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VIII.--The Jumping Frog[H]

By Mark Twain

IN compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decaying mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned his initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.

"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le--well, there was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49--or maybe it was the spring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn't finished when he first came to the camp; but anyway, he was the curiosest man about always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side, and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way what suited the other man would suit him--any way just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he 'most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take ary side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds sitting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to him--he'd bet on any thing--the dangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he came in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she was consid'able better--thank the Lord for his inf'nite mercy--and coming on so smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says: 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half she don't anyway.'

"Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag end of the race she'd get excited and desperate like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side among the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose--and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

"And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he warn't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson--which was the name of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in a circular saw, and when the thing had gone alone far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius--I know it, because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep' him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do 'most anything--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come acrost him with his box, and says:

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like: 'It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a frog.'

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says: 'H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's he good for?'

"'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for one thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.'

"The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.'

"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.'

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, 'Well, I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog, I'd bet you.'

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right--that's all right--if you hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.

"So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to his chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws just even with Dan'ls, and I'll give the word.' Then he says, 'One--two--three--git!' and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use--he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.

"The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog.'

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw'd off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And----"

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to be gone a second."

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he button-holed me and re-commenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yeller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bananner, and----"

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about the afflicted cow, but took my leave.

FOOTNOTE:

[H] Published by express permission of the Mark Twain Company as well as the Trustees of the Estate of Samuel L. Clemens and Harper and Brothers, Publishers.

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IX.--Bingism[I]

By Booth Tarkington

PENROD SCHOFIELD, having been "kept in" for that unjust period of twenty minutes after school, emerged to a deserted street. That is, the street was deserted so far as Penrod was concerned. Here and there people were to be seen upon the sidewalks, but they were adults, and they and the shade trees had about the same quality of significance in Penrod's consciousness. Usually he saw grown people in the mass, which is to say, they were virtually invisible to him, though exceptions must be taken in favor of policemen, firemen, street-car conductors, motormen, and all other men in any sort of uniform or regalia. But this afternoon none of these met the roving eye, and Penrod set out upon his homeward way wholly dependent upon his own resources.

To one of Penrod's inner texture, a mere unadorned walk from one point to another was intolerable, and he had not gone a block without achieving some slight remedy for the tameness of life. An electric-light pole at the corner, invested with powers of observation, might have been surprised to find itself suddenly enacting a rôle of dubious honor in improvised melodrama. Penrod, approaching, gave the pole a look of sharp suspicion, then one of conviction; slapped it lightly and contemptuously with his open hand; passed on a few paces, but turned abruptly, and, pointing his right forefinger, uttered the symbolic word, "Bing!"

The plot was somewhat indefinite; yet nothing is more certain than that the electric-light pole had first attempted something against him, then growing bitter when slapped, and stealing after him to take him treacherously in the back, had got itself shot through and through by one too old in such warfare to be caught off his guard.

Leaving the body to lie where it was, he placed the smoking pistol in a holster at his saddlebow--he had decided that he was mounted--and proceeded up the street. At intervals he indulged himself in other encounters, reining in at first suspicion of ambush with a muttered, "Whoa, Charlie!" or "Whoa, Mike!" or even "Whoa, Washington!" for preoccupation with the enemy outweighed attention to the details of theatrical consistency, though the steed's varying names were at least harmoniously masculine, since a boy, in these creative moments, never rides a mare. And having brought Charlie or Mike or Washington to a standstill, Penrod would draw the sure weapon from its holster and--"Bing! Bing! Bing!"--let them have it.

It is not to be understood that this was a noisy performance, or even an obvious one. It attracted no attention from any pedestrian, and it was to be perceived only that a boy was proceeding up the street at a somewhat irregular gait. Three or four years earlier, when Penrod was seven or eight, he would have shouted "Bing!" at the top of his voice; he would have galloped openly; all the world might have seen that he bestrode a charger. But a change had come upon him with advancing years. Although the grown people in sight were indeed to him as walking trees, his dramas were accomplished principally by suggestion and symbol. His "Whoas" and "Bings" were delivered in a husky whisper, and his equestrianism was established by action mostly of the mind, the accompanying artistry of the feet being unintelligible to the passerby.

And yet, though he concealed from observation the stirring little scenes he thus enacted, a love of realism was increasing within him. Early childhood is not fastidious about the accessories of its drama--a cane is vividly a gun which may instantly, as vividly, become a horse; but at Penrod's time of life the lath sword is no longer satisfactory. Indeed, he now had a vague sense that weapons of wood were unworthy to the point of being contemptible and ridiculous, and he employed them only when he was alone and unseen. For months a yearning had grown more and more poignant in his vitals, and this yearning was symbolized by one of his most profound secrets. In the inner pocket of his jacket he carried a bit of wood whittled into the distant likeness of a pistol, but not even Sam Williams had seen it. The wooden pistol never knew the light of day, save when Penrod was in solitude; and yet it never left his side except at night, when it was placed under his pillow. Still, it did not satisfy; it was but the token of his yearning and his dream. With all his might and main Penrod longed for one thing beyond all others. He wanted a Real Pistol!

That was natural. Pictures of real pistols being used to magnificently romantic effect were upon almost all the billboards in town, the year round; and as for the "movie" shows, they could not have lived an hour unpistoled. In the drug store, where Penrod bought his candy and soda when he was in funds, he would linger to turn the pages of periodicals whose illustrations were fascinatingly pistolic. Some of the magazines upon the very library table at home were sprinkled with pictures of people (usually in evening clothes) pointing pistols at other people. Nay, the Library Board of the town had emitted a "Selected List of Fifteen Books for Boys," and Penrod had read fourteen of them with pleasure, but as the fifteenth contained no weapons in the earlier chapters and held forth little prospect of any shooting at all, he abandoned it halfway, and read the most sanguinary of the other fourteen over again. So, the daily food of his imagination being gun, what wonder that he thirsted for the Real!

He passed from the sidewalk into his own yard, with a subdued "Bing!" inflicted upon the stolid person of a gatepost, and, entering the house through the kitchen, ceased to bing for a time. However, driven back from the fore part of the house by a dismal sound of callers, he returned to the kitchen and sat down.

"Della," he said to the cook, "do you know what I'd do if you was a crook and I had my ottomatic with me?"

Della was industrious and preoccupied. "If I was a cook!" she repeated ignorantly, and with no cordiality. "Well, I am a cook. I'm a-cookin' right now. Either g'wan in the house where y'b'long, or git out in th' yard!"

Penrod chose the latter, and betook himself slowly to the back fence, where he was greeted in a boisterous manner by his wistful little old dog, Duke, returning from some affair of his own in the alley.

"Get down!" said Penrod coldly, and bestowed a spiritless "Bing!" upon him.

At this moment a shout was heard from the alley, "Yay, Penrod!" and the sandy head of comrade Sam Williams appeared above the fence.

"Come on over," said Penrod.

As Sam obediently climbed the fence, the little old dog, Duke, moved slowly away, but presently, glancing back over his shoulder and seeing the two boys standing together, he broke into a trot and disappeared round a corner of the house. He was a dog of long and enlightening experience; and he made it clear that the conjunction of Penrod and Sam portended events which, from his point of view, might be unfortunate. Duke had a forgiving disposition, but he also possessed a melancholy wisdom. In the company of either Penrod or Sam, alone, affection often caused him to linger, albeit with a little pessimism, but, when he saw them together, he invariably withdrew in as unobtrusive a manner as haste would allow.

"What you doin'?" Sam asked.

"Nothin'. What you?"

"I'll show you if you'll come over to our house," said Sam, who was wearing an important and secretive expression.

"What for?" Penrod showed little interest.

"Well, I said I'd show you if you came on over, didn't I?"

"But you haven't got anything I haven't got," said Penrod indifferently. "I know everything that's in your yard and in your stable, and there isn't a thing----"

"I didn't say it was in the yard or in the stable, did I?"

"Well, there ain't anything in your house," returned Penrod frankly, "that I'd walk two feet to look at--not a thing!"

"Oh, no!" Sam assumed mockery. "Oh, no, you wouldn't! You know what it is, don't you? Yes, you do!"

Penrod's curiosity stirred somewhat.

"Well, all right," he said, "I got nothin' to do. I just as soon go. What is it?"

"You wait and see," said Sam, as they climbed the fence. "I bet your ole eyes'll open pretty far in about a minute or so!"

"I bet they don't. It takes a good deal to get me excited, unless it's sumpthing mighty----"

"You'll see!" Sam promised.

He opened an alley gate and stepped into his own yard in a manner signaling caution--though the exploit, thus far, certainly required none--and Penrod began to be impressed and hopeful. They entered the house, silently, encountering no one, and Sam led the way upstairs, tiptoeing, implying unusual and increasing peril. Turning, in the upper hall, they went into Sam's father's bedroom, and Sam closed the door with a caution so genuine that already Penrod's eyes began to fulfill his host's prediction. Adventures in another boy's house are trying to the nerves; and another boy's father's bedroom, when invaded, has a violated sanctity that is almost appalling. Penrod felt that something was about to happen--something much more important than he had anticipated.

Sam tiptoed across the room to a chest of drawers, and, kneeling, carefully pulled out the lowest drawer until the surface of its contents--Mr. Williams' winter underwear--lay exposed. Then he fumbled beneath the garments and drew forth a large object, displaying it triumphantly to the satisfactorily dumbfounded Penrod.

It was a blue-steel Colt's revolver, of the heaviest pattern made in the Seventies. Mr. Williams had inherited it from Sam's grandfather (a small man, a deacon, and dyspeptic) and it was larger and more horrible than any revolver either of the boys had ever seen in any picture, moving or stationary. Moreover, greenish bullets of great size were to be seen in the chambers of the cylinder, suggesting massacre rather than mere murder. This revolver was Real and it was Loaded!

Both boys lived breathlessly through a magnificent moment.

"Leave me have it!" gasped Penrod. "Leave me have hold of it!"

"You wait a minute!" Sam protested, in a whisper. "I want to show you how I do."

"No; you let me show you how I do!" Penrod insisted; and they scuffled for possession.

"Look out!" Sam whispered warningly. "It might go off."

"Then you better leave me have it!" And Penrod, victorious and flushed, stepped back, the weapon in his grasp. "Here," he said, "this is the way I do: You be a crook; and suppose you got a dagger, and I----"

"I don't want any dagger," Sam protested, advancing. "I want that revolaver. It's my father's revolaver, ain't it?"

"Well, wait a minute, can't you? I got a right to show you the way I do, first, haven't I?" Penrod began an improvization on the spot. "Say I'm comin' along after dark like this--look, Sam! And say you try to make a jump at me----"

"I won't!" Sam declined this rôle impatiently. "I guess it ain't your father's revolaver, is it?"

"Well, it may be your father's but it ain't yours," Penrod argued, becoming logical. "It ain't either's of us revolaver, so I got as much right----"

"You haven't either. It's my fath----"

"Watch, can't you--just a minute!" Penrod urged vehemently. "I'm not goin' to keep it, am I? You can have it when I get through, can't you? Here's how I do: I'm comin' along after dark, just walkin' along this way--like this--look, Sam!"

Penrod, suiting the action to the word, walked to the other end of the room, swinging the revolver at his side with affected carelessness.

"I'm just walkin' along like this, and first I don't see you," continued the actor. "Then I kind of get a notion sumpthing wrong's liable to happen, so I---- No!" He interrupted himself abruptly. "No; that isn't it. You wouldn't notice that I had my good ole revolaver with me. You wouldn't think I had one, because it'd be under my coat like this, and you wouldn't see it." Penrod stuck the muzzle of the pistol into the waistband of his knickerbockers at the left side and, buttoning his jacket, sustained the weapon in concealment by pressure of his elbow. "So you think I haven't got any; you think I'm just a man comin' along, and so you----"

Sam advanced. "Well, you've had your turn," he said. "Now, it's mine. I'm goin' to show you how I----"

"Watch me, can't you?" Penrod wailed. "I haven't showed you how I do, have I? My goodness! Can't you watch me a minute?"

"I have been! You said yourself it'd be my turn soon as you----"

"My goodness! Let me have a chance, can't you?" Penrod retreated to the wall, turning his right side toward Sam and keeping the revolver still protected under his coat. "I got to have my turn first, haven't I?"

"Well, yours is over long ago."

"It isn't either! I----"

"Anyway," said Sam decidedly, clutching him by the right shoulder and endeavoring to reach his left side--"anyway, I'm goin' to have it now."

"You said I could have my turn out!" Penrod, carried away by indignation, raised his voice.

"I did not!" Sam, likewise lost to caution, asserted his denial loudly.

"You did, too."

"You said----"

"I never said anything!"

"You said---- Quit that!"

"Boys!" Mrs. Williams, Sam's mother, opened the door of the room and stood upon the threshold. The scuffling of Sam and Penrod ceased instantly, and they stood hushed and stricken, while fear fell upon them. "Boys, you weren't quarreling, were you?"

"Ma'am?" said Sam.

"Were you quarreling with Penrod?"

"No, ma'am," answered Sam in a small voice.

"It sounded like it. What was the matter?"

Both boys returned her curious glance with meekness. They were summoning their faculties--which were needed. Indeed, these are the crises which prepare a boy for the business difficulties of his later life. Penrod, with the huge weapon beneath his jacket, insecurely supported by an elbow and by a waistband which he instantly began to distrust, experienced distressful sensations similar to those of the owner of too heavily insured property carrying a gasoline can under his overcoat and detained for conversation by a policeman. And if, in the coming years, it was to be Penrod's lot to find himself in that precise situation, no doubt he would be the better prepared for it on account of this present afternoon's experience under the scalding eye of Mrs. Williams. It should be added that Mrs. Williams's eye was awful to the imagination only. It was a gentle eye and but mildly curious, having no remote suspicion of the dreadful truth, for Sam had backed upon the chest of drawers and closed the damnatory open one with the calves of his legs.

