Tales of Trail and Town

n of movement, but on nearer view resolved itself into straggling troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons, two noncommissioned officers a

ur to hour and day to day. Dust-a parching alkaline powder that cracked the skin-everywhere, clinging to the hubs and spokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by movement, incrusting the cavalryman from his high boots to the crossed sabres of his cap; going off in small puffs like explosions under the plunging hoofs of the horses, but too heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking

k a d-d sight more like a hoss-stealin' Apache, and we don't want any of your psalm-singing, big-talkin' peacemakers interferin' with our ways of treatin' pizen,-you hear me? I'm shoutin',' sezee. With that the dark-complected man's eyes began to gl

then?" said the

himself, as they would drop on an Injin or a nigger. 'Look here, Bill,' sez I, 'I'm escortin' this stranger under gov'ment orders, and I'm responsible for him. I ain't allowed to waste gov'ment powder and shot on YOUR kind onless I've orders, but if y

alry

to the authorities, and a jury of h

ould have issued his orders to bring in Bill dead or alive, and the 30th would have managed to bring him in DEAD! Then y

ic trimming of

r Congressman inter

Injins, just as them Abolitionists looked arter slaves. And get hated just

th. And ef gov'ment would only make up its mind how to treat 'em, instead of one day pretendin' to be their 'Great Father' and treatin' them like babies, and the next makin' treaties

ou've hit it, Softy. That's the argument of that Congr

did the ke

otin' or skeerin' off the Injins' nat'ral game, and our provender! Darn my skin ef there'll be much to scout for ef this goes on. And b'gosh!-of they aren't now ringin' in a lot of titled forriners to hunt 'big game,' as they call it,-Lord This-and-That and Count So-and-So,-all of 'em with letters to the general from the Washington cabinet to show 'hospitality,' or from millionaires who've bin hobnobbin' with 'em in the old country. And darn my skin

o be seen,-the illimitable plain and the sinking sun were all that met the eye. But the horse continued to struggle, and the wagon stopped. Then it was discovered that the horse of an adjacent trooper was also laboring under the same mysterious excitement, and at the same moment wagon No. 3 halted. The i

inding-up" of those evolutions, until the horseless wagons reappeared again, motionless, fronting the four points of the compass, thus making the radii of a smaller inner circle, into which the teams of the wagons as well as the troopers' horses were closely "wound up" and densely packed together in an immovable mass. As the circle became smaller the troopers leaped from their horses,-which, however, continued to bli

ss the empty plain, returning as empty of result. In an hour the horses were sufficiently calmed and fed, the camp slowly unwound itself, the teams were set to and were led out of the circle, and as the rays of the setting sun

in width. Here he not only would have completely lost sight of his own cavalcade, but have come upon another thrice its length. For here was a trailing line of jog-trotting dusky shapes, some crouching on dwarf ponies half their size, some trailing lances, lodge-poles, rifles, women and children after them, all moving with a monotonous rhythmic motion as marked as

her. Then suddenly the dusky caravan seemed to arise, stretch itself out, and swept a

it had been revealed to him from the scornful lips of Gray Eagle a year ago; he knew her strangely excitable nature; besides, she was a wife now, and the secret would have to be shared with her husband. When he himself had recovered from the shock of the revelation, two things had impressed themselves upon his reserved and gloomy nature: a hor

f a raided settler's cabin, whose owner, however, had forgotten his own repeated provocations, or the trespass of which he was proud. But Atherly's unaffected and unobtrusive zeal, his fixity of purpose, his undoubted courage, his self-abnegation, and above all the gentle melancholy and half-philosophical wisdom of this new missionary, won him the respect and assistance of even the most callous or the most skeptical of officials. The Secretary of the Interior had given him carte blanche; the President trusted him, and it was said had granted him extraordinary powers. Oddly enough it was only his own Californian

y amazed. In vain did the interpreter assure him that the wife in question, Little Daybreak, was a wife only in name, a prudent reserve kept by Gray Eagle in the orphan daughter of a brother brave. But Peter was adamant. Whatever answer the interpreter returned to Gray Eagle he never knew. But to his alarm he presently found that the Indian maiden Little Daybreak had been aware of Gray Eagle's offer, and had with pathetic simplicity already considered herself Peter's spouse. During his stay at the encampment he found her sitting before his lodge every morning. A girl of sixteen in years, a child of six in intellect, she flashed her little white teeth upon him when he lifted his tent flap, content to receive his grave, melancholy bow, or patiently trotted at his side carrying things he did not want, which she had taken from the lodge. When he sat down to work, she remained seated at a distance, looking at him with glistening beady eyes like blackberries set in milk, and softly scratching the little bare brown ankle of one foot with the turned-in toes of the other, after an infantine fashion. Yet after he had left-a still single man, solely though his interpreter's diplomacy, as he always believed-he was very worried as to the

elay his departure until her arrival, a decision with which the commanding officer concurred, as a foraging party had that morning discovered trac

ut her health, and the strange fits of excitement under which she occasionally labored. Remembering the episode of the Californian woods three years ago, P

uarrel?" asked

ebody else, and is strange! Sometimes when we are in company she stands alone and stares at everybody, without saying a word, as if she didn't understand them. Or else she gets painfully excited and dances all night until sh

h the sudden conviction that this was no time

approach a subject upon which their wives talk openly, "that it may be owing to Jenny's peculiar state of heal

! This was a complication he had not thought of. No! It was too late to tell his secr

scinating. The officers evidently thought so too, and when the young lieutenant of the commissary escort, fresh from West Point and Flirtation Walk, gallantly attached himself to her, the ladies were slightly scandalized at the naive air of camaraderie with which Mrs. Lascelles received his attentions. Even Peter was a little disturbed. Only Lascelles, delighted with his wife's animation, and pleased at her success, gazed at her with unqualified admiration. Indeed, he was so satisfied with he

nothing abnormal in it. But he was not prepared for the effect produced upon THEM at her first appearance. A few of the braves gathered eagerly around her, and one even addressed her in his own guttural tongue, at which she betrayed a slight feeling of alarm; and Peter saw with satisfaction that she drew close to him. Knowing that his old interpreter and Gray Eagle were of a different and hostile tribe a hundred miles away, and tha

ptivity against your plighted faith to them! You'll excuse me," he went on with an attempt to recover his gravity, "troubling you with their d-d fool talk, and you won't say anything to HER about

demanded Peter, wi

little skeered of the braves, and I've kept them away. SHE'S

ust cloak, hat, parasol, and gloves, and were parading before her in their grotesque finery, apparently as much to her childish excited amusement as their own. She was even answering their gesticulations with equivalent gestures in her attempt to understand them, and trying amidst shouts of laughter to respond to the monotonous chant of the old women who were zigzagging a dance before her. With the gayly striped

at deal better than those gloomy chiefs, and I think I understand them almost. And do you know, Peter, somehow I seem to have known them all before. And those dear little papooses, aren't they ridiculously lovely. I only wish"-she stopped, for Peter had somewhat hurriedly taken the Indian boy from her arms and restored it to the frightened mother. A singular change came over her face, and she glanced at him quickly. But she resumed, with a heightened color, "I like it ever so much better here than d

e said curtly. "I find I have

e cabin. Luckily the presence of their cavalry escort rendered any outbreak impossible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race kept Peter from an

te impressions were as volatile as they were childlike. He devoted himself to his government report, and while

in his abstention that relieved him from the attitude of a prig or an "example." Mrs. Lascelles was popular with the officers, and accepted more tolerantly by the wives, since they recognized her harmlessness. Once or twice she was found apparently interested in the gesticulations of a few "friendlies" who had penetrated the parade ground of the fort to barter beads and wampum. The colonel was obliged at last to caution her again

faith in those creat

er arched nose like a charger. "I'm not afrai

ut these feeble old women and innocent children are always selected to tort

ight, however, the riders did not appear at dinner, and there was considerable uneasiness mingled with some gossip throughout the garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at his little moustache

ccepted the lieutenant's story without comment or question; he knew his own sister too well to believe that she had lent herself to a flirtation with Forsyth; indeed, he had rather

cord of his trousers. "It's not for meeself, sorr, although the ould man was harrd on me, nor for the leddy, your sister, but

rd the story," said Peter. "

sorr. They never got lost, sorr. We was all three together from the toime we shtarted till we got back, and it's the love av God that we ever got back at all. A

mean?" said P

ells her she must mount and be off. And she turns upon him, bedad, like a tayger, and bids him be off himself. Then he comes to me and sez he, 'Oi don't like the look o' this, Cassidy,' sez he; 'the woods behind is full of braves,' sez he. 'Thrue for you, leftenant,' sez Oi, 'it's into a trap that the leddy hez led us, God save her!' 'Whisht,' he sez, 'take my horse, it's the strongest. Go beside her, and when Oi say the word lift her up into the saddle before ye, and gallop like blazes. Oi'll bring up the rear and the other horse.' Wid that we changed horses and cantered up to where she was standing, and he gives the word when she isn't lookin', and Oi grabs her up-she sthrugglin' like mad but not utterin' a cry-and Oi lights out for the trail agin. And sure enough the braves made as if they would folly, but the leftenant throws the reins of her horse over the horn of his saddle, and whips out his revolver and houlds 'em back till I've got well away to th

he colonel to-night,

sayin' that the LEDDY tould you,-it would only be the merest taste of a lo

ght get recreation beyond the fort,-had presumed to tell her what SHE must do! As if SHE was one of those stupid officers' wives or sisters! And it never would have happened if he-Peter-had let her remain at the reservation with the Indian agent's wife, or if "Charley" (the gentle Lascelles) were here! HE would have let her go, or taken her there. Besides all the while she was among friends; HIS, Peter's

ries had come to his ears regarding the attitude of the reservation towards him. He thought she ought to return home as quickly as possible. Fortunately an opportunity offered. The general commanding had advised him of the visit to the fort of a party of English tourists who had been shooting in the vicinity, and who were making the fort the farthest point of their western excursion. There were three or four ladies in the party, and as they would be returning to th

ot been thus far classified as "hostile." There had been no "Ghost Dancing" nor other indication of disturbance. The colonel had not deemed it necessary to send out an exemplary force, or make a counter demonstration. The incident was allowed to drop. At the reservation Peter had ignored the previous conduct of the chiefs towards him; had with

wild and secluded; frequented only by the women and children of the fort, within whose protecting bounds it stood, and to whose formal "parade," and trim white and green cottage "quarters," it afforded an agreeable relief. As he rode abstractedly forward under the low cottonwood vault he felt a strange influence stealing over him, an influence that was not only a present experience but at the same time a far-off memory. The concave vault a

espectable, as a crest to her refined head, and as historic as a Lely canvas. She wore a flannel shirt, belted in at her slight waist with a band of yellow leather, defining her small hips, and short straight pleatless skirts that fell to her trim ankles and buckled leather shoes. She was fresh and cool, wholesome and clean, free and unfettered; indeed, her beauty seemed only an afterthought or accident. So much so th

r rather on your pet protege's, the Indian's: you remember Major Atherly's tomb? And to think that all the while we didn't know that you were a public man and a great political reformer, and had a fad like this. Why, we'd have got up meetings for you, and my father would have presided,-he's always fond of doing these things,-and we'd have passed resolutions, and

s old beliefs, were whirling through his brain to the music of this clear young voice. And by some cruel irony of circumsta

stammered with a faint

w a slight shade in his face, and changed the subject. "And we have had such a jolly time; we have met so many pleasant people; and they've all been so awfully good to us, from the officials and officers down to the plainest working-man. And all so naturally too-so different from us. I sometimes think we have to work ourselves up to be civil to strangers." "No," she went on gayly, in answer to his protesting gesture, and his stammered reminder of his own reception. "No. You came as a sort of kinsman, and Sir Edward knew all about you before he asked you down to the Grange-or even

in proportion as his forebodings became more gloomy. Would his sister's p

non sequitur, that, however, had its painful significance to Peter, "I do want you to show me some Indians-your Indians, you know YOUR friends. I've seen some of them, of

