his fear and agony, and leaving behind him a widening crimson track.
Sometimes he tripped on the roots and stones and fell prostrate in the darkness; lank pine braches tore at his clothing; the sharp needles stung his staring eyes. Once his voice died away and gasping sobs shook his body, but he managed to stumble to his feet again and lurch shrieking through the night. At last the men came running with lanterns in their hands.
When they reached him he was no longer able to speak, but pointed to his right foot covered with blood. A few moments later, when they got him to camp, he was dead.
In that isolated community, the coroner, thirty miles down the river, could not be reached before Oberman had to be buried. Even the men who found him were able to give small information to the neighboring farmers. They had had to cut the boot off, and in their hurry and excitement could not remember having seen any mutilation of the leather.
The search party, sent back at gray dawn to the cabin, found Black Cunjer lying where he had fallen. And Tom, who had been induced to go with them, found something else. Three broken ax blades were cunningly embedded deep in the rotting wood at the outer margin of the threshold, sharp edges uppermost, forming a triangle. In spite of Tom's warning cry, one of the men dislodged the blades, revealing a fragment of dried snake's skin pinioned beneath each one.
The negro lifted an ashy face from his inspection.
"Dyah de Cunjer," he muttered shakenly: "three uv 'em—side by side—no man cyant cross dat do' sill—"
And with a terrified glance over his shoulder, he fled precipitously from the group gathered around the half-open door, and was soon lost to sight in the distance.
THE PINES about Black Cunjer's cabin have never been cut down. No ax will ever be heard again in that forest, nor any sound but the hooting of owls, and the whirring of bats' wings, or, far overhead, the whisper of tall trees.
American Has 1,500,000 Dope Fiends
ACCORDING to the reports of narcotic inspectors, one person in every seventy-three in the United States today is a drug addict. Each addict, it is said, fastens the drug habit on three normal persons during his life. It is declared there are 1,500,00 persons in America who cannot exist without their daily or hourly "shots" of dope, and who are rapidly sinking into a state of horror.
Monte Carlo Casino Yields Huge Annual Profit
DESPITE the fact that, each year, thousands of people journey to the gambling casino at Monte Carlo with carefully thought out "systems" calculated to break the bank, the ivory balls on the flashing roulette wheels netted that institution 65,860,170 francs ($4,530,000) last season.
Girl Afflicted With Strange Malady
A STRANGE case of insanity is that of a prominent young woman of Danville, Illinois, who has been sent to the State Hospital for the Insane at Kankakee. The girl was obsessed with he idea that her health was failing and could be restored only by tobacco. She therefore bought large quantities of smoking and chewing tobacco, which she used in an effort to "become large and strong."
Woman Weds Twins; Can't Tell Them Apart
FRAU MARIE TELDER of Innsbruck, Austria, appeared before the local magistrate and complained that she had married a man and had since been living with his twin in the belief that he was her husband. The twins are so much alike, she said, that she could scarcely tell one from the other, but certain circumstances recently led her to believe that the man with whom she is now living is not the man she married.
Caterpillar Army Halts Train
A GIGANTIC army of caterpillars, after devastating many orchards in Oregon, crawled upon the railroad tracks and delayed the Albany-Newport train for one hour and twenty-five minutes. The horde of insects drove one man from his home, destroyed all vegetation in the path, and then began eating the needles from fir trees and the bark from other trees. The caterpillars were more than an inch deep on the railroad tracks, and the trainmen exhausted their sand supply in trying to pass over them.
Man Is Tried for Thirty-three Murders
VAS KOMAROV, a Russian, was recently tried in Moscow for murdering thirty-three persons, and, because of the wide public interest in the unusual case, the trial was held in the large Polytechnic Museum instead of a court room. Before his trial, Komarov said he hoped the court would speedily condemn him to be shot, and added that he found "murder an awfully easy thing." He said that the only victim who ever resisted him was a man who had tried to cheat him in a horse trade. The others were knocked on the head with a hammer or strangled.
Author Sues "Egyptian Spook"
MIMI STEFANESCO, famous medium of Bucharest, has been sued for one million francs libel by Maurice Dewaleffe, French author, who claims that she is an imposter. The trouble arose over an Egyptian romance by M. Dewaleffe and Mimi's claim that she was in constant communication with ancient Egyptians, who told her a connected story of romantic happenings in the court of King Amenophias IV.
THE RED MOON
The hills, a-throng with swarthy pine,
Press up the pale and hollow sky,
And the squat cypresses on high
Reach from the lit horizon-line.
They reach, they reach, with gnarled hands—
Malignant hags, obscene and dark—
While the red moon, a demons'-ark,
Is borne along the mystic lands.