Sam, not bearing the fatal evidence upon his person, was in a better state than Penrod, though when boys fall into the stillness now assumed by these two, it should be understood that they are suffering. Penrod, in fact, was the prey to apprehension so keen that the actual pit of his stomach was cold.

Being the actual custodian of the crime, he understood that his case was several degrees more serious than that of Sam, who, in the event of detection, would be convicted as only an accessory. It was a lesson, and Penrod already repented his selfishness in not allowing Sam to show how he did, first.

"You're sure you weren't quarreling, Sam?" said Mrs. Williams.

"No, ma'am; we were just talking."

Still she seemed dimly uneasy, and her eyes swung to Penrod.

"What were you and Sam talking about, Penrod?"

"Ma'am?"

"What were you talking about?"

Penrod gulped invisibly.

"Well," he murmured, "it wasn't much. Different things."

"What things?"

"Oh, just sumpthing. Different things."

"I'm glad you weren't quarreling," said Mrs. Williams, reassured by this reply, which, though somewhat baffling, was thoroughly familiar to her ear. "Now, if you'll come downstairs, I'll give you each one cookie and no more, so your appetites won't be spoiled for your dinners."

She stood, evidently expecting them to precede her. To linger might renew vague suspicion, causing it to become more definite; and boys preserve themselves from moment to moment, not often attempting to secure the future. Consequently, the apprehensive Sam and the unfortunate Penrod (with the monstrous implement bulking against his ribs) walked out of the room and down the stairs, their countenances indicating an interior condition of solemnity. And a curious shade of behavior might have here interested a criminologist. Penrod endeavored to keep as close to Sam as possible, like a lonely person seeking company, while, on the other hand, Sam kept moving away from Penrod, seeming to desire an appearance of aloofness.

"Go into the library, boys," said Mrs. Williams, as the three reached the foot of the stairs. "I'll bring you your cookies. Papa's in there."

Under her eye the two entered the library, to find Mr. Williams reading his evening paper. He looked up pleasantly, but it seemed to Penrod that he had an ominous and penetrating expression.

"What have you been up to, you boys?" inquired this enemy.

"Nothing," said Sam. "Different things."

"What like?"

"Oh--just different things."

Mr. Williams nodded; then his glance rested casually upon Penrod.

"What's the matter with your arm, Penrod?"

Penrod became paler, and Sam withdrew from him almost conspicuously.

"Sir?"

"I said, What's the matter with your arm?"

"Which one?" Penrod quavered.

"Your left. You seem to be holding it in an unnatural position. Have you hurt it?"

Penrod swallowed. "Yes, sir. A boy bit me--I mean a dog--a dog bit me."

Mr. Williams murmured sympathetically: "That's too bad! Where did he bite you?"

"On the--right on the elbow."

"Good gracious! Perhaps you ought to have it cauterized."

"Sir?"

"Did you have a doctor look at it?"

"No, sir. My mother put some stuff from the drug store on it."

"Oh, I see. Probably it's all right, then."

"Yes, sir." Penrod drew breath more freely, and accepted the warm cookie Mrs. Williams brought him. He ate it without relish.

"You can have only one apiece," she said. "It's too near dinner-time. You needn't beg for any more, because you can't have 'em."

They were good about that; they were in no frame of digestion for cookies.

"Was it your own dog that bit you?" Mr. Williams inquired.

"Sir? No, sir. It wasn't Duke."

"Penrod!" Mrs. Williams exclaimed. "When did it happen?"

"I don't remember just when," he answered feebly. "I guess it was day before yesterday."

"Gracious! How did it----"

"He--he just came up and bit me."

"Why, that's terrible! It might be dangerous for other children," said Mrs. Williams, with a solicitous glance at Sam. "Don't you know whom he belongs to?"

"No'm. It was just a dog."

"You poor boy! Your mother must have been dreadfully frightened when you came home and she saw----"

She was interrupted by the entrance of a middle-aged colored woman. "Miz Williams," she began, and then, as she caught sight of Penrod, she addressed him directly, "You' ma telefoam if you here, send you home right away, 'cause they waitin' dinner on you."

"Run along, then," said Mrs. Williams, patting the visitor lightly upon his shoulder; and she accompanied him to the front door. "Tell your mother I'm so sorry about your getting bitten, and you must take good care of it, Penrod."

"Yes'm."

Penrod lingered helplessly outside the doorway, looking at Sam, who stood partially obscured in the hall, behind Mrs. Williams. Penrod's eyes, with a veiled anguish, conveyed a pleading for help as well as a horror of the position in which he found himself. Sam, however, pale and determined, seemed to have assumed a stony attitude of detachment, as if it were well understood between them that his own comparative innocence was established, and that whatever catastrophe ensued, Penrod had brought it on and must bear the brunt of it alone.

"Well, you'd better run along, since they're waiting for you at home," said Mrs. Williams, closing the door. "Good-night, Penrod."

. . . Ten minutes later Penrod took his place at his own dinner-table, somewhat breathless but with an expression of perfect composure.

"Can't you ever come home without being telephoned for?" demanded his father.

"Yes, sir." And Penrod added reproachfully, placing the blame upon members of Mr. Schofield's own class, "Sam's mother and father kept me, or I'd been home long ago. They would keep on talkin', and I guess I had to be polite, didn't I?"

His left arm was as free as his right; there was no dreadful bulk beneath his jacket, and at Penrod's age the future is too far away to be worried about. The difference between temporary security and permanent security is left for grown people. To Penrod, security was security, and before his dinner was half eaten his spirit had become fairly serene.

Nevertheless, when he entered the empty carriage-house of the stable, on his return from school the next afternoon, his expression was not altogether without apprehension, and he stood in the doorway looking well about him before he lifted a loosened plank in the flooring and took from beneath it the grand old weapon of the Williams family. Nor did his eye lighten with any pleasurable excitement as he sat himself down in a shadowy corner and began some sketchy experiments with the mechanism. The allure of first sight was gone. In Mr. Williams' bed-chamber, with Sam clamoring for possession, it had seemed to Penrod that nothing in the world was so desirable as to have that revolver in his own hands--it was his dream come true. But, for reasons not definitely known to him, the charm had departed; he turned the cylinder gingerly, almost with distaste; and slowly there stole over him a feeling that there was something repellent and threatening in the heavy blue steel.

Thus does the long-dreamed Real misbehave--not only for Penrod!

More out of a sense of duty to bingism in general than for any other reason, he pointed the revolver at the lawn-mower, and gloomingly murmured, "Bing!"

Simultaneously, a low and cautious voice sounded from the yard outside, "Yay, Penrod!" and Sam Williams darkened the doorway, his eye falling instantly upon the weapon in his friend's hand. Sam seemed relieved to see it.

"You didn't get caught with it, did you?" he said hastily.

Penrod shook his head, rising.

"I guess not! I guess I got some brains around me," he added, inspired by Sam's presence to assume a slight swagger. "They'd have to get up pretty early to find any good ole revolaver, once I got my hands on it!"

"I guess we can keep it, all right," Sam said confidentially. "Because this morning papa was putting on his winter underclothes and he found it wasn't there, and they looked all over and everywhere, and he was pretty mad, and said he knew it was those cheap plumbers stole it that mamma got instead of the regular plumbers he always used to have, and he said there wasn't any chance ever gettin' it back, because you couldn't tell which one took it, and they'd all swear it wasn't them. So it looks like we could keep it for our revolaver, Penrod, don't it? I'll give you half of it."

Penrod affected some enthusiasm. "Sam, we'll keep it out here in the stable."

"Yes, and we'll go huntin' with it. We'll do lots of things with it!" But Sam made no effort to take it, and neither boy seemed to feel yesterday's necessity to show the other how he did. "Wait till next Fourth o' July!" Sam continued. "Oh, oh! Look out!"

This incited a genuine spark from Penrod.

"Fourth o' July! I guess she'll be a little better than any firecrackers! Just a little 'Bing! Bing! Bing!' she'll be goin'. 'Bing! Bing! Bing!'"

The suggestion of noise stirred his comrade. "I'll bet she'll go off louder'n that time the gas-works blew up! I wouldn't be afraid to shoot her off any time."

"I bet you would," said Penrod. "You aren't used to revolavers the way I----"

"You aren't, either!" Sam exclaimed promptly. "I wouldn't be any more afraid to shoot her off than you would."

"You would, too!"

"I would not!"

"Well, let's see you then; you talk so much!" And Penrod handed the weapon scornfully to Sam, who at once became less self-assertive.

"I'd shoot her off in a minute," Sam said, "only it might break sumpthing if it hit it."

"Hold her up in the air, then. It can't hurt the roof, can it?"

Sam, with a desperate expression, lifted the revolver at arm's length. Both boys turned away their heads, and Penrod put his fingers in his ears--but nothing happened. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Why don't you go on if you're goin' to?"

Sam lowered his arm. "I guess I didn't have her cocked," he said apologetically, whereupon Penrod loudly jeered.

"Tryin' to shoot a revolaver and didn't know enough to cock her! If I didn't know any more about revolavers than that, I'd----"

"There!" Sam exclaimed, managing to draw back the hammer until two chilling clicks warranted his opinion that the pistol was now ready to perform its office. "I guess she'll do all right to suit you this time!"

"Well, why'n't you go ahead, then; you know so much!" And as Sam raised his arm, Penrod again turned away his head and placed his forefingers in his ears.

A pause followed.

"Why'n't you go ahead?"

Penrod, after waiting in keen suspense, turned to behold his friend standing with his right arm above his head, his left hand over his left ear, and both eyes closed.

"I can't pull the trigger," said Sam indistinctly, his face convulsed as in sympathy with the great muscular efforts of other parts of his body. "She won't pull!"

"She won't?" Penrod remarked with scorn. "I'll bet I could pull her."

Sam promptly opened his eyes and handed the weapon to Penrod.

"All right," he said, with surprising and unusual mildness. "You try her, then."

Inwardly discomfited to a disagreeable extent, Penrod attempted to talk his own misgivings out of countenance.

"Poor 'ittle baby!" he said, swinging the pistol at his side with a fair pretense of careless ease. "Ain't even strong enough to pull a trigger! Poor 'ittle baby! Well, if you can't even do that much, you better watch me while I----"

"Well," said Sam reasonably, "why don't you go on and do it then?"

"Well, I am goin' to, ain't I?"

"Well, then, why don't you?"

"Oh, I'll do it fast enough to suit you, I guess," Penrod retorted, swinging the big revolver up a little higher than his shoulder and pointing it in the direction of the double doors, which opened upon the alley. "You better run, Sam," he jeered. "You'll be pretty scared when I shoot her off, I guess."

"Well, why don't you see if I will? I bet you're afraid yourself."

"Oh, I am, am I?" said Penrod, in a reckless voice--and his finger touched the trigger. It seemed to him that his finger no more than touched it; perhaps he had been reassured by Sam's assertion that the trigger was difficult. His intentions must remain in doubt, and probably Penrod himself was not certain of them; but one thing comes to the surface as entirely definite--that trigger was not so hard to pull as Sam said it was.

Bang! Wh-a-a-ack. A shattering report split the air of the stable and there was an orifice of remarkable diameter in the alley door. With these phenomena, three yells, expressing excitement of different kinds, were almost simultaneous--two from within the stable and the third from a point in the alley about eleven inches lower than the orifice just constructed in the planking of the door. This third point, roughly speaking, was the open mouth of a gayly dressed young colored man whose attention, as he strolled, had been thus violently distracted from some mental computations he was making in numbers, including, particularly, those symbols of ecstasy or woe, as the case might be, seven and eleven. His eye at once perceived the orifice on a line enervatingly little above the top of his head; and, although he had not supposed himself so well known in this neighborhood, he was aware that he did, here and there, possess acquaintances of whom some such uncomplimentary action might be expected as natural and characteristic. His immediate procedure was to prostrate himself flat upon the ground, against the stable doors.

In so doing, his shoulders came brusquely in contact with one of them, which happened to be unfastened, and it swung open, revealing to his gaze two stark-white white boys, one of them holding an enormous pistol and both staring at him in stupor of ultimate horror. For, to the glassy eyes of Penrod and Sam, the stratagem of the young colored man, thus dropping to earth, disclosed, with awful certainty, a slaughtered body.

This dreadful thing raised itself upon its elbows and looked at them, and there followed a motionless moment--a tableau of brief duration, for both boys turned and would have fled, shrieking, but the body spoke:

"'At's a nice business!" it said reproachfully. "Nice business! Tryin' blow a man's head off!"

Penrod was unable to speak, but Sam managed to summon the tremulous semblance of a voice.

"Where--where did it hit you?" he gasped.

"Nemmine anything 'bout where it hit me," the young colored man returned, dusting his breast and knees as he rose. "I want to know what kine o' white boys you think you is--man can't walk 'long street 'thout you blowin' his head off!" He entered the stable and, with an indignation surely justified, took the pistol from the limp, cold hand of Penrod. "Whose gun you playin' with? Where you git 'at gun?"

"It's ours," quavered Sam. "It belongs to us."

"Then you' pa ought to be 'rested," said the young colored man. "Lettin' boys play with gun!" He examined the revolver with an interest in which there began to appear symptoms of a pleasurable appreciation. "My goo'ness! Gun like 'iss blow a team o' steers thew a brick house! Look at 'at gun!" With his right hand he twirled it in a manner most dexterous and surprising; then suddenly he became severe. "You white boy, listen me!" he said. "Ef I went an did what I ought to did, I'd march straight out 'iss stable, git a policeman, an' tell him 'rest you an' take you off to jail. 'At's what you need--blowin' man's head off! Listen me: I'm goin' take 'iss gun an' th'ow her away where you can't do no mo' harm with her. I'm goin' take her way off in the woods an' th'ow her away where can't nobody find her an' go blowin' man's head off with her. 'At's what I'm goin' do!" And placing the revolver inside his coat as inconspicuously as possible, he proceeded to the open door and into the alley, where he turned for a final word. "I let you off 'iss one time," he said, "but listen me--you listen, white boy: you bet' not tell you' pa. I ain' goin' tell him, an' you ain' goin' tell him. He want know where gun gone, you tell him you los' her."