Peter quickly. "It is not, I believe, con

ices! And I really want to like them as you do. Only," she laughed again, "it seems strange that YOU, of all men, should have interested yourself in people so totally different to you. But what will be the result

t in a political problem and the utter indifference of his own countrywomen. Here was a girl scarcely out of her teens, with no pretension to being a blue stocking, with half the a

o anything, do they? I thought that was understood. But," she added with feminine quickness, "and I suppos

seem to be his voice that said, "I can answer by an argument still m

n his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was never contemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness of some youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of his superiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke. But it was only for a moment; her yout

s that most people found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless, that Lady Elfrida now for the first time felt a sudden and not altogether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she had approached with such innocent fearlessness. There was a new light in he

tten, but I'm so glad. I want you to know my brother Reg

, was one of those government chappies, and so awfully keen on Indian politics. "Friddy" had been the first to find it out, but they thought she was chaffing. At which "Friddy," who had suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest of schoolgirls in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like an Indian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admiringly upon Reggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, moved on towards the fort, presently meeting "Georgy," the six-foot Guardsman cousin in extraordinary tweeds and flannel shirt; Lord Runnybroke, uncle of Friddy, middle-aged and flan

hat her family tacitly recognized it, and frequently appealed to him with the introduction, "Friddy says you can tell us," or "You and Friddy had better arrange it between you." Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an agreeable surprise, owing to Lady Elfrida's frank and sympathetic prepossession, which Jenny could not resist. In a few moments they were walking together in serious and apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter's wonder it was the "Lady Elfrida" side of the English girl's nature that seemed to have attracted Jenny, and not the playfulnes

their respect for the giver, although they were more grateful for it than the average American woman. Lady Elfrida found the officers very entertaining and gallant. Accustomed to the English officer, and his somewhat bored way of treating his profession and his duties, she may have been amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of these youthful warriors, who aspired to appear as nothing but soldiers, when she contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives who a

the vicinity of Green Spring, when Peter, plunged in his report, looked up to find his sister entering his office. Her face w

enjoying yourself

ing her eyes suddenly to his, "why are YOU not? You a

gayety. "But look at the report-it is only half f

s. Lascelles, with an odd laugh. "But you never told me about these people before, Peter

ot repress. "But they are very pleasant," he added quickly, "and very simple a

they feel themselves superior,-just

, Jenny, as impels me to be just to the Indian," he said with affecte

mistakable, but Peter ignored it, and so apparently did she, as she said

said Pet

esk. His sister looked up. "I'm afraid I'm as bad as Lady Elfrida in keeping you from your India

affected unconcern, yet with a feel

hand, "did you ever think that in the interests of these poor Indians, you know, purely for the sake of your belie

to his sister; secondly, that some one had told her of Little Daybreak. Each was equally disturbing. But he recove

sacrifice?" she said, slowly

er lofty my intention was and however great the benefit to them in the end, it would still be a sacrifice in the present." He saw his own miserab

o darker than I am, but so beautiful. Even in her little cotton gown and blanket, with only a string of beads around her throat, she was as pretty as any one here. And I dare say she could be educated and appear as well as

the moment her face changed again, and as she left the office, wit

im from loneliness and curiosity, and, perhaps, he thought with a sad smile, from a little sisterly jealousy of the young girl who ha

s the more strongly, and that against the civilizing habits and even costumes of the half breed, certain Indian defects appear the more strongly as in the case of the color line of the quadroon and octoroon, but it must not be forgotten that these are only the contrasts of specific improvement, and the inferen

ed by the butternut copse, chance-sown by bird or beast in the saturated ground. In Indian legend the "sink" commemorated the equally providential escape of a great tribe who, surrounded by enemies, appealed to the Great Spirit for protection, and was promptly conveyed by subterraneous passages to the banks of the Great River a hundred miles away. Its outer edges were already invaded by the dust of the plain, but within them ran cool recesses, a few openings, and the ashes of some long-forgotten camp-fires. To-day its sombre shadows were relieved by bright colored dresses, th

broke, complacently seating herself on a stump, "and I shouldn't be surprised to see a church tower t

"Did you ever see such grotesque creatures in their cast-off boots and trouser

the lively Mrs. Captain Joyce, "that's what gets me! You know," she went on confidentially, "that cranks and reforme

they all do. At least he expects to get the reforms he wan

responded Lady Runnybroke

Friddy sa

r. Atherly is very much in earnest, and sincerely devoted to his work. And in a man of his wealth and position here it's most estimable. My dear," sh

her husband, for she seemed to be staring straight before her into the recesses of t

and Friddy have been nearly an hour looking for a place to spread our luncheon baskets. I wish they'd

ge a party as we will be when the gentlemen come in," returned Lad

cken and salad, too, Lady Runnybr

f that's one of your husband's delightful American stories, do tell us. I never CAN get Runnybroke to tell me

animation, color, and slight excitability that became the responsible leader of the little party. They neither apologized or alluded to their delay. They had selected a spot on the other side of the copse, and the baskets could be sent around by the wagon; they had seen a slight haze on the plain towards the east which betokened the vicinity of the rest of the p

ed down. Nevertheless, the luncheon was a successful festivity: the gentlemen were loud in the praises of their gracious hostess; the delicacies she had provided by express from distant stations, and much that was distinctly English and despoiled from her own stores, were gratefully appreciated by the officers of a remote frontier garrison. Lady Elfrida's health was toasted by the gallant colonel in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. Lord Runnybroke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, but with the steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legislator, but the M. P. summed up a slightly exaggerated but well meaning episode by pointing out that it was on occasions like this that the two nations showed their common ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled the rosy, excited, but still clear-headed Friddy; the plates were whisked away like magic after each delicacy, by the military serva

fficulty with them?"

the beggars whenever we met them,-and we met one or two gypsy bands of t

int of fact," said P

s, I see-of course, looking at it from their point of view. By Jove, I dare say the beg

," said Pet

arge covered carryall for the guests, and the two saddle horses for Mrs. Lascelles and Lady Elfrida, who had ridden there to

rs could be kept from opening out on both sides of the highway to escape it. The whole atmosphere seemed charged with it; it even appeared in a long bank to the right, rising and obscuring the declining sun. But they were already within sight of the fort and the little copse beside it. The

mpatience. "Tell Mr. Forsyth to

's only Mrs. Lascelles going to show Friddy where the squaws and children bathe," sa

concern. "It's another folly of my sister's! pra

and," turning to Cassidy, as Peter gal

bear an equal share of the blame. He reached the edge of the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plunged into its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt his arms and knees quickly seized from behind. So sudden and unexpected was the attack that he first thought hi

ting men, the pale-faced girl and the squaw he cal

gue in his ears, all his own Indian blood seemed to leap and tingle through his veins. His eyes fl

girl is not sent back to her people before the sun sets, then the yellow jackets will swarm the wood

would call to his fighting men thr

o say to the chief of the yellow jackets that he and his sister are with his brothers, and all is peace. But

eir own stoic calmness, that they at once mechanically loosened the thongs of plaited deer

eadful paint. They motioned her to dismount, and said something she did not understand, but she declined, knowing that she had heard Mr. Atherly and the orderly following her, and feeling no fear. And sure enough Mr. Atherly presently came up with a couple of braves, apologized to her for their mistake, but begged her to return to the fort at once and assure the colonel that everything was right, and that he and his sister were

believe this affair is purely a local one, and has nothing whatever to do with the suspicious appearances we noticed this afternoon, or the presence of so l

and his sister as a host

as noticed some disaffection among these 'friendlies,' and he fears that our sending a party to his assistance might precipitate a collision. Or he may have reason to believe that this stopping of t

d him. We said nothing, of course," returned Captain Fleetwood,

d the colonel, as the officers

one on the veranda

ed Mr. Athe

s s

n he gave the messag

s s

anything else you saw, of his o

what I sa

what wa

as she rode away, and then wheel abou

of that?" said the col

t was shacri

an?" said the c

y, "that he was givin' up hisself a

. "Ask Mr. Forsyth to come to me p

r table, and the guests heard the quick rattle of a wagon turning out of the road gate-but the colonel did not return. An indefinable uneasiness crept over the little party, which reached its climax i

t collected. Lady Elfrida, rather white, but patient, asked a few questions in a voice whose contralto was rather deepened. One and all wished to "do something"-anything "to help"-and one and all rebelled that the colonel had be

d hats,-but apparently not the same men; the half lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a grim tension in all their faces, a set abstraction in all their acts. Then there was the rolling of heavy wheels in the road, and the two horses of the am

assed voice fell upon his ear. He turned quickly

s, you know," he stammered. "My sis

The surgeon added something in a voice sti

turned away wi

e!" Captain Fle

ready

ietly. "File your first half company befor

indignantly upon him, they saw that in his face that held them in awe. What they saw in the ambulance did not transpire; what they felt was not known. Strangely enough, however, what they repressed themselves was mysteriously communicated to their horses, who snorted and quivered with eagerness and impatience as they rode back aga

Fleetwood passed Colonel Carter the two men's eyes met. The colonel s

e little column trotted away as evenly as on parade. But those who climbed the roof of the barracks a quarter of an hour later saw, in the moonlight, a white cloud dri

s actively deploring the merciless and indiscriminating vengeance of the military; and so the problem that Peter had vainly attempted to solve was left an open question. There were those, too, who believed that Peter had never sacrificed himself and his sister for the sake of another, but had provoked and incensed the savages by the blind arrogance of a reformer.

d fashion. She was particularly kind to all Americans,-barring, I fear, a few pretty-faced, finely-frocked title-hunters,-told stories of the Far West, and had theories of a people of which they knew little, cared less, and believed to be vulgar. But I think she found a new

