ROOKED VALLEY RAILROAD,
WITH LARGE "TERMINAL FACILITIES," AND MAKES AN ADVENTURE INTO A
LONG-MEDITATED CRIME.

Mr. Belcher had never made money so rapidly as during the summer
following his removal to New York. The tides of wealth rolled in faster
than he could compute them. Twenty regiments in the field had been armed
with the Belcher rifle, and the reports of its execution and its
popularity among officers and men, gave promise of future golden
harvests to the proprietor. Ten thousand of them had been ordered by the
Prussian Government. His agents in France, Russia, Austria, and Italy,
all reported encouragingly concerning their attempts to introduce the
new arm into the military service of those countries. The civil war had
advanced the price of, and the demand for, the products of his mills at
Sevenoaks. The people of that village had never before received so good
wages, or been so fully employed. It seemed as if there were work for
every man, woman and child, who had hands willing to work. Mr. Belcher
bought stocks upon a rising market, and unloaded again and again,
sweeping into his capacious coffers his crops of profits. Bonds that
early in the war could be bought for a song, rose steadily up to par.
Stocks that had been kicked about the market for years, took on value
from day to day, and asserted themselves as fair investments. From
these, again and again, he harvested the percentage of advance, until
his greed was gorged.

That he enjoyed his winnings, is true; but the great trouble with him
was that, beyond a certain point, he could show nothing for them. He
lived in a palace, surrounded by every appointment of luxury that his
wealth could buy. His stables held the choicest horse-flesh that could
be picked out of the whole country, from Maine to Kentucky. His diamond
shirt-studs were worth thousands. His clothes were of the most expensive
fabrics, made at the top of the style. His wife and children had money
lavished upon them without stint. In the direction of show, he could do
no more. It was his glory to drive in the Park alone, with his servants
in livery and his four horses, fancying that he was the observed of all
observers, and the envied of all men.

Having money still to spend, it must find a market in other directions.
He gave lavish entertainments at his club, at which wine flowed like
water, and at which young and idle men were gathered in and debauched,
night after night. He was surrounded b