He disappeared rapidly.

Sam Williams, swallowing continuously, presently walked to the alley door, and remarked in a weak voice, "I'm sick at my stummick." He paused, then added more decidedly: "I'm goin' home. I guess I've stood about enough around here for one day!" And bestowing a last glance upon his friend, who was now sitting dumbly upon the floor in the exact spot where he had stood to fire the dreadful shot, Sam moved slowly away.

The early shades of autumn evening were falling when Penrod emerged from the stable; and a better light might have disclosed to a shrewd eye some indications that here was a boy who had been extremely, if temporarily, ill. He went to the cistern, and, after a cautious glance round the reassuring horizon, lifted the iron cover. Then he took from the inner pocket of his jacket an object which he dropped listlessly into the water: it was a bit of wood, whittled to the likeness of a pistol. And though his lips moved not, nor any sound issued from his vocal organs, yet were words formed. They were so deep in the person of Penrod they came almost from the slowly convalescing profundities of his stomach. These words concerned firearms, and they were:

"Wish I'd never seen one! Never want to see one again!"

FOOTNOTE:

[I] Reprinted by special permission from "Penrod and Sam." Copyright, 1916, by Doubleday, Page and Company.

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[Illustration]

X.--Concho Curly at the Op'ra[J]

By Edward Beecher Bronson

EARLY in July, 1882, I made my first beef shipment of that season, from Ogallala to Chicago. I sent Concho Curly ahead in charge of the first train-load, and myself followed with the second. While to me uneventful, for Curly the trip was big with interest.

Bred and reared in Menard County, on a little tributary of the Concho River that long stood the outermost line of settlement in central west Texas, Curly was about as raw a product as the wildest mustang ranging his native hills. Seldom far off his home range before the preceding year's trail drive, never in a larger city than the then small town of Fort Worth, for Curly Chicago was nothing short of a wilderness of wonders. His two days' stay there left him awed and puzzled.

It was the second morning of our return journey before I could get much out of him. Before that he had sat silent, in a brown study, answering only in monosyllables anything I said to him.

At length, however, another friendly inquiry developed what he was worrying about.

"Come, come, Curly!" I said, "tell us what you saw. Had a good time, didn't you?"

"Wall, I should remark. Them short-horns is junin' round so thick back thar a stray long-horn hain't no sorta show to git to know straight up from sideways 'fore he gits plumb lost in them deep cañons whar all th' sign is tramped out an' thar's no trees to blaze for back-tracking yourself.

"What they-all gits to live on is the mysteriousest mystery to me; don't raise or grow nothin'; got no grass, or cows to graze on her ef they had her. 'Course some of them's got spondulix their daddies left them, an' can buy; th' rest--wall, mebbe so th' rest is jest nachally cannibiles, an' eats up each other."

And how nearly Curly was right about the "cannibiles"--at least, metaphorically--he doubtless never learned.

"But, Curly," I asked, "didn't you have any fun? Must have hit up the theaters a few, didn't you, eh!"

"Wall, I should say I shore did," he replied. "I shore went to a the-a-ter, but she didn't get my funny-bone busy none."

"Why, Curly," I asked, "how's that?"

"Wall, you see it's thisaway. When you turned me loose down to th' stockyards, I axed th' commission man what was th' ring-tailedest lally-cooler of a hotel in town, an' he tells me she's th' Palmer House.

"Then I ropes a kid an' hobbles him with four bits long enough to run me through th' milling herd of short-horns as fer as th' Palmer.

"On th' way I stops to a store an' buys a new hat, an' a pair o' high-heel boots, an' a new suit, shirt, an' red handkerchief, an' a little ol' humany war sack with a handle on her, an' inter her I puts my belt an' spurs.

"Then, when I gets fixed up jest like them city folks, I pikes along to th' Palmer, an' in I goes.

"An' she was a shore lally-cooler all right! More prittys about th' fixin' up o' that house that I'd allowed anything but a woman could pack.

"Wall, when I got in I axed for Mr. Palmer, an' a little feller in sorta soldier-brass-button-clothes runs me up to a little close pen with a fence round her slicker than airy bar in Fort Worth--all glass an' shiny wood an' dandy stones. In that thar pen was a quick-talkin', smart-aleck feller, with a di'mond big as a engin' head-light staked out in th' middle of his bald-faced shirt.

"That feller shore rubbed my hair th' wrong way th' minute he shot his mouth off, with:

"'Wall, what kin I do for you, young feller?'

"'You cain't do a ding thing for me, Mr. Man,' I ups an' tells him. 'Hain't got nairy business with pikers like you-all. I don't git to Chicago often, but when I do I plays with nothin' but blue chips, an' bets th' limit every whirl.'

"'Wall, what do you want, anyway?' he jerks out.

"'Want to see Mr. Palmer; got some p'rticular business with him,' says I.

"'Sorry, sir,' says he, 'Mr. Palmer ain't around this time of day. Is your business with him private?'

"'I reckon she are private,' says I; 'want to see him an' find out ef I kin git to stay all night in this yere hotel of his'n.'

"An' I reckon about that time that thar smart aleck must o' thought of somethin' powerful funny that'd happened lately, for right thar he broke out laughin' fit to kill his fool self--jest nachally laughed till he like to died.

"When finally he comes to, he up an' says:

"'Why, I sometimes attend to business like that for Mr. Palmer; guess I can fix you. Here, write your name down there.'

"An' he whirls round in front of me a whopper of a big book that 'peared to have a lot other fellers' names in. She shore looked s'spicious to me, an' I says:

"'Now see here, Mr. Man, my name don't draw no big lot of money, but she shorely don't get fastened to any dociments I don't sabe.'

"Then that blasted idiot thought o' somethin' else so plumb funny he lites in laughin' agin till he nigh busts.

"When he gits out o' his system all the laugh she cain't hold easy, he tells me th' big book is jest nothin' but a tally they use to count you in when you comes to stay to th' hotel an' to count you out when you goes.

"That didn't look onreasonable none to me, so I says:

"'Son, she goes.'

"An' when he hands me a writin' tool, not noticin' she wa'n't a pencil, I sticks her in my mouth to git her ready to write good, an' gits my dod-burned mouth so full of ink I reckon 'tain't all out yet; an' while I was writin' in th' book, 'Stonewall Jackson Kip, Deadman Ranch, Nebraska,' Mr. Man he slips off behind a big safe and empties out a few more laughs he couldn't git to hold longer.

"An' does you know, ol' man, this mornin' I been gittin' a sort of a s'spicion that Palmer piker was laughin' at me inkin' my mouth, maybe; blamed lucky I didn't see it then, or I'd shore leaded him a few.

"Wall, when Mr. Man had got done examinin' my turkey tracks in the book, he gits a key an' comes back, hits a bell, an' hollers, 'Front!' Then, when one o' them little soldier-button fellers comes runnin', an' th' piker passes him th' key an' sings out, 'Gentleman to No. 1492!' th' kid he makes a dive for my war sack. But you bet your alce I grabs him pronto, an' says:

"'See here, son, they ain't more'n about two million worth o' valuables in that thar war sack, so I wouldn't be broke none ef you ducked with her; but I reckon Stonewall's strong enough to pack his'n without th' help of no sawed-off like you-all.'

"Then Mr. Kid he up an' chases me over to a railroad car that's built on tracks runnin' straight up in th' air plumb to th' top of th' house, an' into her we gits--all free, you sabe; didn't have to buy no ticket.

"Wall, sir, when th' feller ridin' her socked in th' spurs, that thar car humped herself once or twice an' then hit a gait that would make a U. P. express look like she was standin' still, an' in less time than Nebo takes to draw a gun, thar we was at th' top floor, about a mile higher, I reckon, than folks was ever meant to live.

"An' say! By cripes! when I come to look out o' th' winder in my room, I thought I'd have to stake myself to th' bed to be safe. Lookin' out was jest like lookin' down from th' top o' Laramie Peak on th' spread of th' main range--little ol' peaks an' deep cañons everywhere, with signal-fires throwin' up smoke columns from every peak, like Injuns signalin' news. She shore looked a rough country to try to make any short cuts across.

"When I'd got washed up some, I sticks my gun in my waist-band an' goes out an' down to th' ground on that little ol' upstandin' railroad, an' axes one o' them soldier boys th' trail to the grub-pile. He grins some an' takes me into a room so pow'ful big and crowded with folks I allowed 'bout everybody in town must be eatin' there.

"Soon as I got sot down, here comes a coon an' hands me a printed sheet bigger'n th' Llano Weekly Clarion. An' when I told him I was much obliged, but I'd come to eat an' not to read, blamed ef that thar coon didn't think o' somethin' so funny he nigh split hisself. 'Pears like mos' everybody has a most onusual lot of laugh in 'em back thar.

"Wall, bein' dod-burned hungry, an' allowin' I'd have a bang-up feed, an' rememberin' you Yankees talkin' on th' round-up 'bout what slick eatin' lobsters makes, I tells th' coon to bring me a dozen lobsters an' a cup of coffee.

"'Wha-what's dat you say, boss? How many lobsters does you want?' says th' coon.

"'A plumb dozen, you black hash-slinger!' says I, 'an' hump yourself pronto, for my tape-worm's hollerin' for fodder.'

"Off slides Mr. Coon, lookin' at me sorta scared-like outen th' corner o' his off eye, to the far end o' th' room.

"Wall, thar I set for about twenty minutes, hopin' lobsters was bigger'n oysters an' wonderin' ef I'd ordered enough to fill up me an' th' worm, when, lookin' up, here comes up th' room a p'rcession of twelve niggers, each nigger carryin' a plate about half th' size of a saddle-blanket, an' on each plate a whale of a big red critter, most all laigs an' claws, that looked like a overgrowed Gila monster with war-paint on.

"An' when th' lead coon stops in front of me an' says, 'Here's your dozen lobsters, sir,' I jest nachally nigh fell dead right thar, knowin' Stonewall was up agin it harder'n ever before in his life.

"Say! I never wanted a cayuse so bad in my life; ef I had one I'd shore have skipped--forked him an' split the scenery open gittin' away from them war-painted animiles--but thar I was afoot!

"So I bunches up my nerve an' says:

"'Say, coon, I done expected a bunch of th' boys to feed with me, but they hain't showed up. Me an' th' worm will tackle a pair of them red jaspers, an' you fellers put the other ten where they cain't git away till th' boys comes.'

"Then, not lettin' on to th' city chaps settin' an' grinnin' all round me that I wa'n't raised in th' same lot with lobsters, I takes my knife an' fork an' lites in to go to eatin', when I'll just be eternally hanged if I didn't nigh go crazy to find them critturs was jest nachally all hoofs an' horns--nairy a place on 'em from end to end airy human's jaws could ever git to feed on.

"An' I was about to jerk my gun an' shoot one apart to find out what his insides was like, when a feller settin' next showed me how to knock th' horns off an' git at th' meat proper.

"Then me an' th' worm got busy good an' plenty, for th' meat was sweeter an' tenderer even than 'possum.

"Before we got done we shore chambered five of them animiles, an' when I paid th' bill an' sashayed out, it was with regrets I didn't have my war sack handy to pack off th' rest in.

"Come evenin', I moseyed up to Mr. Man's pen an' axed him what was th' finest, highest-priced show in town, an' he told me she was to a the-a-ter called th' Op'ra.

"So out I goes, an' ropes another kid an' gits him to steer me to her.

"Arrived to th' the-a-ter, I prances up to th' ticket-wagon an' says, sorta reckless:

"'Pardner, jest hand me out a dociment for th' best place to set in you got; price is no object. It's th' best in your show for Stonewall,' privately allowin' to myself he might stick me up for as much as a dollar and a half.

"At that he whispers to me. 'Twenty-five dollars,' jest as easy an' nat'rel, without turnin' a hair or appearin' any more excited than Dunc. Blackburn sticking up a stage-coach.

"Twenty-fi-five plunks to git to set a hour or so to see a little ol' fool play-actin'! I'll just be horn-swiggled if that wa'n't goin' some for Stonewall! Nigh three weeks' wages to git to 'ante an' come in,' an' no tellin' what raises he'd have to stand after drawin' cards!

"However, allowin' I'd take a chance, I skinned off five fives from my little ol' bank-roll and passes 'em over to Mr. Holdup, an' then he picks up an' shuffles a deck of little cards an' deals me off six of them.

"Course I didn't know whatever his game was, makin' me a dead foul deal deliberate thataway, but knowin' she spelled trouble, I shoves one of th' cards back to him an' says:

"'Mr. Holdup, I don't know jest what liberties a gentleman is allowed to take with a deck back here, but out West whar I come from a feller caught in a pot with more'n five cards in his hand is generally buried th' next day, an' bein' as all his business in this world ain't quite settled yet, five cards will do your Uncle Stonewall.'

"Couldn't make out anyway what he give me all them dociments for, unless one o' th' coons down to th' hotel had tipped him off my bunch of lobster-eaters was liable to drop in an' want to set with me.

"Wall, then I dropped into th' stream o' folks flowin' in thro' th' door, all jammin' an' crowdin' like a bunch of wild steers, an' drifted inside.

"Was you ever to that Op'ra The-a-ter, ol' man? By cripes! but she was shore a honey-cooler for big! Honest, th' main corral would hold a full trail herd of three thousand head easy.