AMER

own land, yet with practical common sense he adjusted himself temporarily to his new surroundings. In doing so, he had much to learn of others, and others had something to learn of him; he found that the best people had a high simplicity equal to his own; he corrected their impressions that a Southerner had more or less negro blood in his veins, and that, although a slave owner, he did not necessarily represent an aristocracy. With a distinguishing dialect of which he was not ashamed, a frank familiarity of approach joined to an invincible courtesy of manner, which made even his republican "Sir" equal to the ordinary address to royalty, he was always respecte

o return in a faint hope of doing something to allay it, taking his wife with him, but leaving his daughter at school in Paris. At about this time, however, a single cannon shot fired at the national flag on Fort Sumter shook the whole country, reverberated even in Europe, sending some earnest hearts back to do battle for State or country, sending others less earnest into inglorious exile, but, saddest of all! knocking over the school bench of a girl at the Paris pensionnat. For that shot had also sunk Maynard's ships

r smartest, latest dresses, jewels, and trinkets at a very good figure, and put the money away against the Conservatoire in the future. She worked hard, she endured patiently everything but commiseration. "I'd have you know, Miss," she said to Miss de Laine, daughter of the famous house of Musslin, de Laine & Co., of New York, "that whatever my position HERE may be, it is not one to be patronized by a tapeseller's daughter. My case is not such a very 'sad one,' thank you, and I prefer not to be spoken of as having seen 'better days' by people who haven't. There! Don't rap your desk with your pencil when you speak to me, or I shall call out 'Cash!' before the whole class." So regrettable an exhibition of temper naturally alienated certain of her compatriots who were unduly sensitive of their origin, and as they formed a considerable colony who were then reveling in the dregs of the Empire and the la

en had an innocent camaraderie with street sweepers, kiosk keepers, and lemonade venders, and the sternness of conciergedom melted before her. In this wholesome, practical child's experience she naturally avoided or overlooked what would not have interested a child, and so kept her freshness an

name, ma

the young girl naiv

allantly pulling at his mustache

eyes to his and said gravely, "I

could take care of herself. Ah, if her son Jacques were only as reasonable! Miss Maynard might have made more friends had she cared; she might have joined hands with the innocent and light-hearted poverty of the coterie of her own artistic compatriots, but something in her blood made her distrust Bohemianism; her poverty was something to her too sacred for jest or companionship; her own artistic aim was too long and earnest for mere temporary enthusiasms. She might have found friends in her own profession. Her professor opened the sacred doors of his family circle to the young American girl. She appreciated the delicacy, refinement, and cheerful equal responsibilities of that household, so widely different from the accepted Anglo-Saxon belief, but there were certain restrictions that rightly or wrongly galled her

eep them into his pocket-handkerchief. There was nothing very strange in this; she had seen something like it before in these humbler cafes,-it was a crib for the birds in the Tuileries Gardens, or the poor artist's substitute for rubber in correcting his crayon drawing! But there was a singular flushing of his handsome face in the act that stirred her with a strange pity, made her own cheek hot with sympathy, and compelled her to look at him more attentively. The back that was turned towards her was broad-shouldered and symmetrical, and showed a frame that seemed to require stronger nourishment than the simple coffee and roll he had ord

efore them. Her own art was too serious to permit her much sympathy with another, and in the chatter of her companions with the young painters a certain levity disturbed her. Suddenly she stopped. She had reached a less frequented room; there was a single easel at one side, but the stool before it was empty, and its late

ese interruptions, and worked on steadily without turning his head. As the other footsteps passed her she was emboldened to take a position behind him and glance at his work. It was an architectural study of one of Canaletto's palaces. Even her inexperienced eyes were struck with its vigor and fidelity.

nard in English, "but I di

ace for the first time. "Ah

am Am

ightened.

ht so,"

y bad F

up to see if the woman you wer

-you did not murmur a compliment t

e was relieved to see that he evidently had not recognized her

io must be served with both hands. I have

soldier," she said

dle nothing larger than a palette knife. Then I came home to

ina," she said quietly

e with the Northerners. I am an orphan,-a pupil of the Conservatoire." It was never her custom to allude to her family or her lost fortunes; sh

, with a gentle smile, "At all events you and I will not quarrel

I was alone in Paris," she sai

he missing arm, and opened a portfolio of sketches at his side. "Perhaps they may interest you more than

main,-all very fresh and striking. Yet, with the recollection of his poverty in her mind, she could not help saying

It is, perhaps, not very ambitious," he added thoughtfully, "but," brightening

t they were his-in the cheap shops in the Rue Poissoniere, ticketed at a few francs ea

Paris, against the blue sky she knew so well. There, too, were the gritty crystals and rust of the tiles, the red, brown, and greenish mosses of the gutters, and lower down the more vivid colors of gerani

seen this?

igh for such effects. You would be surprised if y

rupted gently,

ated, gazing a

in the left-hand corner, half-hidden by an irregular chimney-stack. The curtains were closely

open, and the room seemed empty from early mor

oom," she s

erty. "And mine," he said gayly, "from which this view was ta

ancing at her companions, who were ostentatiously lingering at a little distance, she became conscious for the first time that she was talking quite confidentially to a very handsome man, and for a brief moment wished, she knew not why, that he had been plainer. This momentary restraint was accented by the entrance of a lady and gentleman, rather distingue in dress and bearing, who had stopped bef

ined her c

iption to restore his arm, ma petite, if there is a modern sculptor who can do it. You might suggest it to the two Russian cognoscenti, who ha

man of mine," sa

speak French," said mad

ith equal vivacity. Nevertheless,

's sketch, must have been a transfigured memory of her own. Then she glanced curiously along the line of windows level with hers. All these, however, with their occasional revelations of the menage behind them, were also familiar to her, but now she began to wonder which was his. A singular instinct at last impelled her to lift her eyes. Higher in the corner house, and so near the roof that it scarcel

lked with him as far as the Conservatoire. In the light of the open street she thought he looked pale and hollow-cheeked; she wondered if it was from hi

e brought me luc

d her eyes

fered me a fabulous sum for one or two of my sketches. It didn't seem to me quite the square thing to old Favel t

n indignantly; "you

der la

ly didn't avail, for they wanted

dred times more than what you"-She stopped; she did not like to reveal what he g

do not mean to sell it," he said simply, y

foregone conclusion of her teachers on account of some intrinsic defect in her voice. She did not know until long afterwards that the handsome painter's nervousness on that occasion had attracted even the sympathy of some of those who were near him. For she herself had been calm and collected. No one else knew how crushing was the blow which shattered her hopes and made her three years of labor and privation a useless struggle. Yet though no longer a pu

r all! For himself, he, Ostrander, would much rather see that satin-faced Parisian girl who had got the prize smirking at the critics from the boards of the Grand Opera than his countrywoman! The Conservatoire settled things for Paris, but Paris wasn't the world! America would come to the fore yet in art of all kinds-there was a free academy there now-there should be a Conservatoire of its own. Of course, Paris schooling and Paris experience weren't to be despised in art; but, thank heav

d who had dodged these lessons from her patriotic father, but had enjoyed the woods, the parks, the terraces, and particularly the restaurant at the park gates. That day they took it like a boy and girl,-with the amused, omniscient tolerance of youth for a past so inferior to the present. Ostrander thought this gray-eyed, independen

nt, thought them the incarnation of Love. Something in their manifest equality of condition kept even the vainest and most susceptible of spectators from attempted rivalry or cynical interruption. And when at last they dropped side by side on a sun-warmed stone bench on the terrace, and Helen, inclining her brown head towards her companion, informed him o

ekers had evidently availed themselves of. No matter; there was another train an hour later; they could still linger for a few moments in the brief sunset and then dine at the local restaurant before they left. They both laughed at their forgetfulness, and then, without knowing why, suddenly lapsed into silence. A faint wind blew in their faces and tril

id the painter, with a very conscious breaking o

her eyes qu

haps I ought to say my patrons-have given me a commission to m

ng the princess's possible attitude towards the painter cam

l enjoy it very mu

but," he added with a faint smile, "it's a question of money, and that is not to be desp

aid, with a bitterness she had never felt b

le gloved hands between her knees. He wondered why she did not look up; he did not know that it was partly because there were tears in her eyes and partly for another reason. As she ha

An instinct of protection drew him nearer this bowed but charming figure, and if he then noticed that the shoulders were pretty, and the curves of the slim waist symmetrical, it was rather with a feeling of timidity and a half-consciousness of unchivalro

ht color to his cheek. Would it not seem to her that he was taking an unfair advantage of her misfortune? Yet it would be so easy now to slip a loving arm around

s hurriedly withdrawn. Yet in that accidental contact, which sent a vague tremor throug

we had be

and that they never again could be to each other as they were but a brief moment ago. They talked very sensibly and gravely during their frugal meal; the previous spectator of their confidences would have now thought them only simple friends and have been as mistaken as before. They talked freely of their hopes an

protection so far as to accompany her up the four flights to the landing of her apartment. Here he took leave of her with a grave courtesy that half pained, half pleased her. She watched his broad shoulders and dangling sleeve as he went down the stairs, and then quickly turned, entered her room, and locked the door. The smile had faded from her lips. Going to the window, she pressed her hot forehead against the coo

t marry. Only why consort with other swallows under the eaves when she could have had a gilded cage on the first etage?" But girls were so foolish-in their first affair; then it was always LOVE! The second time they were wiser. And this maimed warrior and painter was as poor as she. A compatriot, too; well, perhaps that saved some scandal; one could never know what the Americans were accustomed to do. The first floor, which had been inclined to be civil to the young teacher, was more so, but less respectful; one or two young men were tentatively familiar until they looked in her gray eyes and remembered the broad shoulders of the painte

Helen Maynard disappeared from Paris with many of her fellow countrymen. The excitement reached even a quaint old chateau in Brittany where Major

no great desire to stay in France with a frontier garrisoned by troops while I have a villa in Switzerland where y

uietly. "I have friends-country

Rue de Frivole, you have compromised

dam

er. Under the mask of dazzling skin he fancied he saw the high cheek-bones and square Tartar angle; the bri

te teeth, yet said, still gently, "Forgive me if I thought our frien

reat career before you. Those who help you must do so without entangling you; a chain of roses may be as impeding as lead. Until you are ind

wift vision of the little bench at Versailles where he had NOT forgotten it, and as he glanc

ed, and then suddenly coming closer to him said, hurriedly and almost fiercely, "Can you not see that I am advising you against my interests,-against myself? Go, then, to Paris, and go

at mademoiselle had left a day or two after monsieur had accompanied her home. And, pointedly, there was another gentleman who had inquired eagerly-and bountifully as far as money went-for any trace o

time might have wasted itself in mere dissipation. Some of his fellow artists had already gone into the army. After the first great reverses he offered his one arm and his military experience to that Paris which had given him a home. The old fighting instinct returned to him with a certain desperation he had never known before. In the sorti

after she left the Rue de Frivole she was invited by one of her wealthy former schoolmates to assist with her voice and talent at one of their extravagant entertainments. "You will understand, dear,"

ry charmingly to the fashionable assembly in the Champs Elysees,-so charmingly, indeed, that Miss de

who was passing through Paris on her way to England; "you would hardly believe t

y fortunate," said the duchess quie

introduce herself. When she rose to go she invited Helen to luncheon with her the next day. "Come early, my dear, and we'll have a long talk." Helen

ve seen 'better days.' But this is no place for you, child, and if you can bear with an old woman's company for a while I think I can find you something to do." That evening Helen left for England

ad forgotten Helen and the American colony; and the American co

looking over the wonderful lawn, kept perennially green by humid English skies, heard the practical, masculine vo

