The Price   By: Francis Lynde (1856-1930)

BY

FRANCIS LYNDE

AUTHOR OF THE TAMING OF RED BUTTE WESTERN, ETC.

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NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

Published by Arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published May, 1911

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To

MR. LATHROP BROCKWAY BULLENE

SOLE FRIEND OF MY BOYHOOD, WHO WILL RECALL BETTER THAN ANY THE YOUTHFUL MORAL AND SOCIAL SEED TIME WHICH HAS LED TO THIS LATER HARVESTING OF CONCLUSION, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. AT CHAUDIÈRE'S 1

II. SPINDRIFT 9

III. THE RIGHT OF MIGHT 16

IV. IO TRIUMPHE! 26

V. THE BELLE JULIE 34

VI. THE DECK HAND 44

VII. GOLD OF TOLOSA 53

VIII. THE CHAIN GANG 59

IX. THE MIDDLE WATCH 68

X. QUICKSANDS 75

XI. THE ANARCHIST 84

XII. MOSES ICHTHYOPHAGUS 94

XIII. GRISWOLD EMERGENT 110

XIV. PHILISTIA 116

XV. THE GOTHS AND VANDALS 126

XVI. GOOD SAMARITANS 143

XVII. GROPINGS 154

XVIII. THE ZWEIBUND 165

XIX. LOSS AND GAIN 175

XX. THE CONVALESCENT 187

XXI. BROFFIN'S EQUATION 201

XXII. IN THE BURGLAR PROOF 218

XXIII. CONVERGING ROADS 234

XXIV. THE FORWARD LIGHT 248

XXV. THE BRIDGE OF JEHENNAM 260

XXVI. PITFALLS 274

XXVII. IN THE SHADOWS 286

XXVIII. BROKEN LINKS 295

XXIX. ALL THAT A MAN HATH 312

XXX. THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES 332

XXXI. NARROWING WALLS 347

XXXII. THE LION'S SHARE 354

XXXIII. GATES OF BRASS 368

XXXIV. THE ABYSS 375

XXXV. MARGERY'S ANSWER 384

XXXVI. THE GRAY WOLF 396

XXXVII. THE QUALITY OF MERCY 408

XXXVIII. THE PENDULUM SWING 416

XXXIX. DUST AND ASHES 428

XL. APPLES OF ISTAKHAR 438

XLI. THE DESERT AND THE SOWN 448

THE PRICE

I

AT CHAUDIÈRE'S

In the days when New Orleans still claimed distinction as the only American city without trolleys, sky scrapers, or fast trains was it yesterday? or the day before? there was a dingy, cobwebbed café in an arcade off Camp Street which was well beloved of newspaperdom; particularly of that wing of the force whose activities begin late and end in the small hours.

"Chaudière's," it was called, though I know not if that were the name of the round faced, round bodied little Marseillais who took toll at the desk. But all men knew the fame of its gumbo and its stuffed crabs, and that its claret was neither very bad nor very dear. And if the walls were dingy and the odors from the grille pungent and penetrating at times, there went with the white sanded floor, and the marble topped tables for two, an Old World air of recreative comfort which is rarer now, even in New Orleans, than it was yesterday or the day before.

It was at Chaudière's that Griswold had eaten his first breakfast in the Crescent City; and it was at Chaudière's again that he was sharing a farewell supper with Bainbridge, of the Louisianian . Six weeks lay between that and this; forty odd days of discouragement and failure superadded upon other similar days and weeks and months. The breakfast, he remembered, had been garnished with certain green sprigs of hope; but at the supper table he ate like a barbarian in arrears to his appetite and the garnishings were the bitter herbs of humiliation and defeat.