"Wall, when I gits in, a young feller in more soldier-buttons axes to see my cards, an' then he steers me down thro' a narrow chute runnin' along one side of th' big corral to a little close-pen, with a low fence in front, right down to one end of where they was play-actin', an' right atop of th' band.

"Dead opposite was a high stack of little pens like mine, all full of folks--same, I reckon, above me--an' then back further three or four big pens, one above the other, over where you come in.

"An' mebbe so them pens wa'n't packed none! Don't believe thar was a empty corner anywhere except mine. Jest packed everywhere with men and women.

"Th' men all looked alike, an' most of th' women Stonewall could a liked.

"Th' men all had on black clothes, with bald-faced shirts to match their bald heads.

"Th' women--wall, the feller that couldn't get suited in that bunch needn't wear out no leather huntin' round outside. An' thar was a lot of them honey-coolers settin' close round me that kept lookin' up my way an' laughin' so sorta friendly like that it shore got to be real sociable.

"Wall, sir, that band was playin' to beat any band you ever heard--horns an' fiddles an' drums; horns that worked like a accordeon, pullin' in an' out; ol' mossback he-fiddles that must a been more'n a hundred years old to git to grow so big; drums with bellies big an' round as your mammy's soap kettle; an' th' boss music-maker on a perch in th' middle of th' bunch, shakin' a little carajo pole to beat the brains out any of th' outfit that wa'n't workin' to suit him.

"Some of th' tunes was sweet an' slow enough so you could follow 'em afoot, but most of 'em was so fast a feller'd need to be runnin' 'em on his top-cutting horse to git close enough to tell if they was real music or jest a hullabaloo big noise.

"But what s'rprised me most, ol' man, was to find that that thar the-a-ter was built up round one of the roughest, rockiest, wildest pieces of country I ever saw outside th' Black Hills, it layin' in th' end whar they was play-actin'. It shore looked like a side cañon up nigh th' head-waters of Rapid Creek, big boulders, an' pines, an' cliffs, an' a fall carryin' as much water as Deadman Creek.

"An' weather! Say, that little ol' the-a-ter cañon could put up a worse storm than you or me ever see in the Rockies. She was thunderin' and lightenin' till I was dead sure we was all in for a water-spout, an' I reckon one must a come after I left.

"I always thought the-a-ters was built to be funny in, but that one was jest nachally full o' hell's own grief as long as I got to stay in her. Nothin' doin' but sufferin' an' murderin' meanness.

"Plumb alone, an' lost in th' cañon, I reckon, was a pore little gal, 'bout sixteen year old, leanin' on a stump close up to whar I was settin', an' sobbin' fit to kill herself. She had 'bout next to nothin' on, an' was that ga'nted up an' lean 'peared like she was nigh starved to death.

"An' thar she hung an' cried an' cried till it 'peared to me some o' th' women folks ought to a gone to her; but they-all never noticed none, an' went right on gassin' with their fellers.

"Finally, when she got so weak I thought she was goin' to drop, out from behind a boulder slips a great big feller--all hair an' whiskers but his laigs, for he had on nothin' but a fur huntin'-shirt comin' half-way to his knees--an' in his hand he carries a long bilduque skelping-knife.

"'Fore I realized he meant trouble, he makes a jump an' grabs th' gal by th' shoulder an' shakes her scandalous, an' while he's shakin' he's sorta half-talkin' an' half-singin' to her in some kind of talk so near like Spanish I thought I could ketch some of it.

"By cripes! but that feller was hot good an' plenty over something he claimed she'd did.

"An' when, half-sobbin' an' singin', she 'peared to be tellin' him she hadn't, an' to go off an' let her alone, he shook an' abused her more'n ever, till it struck me it was about time for neighborin' men folks to hop in an' take a hand, for it was plumb plain she was a pore, sweet-faced, innercent little crittur that couldn't done no harm to a hummin' bird.

[Illustration: "BUT BEFORE HE COULD LITE ON HER WITH HIS KNIFE, I HOPPED OUT OF MY CLOSE-PEN INTO THE CAÑON"]

"'Bout that time, Mr. Hairyman he hops back a step or two, stands an' scowls an' grits his teeth at th' gal for a minute, an' then he raises his knife, sorta crouches for a jump, an' sings out, near as I could make it out:

"'Maudite! Folle! Folle! Say Fini!'

"But before he could lite on her with his knife, I hopped out of my close-pen into the cañon, jammed my .45 in his ear, an' observes:

"'Mr. Hairyman, you're a liar, an' it's Stonewall Kip, of Concho, tellin' you!'

"'Little Maudy thar ain't full, an' she don't have to say airy a thing she don't want to; an' if you don't pull your freight sudden for th' brush, I'll shore shoot six different kinds of meanness outen your low-down murderin' carcass!'

"Th' way his whiskers skipped over boulders makin' his getaway was some active, while th' pore little gal she jest drops off in a dead faint an' lays thar till some folks comes down the gulch an' carries her off.

"Then I takes th' kink outen th' hammer of my gun, sticks her in my waist-band, an' climbs back an' gits my hat--havin' had more'n enough of such blasted Op'ra The-a-ters.

"An' while I was driftin' through the chute toward the main gate of th' big pen, to git out, there was th' blamedest cheerin', yellin', an' hand-clappin' you ever heard away from a stump-speakin', but whatever she was all about Stonewall didn't stop to ax."

FOOTNOTE:

[J] Reprinted by special permission from "Reminiscences of a Ranchman." Copyright, 1910, by George H. Doran Company.

---

[Illustration]

XI.--The Lie[K]

By Hermann Hagedorn

"DID you prepare this lesson, Burton?"

Burton, big, athletic, handsome as a movie hero--hesitated a second before he answered. He was busy picking up a pad which lay under his seat.

He deposited the pad on the wide armrest and looked up inquiringly as though he had not fully comprehended the question. Mr. Beaver, the algebra teacher, was smiling his friendly and slightly irritating smile.

"I asked you, Burton," he repeated gently, "whether you had prepared. Did you?"

"Yes, sir," answered Burton.

"Thank you," said Mr. Beaver. He opened a certain terrifying little black book and made a dot in the lower left-hand corner of a certain square opposite the name of Burton. "Perhaps," he added, "you had better go over it again," and smiled the same smile, which would have been sardonic but for the mildness of his tone.

Burton sank glumly back in his seat.

Mr. Beaver regarded his little book studiously for a moment. Then he looked up. The smile was gone. The alert face, adequately adorned by a reddish beard fading into gray, was now solicitous.

"Harrington," he said.

A Fourth Former in the middle row stood up. He was slight and rather pallid, and it was evident that he should begin shaving without further delay, for there was already a shadow of fuzz on his cheeks and chin that made him look unwashed and rather weak. His mother, who was vain, had insisted that he postpone shaving. She could not bear to think that she was the mother of a son who was almost a man, she always said. It made her feel so old.

Harrington, sallow and unshorn, was not an inspiring sight. Mr. Beaver evidently thought so. His eyes were unquestionably serious.

"Harrington," he said, "it seems that you are another of our weak brethren this morning. Did you prepare your lesson?"

Again, the second's hesitation. Harrington turned a shade paler, if possible. Then, with an effort, he spoke.

"No, sir."

"I was afraid not," said Mr. Beaver making another cryptic dot. Then he smiled. Harrington writhed and the rest of the class, except Burton, laughed. "Why not?"

"I--I was ill."

Mr. Beaver was at once sympathetic, though serious. "Did you report to Dr. Stevens?"

"No, sir."

"Why not?"

"I knew he had already gone."

"You were ill after ten o'clock?"

"Yes, sir."

Again Mr. Beaver smiled. "But surely you might have done your algebra before ten o'clock?"

"I was--busy, sir."

"With other lessons?"

Harrington hesitated.

"With other lessons?" Mr. Beaver repeated.

"No, sir."

"Well?"

"I had a spread."

There was a roar from the other boys.

"Quiet!" said Mr. Beaver. "Now, Harrington, as I understand the situation," he continued mildly, "you failed to prepare your lesson because you were ill in consequence of a spread which it was against the rules to indulge in. Is that it?"

"Y--yes, sir."

"Professor is very much opposed to--illicit spreads, as you know"--("Professor" was the Headmaster)--"I am afraid this will mean about thirty demerits, therefore. You have other demerits?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many?"

"Twenty."

Mr. Beaver closed his little book and stood a moment by his desk looking quietly over at Harrington. His face was serious, but even his victim could not help feeling that there was a certain affectionate sympathy behind the quiet sternness.

"Look out, Harrington," he said at last with a return of that curious smile of his. "Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and the milestones are always spreads--of one sort or another. You may sit down."

The boy sat down and the work of the class proceeded. Two boys, for widely divergent reasons, heard the other boys go through their paces as though it were all a bad dream of wriggling x's and y's like snakes darting in and out of the placid waters of Mr. Beaver's endless questioning.

The bell clanged at last, indicating the end of the period. Three or four boys went forward to confer with Mr. Beaver about certain vexing algebraic problems. Needless to say, neither Burton nor Harrington was among these. They drifted out into the cloister with the rest of the class, having certain problems of their own, not algebraic. One or two boys addressed Burton and were rebuffed with a curt word, which was unusual, as Burton was almost painstakingly friendly to everybody.

"Say!" whispered one to the other, "Burton's got a grouch on. He's sour at Beaver, I guess."

"Beaver is awfully fresh sometimes. After all, Bill Burton's captain of the football team."

"He's a good deal more important to the school than Beaver'll ever be."

"That's no joke either."

The two boys parted. Neither ventured to intrude again upon Burton's sacred resentment. For Burton was a very great man at The Towers.

No one spoke to Harrington. No one cared whether he had a grouch or not. For Harrington was a new boy who had as yet failed to "fit in." He was emphatically not an athlete. But he was not a "sissy" either. He was quite as emphatically not a student nor a literary light; but he was as quick as a jack rabbit in his physics "lab" work and not to be scorned as a guesser in reading Cæsar at sight. He was not openly religious--which kept him out of the Y. M. C. A. But, on the other hand, in a quiet way, he deeply loved the out of doors, and that love, like all love, is a kind of worship of God. Harrington was unquestionably "hard to place." The boys as well as the masters, when they spoke about him at all, agreed on that. The only pigeon-hole into which he seemed to fit was the pigeon-hole of the "Queer Dicks." His first name happened to be Richard, which helped to settle the classification.

Burton passed through the West Wing, being a Sixth Former, with a room on the top floor of the New Building, and, chewing his lips, crossed the wide level lawn--with its strip of bright green grass that showed where the hot water pipes ran--and disappeared through a door in the western end.

Harrington did not go to his room. Young men who get demerits were not privileged at The Towers to study in their own rooms. They spent periods not occupied with recitations in the school room, a long room containing some two hundred desks, with a raised platform and an organ at the southern end; the place had once been used as the school chapel and was still used for the morning song-service which enlivened the daily grind. Plaster busts of the great of all ages, from Homer to Longfellow, peered from their plaster brackets. There was a verse also on the southern walls:

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man: When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The Youth replies, I can.

Dick Harrington didn't like that verse. In fact, he thought it was rot. He disliked even more the black tablets on the opposite wall containing in gilt letters at least four inches high the names of the exemplary youths who in their time had been Heads of School. And in this place, surrounded by Models of Good Conduct, he was supposed to study four, five and sometimes six hours a day! Two hundred bent forms and Mr. Watrous, the day's jail-keeper, wandering aimlessly about, pretending not to be the spy that he was! Altogether, the schoolroom was a horror.

Harrington bent over his desk like the rest and pretended to study French. But he did not study. He did a little mathematical problem instead. Twenty demerits and thirty demerits made fifty demerits. And fifty demerits meant probation, and probation meant that he could not go to Chancellor's Hill to see the big game to-morrow afternoon. That was a tragedy. All the autumn the game with Chancellor's Hill had been held before him by the old boys as the last word in thrills; for a week there had been talk of nothing else. You would have thought that the final whistle of that game was going to bring the heavens crashing down on creation. No one seemed to be planning anything beyond that Saturday afternoon. The general notion seemed to be that if The Towers won, the rapture of that victory would make any trial thereafter bearable; and if The Towers lost--well, torture and death would, in comparison, be sweet.

And now, he, Dick Harrington, who loved thrills as much as any man, was not to see the game. For days his nerves had been at a sharp tension of anticipation. Now suddenly they relaxed, leaving him weak and despairing. Life had lost its meaning. Of course, the game would be held anyway, and there would be the excitement of getting the telegraphic reports at the end of the periods; but the real thrills would all be at Chancellor's Hill; and he would be at The Towers.

He luxuriated in misery; he reveled in despair. Just because of a bit of a spread with Sammy Oakes and Chet Burrowes, just because of one unprepared lesson! Of course there had been other spreads before this fatal one; and of course there had been one or two unprepared lessons also--therefore the original twenty demerits. But why ruin a boy's happiness forever because of a missed recitation?

Dick Harrington was exceedingly sorry for himself.

His indignation was violent while it lasted but it did not last long, for there was sharp regret of another sort hovering all the while at the rim of his consciousness. It was a regret not so pleasant to indulge as the other. He had been made the butt--the laughing stock--of the algebra class. He tingled and flushed at the memory of it. Bill Burton had also flunked his lesson; but Burton had been able to say that he had at least prepared it, and the whole proceeding had been dignified and everybody loved and admired Burton all the more because with all his greatness he was just like other boys about lessons. But he, Dick Harrington, had been disgraced. And in the presence of William Burton!