cheon at Moreland Ha

ere only last we

next week and the next following. And," she added, looking into her

ed at her

d ME-as became my relations to YOU-with his confidences. As you haven't given me YOURS I suppo

in the girl's eye satisfied th

e or anything of me!" sa

u are a very nice person. Come, my dear, don't look so stupefied, or I shall really think there's something in it that I don't know. It's not a laughing nor a crying matter yet-at present

tammere

ever thought of him as a husband," interrupted the duchess;

nexpected,"

these matters," said the duchess. "We wo

len, "if I don't wa

nd then drawing Helen closer to her, said, with a certain masculine tenderness, "As long as I live, dear, you know that you have a

iliar. There were the half-dozen old masters, whose respectability had been as recognized through centuries as their owner's ancestors; there were the ancestors themselves,-wigged, ruffled, and white-handed, by Vandyke, Lely, Romney, and Gainsborough; there were the uniform, expressionless ancestresses in stiff brocade or short-waisted, clinging draperies, but all possessing that brilliant coloring which the gray skies outside lacked, and which seemed to have departed from the dresses of their descendants. The American girl had sometimes speculated upon what might have been the appearance of the lime-tree walk, dotted with these gayly plumaged folk, and wondered if the tyranny of environment had at last subdued their brilliant colors. And a new feeling touched her. Like most of her country

ut-trees trilling in the little square; she could hear the swallows twittering in the leaden troughs of the gutter before her; the call of the chocolate vender or the cry of a gamin floated up to her from the street below, or the latest song of the cafe chantant

ke it. I have onl

fident from the experience of years of respectful listeners. Yet it somehow jarred upon her nerves with its complacency

ust bought it?" asked H

his companion's interest. "I bought

tinued Helen, in a sli

r of great promise. I rather think it was stolen from him while he was in hospital by those incendiary wretche

?" repeated

al Bohemian artist's life. Though in this case the man was a rea

in repeated Helen.

ed. But it was all the result of the usual love affair-the girl, they say, ran off with the usual r

Helen in the sam

d always attracted me to his studio-though he never would part with it. I rather fancy, don't you know, that the girl had something to do with it. It's a wonde

ere," said Helen

ly and unostentatiously passed into the library, and in full view, though out o

either the right nor the cause to believe her faithless or attribute his misfortunes to her." She hesitated, not from any s

inter, as I did?" he

e drew nearer the picture, and, point

small window with

fect

t saw the sketch. I am the girl you speak of, for he knew no o

? Surely you are joking?" said

Conservatoire, and lived wh

lo

lo

he man

I even think I have a better rig

s, don't you know, when I spoke." He looked around him as if to evade a scene. "Ah! suppose we ask the duc

r wait," said

r w

itated Hele

rstand," said Sir James stiffly,

u have AP

I beg your pardon, I'm sure. I er-er-in fact," he added suddenly, the embarrassed smile fading from his face as he looked at her fixedly, "I remember now it must ha

duchess," said Helen qu

ows all about your fri

told her. Why should I?" returned H

s. "But here she is. Of course if you pref

nce of genuine emotion; it h

just been showing me a sketch of my dear old mansarde in Paris. Look! That little window was my room. And, only think of it, Sir

said the duchess; "in

said S

" said

so different that the duchess

d Helen with a smile, "Si

le and a somewhat heightened color. "I had forgotten that I had promised Lady Harriet to drive you over to Deep Hill

appened, dear; don't mind me, for I frankly confess I shall now eat my l

said Helen. "I only p

ow

n respects the pride of those she loves more even than her own, and while Helen felt that although that in

s listened

ts have never seen each

N

ou hop

eak for HIM,

n to him, and don't know w

N

Well, my dear," said the duchess after a pause, "I see that you are condemned to pass your days with me in some cheap hotel on the continent." Helen looked up wonderingly. "Yes," she continued, "I suppose I must now make up my mind to sell my place to t

"I can go back to my old li

mpanion to me, I admit; but I shall see that it does not again spoil your chances of marrying.

life anew, and work for my living." The duchess turned her grave, half humorous face towards her. "That means you have determined to seek HIM. Well! Perhaps if you give up your other absurd idea of independence, I may assist you. And now I really believe, dear, that there is that dreadful South American," pointing to a figure that was crossing the lawn at Hamley Court, "ho

nfidelities and a son's forgetfulness, to be given to her, and her heart sank at the prospect of separation, even while her pride demanded that she should return to her old life again. Then she wondered if the duchess was right; did she still cherish the hope of meeting Ostrander again? The tears she had kept back all that day asserted themselves as she flung open the library door and ran across the garden into th

was actually sketching the ivy-covered gable of the library. What presumption! And he was sketching with his left hand

book and was hastening eagerly toward her. Amazed and confounded she would have flown, but her limbs suddenly refused their offic

id. "Then she HAS

ndering eyes. He was bronzed and worn; there was the second arm: but still it was H

" she repeated vacant

duc

duc

face, while his own grew ashy white. "Helen! For

red, with a faint color rising to he

artisan general, and was rewarded with an envoyship in Europe? How I came to Paris to seek you? How I found that even the picture-your picture, Helen-had been sold. How, in tracing it here, I met the duchess at Deep Hill, and learning you were with her, in a moment of impulse told her my whole story. How she told me that though she was your best friend, you had never spo

," said Hel

eeing you, believing that as you would not recognize me with this artificial arm,

and left it rosy. "I see it all now. Oh, Philip,

d, broken only by the trills of a fri

ease! Wait!

, was flying down the walk towards the house. But as they neared the garden d

s there. And Sir James, as became an English gentleman,-amazed though he was at Philip's singular return

ENT OF BO

nter than ever. But the dust cloud was otherwise a relief; it took the semblance of distant woods where there was no timber, of moving teams where there was no life. And as Sue Beasley, standing in the

ue

Sue took no notice of it, but rema

yer yawpin

n, since, without turning her head, she answered slowly and languidly: "R

band, had suffered from the combined effects of indolence, carelessness, misadventure, and disease. Two of his fingers had been cut off by a scythe, his thumb and part of his left ear had been blown away by an overcharged gun; his knees were crippled by rheumatism, and one foot was lame from ingrowing nails,-deviations that, however, did not tend to correct the original a

had tried to kiss her while she was drawing water, and had received the contents of the bucket instead,-the girl knowing her own value. On the third day Ira had some conversation with her father regarding locations and stock. On the fourth day this conversation was continued in the presence of th

y arms, to lean once more against the doorpost, lazily looking down the plain. A cylindrical cloud of dust trailing its tattered skirt along the stage road suddenly assaulted the house, and f

ped again irresolutely. Then she suddenly walked through the outer door into the road and made directly for the spring. The figure of a man crouching, covered with dust, half rose from the bu

e fact is-I'm chased! They're hunting me now,-they're just behind me. Anywhere

er impending to the man. He did not look like a horse-thief nor a criminal. And he had tried to laugh, half

lowed her eyes, and said hurriedly: "Don't tell o

d suddenly. "Ge

owards the barn, scarce fifty yards away. When she reached it she opened the half-door quickly, said: "In there-at the top-among the hay"-closed it, and was turning away, when ther

t her husband was absorbed in splicing a riata, and had evidently not missed her, and returned quietly to her dish-washing. With this singular difference: a few moments before she had seemed inattentive and careless of what she was doing, as if from some abstraction; now, when she was actually abstracted, her movements were mechanically perfec

quickly as she did. They both saw in the road two armed mou

here, just now?"

N

dy go by?"

What'

Dolores monte shop last night, and got away this morning. We hu

just now," said Ira, with a flash

fore?-I beg your pardon, ma'am; di

forward. There was the faintest of color in her sallow cheek, a keen brilliancy in her eyes; she looke

and upper arm in charming contrast-and looked gravely past the admiring figures that nearly touched her own. "It was somewh

D the house afore you sa

it WAS him,"

he deputy; "but then he runs

tra

rob

's t

ne simplicity. "A man who runs, jumps,

nd climbin' away from ye now?" sh

that and this house it's a dead level, where a gopher couldn't leave his hole without your spottin' him a mile off! Good-

d in his addressing the empty space before his door with, "Well, ye won't ketch much if ye go on yawpin' and dawdlin' with women-folks

ch, I r

no value in free government. Mrs. Beasley, however, complacently resumed her dish-washing, and Ira returned to his riata in the adjoining room. For quite an interva

nything yet. I've a good mind t

ness. He had no idea of subjecting his wife to another admiring interview. "I reck

dresser; it was possible she had foreseen this compromise.

shing figure of her husband in the distance, she threw open the door and shut it quickly behind her. At first the abrupt change from the dazzling outer plain to the deep shadows of the barn bewildered her. She saw before her a bucket half filled with dirty water, and a quantity of wet straw littering the floor; then lifting her eyes to the hay-loft, she detected the figure of the fugitive, unclothed from the waist upward, emerging from the loo

was to her the revelation of a descending god. She found herself face to face with him,-his features cleansed of dirt and grime, his hair plastered in wet curls on his low forehead. It was a face of cheap adornment, not u

way until they come back," he said without look

he idea had already occurred to her

n with a forced smile-"you see, I've eat

hing," she said quick

ravel-torn and frayed garments-"anything like a coat, or any other cl

s and a velvet jacket left by a Mexican vaquero who had bought stock from them two years ago. Pract

orced smile and uneasy glance-"did

d abstractedly

hurriedly, "I'll t

stand between her and this single romance of her life. "I must go

E?" aske

thout knowing why stopped and said, "Mr. Bea

g like a schoolgirl. She even repressed with difficulty the ejaculation "There!" as she handed them to him. He thanked her, but with eyes fixed and fascinated by the provi

fugitive had proceeded so far. He might at that moment be snugly ensconced behind some low wire-grass ridge, watching their own clearly defined figures, and waiting only for the night to evade them. The Beasley house seemed a proper place of operation in beating up the field. Ira's cold reception of the suggestion was duly disposed of by the deputy. "I have the RIGHT, ye know," he said, with a grim pleasantry, "to summon ye as my posse to aid and assist me in carrying out the law; but I ain't the man to be rough on my friends, and I reckon it will do jest as well if I 'requisition' your house." The dreadf

y her prettiness, and although her acceptance of his return was certainly not a cordial one, there was a kind of demure restraint and over-consciousness in her manner that might be coquetry. Ira had vaguely observed this quality in other young women, but had never experienced it in his brief courtship. There had been no rivalry, no sexual diplomacy nor insincerity in his capture of the motherless girl who had leaped from the tail-board of her father's wagon almost into his

ntiguity of his wife and the deputy, and stupidly expectant of-he knew not what. The atmosphere of the little house seemed to him charged with some unwholesome electricity. It kindled his wife's eyes, stimulating the deputy and his follower to coarse playfulness, enthralled his own limbs to the convulsive tightening of his finger

ffee and flapjacks I'm going to give ye, made with my own hands, ye kin just toddle right along to the fir

ing the horizon, and although its nearly level beams acted like a powerful search-light over the stretching plain, twilight would soon put an end to the quest. Yet they lingered. Ira now foresaw a new difficulty: the cows were to be brought up and fodder taken from the barn; to do this he would be obliged to leave his wife and the deputy together. I do not know if Mrs. Beasley divined his perplexity, but she carelessly offered to perform that evening function herself. Ira's heart leaped and sank again as the deputy gallantly proposed to assist her. But here

fastening on her clean cuffs and collar as she ran. The fugitive was anx

were never co

ays they were following. The sunlight fell also on her panting bosom, her electrified sandy hair, her red, half-opened mouth, and short and freckled upper lip. The relieved fu

er unsatisfied maternal yearnings. If she could not comprehend all his selfish incoherences, she felt it was her own fault; if she could not follow his ignorant assumptions, she knew it was SHE who was deficient; if she could not translate his coarse speech, it was because it was the language of a larger world from which she had been excluded. To this world belonged the beautiful limbs she gazed on,-a very different world from that which had produced the rheumatic deformities and useless mayhem of her husband, or the provincially foppish garments of the deputy. Sitting in the hayloft together, where she had mounted for greater security, they forgot themselves in his monologue of cheap vaporing, broken o

