The Last Woman

"Oh, go on, Radnor, and tell us about it!" urged one of his companions--another newspaper writer, evidently. "How'd you get next to it in the first place?"

"Oh, that was an accident--a series of accidents, it might be called. I don't mind telling you that part of it, without names. I mentioned a broken head, just now. Well, I had a line on a dandy story that was located out of town, and so I borrowed Tony Brokaw's automobile to go after it, because the story was located some distance off of the main line of travel. I was bowling along quite merrily, all alone in a car that is made to carry seven. It was just in the shank of the evening, and--"

"All this happened out of town, didn't it, Radnor?"

"Yes--a little way out. I came to a place where there had been a wreck, and--well--seated on the ground at the scene of the disaster, was the lady in the case, holding the head of the man in the case, in her lap, and moaning over it to beat the band. Standing beside them, like a big dog on guard, was a 'faithful servant.' It made a picture that couldn't be beaten, for suggestive points, provided the likenesses were made good enough. I took the whole thing in, at a glance, and sized the situation up rather correctly, too. The young woman was rattled clean out of her senses, and kept moaning something about it's being all her fault--I wasn't able to get just the gist of that part of it. She knew me by sight, and remembered my name. I offered my assistance, and then fell to examining the injured man. I discovered that he wasn't dead by a long shot, although he had been hurt quite badly, and he'd bled a lot. But I've been a war correspondent; I know all about first aid to the injured; I have seen wounds of all kinds, and it didn't take me long to estimate 'mister magusalem's' chances at about a thousand to one, for recovery. I made the chauffeur help me, and together we toted the wounded man to my car, and put him in the tonneau. The lady climbed in beside him--and ordered her chauffeur to follow her, and help her with the injured man. All the time, I was keeping up a devil of a thinking, wondering what it was all about. You see, I knew who the man and the woman were, but I couldn't fix the facts of the case sufficiently clear to satisfy me. I knew it would be a dandy sensation for the morning papers, but there was yet plenty of time to get it in, over a wire--besides, I wanted it to go in late, so that other papers than the one I gave it to, couldn't get a line on it. I got into my car--that is, the one I had borrowed, you understand--wondering where I would take the bunch, when another car stopped alongside of us, and a man, also alone, asked what was the matter. I found out that he was a doctor, and got him to take a look at the wounded man. To make a long story short, he dressed the wound then and there, said there wasn't any immediate danger--and a lot more--and went on his way. That decided me. I knew of a place about twenty miles away where I could take them, where the man would have the best of care, and--best of all--where I could fix things up to keep everything quiet till I found out all the facts. You see, I scented the greatest sensational story of my career--and I wasn't far out, either, if ever I get all of it."