That, after all, was the hardest thing to swallow. That was worse than missing the game with Chancellor's Hill. For Dick Harrington worshiped Bill Burton, because he was physically and socially everything that Dick never could hope to be. He was the school's crack athlete, the president of the Sixth Form, the chairman of the Student Council, the president of the Y. M. C. A. He was the One Great Hero of the boys, and the Headmaster himself consulted him whenever he had a knotty problem of boy-nature to solve. Before Dick had been at school a week, he knew that he would rather find favor with "Colonel" Burton than see his name in gold letters in the schoolroom, or, for that matter, on the Common Room tablets, where the athletic records are kept. "The Colonel" was rather used to adoration, and, being human, liked it. But he was no more attentive to this particular adorer than to any one else, which intensified Dick Harrington's "case."

* * * * *

Dick did not study much French on that morning in late October. For suddenly a new, insidious question jumped into the forefront of his thoughts: Why had he blurted out everything to Mr. Beaver? Why hadn't he just lied?

That question thrust at the very roots of life, and Dick Harrington knew it. He went cold and hot by turns. Somehow it had never occurred to him to lie. He did not know why. It was possibly because his father was such a shining figure of truthfulness personified. He remembered something he had overheard his mother say to his father a long time ago--"I never realized until I married you that it is really awful to lie."

Was it really so awful? A lie in time certainly simplified life a lot. And as long as it did not hurt anybody else--what was really the difference? A goody-goody Sunday-school teacher had told him, when he was five, that the lightning would smite him if he told a lie. Whereupon he had told a lie deliberately during the course of the next thunderstorm to test Mr. Goody-Goody's veracity, and proved him a liar, first thing.

Staring at French irregular verbs, Dick clenched his hands, trying to figure it all out. Suddenly, forgetting where he was, he pounded the desk-top with his left fist. Then he gave a yowl which rang through the schoolroom, providing exhilarating diversion to two hundred lifted heads. For in his cogitations his right hand had clutched the edge of the desk on which the top closed.

He explained the accident to Mr. Watrous, who proved skeptical, though the Spy was forced to admit that the hand looked red enough to hurt.

The schoolroom settled again into quiet. The excitement, from start to finish, had covered about ninety seconds. No one suspected that the unshaven, disheveled boy was, in that studious, quiet place, having his first great wrestle with life.

* * * * *

The football team, accompanied by the coaches, the Headmaster Brewster and his wife, a half-dozen masters, and the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Forms almost in a body, in auto-hacks and horse-hacks, on foot and by trolley, departed for the railroad station and Chancellor's Hill next morning at eight, to the sound of cheers.

Dick Harrington stood in the great Archway with the Lower School and a handful of other boys, like himself on probation (or just "broke"), cheering the school, the team, "The Colonel," the manager, the school, the team, and again and again "The Colonel," until the last boy was out of sight. The team was hopeful of victory; the school was confident of it. But "The Colonel's" face was curiously grave. He smiled and joked; now and then he tossed some gay piece of derision into the crowd of woe-begone stay-at-homes. But the gravity remained in the eyes all the while. Harrington saw it, and it occurred to him that it was natural that the Captain of The Towers football team should feel the weight of a great responsibility; he was quite sure that "Colonel" Burton had never seemed to him so heroic as to-day. There was no question about it. There was an unusual nobility in Bill Burton's eyes and in the carriage of his head. But there was also a curious impression of suffering there and about the lips. Dick saw Mrs. Brewster look at Burton with a friendly, somewhat quizzical, smile. Then in two minutes the fortunate ones were gone and The Towers became a St. Helena, where a chill wind played shrilly all day long around corners of buildings and in and out the cloisters.

Lessons that morning were a gloom and dinner in the huge, half empty dining-room offered an opportunity to satisfy the boy's hunger and--that was all. As a social function it was a flat failure. Everybody talked of the game, as wrecked sailors drifting in an open boat talked of shore. Life was unreal somehow, everything so empty, so quiet. If, as some one had once remarked, The Towers was a very furnace of flaming life and energy--some one had certainly dumped the grate.

The game was to be called at Chancellor's Hill at one-thirty; and at one-thirty the first stragglers appeared in the chilly Archway to take their position at the bulletin board, where the score was to be posted as it came along the wire.

Dick Harrington, in sweater and cap, arrived at one-forty-five. The first score had just been posted:

Chancellor's Hill 5 The Towers 0

The Headmaster's secretary, a studious but otherwise attractive young man, who posted the notice, volunteered the information that the Chancellor's Hill left end had turned the trick with a fifty-five yard run when The Towers eleven had tied itself into a knot through a jumbled signal.

"That's an awful beginning!" said Runt Woods, who was standing next to Dick Harrington. He was a little, flat-faced, brownie sort of boy, whom everybody loved. "Must have been in the first five minutes of play."

"They won't get any more," Dick answered confidently. "It's too bad they scored, but they won't get any more."

His optimism was unwarranted. There was a long wait without news. Then Mr. Tuttle, the secretary, reappeared from the Main Building, wearing a rueful smile. He picked up the eraser under the bulletin board, but he did not disturb the zero which stood to the credit (or debit) of The Towers. He rubbed out the 5 that followed Chancellor's Hill and set down 11.

"Something's happened!" cried Dick.

"Two touchdowns and a goal have happened," said Runt Woods gloomily.

"I don't mean that. I mean that something's happened to the team! Lost their heads, or something."

He wondered whether "The Colonel" had been taken ill. "The Colonel" was so completely the heart and soul of the team. If for some reason he were out of it----

They must be playing the second period by now. There was another long wait. Then at last Mr. Tuttle, looking grave, reappeared.

At the edge of the Archway, he stopped. "Don't mob me, now," he said, trying to grin.

"What's the score? Score!" cried a hundred voices.

"End of the second period," he said, striding toward the board. "Score 11 to 0."

Groans, loud and prolonged.

* * * * *

The wind whistled through the Archway. The boys stuck their hands in their pockets and danced, shivering, but not one deserted the bulletin board. They stared at the dismal figures and a dozen versions of How It Must Have Happened were launched by imaginative spectators, attacked ruthlessly and torpedoed as improbable. The trouble with the whole matter of explaining Chancellor's Hill's two touchdowns was that the very fact of the touchdowns would, an hour ago, have seemed the last word in improbabilities. They talked and shivered and bantered and sang and cheered (just to keep warm) for a solid hour. Mr. Tuttle reappeared at last.

The boys surged out of the Archway into the Quadrangle to meet him.

"Score! What's the score?"

"Get back, you wild Indians!" cried the studious secretary to some importunate First Formers who were tugging at his arms. "There is no news, and I can't get Chancellor's Hill on the telephone."

There were murmurs of bewilderment. The Senior Master, tall, genial, and conspicuous for his good sense, came out of the Main Building, and suggested a run for health's sake. He tagged Runt Woods lightly and was off. With a shout the crowd followed him at a jog-trot past the Music House, past the Cottage out on to the cinder track. They jogged a quarter-mile.

As they reached the Cottage on the return trip, they saw Mr. Tuttle dancing toward them, wildly waving his arms.

The Senior Master halted his band.

"Fifteen to eleven!" shouted Mr. Tuttle ecstatically. "We win!"

The roar that followed was memorable. Eppie, the confectionery man, picking his teeth in his empty shop at the foot of the hill, threw away his toothpick and went to the kitchen to tell his wife that The Towers had won, and business for the rest of the afternoon would be brisk.

Two minutes later the jubilant invasion began. Dick Harrington was not one of the crowd that rushed, cheering down the hill. He was on probation, and Eppie's was out of bounds.

He stood in the Archway, lonely and miserable.

Why hadn't he lied?

The team was due back at Hainesburg, the railroad station for The Towers, at eight-thirty. One or two Sixth Formers, flushed and almost incoherent with excitement, had asked the Senior Master for permission to organize a torchlight parade.

"Sure enough! Good idea!" exclaimed the Senior Master. "Go to it! Don't burn yourselves up, don't get lost, don't get in the way of the train and don't all have apoplectic fits as my friend Andrew here is promising to do shortly if some one doesn't put an ice compress on his enthusiasm. But go on. Give 'em a good time."

"Thank you ever so much, sir!" cried Andrew, "and I'll promise to cool off."

"Go 'way!" cried the Senior Master cheerfully. "You don't know how. You're a perpetual human Roman candle."

"I'll hold him down, sir," said the other boy.

"Pshaw!" cried the Senior Master. "You're a Whiz-bang yourself--go 'long! Shoo!"

The boys went.

At eight, Dick Harrington made his way to the Study to ask the Senior Master whether boys "on probe" could join the triumphal procession. The Senior Master was kindly, but firm.

"Sorry, old man," he said. "Probe rules hold."

That was all. But Dick Harrington without a word went to his room on the third floor of the East Wing, stumbling on the stairs, because of the tears.

Why, he asked himself bitterly again and again--why hadn't he lied?

He crept out of his room an hour later, hearing the cheers of the returning revelers. His hallway was utterly deserted, the school was deserted. If he needed any further evidence that virtue did not pay, here it was. "Be good and you'll be lonesome." There was one aphorism proved, at least.

* * * * *

Suddenly, standing in the Quadrangle, he heard singing. Then through the bare branches he saw the glow of many torches. It was all magical and mysterious, for the wild cheering which had brought him down from his room had given way to a solemn exaltation of triumph. If he had had a hat on his head, he would have pulled it off, hearing the school song sung that way. He felt a tug at his heart and again the dimness covered his eyes because he should be fated to have no active part in that thrilling chorus of victory.

He stood quite still, swallowing hard. At the end of the first stanza, there was a "regular yell" for The Towers, as the procession turned sharply, with torches flaring, up the steep drive. He could see now that they were dragging a hay-wagon with ropes. The team was on the hay-wagon. The second stanza of the school song floated up to him, it seemed a chant drifting over from fairyland.

The procession came nearer now. The hill and the hay-wagon together proved too much for the singers and the song died off in breathless laughter and another cheer. Then somebody started to call off the score: "One--two--three--four--" to a climactic burst--"Fifteen!" The procession disappeared behind the Main Building only to reappear a minute or two later around the corner of the Office, on the other side of the Archway. Dick Harrington wished that he had enough manly pride to scorn it all and go back to his room. But he didn't, so he rushed to where the crowd was gathered and listened in rapture to the cheers and the speeches and the songs and all the wonderful stories of a wonderful game.

"Colonel" Burton was there, smiling embarrassed appreciation. He had won the game for The Towers, when it seemed hopelessly lost. Every one agreed to that. He made a speech, thanking everybody for everything.

Why, oh, why, Dick cried to himself, as he climbed three flights after "creams" a half-hour later--Why hadn't he had the sense to lie?

* * * * *

Dick Harrington crept into bed, and his roommate crept into bed. The roommate slept and Dick Harrington tried to sleep, but sleep eluded him--it seemed for hours. Perhaps it was only for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then he too slept, dreaming of torchlit chariots.

He woke and gave a low cry. Some one was sitting on his bed. He started to jump up, scared through; but a strong hand touched his shoulder and a friendly voice whispered--"It's all right, Harrie; don't be scared."

[Illustration: HE WOKE AND GAVE A LOW CRY. SOME ONE WAS SITTING ON HIS BED]

Dick was still half asleep and dazed. "Who are you?" he cried in an unnatural voice.

"It's Bill Burton."

"Who?" he asked, amazed.

"Bill Burton."

"You're somebody trying to fool me," Dick whispered after a pause.

"No, I'm not, Harrie," said the other's deep, rich voice. "I wanted to talk to you. I couldn't wait until to-morrow, so I got permission from Prof, and here I am."

"What makes you want to see me?" asked Dick softly. "I guess I don't understand at all. I didn't think you knew me."

"You remember yesterday in the Algebra class?"

"You bet I remember," whispered Dick emphatically.

There was a moment's utter quiet. From away over in the direction of Chicken Hill came the sound of a rumpus in the Black Belt of Hainesburg. Then again quiet.

Burton spoke at last, slowly and rather more softly than before. "Beaver asked you and me the same question, you remember?"

"Yes," murmured Dick, breathlessly.

"You told him the truth."

"I just blurted out a lot of----"

"Well, I lied."

* * * * *

Somehow the shock of those words was to Dick Harrington like the impact of a terrible fist. He literally saw stars. The idea that "The Colonel" should tell a lie was inconceivable. Sneaks and cowards lied. His reeling standards straightened suddenly. His bitter regret that he hadn't had the sense to lie evaporated in the glow of an overwhelming gratitude. He could not speak.

"Harrie," Burton went on with a quiet depth of feeling which was not lost on Dick (for Dick had deep capabilities of sympathy himself if any one bothered to find it out). "You told the truth and I know what it cost you. I lied. And it took all the stuffin's out of me, Harrie. As soon as the lie was out, I felt I'd have given my head to have it back. You see, Harrie, quite apart from the right or wrong of it, it wouldn't have mattered if I had told the truth."

"It wouldn't?"

"No, I've had a fairly good record in class lately. But----"

"Why did you do it?"

"That's just it, old man. It was habit, I guess. It was just the line of least resistance. It was the quickest way out of a box--I didn't think, and bang!--first thing I knew I'd gone and done it! I'm a good deal older than you, Harrie, I'm twenty-one. I was a pretty bad kid until Prof. and Mrs. Brewster got hold of me. I've managed to get most of the worst devils under. And I thought I had the lie-devil under. I haven't told a lie for two years. But I didn't have him under, Harrie. When I least expected him, there he was. I guess I haven't been as unhappy for a good many years as I was yesterday and to-day."

Dick Harrington floundered helplessly for words--"I never thought----"

"I was getting pretty cocky about my own goodness, I guess," Burton went on quietly. "That's why I got it in the neck this way. But it took the sand right out of me. It seemed that all the years of tussle were in vain and I wasn't worth a little yaller dog's respect, and here the school was looking to me to do big things. It took it right out of me, Harrie. Do you know what was the trouble with the first two periods of the game to-day?"

"The team lost their heads, and then you bucked 'em up and won the game. The fellows told me."