! where

she answered, with a quiet, level voice that astonished her lover, "Here! I'm just coming down!" and walked coolly to the ladder. Looking over, and seeing her husband with the deputy standing in the barnyard, she quickly returned, put her finger to her lips, made a gesture for her companio

said Ira wearily. "Whitey and Red Tip [the cow

ley, with decision; "and ye'll have to take the hay from the stack to-night. And," with an arch glance at

was to occupy a "shake-down" on the kitchen-floor that night with the constable, and depart at daybreak. The gloom of her husband's face had settled into a look of heavy resignation and alternate glances of watchfulness, which only seemed to inspire her with renewed vivacity. But the cooking of supper wi

came for, I'll show you that Sue Beasley is

household care had checked, but never yet subdued. He had forgotten that he had married a child. Only once, when she glanced at the cheap clock on the mantel, had he noticed another change, more remarkable still from its very inconsistency with her burst of youthf

not finding the gloomy company of the husband to his taste, presently ensconced himself on the floor, before the kitchen fire, in the blankets that she had provided. The constable followed his examp

uetry or aberration to HIM during their own brief courtship,-that she had never looked or acted like this before. If this was love, she had never known it; if it was only "women's ways," as he had heard men say, and so dangerously attractive, why had she not shown it to him? He remembered that matter-of-fact wedding, the bride without timidity, without blushes, without expectation beyond the transference of her home to his. Wo

crush that ruddy, good-looking, complacent face. He hurried past him, up the creaking stairs. His wife lay still on one side of the bed, apparently asleep, her face half-hidden in her loosened, fluffy hair. It was well; for in the vague shyness and restraint that was beginning to take possession of him he felt he could not have spoken to her, or, if he had, it would have been only to voice the horrible, unformulated things that seemed to choke him. He crept softly to the opposite side of the bed, and began to undress. As he pulled off his boots and stockings, his eye fell upon his bare, malformed feet. This caused him to look at his maimed hand, to rise, drag himself acro

, all so new, so fresh to him! He tried to listen to the slow ticking of the clock, the occasional stirring of air through the house, and the movement, like a deep sigh, which was the regular, inarticulate speech of the lonely plain beyond, and quite distinct from the evening breeze. He had heard it often, but, like so many things he had learned that d

ghed, the woman at his side l

hing was dark, but above and around him, to the very level of his feet, all apparently pricked with bright stars. The bulk of the barn rose dimly before him on the right, to the left was the spring. He reached it, drank, dipped his head and hands in it, and arose refreshed. The dry, wholesome breath that blew over this flat disk around him, rimmed with stars, did the rest. He began to saunter slowly back, the only reminiscence of his evening's potations being the figure he recalled of his prett

seemed to come from the barn. Had he followed out the train of ideas thus awakened, all might have been well; but at this moment his attention was arrested by a far more exciting incident to him,-the draped and hooded figure of Mrs. Beasley was just emerging from the house. He halted instantly in the shadow, and held his breath as she glided quickly across the intervening s

ed but his blood,-broadening slowly round him in vivid color, and then sluggishly thickening and darkening until it stopped too, and sank into the earth, a dull brown stain. For an instant the stillness of death followed the echoless report, then there was a quick and feveris

e half-opened door of the barn, at the floor littered with trampled hay. In one corner lay the ragged blouse and trousers of the fugitive, which the constable instantly recognized. He went back to the house, and reappeared in a few moments with Ira, white, stupefied, and hopelessly bewildered; clear only in his statement that his wife had just fainted at the news of the catastrophe, and was equally helpless in her own room. The constable-a man of narrow ideas but quick action-saw it all. The myst

y had departed with the body, and the long afternoon shadows settled over the lonely plain and silent house. At nightfall Ira appeared at the door, and stood for some moments scanning the plain; he was seen later by two packers, who had glanced furtively at the scene of the late tragedy, sitting outside his doorway, a mere shadow in the darkness; and a mounted patrol later in the night saw a light in the bedroom window where the invalid Mrs. Beasley was confined. But no one saw her afterwards. Later, Ira explained that she had gone to visit a relative until her health

d to Lowville. Here, probably through some modest doubt of the ability of the County Court, which the constable represented, to deal with purely circumstantial evidence, he was not above dropping a hint to the local Vigilance Committee, who, singularly enough, in spite of his resistance,

mmittee was sitting, and the hermit of Bolinas Plain limped painfully into the room. He had evidently walked there: he was soaked with rain and plastered with mud; he was exhausted and inarticulate. But as he st

he prisoner?"

he pale face of the acro

m before," he

doing here?" demand

lting feet. First he moistened his dry lips, then he said, sl

d the relief that seemed to come upon him with that ut

y with her. I killed him because I found him waiting for her at the door of the barn at the dead o' night, when she'd got outer bed to jine him. He hadn't no gun. He hadn't no fight. I killed him in

his? Where's your wife?

tremor ra

"because she loved him and couldn't bear me; perhaps, as I've sometimes allowe

rose. All the audacity and confidence that the husband had lacked were in HIS voice. Nay, the

'. At first I thought she'd done the shooting. It was a risky thing for me to do, gentlemen; but I took her up on the horse

as impressed in his favor. And when Ira Beasley limped across the room, and, exten

voice of the judge ad

o Mrs. Beasley? Were they enough to justify th

ration; he now remembered, even more strongly, the object of that admiration, simulating with her pretty arms the gestures of the barkeeper, and the d

s one of the inconsistencies of human nature which even a lynch judge had to admit. He made no attempt to control the tittering of the court, for he fe

ve the town within twenty-four hours; the witness to be conducted to h

till sat; that, coming forward, he caught her in his arms and called her "Sue;" and they say that they lived happily together ever afterwards. But they say-and this requires some corroboration-that much of that happine

EXPERIENCE O

ent of circumstance, yet shy and sensitive of opinion; abstemious by education and general habit, yet intemperate in amusement; self-cent

f the uncivilized. In divers Christian arenas of the nineteenth century he rode as a northern barbarian of the first might have disported before the Roman populace, but harmlessly, of his own free will, and of some little profit to himself. He threw hi

haled before a respectable magistrate by a serious policeman, and fined as if he had been only a drunken coster. A later attempt at Paris to "incarnadine" the neighborhood

eek's salary in his pocket and an imprecation on his lips. He had shaken the sawdust of the sham arena from his high, tight-fitting boots; he

train to Havre, but Alkali Dick felt himself incomplete on terra firma without his mustang,-it

ots, with long curling hair falling over his shoulders, and a pointed beard and mustache, was a picturesque one, but still not a novelty to the late-supping Pa

hed by a royally-flung gold coin, and a few words of French slang picked up in the arena, which, with the name of Havre, comprised Dick's whole knowledge of the language. But he was touched with their ready and intelligent comprehension of his needs, and their

light green vines and delicate pea-rows; on the white trousers, jackets, and shoes of smart shopkeepers or holiday makers; on the white headdresses of nurses and the white-winged caps of the Sisters of St. Vincent,-all this grew monotonous to this native of still more monotonous wastes. The long, black shadows of short, blue-skirted, sabo

s mustang's hoofs sank in deep pits of moss and last year's withered leaves; trailing vines caught his heavy-stirruped feet, or brushed his broad sombrero; the vista before him seemed only to endlessly repeat the same sylvan glade; he was in fancy once more in the primeval Western forest, and encompassed by its vast, dim silence

then became aware that the unfortunate beast was badly sprained in the shoulder, and temporarily lame. The sudden recollection that he was some miles from the road, and that the sun was sinking, concentrated his scattered faculties. The prospect of sleeping out in that summer woodland was nothing to the pioneer-bred Dick; he could make his horse and himself comfortable anywhere-but he was delaying his arrival at Havre. He must regain the high road,-or some wayside inn. He glanced around him; the

pression of the forest, and that it was still a long descent from where he had wandered to where it stood in the gathering darkness. His mustang was moving with great difficulty; he uncoiled his l

ere were grim black allees of clipped trees, a curiously wrought iron gate, and twisted iron espaliers. On one side the edifice was supported by a great stone terrace, which seemed to him as broad as a Parisian boulevard. Yet everywher

n, evidently servants, were slowly advancing, peering into the shadows of the wood which he had just left. He could not understand what they were saying, but he was about to speak and indicate by signs his desire to find the road when the woman, turning towards her companion, caught sight of his face and shoulders above the hedge. To

t had not been Dick's experience to have women run from him! Should he follow them, knock the silly fellow's head against a tree, and demand an explanation? Alas, he knew not the

unset sky to throw back from that little mirror the reflection of his thin, oval face, his long, curling hair, and his pointed beard and mustache. Yes! this was his face,-the face that many women in Paris had agreed was romantic

ey taken from his flask. His saddle-bag contained enough bread and meat for his own supper; he would camp for the night where he was, and with the first li

stless. Presently he could see also that it was growing lighter beyond the edge of the wood, and that the rays of a young crescent moon, while it plunged the forest into darkness and impassable shadow, evidently was illuminating the hollow below. He thre

a regular and monotonous tap upon the stone flags of the terrace. Suddenly he saw three figures slowly turn the corner of the terrace at the further end of the building, and walk towards the table. The central figure was that

g in conversation a few moments, the elderly lady and her ecclesiastical companion entered. The young girl sauntered slowly to the steps of the terrace, and leaning ag

could gain their shadows, he could descend into the garden. What he should do after his arrival he had not thought; but he had one idea-he knew not why-that if he ventured to speak to her he would not be met with the abrupt rustic terror he had experienced at the hands of the servants. SHE was not of that kind! He crept through the hedge, reached the lilacs, and began the descent softly and securely in the shadow. But at the same moment she arose, called in a youthful voice towards the ope

t before had all gone; he would fly,-and yet, an exquisite and fearful joy kept him motionless. She was approaching him, full and clear in the moonlight. He could see the grace of her delicate figure in the simple white frock drawn at the waist with broad satin ribbon, and its love-knots of pale blue rib

