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THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE GOOSE 



£;y DAN BEARD 



CHAPTER VIII. 



TWO LITTLE MOCCASINED FEET 



EW people think in- 

 dependently. Our 

 minds are so bound 

 up in the network of 

 fables and legends, 

 handed down to us 

 through our parents 

 and nurses — God 

 bless them — that our 

 reason runs in the ruts of silly little 

 proverbs, the truth of which are never 

 doubted until accident suddenly reveals 

 their absurdity. Then we are as dumb- 

 founded and shocked, as if our most 

 sacred beliefs had been rudely uprooted 

 and proved false. 



Once when I recognized a former 

 society beau in the person of a dirty, 

 disreputable-looking tramp, I experi- 

 enced such a shock. The evident moral 

 catastrophe, which had transformed one 

 of the most winning and handsome 

 young gentlemen into a blear-eyed, 

 ragged wreck of a tramp, was not so 

 shocking to me as the fact that there 

 was not the least hint or trace of gentil- 

 ity in this man's appearance. 



Up to this time I had always believed 

 that there is a something about a born 

 gentleman's appearance which reveals 

 his gentle birth no matter what sort of 

 a disguise he may assume or in what 

 costume he may choose to masquerade. 

 Just as the halo reveals the saint, so 

 this intangible something, I was taught 

 to believe, revealed the born gentleman. 

 That there is not even a foundation of 

 truth in this popular fable has been 

 proved again and again, but people will 

 go on believing it for the next hundred 

 years. There is no bluer blood flowing 



in the veins of any New York man than 

 that which flows in the veins of the 

 aforesaid tramp ; yet no one would sus- 

 pect, from his appearance, that this hobo 

 sprang from any place higher than the 

 gutter, neither would they have the 

 slightest suspicion that the weird, shag- 

 gy-looking being in Darlinkle's Park 

 was the well-groomed, prosperous 

 young lawyer who so recently visited 

 Patrick Mullin's gun shop. In the short 

 time which had elapsed since the Mesa 

 caved in I had lost the brim to my hat ; 

 my fashionably-made hunting suit was 

 in tatters, and the rags flapped with 

 each passing breeze, exposing portions 

 of my bare body to the weather. Neither 

 shears nor razor had touched my head 

 or face, and the hair was not only long, 

 but sunburnt, and the separate hairs 

 split at their ends like miniature 

 brooms ; my nose was a bright scarlet 

 and covered with loose scales of blis- 

 tered skin, which added to the general 

 moth-eaten look of my 'head. My feet 

 were bound up in the raw skins of small 

 mammals, which did much to heighten 

 the wildness of my appearance and gave 

 a finishing touch to the grotesqueness 

 of my appearance. As far as appear- 

 ances go, the lawyer and member of the 

 New York bar association had reverted 

 to a savage. 



Although hard usage had made such 

 havoc with my tailor-made clothes, 

 neither time nor the elements seemed to 

 affect the personal appearance of my 

 big companion ; his buckskin suit was 

 apparently as fresh and clean as it was 

 on the first day I met him. There was 

 no magic in this ; Big Pete knew how 

 to clamber all day through a windfall 

 without leaving the greater part of his 



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