash all that certain tract or parcel
of land lying and being in Haw river
township, Chatham county. North
Carolina, and being more fully des
cribed and defined as follows, viz:
Lying and being- in or near Hay
wood, Haw River township, Chatham
county, N. C., and lying on the south
side of the State Highway, and on
the east side of the road that runs
off from the State Highway to Hay
wood, said lot being bounded on the
North by said state highway, on the
west by Haywood road; on the south
by Searboard Airline Railway right
of way, containing about one-half
acre, more or less, and being known
as the “Oliver Crump Homeplace.”
This 2nd day of May, 1928.
Time of sale—May 26th, 1928, 12
o’clock.
Place of sale —Courthouse door of
Pittsboro, N. C.
Terms of sale—Cash.
A. C. RAY,
WADE BARBER, Com’rs
NOTICE OF SALE OF REAL
ESTATE
Under and by virtue of the pow
er of sale contained in a certain or
der of the Superior court of Chat
ham county, North Carolina, in a (
special proceeding entitled “H. T.
Branson, administrator, of the es
tate of John Branson, deceased, vs.
Roland Branson, et als,” the same
being numbered No. 378 upon the
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special proceeding docket of said
court, the undersigned Commission
er will, on Saturday the 26th day of
May, 1928, at 12 o’clock, noon, in
front of the coulrthouse door i n
Pitjtsboro, Chatham courjty, North
Carolina, offer for sale, to the high
est bidder for cash, at public auc
tion, that certain tract or parcel
of land lying and being in Chatham
county, North Carolina, and being
more fully described and defined us
follows, viz:
Beginning at an ash on tho wq :; i•
side-of branch, and running NB2 1-2
degrees west 1951 feet to a stone
thence N 7 1-2 degrees E 336 feet
to a stone and pointers; thence S
62 1-2 degrees E 1924 feet to a
W 338.2 feet to an ash on the west
stone and pointers; thence S 7 degs
side of the branch, the point of be
ginning, containing 15 acres, more
or less.
This April 25th, 1928.
W. P. HORTON, Com.
May 3, 6tc
EXECUTOR’S NOTICE "
Having qualified as executor of
the last will and testament of Mrs.
Clara Calvert, late of Chatham coun
ty, I hereby warn all persons hav
ing claims against the estate to pre
sent them duly proven on or before
the 15th day of April, 1929, or this
notice will be pleaded in bar of their
( recovery. All persons owing the es
tate are asked to make early settle-
ment.
This 15th day of April 1928.
ANNIE L. BYNUM, Executor.
Siler and Barber, Attys.
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PAGE TWO