prospect for the next six weeks.

There lived there, gradually dying, one Albrecht Dumont, lately head gamekeeper to nobility in the mountains of a Lost Province, and wearing the Iron Cross of 1870 on the ruins of a gigantic and bony chest, now as hollow as a Gothic ruin.

And if, like a thousand fellow patriots, he had been ordered to the Western World to watch and report to his Government the trend and tendency of that Western, English-speaking world, only his Government and his daughter knew it—a child of the Dark Star now grown to early womanhood, with a voice like a hermit thrush and the skill of a sorceress with anything that sped a bullet.

Before the Unknown was quite ready to meet the Athabasca blacksmith, Albrecht Dumont, dying faster now, signed his last report to the Government at Berlin, which his daughter Ilse had written for him—something about Canadian canals and stupid Yankees and their greed, indifference, cowardice, and sloth. xxv

xxv

Dumont’s mind wandered:

“After the well-born Herr Gott relieves me at my post,” he whispered, “do thou pick up my burden and stand guard, little Ilse.”

“Yes, father.”

“Thy sacred promise?”

“My promise.”

The next day Dumont felt better than he had felt for a year.

“Ilse, who is the short and broadly constructed American who comes now already every day to see thee and to hear thee sing?”

“His name is Eddie Brandes.”

“He is of the fight gesellschaft, not?”

“He should gain much money by the fight. A theatre in Chicago may he willingly control, in which light opera shall be given.”

“Is it for that he hears so willingly thy voice?”

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