The Claim Jumpers

ou brought him a

trict. I gets it of Fay, so you gains an idee of th' lay of the land a whole lot. Th

ut most lay isolated. Their relative positions were a trifle confusing at first, but, after a little earnest study, Bennington thought he understood them. He could start with the Holy Smoke, just outside the door. The John Logan lay beyond, at an ob

a ravine, and climb a ledge. Your starting point is out of sight behind you; your destination is, Heaven knows where, in front. By the time you have walked six thousand actual feet, which is as near as you can guess to fifteen hundred theoretical level ones, your little blazed stake in a pile of stones is likely to be almost anywhere within a liberal quarter of a mile. Then it is guess-work. If the hill is pretty thickly staked out, the chase becomes

are of trees. He also discovered the "Northeast Corner of the Crazy Horse Lode" plainly marked on the white surface of a pine stake braced upright in a pile of rocks. Thence he confidently paced south, and found nothing.

s," he said to himself; "I got off the straight line

racefully to the foot of it, his elbows digging frantically into the moss, and his legs straddled apart. As he struck bottom, he imagined he heard a most del

pink, standing just in front of a big pine above him

on one side, his mouth open. The Vision began to

w her charms full time in which to work, Bennington could see that her face was delicately made; but as to the details he could not judge clearly because of her mischievous eyes. They were large and wide and clear, and of a most peculiar colour-a purple-violet, of the shade one sometimes finds in flowers, but only in the flowers of a deep and shady wood. In this wonderful colour-which seemed to borrow the richness of its hue rather from its depth than from any pigment of its own, j

th overwhelming fervency, that h

like a humming-bird over a flower. From behind her back she

re looking for?" sh

and Bennington was permitt

mped he

u're looking for

had not yet crystal

ou get it?" he

OKING FOR?" she demande

d control of his facu

bids us appreciate the extent of our relief by passing an annoyance

d that he preferred to fi

's eyes op

ow so much!" said she,

irls he had known had always taken him s

ed, with some impatience. "I

irled the moil of his wonder and bewilderment.

mist seemed to sparkle little points of light, as wavelets through a vapour which veils the surface of the sea. Benn

ll. It had got loose and was running away." The mist had cleared up very suddenly, and the light-tipped sparkles of fun were chasing each other rapidl

eflectively, as thoug

feet. "You are absolutely incorrigible!" he exclai

s fairl

hing nice, or I'm sure you wouldn't have said it about me. Would you?" The

ous or not. He could do nothing but stammer and get red, and think what a ridiculous a

s about girls that you don't dare tell them in plain language. If you will say nice things about me, you

y-well-defined notion that he was being ridiculed, but concer

ou say something? Why don't you take this

which is at once to invest the speaker with daintiness indescribable, and to thrust the

it belong?

d to find her seated on the ground, plucking a handful of the leaves of a little erect herb that

" asked Bennington ab

looking up with her eyes as she leaned over the handful. "

e began to find this one of her most potent charms-the faculty of translating into a grace so exquisite as almost to realize the fabled poetry o

ired, and held out her ha

palms held a single crushed bit of the herb in their cup. They were soft, pink little palms, all wri

ore-that the forehead was broad and thoughtful, and that above it the hair, instead of being blonde and curly and sparkling with golden radiance, was of a peculiar wavy

, and turned away wi

that Bennington could not see she laughed. She marched stiffly down the hill. Bennington turned t

dare, sir!"

did no

one quite out of sight, she sank down and l

nough!" she said, with a

would have been willing to acknowledge, was quite compl

izzou in earnest conversation with a peculiar-looking

cause he was so phenomenally ugly. From the collar of his shirt projected a lean, sinewy neck, on which the too-abundant skin rolled and wrinkled in a dark red, wind-roughened

rks were emphasized by the gestures

commented Davidson. One became aware, from the loving tones in wh

t Chillicothe, of that State, wa

duced. The old Missourians brightened; Davidson went into the cabin after glasses and a corkscrew. He found the corkscrew all right, but apparently had some difficulty in regard to the gl

he tin cups on the porch. "They locks up an' conceals

onsolingly, picking up one of the cups and

ld the likker, anyho

part, he was glad the tin cups had been necessary, for it enabled him to conceal the

d turtlebacks drank the raw whisky down, near a h

h astonishment. "Don't you e

zzou looked him in the eye

's good, sonny," sa

er a pause, "that is a good d

" urged Old Mi

aitin'.

and chuckled a little, to

h emphasis. Bennington thought, with a shudder, of

ld Mizzou played cribbage by

ernoon," said the Easterner suddenly

zou with indifference.

around here. She was a slender girl,

strangers yar-a

es

mes looks black an' s

he one all rig

hat's Bill Lawton's girl. Live's down th' gulch. He'

ared at the cards in his hand.

sonny," he

d Bennington slowly. "She's a girl with a little m

knows. Same critter. Only one like her in th' Hills. Sasshay

f that man!" said Bennin

Lawton sez,"

. But he had offended his discovery. What was the etiquette in such a case? Back East he would have felt called upon to apolog