ick flush with admiration. She put her hand to her side, as if the shock of the exertion of her ascent had set her heart to beating, but she did not faint. Then her fixed look gave way to one of infinite sadness, pity, and pathetic appeal. Her li

ture towards the wood he had quitted, as if to indicate his helpless horse, but he knew it was meaningless to the frightened yet exalted girl befo

lles interceder pour vous? Je supplierai le ciel de prendre en pitie l'ame de mon anc

hands appealin

pless horse, and then came what he believed was his salvation,-a sudden flash of recollection that he had seen the word he wanted, the one word that would explain all, in a placar

an outcry, the girl's arms fell to her side; she

the worst now, and carry her to the house, even at the risk of meeting the others and terrifying them as he had her. He caught her up,-he scarcely felt her weight against his breast and shoulder,-and ran hurriedly down the slope to the terrace, which was still deserted. If he had time to place her on some bench beside the window

the high marble mantel, whose rays, however, scarcely reached the window where he had entered. He laid his burden on a high-backed sofa. In so

en

d by her mother's voice, was beginning to show signs of recovering consciousness. Dick looked quickly around him. There was an open door, opposite the window, leading to a hall which, no doubt, offered some exit on the other side of the house. It was his only remaining chance! He darted through it, clo

ad just passed out. He ran rapidly towards it. As he did so he heard the hurried ringing of bells and voices in the room he had quitted-the young girl had evidently been discovered-and

of his own age, height, beard, complexion, and features, with long curls like his own, falling over a lace Van Dyke collar, which, however, again simulated the appearance of his own hunting-shirt. The broad-brimmed hat in the picture, whose drooping plume

was a man and not a woman, partly from a feeling of bravado-and partly from a strange sense, excited by the picture, that he had some claim to be there, he

d the lilac hedge, tore up the hill, and in a few moments threw himself, panting, on his blanket. In the single look he had cast behind, he had seen that the half-dark salon was now brilliantly lighted-where no doubt the whole terrified household was now assembled. He had no fear of being followed; since his confrontation with his own likeness in the mysterious portrait, he understood everything. The apparently supernatural character of his visitation was made plain; his ruffled vanity was soothed-his vindication was complete. He laughed to himse

for the journey to still distant Havre, although he had determined to lie over that night at the first wayside inn. Luckily for him, the disturbance at the chateau had not extended to the f

blic. Time, however, had made frequent breaches in the stones; these had been roughly filled in with a rude abatis of logs and treetops pointing towards the road. But as these were mainly designed to prevent intrusion into the park rather than egress from it, Dick had no difficulty in rolling them aside and e

he was addressed in a quaint, broken English, mixed with forgotten American slang, by the white-trousered, black-alpaca coated proprietor. More than that-he was a Social Democrat and an enthusiastic lover of America-had he not been to "Bos-town" and New York, and penetrated as far west as "Booflo," and had much pleasure in that beautiful and free country? Yes!

itical power of the priests. As for example, Monsieur "the Booflo-bil" had doubtless noticed the great gates of the park before the cafe? It was the preserve,-the hunting-park of one of the old grand seigneurs, still kept up by his descendants, the Comtes de Fontonelles-hundreds of acres that had never been tilled, and kept as wild waste wilderness,-kept for a day's pleasure in a year! And, look you! the peasants starving around its walls

t dry reserve, "re

of '93, when the count was emigre, as one says with reason 'skedadelle,' to Engl

th affected carelessness. "W

d not like a cafe near their sacred gates,-where had stood only the huts of their retainers. The American would observe that he had not called it "Cafe de Chateau," nor "Cafe de Fontonelles,"-the gold of California would not induce him. Why did he remain there? Nat

able one in the person of the blacksmith-see to him, and if it were an affair of days, and Dick must go, he himself would be glad to purchase the beast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an

eparation of a voyager, but Dick had really made the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he had recovered his old swaggering audacity, but from a quick distaste he had taken to his resemblance to the portrait. He was too genuine a Westerner, and too vain a man, to feel flattered at his resem

een, as he had no chance to rectify it. What a brute she must have thought him-or DID she really think him a brute even then?-for her look was one more of despair and pity! Yet she would remember him only by that last word, and never know that he had risked insult and ejection from her friends to carry her to her place of safety. He could not bear to go across the seas carrying the pale, unsatisfie

the clean solitude of his fresh chintz

r saw the picture at all until after I'd toted you, when you fainted, up to your house, or I'd have made my kalkilations and acted according. I'd have laid low in the woods, and got away without skeerin' you. You see what I mean? It was mighty mean of me, I suppose, to have tetched you at all, without saying, "Excuse me, miss," and toted you out of the garden and up the steps into your own parlor without asking your leave. But the whole thing tumbled so suddent. And it didn't seem the square thing for me to lite out and leave you lying there on the grass. That's why! I'm

ry respe

D FOUN

rinary blacksmith. There was nothing seriously wrong with the mustang, but it would be unfit to travel for several days. The landlord repeated his former offer. Dick, whose money was pretty well exhauste

ng, but his eyes were resting beyond on the high, mouldy iron gates of the mysterious park. What he was thinking of did not matter, but he was a little impatien

ociety. Ah, there had been a fine excitement, a regular coup d'theatre at Fontonelles,-the chateau yonder; here at the village, where the news was brought by frightened grooms and silly women! He had been in the thick of it all the afternoon! He had examined it,-interrogated them like a juge d'instruction,-winnowed it, sifted it.

tonelles!" He remembered tha

he demande

ws that the first comte has been dead three hundre

ome back for?

he would shoot it! Good! the body of the comte, dead, but without a wound, was found in the wood the next day, with his discharged arquebus in his hand. The Archbishop of Rouen refused his body the rites of the Church until a number of masses were said every year and-paid for! One understands! one sees their 'little game;' the count now appears,-he is in purgatory! More masses,-more money! There you are. Bah! One understands, too, that the affair takes place, n

tiently; "they must have seen SOMETHING

ith a mysterious, cynical smil

erself alone in the garden,-you observe, ALONE-in the moonlight, near the edge of the wood. You comprehend? The mother and the Cure are in the house,-for the time effaced! Here at the edge of the

id Dick hurri

she says. But her mother and Monsieur le Cure find her pale, agitated, distressed, ON THE SOFA IN THE SALON. One is ask

YOU think?" sa

und him carefully, and then lo

lov

aid Dick, w

ything. A Mademoiselle de Fontonelles cannot marry out of her class, and the noblesse are all poor. Mademoiselle is

the railing at that particular moment. Luckily, Dick controlled h

s, a compromising, a fatal entanglement. There you are. Look! for this, then, all this story of cock and bulls and

at something she'd seen, and fainted dead away, as she said she did

ud looked at

servants, by her family, but not by the young man

gpickers and sneaks that wade around in the slumgallion

in America the young lady she go everywhere alone; I have seen her-pretty, charming, fascinating-alone with the young man. But here, no, never! Regard me, my friend. The French mother, she say to he

looked blankly at the iron gates of the park

took from his pocket the letter to Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, twisted it in a spiral, lighted it at a candle, lit his cigar with

SAID UP THAR. And," he added, leaning his hand somewhat heavily on Ribaud's shoulder, "if you're the man I take you for, you'll believe it too! And if that chap, Armand de Fontonelles, hadn't hev picked up that gal at that moment, he would hev deserved to roast in hell another three hu

. On his way back an old-fashioned carriage with a postilion passed him. At a sign from its occupant, the postilion pulled up, and Monsieur

one?" sai

e; I was with him

hink no on

madame, b

kind of a

threw out his hands despairingly, yet

Amer

A

And Monsieur Ribaud, cafe proprietor and Social Democrat,

ON THE

the vanished trail came back as a vividly whitening streak before them; then the larches and pines that ascended from it like buttresses against the hillsides glimmered in ghostly distinctness, until at last the two slopes curved out of the darkness as if hewn in marble. For the sudden storm, which extended scarc

now. For some moments the horses floundered and struggled on, in what the travelers believed to be some old forgotten drift or avalanche, until the extent and freshness of the fall became apparent. To add to their difficulties, the storm recommenced, and not comprehending its real character and limit, they d

r catch the mustang that had "bucked" him, had been called "my man," and presented with five dollars; he recalled how he had once spread the humble resources of his cabin before some straying members of the San Francisco party who were "opening" the new railroad, and heard the audible wonder of a lady that a civilized being could live so "coarsely"? With these recollections in his mind, he managed to survey the distant struggling horses with a fine sense of humor, not unmixed with self-righteousness. There was no real danger in the situation; it meant at the worst a delay and a camping in the snow till morning, when he would go down to their assistance. They had a spacious traveling equipage, and were, no doubt, well supplied with furs, robes, and provisions for a several hours' journey; his own pork barrel was quite empty, and his blankets worn. He half smiled, extended his long arms in a decided yawn, and turned back into his cabin to go to bed. Then he cast a final glance around the interior. Everything was all right; his loaded rifle stood against the wall; he had just raked ashes over the

like the others. But even that general suggestion was not needed! the little head, the symmetrical curves visible even at that distance, were quite enough to indicate that it was a woman! The easy smile faded from Jack's face, and was succeeded by a look of concern and then of resignation. He had no choice now; he MUST go! There was a woman there, and that settled it. Yet he had arrived at this con

urth figure, now unmistakably that of a slender youthful woman, in a cloak, helped back into the wagon, as if deliverance was now sure and immediate. But Jack on arriving speedily dissipated that illusive hope; they could only get through the gorge by taking off the wheels of the wagon, placing the axle on rude sledge-runners of split saplings, which, with their assistance, he wou

t bank for them to stand in out of the snow." This was speedily done. "Now," continued Jack, "you'll just

rior, professional type-for the first time hesitated. "I forgot to say that

rry her up myself the roughest part of the way. She kin make hersel

ggested the gentleman, appealingly, to t

she had the advantage of the others, particularly of Jack, as his figure was fully revealed in the moonlight against the snowbank. Her eyes rested for a moment on his high boots, his heavy mustache, so long as to mingle with the unkempt locks which fell over his broad shoulders, on his huge red hands streaked with black greas

he said languidly. "It's q

alone, and we must go with

eringly over this impossible Jack. "I thought the-

tiently. "This gentleman is kind enough to offer to make so

ere while you go.