"That sounds good, old man. But the trouble was that I couldn't get my mind down on the game. I was all the time thinking of that algebra class and that lie. I thought of it out on the field and mixed up the plays. That was the reason for those two first periods."

Dick Harrington sat bolt upright. "Really? Really?" he exclaimed.

"Instead of trying to win the game, I was all the time trying to puzzle out what I could do to wipe out that Lie. It wasn't square to the team, it wasn't square to the school, but there it was. There was that Lie. I tried to laugh at myself, but that didn't do any good. There was that Lie. I tried to curse myself out, but that didn't do any good. There was that Lie, sitting in my heart."

Dick stared at him through the darkness with burning eyes. "Then what happened?" he cried in a low voice.

"I dunno exactly, Harrie," Burton answered, speaking very slowly. "Suddenly I just found that I was thinking of you."

"Of me?" There was awe in the exclamation.

"And then it was all clear. I had to square myself with you. Suddenly I knew that that was what would wipe out that Lie and give me a fresh start. It was like a sort of revelation. You see, Harrie, I knew that you thought I was pretty fine, and you just had to be set straight."

"I--I haven't changed my mind at all about you," said Dick Harrington timidly. "And you won the game after all."

Bill Burton leaned over the younger boy. His hand groped for Dick's shoulder and clutched it.

"I didn't win the game," he whispered tensely. "The game wasn't really played at Chancellor's Hill at all. It was played in the algebra class. It was lost when I lied, and it was won a minute later when you told the truth. And I guess I'm pretty glad you told the truth."

"So am I," murmured Dick very softly.

They both breathed deeply. It had been a notable victory.

* * * * *

Next morning, between breakfast and Sunday service, Dick Harrington surreptitiously borrowed his roommate's safety razor, and shaved with shining eyes.

FOOTNOTE:

[K] Reprinted from "The Boy Scouts' Year Book." Copyright, 1918, by D. Appleton and Company.

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[Illustration]

XII.--Story of the Bandbox

By Robert Louis Stevenson

UP to the age of sixteen, at a private school and afterward at one of those great institutions for which England is justly famous, Mr. Harry Hartley had received the ordinary education of a gentleman. At that period he manifested a remarkable distaste for study; and his only surviving parent being both weak and ignorant, he was permitted thenceforward to spend his time in the attainment of petty and purely elegant accomplishments. Two years later, he was left an orphan and almost a beggar. For all active and industrious pursuits, Harry was unfitted alike by nature and training. He could sing romantic ditties, and accompany himself with discretion on the piano; he was a graceful although a timid cavalier; he had a pronounced taste for chess; and nature had sent him into the world with one of the most engaging exteriors than can well be fancied.

A fortunate chance and some influence obtained for Harry, at the time of his bereavement, the position of private secretary to Major-General Sir Thomas Vandeleur, C. B. Sir Thomas was a man of sixty, loud-spoken, boisterous, and domineering. For some reason, some service, the nature of which had been often whispered and repeatedly denied, the Rajah of Kashgar had presented this officer with the sixth largest known diamond of the world. The gift transformed General Vandeleur from a poor into a wealthy man, from an obscure and unpopular soldier into one of the lions of London society; the possessor of the Rajah's Diamond was welcome in the most exclusive circles; and he had found a lady, young, beautiful, and well-born, who was willing to call the diamond hers even at the price of marriage with Sir Thomas Vandeleur. It was commonly said at the time that, as like draws to like, one jewel had attracted another; certainly Lady Vandeleur was not only a gem of the finest water in her own person, but she showed herself to the world in a very costly setting; and she was considered by many respectable authorities as one among the three or four best-dressed women in England.

Harry's duty as secretary was not particularly onerous; but he had a dislike for all prolonged work; it gave him pain to ink his fingers; and the charms of Lady Vandeleur and her toilets drew him often from the library to the boudoir. He had the prettiest ways among women, could talk fashions with enjoyment, and was never more happy than when criticizing a shade of ribbon, or running on an errand to the milliner's. In short, Sir Thomas' correspondence fell into pitiful arrears, and my lady had another lady's maid.

At last the general, who was one of the least patient of military commanders, arose from his place in a violent excess of passion, and indicated to his secretary that he had no further use for his services, with one of those explanatory gestures which are most rarely employed between gentlemen. The door being unfortunately open, Mr. Hartley fell down-stairs head foremost.

He arose somewhat hurt and very deeply aggrieved. The life in the general's house precisely suited him; he moved, on a more or less doubtful footing, in very genteel company, he did little, he ate of the best, and he had a lukewarm satisfaction in the presence of Lady Vandeleur.

Immediately after he had been outraged by the military foot, he hurried to the boudoir and recounted his sorrows.

"You know very well, my dear Harry," replied Lady Vandeleur, for she called him by name like a child or a domestic servant, "that you never by any chance do what the general tells you. I shall be sorry to lose you, but since you cannot stay longer in a house where you have been insulted, I shall wish you good-bye, and I promise you to make the general smart for his behavior."

"My lady," said he, "what is an insult? I should think little indeed of any one who could not forgive them by the score. But to leave one's friends; to tear up the bonds of affection----"

He was unable to continue, for his emotion choked him, and he began to weep.

Lady Vandeleur looked at him with a curious expression.

"This little fool," she thought, "why should he not become my servant instead of the general's? He is good-natured, obliging, and understands dress; and besides, it will keep him out of mischief."

That night she talked over the general, who was already somewhat ashamed of his vivacity; and Harry was transferred to the feminine department, where his life was little short of heavenly. He was always dressed with uncommon nicety, wore delicate flowers in his button-hole, and could entertain a visitor with tact and pleasantry.

One fine morning he came into the drawing-room and began to arrange some music on the top of the piano. Lady Vandeleur, at the other end of the apartment, was speaking somewhat eagerly with her brother, Charlie Pendragon, an elderly young man, much broken with dissipation and very lame of one foot. The private secretary, to whose entrance they paid no regard, could not avoid overhearing a part of their conversation.

"To-day or never," said the lady. "Once and for all, it shall be done to-day."

"To-day, it must be," replied the brother, with a sigh. "But it is a false step, a ruinous step, Clara; and we shall live to repent it dismally."

Lady Vandeleur looked her brother steadily and somewhat strangely in the face.

"You forget," she said; "the man must die at last."

"Upon my word, Clara," said Pendragon, "I believe you are the most heartless rascal in England."

"You men," she returned, "are so coarsely built, that you can never appreciate a shade of meaning. You are yourselves rapacious, violent, immodest, careless of distinction; and yet the least thought for the future shocks you in a woman. I have no patience with such stuff. You would despise in a common banker the imbecility that you expect to find in us."

"You are very likely right," replied her brother; "you were always cleverer than I. And, anyway, you know my motto: the family before all."

"Yes, Charlie," she returned, taking his hand in hers. "I know your motto better than you know it yourself. And 'Clara before the family!' Is not that the second part of it? Indeed, you are the best of brothers, and I love you dearly."

Mr. Pendragon got up, looking a little confused by these family endearments.

"I had better not be seen," said he. "I understand my part to a miracle, and I'll keep an eye on the Tame Cat."

"Do," she replied. "He is an abject creature, and might ruin all."

She kissed the tips of her fingers to him daintily; and the brother withdrew by the boudoir and the back-stair.

"Harry," said Lady Vandeleur, turning toward the secretary as soon as they were alone. "I have a commission for you this morning. But you shall take a cab; I cannot have my secretary freckled."

She spoke the last words with emphasis and a look of half-motherly pride that caused great contentment to poor Harry; and he professed himself charmed to find an opportunity of serving her.

"It is another of our great secrets," she went on archly, "and no one must know of it but my secretary and me. Sir Thomas would make the saddest disturbance; and if you only knew how weary I am with these scenes! Oh, Harry, Harry, can you explain to me what makes you men so violent and unjust? But, indeed, I know you cannot; you are the only man in the world who knows nothing of these shameful passions; you are so good, Harry, and so kind; you, at least, can be a woman's friend; and do you know? I think you make the others more ugly by comparison."

"It is you," said Harry, gallantly, "who are so kind to me. You treat me like----"

"Like a mother," interposed Lady Vandeleur. "I try to be a mother to you. Or, at least," she corrected herself with a smile, "almost a mother. I am afraid I am too young to be your mother really. Let us say a friend--a dear friend."

"But all this is beside our purpose," she resumed. "You will find a bandbox in the left-hand side of the oak wardrobe; it is underneath the pink slip that I wore on Wednesday with my Mechlin. You will take it immediately to this address," and she gave him a slip of paper, "but do not, on any account, let it out of your hands until you have received a receipt written by myself. Do you understand? Answer, if you please--answer! This is extremely important, and I must ask you to pay some attention."

Harry pacified her by repeating her instructions perfectly; and she was just going to tell him more when General Vandeleur flung into the apartment, scarlet with anger, and holding a long and elaborate milliner's bill in his hand.

"Will you look at this, madam?" cried he. "Will you have the goodness to look at this document? I know well enough you married me for my money, and I hope I can make as great allowance as any other man in the service; but, as sure as God made me, I mean to put a period to this disreputable prodigality."

"Mr. Hartley," said Lady Vandeleur, "I think you understand what you have to do. May I ask you to see to it at once?"

"Stop," said the general, addressing Harry, "one word before you go." And then, turning again to Lady Vandeleur, "What is this precious fellow's errand?" he demanded. "I trust him no further than I do yourself, let me tell you. If he had as much as the rudiments of honesty, he would scorn to stay in this house; and what he does for his wages is a mystery to all the world. What is his errand, madam? and why are you hurrying him away?"

"I supposed you had something to say to me in private," replied the lady.

"You spoke about an errand," insisted the general. "Do not attempt to deceive me in my present state of temper. You certainly spoke about an errand."

"If you insist on making your servants privy to our humiliating dissensions," replied Lady Vandeleur, "perhaps I had better ask Mr. Hartley to sit down. No?" she continued; "then you may go, Mr. Hartley. I trust you may remember all that you have heard in this room; it may be useful to you."

Harry at once made his escape from the drawing-room; and as he ran upstairs he could hear the general's voice upraised in declamation, and the thin tones of Lady Vandeleur planting icy repartees at every opening. How cordially he admired the wife! How skillfully she could evade an awkward question! with what secure effrontery she repeated her instructions under the very guns of the enemy! and on the other hand, how he detested the husband!

There had been nothing unfamiliar in the morning's events, for he was continually in the habit of serving Lady Vandeleur on secret missions, principally connected with millinery. There was a skeleton in the house, as he well knew. The bottomless extravagance and the unknown liabilities of the wife had long since swallowed her own fortune, and threatened day by day to ingulf that of the husband. Once or twice in every year exposure and ruin seemed imminent, and Harry kept trotting round to all sorts of furnishers' shops, telling small fibs, and paying small advances on the gross amount, until another term was tided over, and the lady and her faithful secretary breathed again. For Harry, in a double capacity, was heart and soul upon that side of the war; not only did he adore Lady Vandeleur and fear and dislike her husband, but he naturally sympathized with the love of finery, and his own single extravagance was at the tailor's.

He found the bandbox where it had been described, arranged his toilet with care, and left the house. The sun shone brightly; the distance he had to travel was considerable, and he remembered with dismay that the general's sudden interruption had prevented Lady Vandeleur from giving him money for a cab. On this sultry day there was every chance that his complexion would suffer severely; and to walk through so much of London with a bandbox on his arm was a humiliation almost insupportable to a youth of his character. He paused, and took counsel with himself. The Vandeleurs lived in Eaton Place; his destination was near Notting Hill; plainly, he might cross the Park by keeping well in the open and avoiding populous alleys; and he thanked his stars when he reflected that it was still comparatively early in the day.

Anxious to be rid of his incubus, he walked somewhat faster than his ordinary, and he was already some way through Kensington Gardens when, in a solitary spot among trees, he found himself confronted by the general.

"I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas," observed Harry, politely falling on one side; for the other stood directly in his path.

"Where are you going, sir?" asked the general.

"I am taking a little walk among the trees," replied the lad.

The general struck the bandbox with his cane.

"With that thing?" he cried; "you lie, sir, and you know you lie!"

"Indeed, Sir Thomas," returned Harry, "I am not accustomed to be questioned in so high a key."

"You do not understand your position," said the general. "You are my servant, and a servant of whom I have conceived the most serious suspicions. How do I know but that your box is full of teaspoons?"

"It contains a silk hat belonging to a friend," said Harry.

"Very well," replied General Vandeleur. "Then I want to see your friend's silk hat. I have," he added, grimly, "a singular curiosity for hats; and I believe you know me to be somewhat positive."

"I beg your pardon, Sir Thomas, I am exceedingly grieved," Harry apologized; "but indeed this is a private affair."

The general caught him roughly by the shoulder with one hand, while he raised his cane in the most menacing manner with the other. Harry gave himself up for lost; but at the same moment Heaven vouchsafed him an unexpected defender in the person of Charlie Pendragon, who now strode forward from behind the trees.

"Come, come, general, hold your hand," said he, "this is neither courteous nor manly."

"Aha!" cried the general, wheeling round upon his new antagonist, "Mr. Pendragon! And do you suppose, Mr. Pendragon, that because I have had the misfortune to marry your sister, I shall suffer myself to be dogged and thwarted by a discredited and bankrupt libertine like you? My acquaintance with Lady Vandeleur, sir, has taken away all my appetite for the other members of her family."

"And do you fancy, General Vandeleur," retorted Charlie, "that because my sister has had the misfortune to marry you, she there and then forfeited her rights and privileges as a lady? I own, sir, that by that action she did as much as anybody could to derogate from her position; but to me she is still a Pendragon. I make it my business to protect her from ungentlemanly outrage, and if you were ten times her husband I would not permit her liberty to be restrained, nor her private messenger to be violently arrested."

