h of gold was brought into Timber
Town in nine months; and I have sought to reproduce the characters and
atmosphere of Timber Town, rather than to resuscitate the harrowing
details of a dreadful crime. I have tried to show how it was possible
for such a tragedy to take place, as was that which so absorbed Mark
Twain, and why it was that the tale stirred in him an interest which
somewhat surprised Carlyle Smythe.

Here in Timber Town I met them--the unassuming celebrity, and the young
_entrepreneur_. The great humorist, alack! will never read the tale as I
have told it, but I am hopeful, that in "The Tale of Timber Town," his
erstwhile companion and the public will perceive the literary value of
the theme which arrested the attention of so great a writer as Mark
Twain.

"The Tale of Timber Town" first appeared in the pages of _The Otago
Witness_, whose proprietors I desire to thank for introducing the story
to the public, and for the courtesy of permitting me to reserve the
right of reproduction of the work in book-form.

_Timber Town._ A.A.G.

PROEM.

Timber Town lay like a toy city at the bottom of a basin. Its
wooden houses, each placed neatly in the middle of a little
garden-plot, had been painted brightly for the delight of the
children. There were whole streets of wooden shops, with verandahs
in front of them to shade the real imported goods in their windows;
and three wooden churches, freshly painted to suit the tastes of their
respective--and respectable--congregations; there was a wooden Town Hall,
painted grey; a wooden Post Office, painted brown; a red college, where
boys in white disported upon a green field; a fawn-coloured school,
with a playground full of pinafored little girls; and a Red Tape
Office--designed in true Elizabethan style, with cupolas, vanes,
fantastic chimney-tops, embayed windows, wondrous parapets--built
entirely of wood and painted the colour of Devonshire cream, with
grit in the paint to make it look like stone.

Along the streets ran a toy tram, pulled by a single horse, which was
driven by a man who moved his arms just as if they were real, and who
puffed genuine clouds of smoke from his tobacco-pipe. Ladies dressed
in bright colours walked up and down the trim side-paths, with gaudy
sunshades in their hands; knocked at doors, went calling, and looked
into the shop windows, just like actual people.

It was the game of pl