ONE here, and somet

and apparently as delicate and particular as this one might be somewhat difficult. "There's nothin' that would hurt ye here," he continued, addressing the velvet cap a

t have been imagined, but Jack did not see the slight flash of her eye as, igno

t from the trail all the way up. So you can see that everything's all right. Why, I saw YOU from the f

gentleman and-the job,

but to whose gallant anxieties Miss Amy responded effusively. Nevertheless, the young lady had especially noted Jack's confession that he had seen them when the

he darkness behind the snow, she forgot all this, and much else that was mundane and frivolous,

ns. The long white canada stretched before her in a purity that did not seem of the earth; the vague bulk of the mountains rose on either side of her in a mystery that was not of this life. Yet it was not oppressive; neither was its restfulness and quiet suggestive of obliviousness and slumber; on the contrary, the highly rarefied air seemed to give additional keenness to her senses; her hearing had become singularly acute; her eyesight pierced the uttermost extremity of th

two, all alone, in a deserted wagon in a mountain snow pass. It was an adventure such as one reads of in the magazines. Only something was lacking which the magazines always supplied,-something heroic, something done by somebody. If that awful-looking mountaineer-that man with the long hair and mustache, and that horrible gold ring,-why such a ring?-was only different! But he was probably gorging beefsteak or venison with her father and Mr. Waterhouse,-men were always such se

her followed. How silly! Something had frightened them. Perhaps only a rabbit or a mole; horses were such absurdly nervous creatures! However, it is just as well; somebody would see them or hear them,-that neigh was quite human and awful,-and they wo

eturned noiselessly with the runners. She scrambled over to the back seat, unbuttoned the leather curtain, lifted it, but nothing was to be seen. Consequently, with feminine quickness, she said, "I see you perfectly, Mr. Waterhouse-don't be silly!" But a

teady itself, with the singular effect of collapsing the whole side of the wagon, and then opened its mouth as if in some sort of inarticulate reply. But the revelation of its red tongue, its glistening teeth, and, above all, the hot, suggestive fume of its breath, brought the first scream from the lips of Miss Amy. It was real and convincing; the horses joined in it; the three screamed together! The bear hesitated for an instant, then, catching sight of the honey-pot on the front seat, which the shrink

d shredded bark. She even suspected she was lying upon a mattress of bark underneath the heavy bearskin she could feel and touch. She had a delicious sense of war

y the cry of the frightened horses and their plunging, which they coul

d Amy, staring

horses, who, however, seemed to be ALONE, and the wagon from which you did not seem to have stirred. Then, for the first time, my dear child, we suddenly saw your danger. Imagine how we felt as that hideous bru

ek, papa; it w

I knew yo

-because I had tumbled." The color was

-and killed the bear, though Tenbrook says it oughtn't to. I believe he wanted to capture the creature

broug

horse. Slung you up on his sh

O

from the brute's attack, we concluded to take

is-where

mined to stay with you, though

ught-to thank-

in reply. These half-savage men have such singular ideas. He said the beast would

's all m

How could

horses. And spoilt the wagon. And made the man run

on't be idiotic!

into an ominous silence, broken by a single sniffle. "Try to go to sleep, dear; you've had qui

ell c

, de

n having co

the wretched man apologetically,

while the bear wa

aft

outh. It's the honey. I'll n

it's the

ha

ite faint and chilled, yo

hat-black

es

er si

't think he'd begrudge me th

und the cabin; she had no doubt it had a worse look in the daylight, but somehow the firelight brought out a wondrous luxury of color in the bark floor and thatching. Besides, it was not "smelly," as she feared it would be; on the contrary the spicy aroma of the woods was always dominant. She r

really I don't feel as if I could STAND alone, much less WALK. But, of course," with pathetic re

rry you down as he brought you up. Only I thought,-b

mountaineer. But he did not even make the pretense of entering; standing at the door he delivered his news to the interior generally. It w

udden frightened voice,

somewhere there in the

them, papa, dear? Mr. Tenbrook will have to go so slowly with me." She tumbled out of the bunk with singular alacrity, shook herself and her skirts into instantaneo

e to know that the simple fact was that, since she had regained consciousness, she had been filled with remorse for her capricious and ungenerous rejection of Tenbrook's proffered service. More than that, she felt she had periled her life in that moment of folly, and that this man-this hero-had saved her. For hero he was, even if he did not fulfill her ideal,-it was only SHE that was not a heroine. Perhaps if he had been more like what she wished she would have fel

earing a look of lowering abstraction. It struck her that this might be the effect of his long hair

with my dreadful weakness, and ask you to carry me down also. But all this seems so little after what you have just done and for which I can never, NEVER hope to thank

said, glancing away towards the fi

e saved

that! You were in no danger, exc

at having been after all a kind of heroine, "and it was a

light movement of half awkwardness, half impat

see that he had evidently just washed them-and the glaring ring was

s with you!" she said, extending b

The morning's never come yet-till now," he said hastily, to cover an odd break in his voice, "when it didn't brush along the whole side of this cabin to kinder wake me up and say 'So long,' afore it browsed away into the canyon. Thar ain't a man along the whole Divide who didn't know it; thar ain't a man along the whole Divide that would have drawn a bead or pulled a trigger on it till now. It never had an enemy but the bees; it never even knew why horses and cattle were fr

ut even then it was closely followed by the feminine instinct of defence and defiance. Th

"why, if you knew it was so precious an

uldn't have understood me; I was too high up to call to the creature when he did come out, and I kinder hoped you wouldn't see him. Even when he turned towards the wagon, I knew it wasn't YOU he was after, but suthin' else, and I kinder hoped, Miss, that you, being different and quicker-minded than the rest, would see it too. All the while them folks were yellin' behind me to fire-as if I didn't know my work. I was half-way down-and then you screamed! And then I forgot everything,-everything but standing clear of hitting you,-and I fired. I was that savage that I wanted to believe that he'd gone mad, and would have touched you, till I got down there and found the honey-pot lying alongside of him. But there,-it's a

ite another thing to be carried down again by the same man, who has been crying, and when you are conscious that you are going to cry too, and your tears may be apt to m

wn on the end of the bunk with frightened eyes, "please don't do

iss Forester, "and I have made you go and kill the

es it so rough. For it was only left in trust w

oed Miss Forester, sharpl

man for whom she lived and sacrificed her whole life. She gave me this ring, to always remind me of m

etness; "it would only remind you of your loss. But," she added, with a sudden, swift, imploring look of her

to her. "And now," he sai

ly, "that-I had better try to

t you have not forgive

no right t

in the air, smelled the bark thatch within an inch of her nose, saw the firelight vanish behind he

nywhere, Amy," said her father

said Amy reproachfully. "But, of

ar to attack our carriage so that he might come in as a hero! Oh, of course, there are a hundred absurd stories about him,-they used to say that he lived all alone in a cabin like a savage, and all that sort of thing, and was a friend of a dubious woman in the locality, whom the common people made a heroine of,-Miggles, or Wiggles, or some such preposterous name. But look at John there; can you conceive it?" The listener, glancing at a very handsome, clean-shaven fellow, faultlessly attired, could not conceive such an absurdity. So I therefore simply give the opinion of Joshua Bixley, Superinte

is philosophic qu

PROSPECTOR

k a new note of independence and originality, overriding all conservative and established rules of heredity. Something of this was also shown in a singular and remarkable reticence and firmness of purpose, quite unlike his family or schoolfellows. His mother was the wife of a teamster, who had apparently once "dumped" his family, consisting of a boy and two girls, on the roadside at Burnt Spring, with the canvas roof of his wagon to cover them, while he proceeded to deliver other freight, not

the mind of Mrs. Medliker one morning as she looked up from the kettle she was scrubbing, with premonition of "more worriting," to behold the Reverend Mr. Staples, the local minister, hale John Bunyan Medliker into the shanty with one hand. Letting Jo

John Bunyan, who again felt his arm and was satisfied that it WAS longer-"but we must do our dooty, even with difficulty to ourselves, and, perhaps, to others. Our young friend, John Bunyan, stands on a giddy height-on slippery places, and," continued Mr. Staples, with a lofty disregard to consecu

's now, John? and me a sla

arm, and at the kettle. Then he said: "I ain't done nothin', but

n; he repeated to me, I grieve to say, the same untruthfulness, and when I suggested to him the obvious fact that he had taken it from one of the miner's sluice boxes and committed the grievous sin of theft, he wickedly denied it-so that we are prevented from carrying out the Christian command of restoring it even ONE fold, instead of four or five fold as the Mosaic Law might have required. We were, alas! unable to ascertain anything from the miners themselves, though I grieve to say they one and all agreed that their 'take' that week was not at all what they had expected. I even went so far as to admit the possibility of his own statement, and besought him at least to show me where he had found it. He at first refused with great stubbornness of temper, but la

, in her anxiety to get rid of the parson, a

breath; "and let us trust that when you have rastled with his flesh and

lance at the wicked Johnny, opened the door with hi

ips together as the door closed, "look me right

moment offered any moral support, for he did not look at her; but,

hantly, "if ye didn't steal it, y

hat the negation of the second proposition meant the affirmation of the first he could not accept. But then children are also imitative, and fearful of the older intellect. It

furious accents. "You stole it?-you STOLE it, you limb! And you sit there and braze

w turn of affairs, Johnny again fell back upon

u devil! Did you ta

N

Simmons

N

Blazing St

N

a st

N

d goodness!-WHER

y eyes for a single instant to hi

ng. Yet she was conscious of a certain relief. After all, it

you say where, y

t wan

thief; nobody had dragged him about by the arm until he showed it. Why was it wrong that a little boy should find gold? It wasn't agin the Commandments. Mr. Staples had never got up and said, "Thou shalt not find gold!" His mother had never made h

s. Medliker, "and he'll see whether you 'want to' or

led all day under his big toe, to the great discomfort of that member. But this was only a small, ordinary self-martyrdom of boyhood. He scratched a boyish hieroglyphic on the metal, and when his mother's back was turned scraped a small hole in the adobe wall, inserted the gold in it, and covered it up with a plaster made of the moistened debris. It was safe-so was his secret-for it need not, perhaps, be stated here that Johnny HAD told the trut

iness! He wasn't a-going to tell them HIS secrets! And what did they know about gold, anyway? They couldn't tell it from brass! The attitude of his mother was, however, still perplexing. She was no longer actively indignant, but treated him with a mysterious reserve that was the more appalling. The fact was that she no longer believed in his theft,-indeed, she had never seriously accepted it,-but his strange reticence and secretiveness piqued her curiosity, and even made her a litt

ticed, to cast his glittering flake of gold on the sterile ground at the other side of the road, where the minister's path would lie. Then, at a point where the road turned, he concealed himself in the brush. The Reverend Mr. Staples hurried forward as he lost sight of the boy in the sweep of the road, but halted suddenly. Johnny's heart leaped. The minister looked around him, stooped, picked up the piece of gold, thrust it hurriedly in his waistcoat pocket, and continued his way. When he reached the turn of the road, before passing it, he availed himself of his solitude to pause and again examine the treasure, and again return it to his pocket. But, to Johnny's surprise, he here turned back, walked quickly to the spot where he had found it, carefully examined the locality, kicking the loose soil and stones around with his feet until he ha

the knowledge that she would have condemned his dropping the gold in the minister's path,-though he knew not WHY,-or asked his reason for it, which he was equally sure he could not formulate, though he also knew not why. But that evening, as he was returning fro

boy truly found that gold he'd have come to ye and said: 'Behold, mother, I have found gold in the highways and byways; rejoice and be exceedin' glad!' and hev poured it inter

d words seemed crowding in his throat. "Then"-he gasped and choked. "