"How is that, Mr. Hartley?" interrogated the general. "Mr. Pendragon is of my opinion, it appears. He, too, suspects that Lady Vandeleur has something to do with your friend's silk hat."

Charlie saw that he had committed an unpardonable blunder, which he hastened to repair.

"How, sir?" he cried; "I suspect, do you say? I suspect nothing. Only where I find strength abused and a man brutalizing his inferiors, I take the liberty to interfere."

As he said these words he made a sign to Harry, which the latter was too dull or too much troubled to understand.

"In what way am I to construe your attitude, sir?" demanded Vandeleur.

"Why, sir, as you please," returned Pendragon.

The general once more raised his cane, and made a cut for Charlie's head; but the latter, lame foot and all, evaded the blow with his umbrella, ran in, and immediately closed with his formidable adversary.

"Run, Harry, run!" he cried; "run, you dolt!"

Harry stood petrified for a moment, watching the two men sway together in this fierce embrace; then he turned and took to his heels. When he cast a glance over his shoulder he saw the general prostrate under Charlie's knee, but still making desperate efforts to reverse the situation; and the gardens seemed to have filled with people, who were running from all directions toward the scene of the fight. This spectacle lent the secretary wings, and he did not relax his pace until he had gained the Bayswater Road, and plunged at random into an unfrequented by-street.

To see two gentlemen of his acquaintance thus brutally mauling each other was deeply shocking to Harry. He desired to forget the sight; he desired, above all, to put as great a distance as possible between himself and General Vandeleur; and in his eagerness for this he forgot everything about his destination, and hurried before him headlong and trembling. When he remembered that Lady Vandeleur was the wife of one and sister of the other of these gladiators, his heart was touched with sympathy for a woman so distressingly misplaced in life. Even his own situation in the general's house looked hardly so pleasing as usual in the light of these violent transactions.

He had walked some little distance, busied with these meditations, before a slight collision with another passenger reminded him of the bandbox on his arm.

"Heavens!" cried he, "where was my head? and whither have I wandered?"

Thereupon he consulted the envelope which Lady Vandeleur had given him. The address was there, but without a name. Harry was simply directed to ask for "the gentleman who accepted a parcel from Lady Vandeleur," and if he were not at home to await his return. The gentleman, added the note, should present a receipt in the handwriting of the lady herself. All this seemed mighty mysterious, and Harry was above all astonished at the omission of the name and the formality of the receipt. He had thought little of this last when he heard it dropped in conversation; but reading it in cold blood, and taking it in connection with the other strange particulars, he became convinced that he was engaged in perilous affairs. For half a moment he had a doubt of Lady Vandeleur herself; for he found these obscure proceedings somewhat unworthy of so high a lady, and became more critical when her secrets were preserved against himself. But her empire over his spirit was too complete, he dismissed his suspicions, and blamed himself roundly for having so much as entertained them.

In one thing, however, his duty and interest, his generosity and his terrors, coincided--to get rid of the bandbox with the greatest possible dispatch.

He accosted the first policeman and courteously inquired his way. It turned out that he was already not far from his destination, and a walk of a few minutes brought him to a small house in a lane, freshly painted, and kept with the most scrupulous attention. The knocker and bell-pull were highly polished; flowering pot-herbs garnished the sills of the different windows; and curtains of some rich material concealed the interior from the eyes of curious passengers. The place had an air of repose and secrecy; and Harry was so far caught with this spirit that he knocked with more than usual discretion, and was more than usually careful to remove all impurity from his boots.

A servant-maid of some personal attractions immediately opened the door, and seemed to regard the secretary with no unkind eyes.

"This is the parcel from Lady Vandeleur," said Harry.

"I know," replied the maid, with a nod. "But the gentleman is from home. Will you leave it with me?"

"I cannot," answered Harry. "I am directed not to part with it but upon a certain condition, and I must ask you, I am afraid, to let me wait."

"Well," said she, "I suppose I may let you wait. I am lonely enough, I can tell you, and you do not look as though you would eat a girl. But be sure and do not ask the gentleman's name, for that I am not to tell you."

"Do you say so?" cried Harry. "Why, how strange! But, indeed, for some time back I walk among surprises. One question I think I may surely ask without indiscretion: Is he the master of this house?"

"He is a lodger, and not eight days old at that," returned the maid. "And now a question for a question: Do you know Lady Vandeleur?"

"I am her private secretary," replied Harry, with a glow of modest pride.

"She is pretty, is she not?" pursued the servant.

"Oh, beautiful!" cried Harry; "wonderfully lovely, and not less good and kind!"

"You look kind enough yourself," she retorted; "and I wager you are worth a dozen Lady Vandeleurs."

Harry was properly scandalized.

"I?" he cried. "I am only a secretary!"

"Do you mean that for me?" said the girl. "Because I am only a housemaid, if you please." And then, relenting at the sight of Harry's obvious confusion, "I know you mean nothing of the sort," she added; "and I like your looks; but I think nothing of your Lady Vandeleur. Oh, these mistresses!" she cried. "To send out a real gentleman like you--with a bandbox--in broad day!"

During this talk they had remained in their original positions--she on the doorstep, he on the sidewalk, bareheaded for the sake of coolness, and with the bandbox on his arm. But upon this last speech Harry, who was unable to support such point-blank compliments to his appearance, nor the encouraging look with which they were accompanied, began to change his attitude, and glance from left to right in perturbation. In so doing he turned his face toward the lower end of the lane, and there, to his indescribable dismay, his eyes encountered those of General Vandeleur. The general, in a prodigious fluster of heat, hurry and indignation, had been scouring the streets in chase of his brother-in-law; but so soon as he caught a glimpse of the delinquent secretary his purpose changed, his anger flowed into a new channel, and he turned on his heel and came tearing up the lane with truculent gestures and vociferations.

Harry made but one bolt of it into the house, driving the maid before him; and the door was slammed in his pursuer's countenance.

"Is there a bar? Will it lock?" asked Harry, while a salvo on the knocker made the house echo from wall to wall.

"Why, what is wrong with you?" asked the maid. "Is it this old gentleman?"

"If he gets hold of me," whispered Harry, "I am as good as dead. He has been pursuing me all day, carries a sword-stick, and is an Indian military officer."

"These are fine manners," cried the maid. "And what, if you please, may be his name?"

"It is the general, my master," answered Harry. "He is after this bandbox."

"Did not I tell you?" cried the maid in triumph. "I told you I thought worse than nothing of your Lady Vandeleur; and if you had an eye in your head you might see what she is for yourself. An ungrateful minx, I will be bound for that!"

The general renewed his attack upon the knocker, and his passion growing with delay, began to kick and beat upon the panels of the door.

"It is lucky," observed the girl, "that I am alone in the house; your general may hammer until he is weary, and there is none to open for him. Follow me!"

So saying she led Harry into the kitchen, where she made him sit down, and stood by him herself in an affectionate attitude, with a hand upon his shoulder. The din at the door, so far from abating, continued to increase in volume, and at each blow the unhappy secretary was shaken to the heart.

"What is your name?" asked the girl.

"Harry Hartley," he replied.

"Mine," she went on, "is Prudence. Do you like it?"

"Very much," said Harry. "But hear for a moment how the general beats upon the door. He will certainly break it in, and then, in Heaven's name, what have I to look for but death?"

"You put yourself very much about with no occasion," answered Prudence. "Let your general knock, he will do no more than blister his hands. Do you think I would keep you here if I were not sure to save you? Oh, no, I am a good friend to those that please me! and we have a back door upon another lane. But," she added, checking him, for he had got upon his feet immediately on this welcome news, "but I will not show where it is unless you kiss me. Will you, Harry?"

"That I will," he cried, remembering his gallantry, "not for your back door, but because you are good and pretty."

And he administered two or three cordial salutes, which were returned to him in kind.

Then Prudence led him to the back gate, and put her hand upon the key.

"Will you come and see me?" she asked.

"I will, indeed," said Harry. "Do not I owe you my life?"

"And now," she added, opening the door, "run as hard as you can, for I shall let in the general."

Harry scarcely required this advice; fear had him by the forelock; and he addressed himself diligently to flight. A few steps, and he believed he would return to Lady Vandeleur in honor and safety. But these few steps had not been taken before he heard a man's voice, hailing him by name with many execrations, and, looking over his shoulder, he beheld Charlie Pendragon waving him with both arms to return. The shock of this new incident was so sudden and profound, and Harry was already worked into so high a state of nervous tension, that he could think of nothing better than to accelerate his pace, and continue running. He should certainly have remembered the scene in Kensington Gardens; he should certainly have concluded that, where the general was his enemy, Charlie Pendragon could be no other than a friend. But such was the fever and perturbation of his mind that he was struck by none of these considerations, and only continued to run the faster up the lane.

Charlie, by the sound of his voice and the vile terms that he hurled after the secretary, was obviously beside himself with rage. He, too, ran his very best; but, try as he might, the physical advantages were not upon his side, and his outcries and the fall of his lame foot on the macadam began to fall further and further into the wake.

Harry's hopes began once more to arise. The lane was both steep and narrow, but it was exceedingly solitary, bordered on either hand by garden walls, overhung with foliage; and, for as far as the fugitive could see in front of him, there was neither a creature moving nor an open door. Providence, weary of persecution, was now offering him an open field for his escape.

Alas! as he came abreast of a garden door under a tuft of chestnuts, it was suddenly drawn back, and he could see inside, upon a garden path, the figure of a butcher's boy with his tray upon his arm. He had hardly recognized the fact before he was some steps beyond upon the other side. But the fellow had had time to observe him; he was evidently much surprised to see a gentleman go by at so unusual a pace; and he came out into the lane and began to call after Harry with shouts of ironical encouragement.

His appearance gave a new idea to Charlie Pendragon, who, although he was now sadly out of breath, once more upraised his voice.

"Stop thief!" he cried.

And immediately the butcher's boy had taken up the cry and joined in the pursuit.

This was a bitter moment for the hunted secretary. It is true that his terror enabled him once more to improve his pace, and gain with every step on his pursuers; but he was well aware that he was near the end of his resources, and should he meet any one coming the other way, his predicament in the narrow lane would be desperate indeed.

"I must find a place of concealment," he thought, "and that within the next few seconds, or all is over with me in this world."

Scarcely had the thought crossed his mind than the lane took a sudden turning; and he found himself hidden from his enemies. There are circumstances in which even the least energetic of mankind learn to behave with vigor and decision; and the more cautious forget their prudence and embrace foolhardy resolutions. This was one of those occasions for Harry Hartley; and those who knew him best would have been the most astonished at the lad's audacity. He stopped dead, flung the bandbox over a garden wall, and, leaping upward with incredible agility and seizing the copestone with his hands, he tumbled headlong after it into the garden.

He came to himself a moment afterward, seated in a border of small rosebushes. His hands and knees were cut and bleeding, for the wall had been protected against such an escalade by a liberal provision of old bottles; and he was conscious of a general dislocation and a painful swimming in the head. Facing him across the garden, which was in admirable order, and set with flowers of the most delicious perfume, he beheld the back of a house. It was of considerable extent, and plainly habitable; but, in odd contrast to the grounds, it was crazy, ill-kept, and of a mean appearance. On all other sides the circuit of the garden wall appeared unbroken.

He took in these features of the scene with mechanical glances, but his mind was still unable to piece together or draw a rational conclusion from what he saw. And when he heard footsteps advancing on the gravel, although he turned his eyes in that direction, it was with no thought either for defense or flight.

The newcomer was a large, coarse, and very sordid personage, in gardening clothes, and with a watering-pot in his left hand. One less confused would have been affected with some alarm at the sight of this man's huge proportions and black and lowering eyes. But Harry was too gravely shaken by his fall to be so much as terrified; and if he was unable to divert his glances from the gardener, he remained absolutely passive, and suffered him to draw near, to take him by the shoulder, and to plant him roughly on his feet, without a motion of resistance.

For a moment the two stared into each other's eyes, Harry fascinated, the man filled with wrath and a cruel, sneering humor.

"Who are you?" he demanded at last. "Who are you to come flying over my wall and break my Gloire de Dijons? What is your name?" he added, shaking him; "and what may be your business here?"

Harry could not as much as proffer a word in explanation.

But just at that moment Pendragon and the butcher's boy went clumping past, and the sound of their feet and their hoarse cries echoed loudly in the narrow lane. The gardener had received his answer; and he looked down into Harry's face with an obnoxious smile.

"A thief!" he said. "Upon my word, and a very good thing you must make of it; for I see you dressed like a gentleman from top to toe. Are you not ashamed to go about the world in such a trim, with honest folk, I dare say, glad to buy your cast-off finery second-hand? Speak up, you dog," the man went on; "you can understand English, I suppose; and I mean to have a bit of talk with you before I march you to the station."

"Indeed, sir," said Harry, "this is all a dreadful misconception; and if you will go with me to Sir Thomas Vandeleur's in Eaton Place, I can promise that all will be made plain. The most upright person, as I now perceive, can be led into suspicious positions."

"My little man," replied the gardener, "I will go with you no further than the station-house in the next street. The inspector, no doubt, will be glad to take a stroll with you as far as Eaton Place, and have a bit of afternoon tea with your great acquaintances. Or would you prefer to go direct to the home secretary? Sir Thomas Vandeleur, indeed! Perhaps you think I don't know a gentleman when I see one, from a common run-the-hedge like you? Clothes or no clothes, I can read you like a book. Here is a shirt that maybe cost as much as my Sunday hat; and that coat, I take it, has never seen the inside of Rag-fair, and then your boots----"

The man, whose eyes had fallen upon the ground, stopped short in his insulting commentary, and remained for a moment looking intently upon something at his feet. When he spoke his voice was strangely altered.

"What, in God's name," said he, "is all this?"

