"EAST!"
You remember the scheme which we began talking about more than a year ago for boxing the compass with complete novels representative of the various points of direction? There was James B. Hendryx with "North!" which has just been published in book form at $1.75; and there was Charles Alden Seltzer with "West!" which was published in book form at the same price last season. At that time we asked you, our readers, who should complete the four major points. H. Bedford-Jones was almost unanimously chosen as the man to write the story for "East!" We are glad to say he has done so, and a ripping piece of work it is, too. In "East!" this author, whose Chinese stories fairly breathe the mysterious atmosphere of the Orient, takes us into the interior of China with a young American engineer who sets out to solve the secret of the Mountain Paradise of which no Oriental would speak and of which the Americans and Europeans heard the wildest rumors. Even its location was a mystery. Yet it did not take this Bedford-Jones hero long to find it, nor to solve the puzzle as to the identity of the goddess Si-wu who was reputed to reign over this ideal kingdom. The story, replete with action and adventure, leads the issue for next month.
Of the major points in the compass, it only remains now for some one of the best writers to give us "South!" Who shall it be? What sort of story do you suggest to complete the swing around the circle?
Robert Pinkerton will be with us again, in the next number, with "Downstream," a novelette of the Canadian bush country. And E. S. Pladwell, a newcomer for Short Stories, will be on hand with a realistic and engaging Western novelette.
Among the short story men will be Edwin Hunt Hoover with another story of Dutch and Blue Danube—of how Dutch sang cowboy songs to a fetching young lady, and played detective—and how they all danced to the tune of the tenderfoot who "looked like a wise old bronc"; Robert S. Lemmon, back with another of John Mather's adventures in Ecuador, this time among the Jivaro head-hunters; Herbert Louis McNary with one of those railroad telegraph stories many of you have been asking for—only this tale will be equally enjoyable to those who haven't the slightest interest in railroad or telegraph affairs.