, nudging Mrs. Medliker, leaned eagerly forward for a reply. "Then,"

ad this arternoon, and say nothin' of it to the men who followed ye? Ye did; I seed yer! And ye didn't say nothin' of it to an

rfered. This was an entirely new feature in the case. Great is the power of gold. A single glance at the minister's confusion had convinced her that Johnny's accusation was true, and it

said Mrs. Medliker sharply. "I reckon wot

something," he said, "that may or may not have been gold, but I have dropped it again or thrown it away; and reall

ny quickly; "it had a criss-cross I sc

vertence. But Johnny's hieroglyphics were found on it, and in some mysterious way the story got about. It had two effects that Johnny did not dream of. It had forced his mother into an attitude of complicity with him; it had raised up for him a single friend. Jake Stielitzer, quartz miner, had declared that Burnt Spring was "playing it low down" on Johnny! That if they really believed that

che, "and they only want to know where your lead is,-and don't yer tell 'em! Let

said J

yer

N

"Then it's only

ently, and his bro

chap of your size, Johnny. Makes you feel kinder

y with a gasp that wa

hnny," he said, "now ef ye wanted to tell somebody about

d that had been resting confidingly in Jake's and gen

eep yer head shut ef yer wanter! Only ef anybody else comes bummin' round y

ful to the child; it would have been strange, indeed, if he had not felt at times exalted by this mysterious influence that he seemed to have acquired over his fellow creatures. If he were merely hunting blackberries in the brush, he was always sure, sooner or later, to find a ready hand offered to help and accompany him; if he trapped a squi

on the hillside, and the squirrels had gathered their hoards; the bees no longer came and went through the thicket, but Johnny was still in daily mysterious possessio

to share his woodland knowledge or his scanter confidences. For nobody who knew Johnny suspected that she was privy to his great secret. Howbeit, wherever his ragged straw hat, thatched with his tawny hair, was detected in the brush, the little nankeen sunbonnet of Florry was sure to be discerned not far behind. For two weeks they had not seen each other. A fell disease, nurtured in ignorance, dirt, and carelessness, was striking right and left through the valleys of the foothill

f-real, half-affected admir

ween the bandage and her chin. "I mussent go outer the garden patch! I mussent play

on, as he perceived for the first time that Florry

ss

his mere world could not give! Johnny slipped off his shoes and stockings and hurriedly put them on

ouse in the stone he

his wood," said Johnny. "

faction. But presently it palled. Their domain was too circumscribed for variety. "Robinson Crusoe up the tree" was impossible, as being visible from the house windows. J

N

yer-ma

ss

any p

N

y slate

N

nor nuthin'? You k

's fluctuating currency with her

brightening up, "ye

of the spring that afterwards reappeared fifty yards nearer the road, and trickled into an unfailing pool known as the Burnt Spring, from the brown color of the surrounding bracken. It was the water supply of the ranch, and the reason for Mr. Medliker's original selection of that site. Johnny ling

bedraggled, but flushed and happy. There were two pink spots on Flor

y were seated in the straw aga

began to quiver, and she gave

'ler nor nuthin'?" said J

-o!

t?" said

ere you get the truly gold! Mar said I was to get yo

d. "You Inji

lutching his leg frantically. "I won

t to take her where they found the "truly gold," and she was to remember where it was and to tell them. And they were going t

'em a big whopper! They won't know no better. They'll never guess where.

cake," said Florry, her eye

t each other, and their eyes danced together over this heaven-sent inspiration. Then Johnny took off her sho

t of the fence and was turning away w

hnn

lding out her arms to him. He went to her with shining eyes, lifte

metal in her tiny fist. When Mr. Staples was sent for, and with the mother and father, hung anxiously above her bed, to their eager questioning they could only find

y dear," said Mr. Staples persu

lorry, with a frightened

ision as he might have, and poor Mrs. Fraser probably saw that in her child

this beautiful mount

N

o t

speaker. "I fink it was Dod,"

panic at Burnt Spring the next day, and Mrs. Medliker fled with her two girls to Sacramento, leaving Johnny, ostensibly strong and active, to keep house until his father's return. But Mr. Medliker's return was again delayed, and in the epidemic, which had now taken a fast hold of the settlement, Johnny's secret-and indeed the boy himself-was quite

his usual eager questioning to the fast-sinking boy. "And now, Johnny," he said, leaning over the bed, "tell us ALL. Ther

hat moment he loved and believed in Florry, or perhaps it was only that because at that moment

t writhed in a pained and still persistent eagernes

ound his throat. The teamster was irascible and prompt through much mule-driving, and his arm was, from the same reason, strong and sinewy. Mr. St

y another word to my Johnny, I'll knock the gospel stu

the room. "Ye needn't a

the next. He lay still and dead. The community was scandalized the next day when Mr. Medliker sent for a ministe

e little figures of Johnny and Florry walking over the hilltop, hand in hand, but that they had vanished among the stars at the very moment he thought he had discovered their secret. And then it was forgotten; the prosperous Mr. Medliker, now the proprietor of a stage-coach route, m

g, Mr. Silsbee came upon a rich ledge or pocket at the actual source of the spring,-a fissure in the ground a few rods from the road. The present yield has been estimated to be from eight to ten thousand dollars. But the event is considered as one of the most remarkable instances of the vagaries of 'prospecting' ever k

OF THRE

ee most original and distinctive scholars. He had received no preliminary warning or excuse. Nor could he attribute their absence to any common local detention or difficulty of travel.

h where Julian Fleming, a lanky giant of seventeen, had sat. Still, it would not do to show his concern openly, and, as became a man who was at least three years the senior of the eldest, Julian Fleming, he reflected that they were "only boys," and that their friends were probably ignorant of the good he was doing them, and so dismissed the subject. Nevertheless, it struck him as wonderful how the little wo

pelled to question his flock somewhat precisely concerning them. There was the usual shy silence which follows a

s to what might have kept t

n a loud voice, but stopped suddenly without finishing the w

said Annie Ro

asked th

. Got two full combs in his desk last week. He's awful on bees

r that of all the sneakin' bee-hunters she had ever seed, Pr

ed probable here. "Would Tribbs and Flem

this, knowing the boys were not "chums;" possibly they also recognized something incrimi

had accomplished the distance, including the usual meanderings of a country youth, twice a day, on foot, in all weathers, with no diminution of spirits or energy. He was still more surprised when he found it a mountain ro

s was simple in the extreme, and was carried on by Tribbs senior, two men with saws and axes, and the natural laws of gravitation. The house was a long log cabin; several sheds roofed with bark or canvas seemed consistent with the still lingering summer and the heated odors of the pines, but were strangely incongruous to those white patches on the table-land and the white

on here?"

patiently, still moving on. "H

l," said the master, "eit

"Now I reckoned you had kep' him in f

somewhat indignant at this presu

. "The schoolmaster allows that Jackson ain't bin to school at all." Then, turning

in the proposed tete-a-tete. "Hev ye looked in the bresh"

here are two other boys missing,-Providence

Scuse me, I must go back to my bakin'." She turned away, but stopped suddenly, touched, as the master fondly believed, by some tardy

more directly by a road from there. He, however, kept along the ridge, and after half an hour's ride was convinced that Jackson Tribbs could have communicated with Provy Smith without coming nearer Hemlock Hill, and this revived his former belief that they

Providence all right for it mornin' afore last, since when I never set eyes on him. That lets ME out.

it seemed to him that his unfortunate charges more than ever needed his protection. There was still the chance of his hearing some news from Julian Fleming's father; he lived at some distance, in the valley on the opposite side of Hemlock Hill; and thither the master made his way. Luckily he had not gone far before he met Mr. Flemi

olmaster. They're limbs, every one o' them, but they'll fetch up somewhere, all square! Just you put two fingers o' th

d been worried about the boys. He had even thou

, you bet, and took him off with 'em; or mebbe they had four legs, and he's huntin' 'em yet. Accidents! Now I never thought o' that! Well, when you come across him and THEM ACCIDENTS, you just whale 'em, all three! And ye

nt; that was no doubt also the wish of their parents; but if their story was true, it was a serious question if he ought to inflict it. There was no means of testing their statement; there was equally none by which he could controvert it. It was evident that the whole school accepted it without doubt; whether they were in possession of details gained from the truants themselves which they had withheld from him, or whether from some

s themselves, and a surprise that any one should think it of importance. It was gathered partly from details picked up at recess or on the playground, from t

ty until after it had long become a familiar history, and was even forgotten by the actors themselves. And even no

HAP

lder. The battle ground selected was the highest part of the ridge. The hour was six o'clock, which would allow them time to reach school before its opening, with all traces of their conflict removed. The air was crisp and cold,-a trifle colder than usual,-and there was a singular thickening of the sun's rays on the ridge, which made the dist

ir first "squaring off" to see, to their surprise, that their referee had f

or the timber below. In an instant the boys had hurried into their jackets again, and the glory of fight was forgotten in the fever of

these whirling, flying masses shaken like clinging feathers from a pillow; but in a few seconds they were covered from head to foot by snow, their limbs impeded or pinioned against them by its weight, their breath gone. They stopped blindly, breathlessly. Then, with a common instinct, they turned back. But the next moment they heard Julian cry, "Look out!" Coming towards them out of the storm was the bear, who had evidently turned back by the same instinct. An ungovernable instinct seized the younge

l. They were bitterly cold and benumbed. The stimulus of the storm and chase had passed, but Julian kept driving them before him, himself driven along by the furious blast, yet trying to keep some vague course along the waste. So an hour passed. Then the wind seemed to have changed, or else they had traveled in a circle-they knew not which, but

wo made up

o-

up,

ha

ke h

ingers and laughed, albeit a little frigh

edly, stupidly,

crept between his legs, nestling themselves beneath his still warm body with screams of joy. The snow they had thrown back increased the bulwark, and drifting over it, in a few moments inclosed them in a thin shell of snow. Thoroughly exhausted, after a few grunts of satisfaction, a deep sleep fell upon them, from which they were awakened only by the pangs of hunger. Alas! their dinners-the school dinners-had been left on the inglorious battlefield. Nevertheless, they talked of eating the bear if it came to the

ped into the canyon below. The trail they had lost, they now remembered, must be near this edge. But it was still hidden, and in seeking it there was danger of some fatal misstep in the treacherous snow. Nevertheless, they s

ee now that a large crack on the white field, some twenty feet in width, extended between them and the carcass of the bear, showing the glistening rock below. Again they were thrown down with a sharp shock. Jackson Tribbs, who had been showing a stran

es they were half suffocated in rolling masses of drift, and again free and skimming over its arrested surface, but always falling, as it seemed to them, almost perpendicularly. In one of these shocks they seemed to be going through a thicket of underbrush

Had he gone over into the valley? They set up a despairing shout! A voice-a smothered one-that might be his, came appar

you?" scr

the ch

w near them. They ran to it. There was a hole. They peere

s! It ain't far!"

ere?" asked Jul

in' t

fell, and escaped, though his cabin was buried. The three discoverers helped themselves to his larder. They laughed and ate as at a picnic, played cards, pretended it was a robber's cave, and finally, wrapping themselves in the miner's blankets, slept soundly, knowing where they were, and confident also th

by the long white tongue that for many months hung from the ledge into the valley. Nobody thought the lanky Julian a hero,-least of all himself. Nobody suspected that Jackson Tribbs's treatment of a "slide" had b