sitor, and fought tigerishly. But for all his superb physical fitness
and strength it was like a child leaping upon a powerful gladiator.

With one mighty arm about his waist crushing him until his bones seemed
to crack and one huge hand cutting off the gasp of his throat, his body
was bent back in this gorilla embrace and a purple mist spread darkly
before his eyes. He had just enough tremor of consciousness left to know
that he hung limp and was being lifted and swung to and fro as one
swings a sack which he means to toss into a cart.

A few moments later the giant stood panting from his exertion as he
stretched out a steady hand for the pistol which lay on the window
ledge.

CHAPTER XXX

In a certain dictionary appears this substantive and this definition.
"PARASITE (par'-a-sit), n. one who frequents the table of a rich man and
gains his favor by flattery; a hanger-on; an animal or plant nourished
by another to which it attaches itself. (Greek.)"

If the animal or plant to which these other animals or plants attach
themselves goes first to its death, it is inevitable that its parasites
must speedily follow. There is no longer anything upon which to feed.

Hamilton Burton was gone and his parasites were withering. His will
provided a princely fortune for each member of his family--save his
sister, for whom they would care. But a will presupposes an estate--here
were only enormous liabilities and vanished assets.

This man's dream of power in a single hand--the hand that could
produce--had held so firm that he had never made any provision for their
independent fortunes while he lived and held at his finger ends the
touch of Midas.

Now he was dead. The coroner said, after viewing the evidence, he had
killed Haswell first and himself next--so they added to all the sins of
his overcharged account the crowning infamy of murder.

Those men who gather and print news have their fingers on the pulse-beat
of things and sometimes they develop an occult sense of prophecy.

On the night of Hamilton's death, as a certain city editor in Park row
read the proof of the "day's story," he called one of his reporters to
his desk and let him wait there while he himself rapidly penciled out
the "Stud-horse head" which should, tomorrow morning, shock many
breakfast-tables. Finally he glanced up, under a green eye-shade, and
shifted his dead cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"Smitherton," he instructed, "