Harry, following the direction of the man's eyes, beheld a spectacle that struck him dumb with terror and amazement. In his fall he had descended vertically upon the bandbox and burst it open from end to end; thence a great treasure of diamonds had poured forth, and now lay abroad, part trodden in the soil, part scattered on the surface in regal and glittering profusion. There was a magnificent coronet which he had often admired on Lady Vandeleur; there were rings and brooches, eardrops and bracelets, and even unset brilliants rolling here and there among the rosebushes like drops of morning dew. A princely fortune lay between the two men upon the ground--a fortune in the most inviting, solid, and durable form, capable of being carried in an apron, beautiful in itself, and scattering the sunlight in a million rainbow flashes.

"Good Heavens!" said Harry. "I am lost!"

His mind raced backward into the past with the incalculable velocity of thought, and he began to comprehend his day's adventures, to conceive them as a whole, and to recognize the sad imbroglio in which his own character and fortunes had become involved. He looked round him, as if for help, but he was alone in the garden, with his scattered diamonds and his redoubtable interlocutor; and when he gave ear, there was no sound but the rustle of the leaves and the hurried pulsation of his heart. It was little wonder if the young man felt himself a little deserted by his spirits, and with a broken voice repeated his last ejaculation:

"I am lost!"

The gardener peered in all directions with an air of guilt; but there was no face at any of the windows, and he seemed to breathe again.

"Pick up a heart," he said, "you fool! The worst of it is done. Why could you not say at first there was enough for two? Two!" he repeated, "ay, and for two hundred! But come away from here, where we may be observed; and, for the love of wisdom, straighten out your hat and brush your clothes. You could not travel two steps the figure of fun you look just now."

While Harry mechanically adopted these suggestions, the gardener, getting upon his knees, hastily drew together the scattered jewels and returned them to the bandbox. The touch of these costly crystals sent a shiver of emotion through the man's stalwart frame; his face was transfigured, and his eyes shone with concupiscence; indeed, it seemed as if he luxuriously prolonged his occupation, and dallied with every diamond that he handled. At last, however, it was done; and, concealing the bandbox in his smock, the gardener beckoned to Harry and preceded him in the direction of the house.

Near the door they were met by a young man evidently in holy orders, dark and strikingly handsome, with a look of mingled weakness and resolution, and very neatly attired after the manner of his caste. The gardener was plainly annoyed by this encounter; but he put as good a face upon it as he could, and accosted the clergyman with an obsequious and smiling air.

"Here is a fine afternoon, Mr. Rolles," said he; "a fine afternoon, as sure as God made it! And here is a young friend of mine who had a fancy to look at my roses. I took the liberty to bring him in, for I thought none of the lodgers would object."

"Speaking for myself," replied the Reverend Mr. Rolles, "I do not; nor do I fancy any of the rest of us would be more difficult upon so small a matter. The garden is your own, Mr. Raeburn; we must none of us forget that; and because you give us liberty to walk there we should be indeed ungracious if we so far presumed upon your politeness as to interfere with the convenience of your friends. But, on second thoughts," he added, "I believe that this gentleman and I have met before. Mr. Hartley, I think. I regret to observe that you have had a fall."

And he offered his hand.

A sort of maiden dignity and a desire to delay as long as possible the necessity for explanation moved Harry to refuse this chance of help, and to deny his own identity. He chose the tender mercies of the gardener, who was at least unknown to him, rather than the curiosity and perhaps the doubts of an acquaintance.

"I fear there is some mistake," said he. "My name is Thomlinson, and I am a friend of Mr. Raeburn's."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Rolles. "The likeness is amazing."

Mr. Raeburn, who had been upon thorns throughout this colloquy, now felt it high time to bring it to a period.

"I wish you a pleasant saunter, sir," said he.

And with that he dragged Harry after him into the house, and then into a chamber on the garden. His first care was to draw down the blind, for Mr. Rolles still remained where they had left him, in an attitude of perplexity and thought. Then he emptied the broken bandbox on the table, and stood before the treasure, thus fully displayed, with an expression of rapturous greed, and rubbing his hand upon his thighs. For Harry, the sight of the man's face under the influence of this base emotion added another pang to those he was already suffering. It seemed incredible that, from his life of pure and delicate trifling, he should be plunged in a breath among sordid and criminal relations. He could reproach his conscience with no sinful act; and yet he was now suffering the punishment of sin in its most acute and cruel forms--the dread of punishment, the suspicions of the good, and the companionship and contamination of vile and brutal natures. He felt he could lay his life down with gladness to escape from the room and the society of Mr. Raeburn.

"And now," said the latter, after he had separated the jewels into two nearly equal parts, and drawn one of them nearer to himself; "and now," said he, "everything in this world has to be paid for, and some things sweetly. You must know, Mr. Hartley, if such be your name, that I am a man of a very easy temper, and good nature has been my stumbling block from first to last. I could pocket the whole of these pretty pebbles, if I chose, and I should like to see you dare to say a word; but I think I must have taken a liking to you; for I declare I have not the heart to shave you so close. So, do you see, in pure kind feeling, I propose that we divide; and these," indicating the two heaps, "are the proportions that seem to me just and friendly. Do you see any objection, Mr. Hartley, may I ask? I am not the man to stick upon a brooch."

"But, sir," cried Harry, "what you propose to me is impossible. The jewels are not mine, and I cannot share what is another's, no matter with whom, nor in what proportions."

"They are not yours, are they not?" returned Raeburn. "And you could not share them with anybody, couldn't you? Well, now, that is what I call a pity; for here I am obliged to take you to the station. The police--think of that," he continued; "think of the disgrace for your respectable parents; think," he went on, taking Harry by the wrist; "think of the Colonies and the Day of Judgment."

"I cannot help it," wailed Harry. "It is not my fault. You will not come with me to Eaton Place."

"No," replied the man, "I will not, that is certain. And I mean to divide these playthings with you here."

And so saying he applied a sudden and severe torsion to the lad's wrist.

Harry could not suppress a scream, and the perspiration burst forth upon his face. Perhaps pain and terror quickened his intelligence, but certainly at that moment the whole business flashed across him in another light; and he saw that there was nothing for it but to accede to the ruffian's proposal, and trust to find the house and force him to disgorge, under more favorable circumstances, and when he himself was clear from all suspicion.

"I agree," he said.

"There is a lamb," sneered the gardener. "I thought you would recognize your interests at last. This bandbox," he continued, "I shall burn with my rubbish; it is a thing that curious folk might recognize; and as for you, scrape up your gayeties and put them in your pocket."

Harry proceeded to obey, Raeburn watching him, and every now and again, his greed rekindled by some bright scintillation, abstracting another jewel from the secretary's share, and adding it to his own.

When this was finished, both proceeded to the front door, which Raeburn cautiously opened to observe the street. This was apparently clear of passengers; for he suddenly seized Harry by the nape of the neck, and holding his face downward so that he could see nothing but the roadway and the doorsteps of the houses, pushed him violently before him down one street and up another for the space of perhaps a minute and a half. Harry had counted three corners before the bully relaxed his grasp, and crying, "Now be off with you!" sent the lad flying headforemost with a well-directed and athletic kick.

When Harry gathered himself up, half-stunned and bleeding freely at the nose, Mr. Raeburn had entirely disappeared. For the first time, anger and pain so completely overcame the lad's spirits that he burst into a fit of tears and remained sobbing in the middle of the road.

After he had thus somewhat assuaged his emotion, he began to look about him and read the names of the streets at whose intersection he had been deserted by the gardener. He was still in an unfrequented portion of West London, among villas and large gardens; but he could see some persons at a window who had evidently witnessed his misfortune; and almost immediately after a servant came running from the house and offered him a glass of water. At the same time, a dirty rogue, who had been slouching somewhere in the neighborhood, drew near him from the other side.

"Poor fellow," said the maid, "how vilely you have been handled, to be sure! Why, your knees are all cut, and your clothes ruined! Do you know the wretch who used you so?"

"That I do!" cried Harry, who was somewhat refreshed by the water; "and shall run him home in spite of his precautions. He shall pay dearly for this day's work, I promise you."

"You had better come into the house and have yourself washed and brushed," continued the maid. "My mistress will make you welcome, never fear. And see, I will pick up your hat. Why, love of mercy!" she screamed, "if you have not dropped diamonds all over the street!"

Such was the case; a good half of what remained to him after the depredations of Mr. Raeburn had been shaken out of his pockets by the somersault, and once more lay glittering on the ground. He blessed his fortune that the maid had been so quick of eye; "there is nothing so bad but it might be worse," thought he; and the recovery of these few seemed to him almost as great an affair as the loss of all the rest. But, alas! as he stooped to pick up his treasures the loiterer made a rapid onslaught, overset both Harry and the maid with a movement of his arms, swept up a double handful of the diamonds, and made off along the street with an amazing swiftness.

Harry, as soon as he could get upon his feet, gave chase to the miscreant with many cries, but the latter was too fleet of foot, and probably too well acquainted with the locality; for turn where the pursuer would he could find no traces of the fugitive.

In the deepest despondency Harry revisited the scene of his mishap, where the maid, who was still waiting, very honestly returned to him his hat and the remainder of the fallen diamonds. Harry thanked her from his heart, and being now in no humor for economy, made his way to the nearest cab stand, and set off for Eaton Place by coach.

The house, on his arrival, seemed in some confusion, as if a catastrophe had happened in the family; and the servants clustered together in the hall, and were unable, or perhaps not altogether anxious, to suppress their merriment at the tatterdemalion figure of the secretary. He passed them with as good an air of dignity as he could assume, and made directly for the boudoir. When he opened the door, an astonishing and even menacing spectacle presented itself to his eyes; for he beheld the general and his wife, and, of all people, Charlie Pendragon, closeted together, and speaking with earnestness and gravity on some important subject. Harry saw at once that there was little left for him to explain--plenary confession had plainly been made to the general of the intended fraud upon his pocket, and the unfortunate miscarriage of the scheme; and they had all made common cause against a common danger.

"Thank Heaven!" cried Lady Vandeleur, "here he is! The bandbox, Harry, the bandbox!"

But Harry stood before them silent and downcast.

"Speak!" she cried. "Speak! Where is the bandbox?"

And the men, with threatening gestures, repeated the demand.

Harry drew a handful of jewels from his pocket. He was very white.

"This is all that remains," said he. "I declare before Heaven it was through no fault of mine; and if you will have patience, although some are lost, I am afraid, forever, others, I am sure, may be still recovered!"

"Alas!" cried Lady Vandeleur, "all our diamonds are gone, and I owe ninety thousand pounds for dress!"

"Madam," said the general, "you might have paved the gutter with your own trash; you might have made debts to fifty times the sum you mention; you might have robbed me of my mother's coronet and rings; and Nature might have still so far prevailed that I could have forgiven you at last. But, madam, you have taken the Rajah's Diamond--the Eye of Light, as the Orientals poetically termed it--the Pride of Kashgar! You have taken from me the Rajah's Diamond," he cried, raising his hands, "and all, madam, all is at an end between us!"

"Believe me, General Vandeleur," she replied, "that is one of the most agreeable speeches that ever I heard from your lips; and since we are to be ruined I could almost welcome the change, if it delivers me from you. You have told me often enough that I married you for your money; let me tell you now that I always bitterly repented the bargain; and if you were still marriageable, and had a diamond bigger than your head, I should counsel even my maid against a union so uninviting and disastrous. As for you, Mr. Hartley," she continued, turning on the secretary, "you have sufficiently exhibited your valuable qualities in this house; we are now persuaded that you equally lack manhood, sense and self-respect; and I can see only one course open for you--to withdraw instanter, and, if possible, return no more. For your wages you may rank as a creditor in my late husband's bankruptcy."

Harry had scarcely comprehended this insulting address before the general was down upon him with another.

"And in the meantime," said that personage, "follow me before the nearest inspector of police. You may impose upon a simple-minded soldier, sir, but the eye of the law will read your disreputable secret. If I must spend my old age in poverty through your underhand intriguing with my wife, I mean at least that you shall not remain unpunished for your pains; and God, sir, will deny me a very considerable satisfaction if you do not pick oakum from now until your dying day."

With that the general dragged Harry from the apartment and hurried him down-stairs and along the street to the police-station of the district.

Here (says my Arabian author) ended this deplorable business of the bandbox. But to the unfortunate secretary the whole affair was the beginning of a new and manlier life. The police were easily persuaded of his innocence; and, after he had given what help he could in the subsequent investigation, he was even complimented by one of the chiefs of the detective department on the probity and simplicity of his behavior. Several persons interested themselves in one so unfortunate; and soon after he inherited a sum of money from a maiden aunt in Worcestershire. With this he married Prudence, and set sail for Bendigo, or, according to another account, for Trincomalee, exceedingly content, and with the best of prospects.

---

[Illustration]

XIII.--The Hero and the Cowboy[L]

By Joseph C. Lincoln

Not every boy is permitted to spend a vacation down Cape Cod way in Massachusetts. The next best thing to that is reading "Joe" Lincoln's books about the folks who live there. Conspicuous among them is Captain Bailey Stitt. He had in his long life many unusual adventures, but if any of you boys should chance to meet him and ask what was the most remarkable of all, undoubtedly he would tell you of his cruise in the red motorcar--the "buzz wagon," as he called it.--THE EDITOR.

"OF course," said Captain Bailey Stitt musingly, "I didn't know the critter was weak in his top riggin' or I wouldn't have gone with him in the fust place. And he wan't real loony, nuther. 'Twas only when he got aboard that--that ungodly kerosene-smellin', tootin', buzzin', Old Harry's go-cart of his that the craziness begun to show. There's so many of them weak-minded city folks from the Ocean House comes perusin' 'round here summers, nowadays, that I cal'lated he was just an average specimen, and never examined him close."

"Are all the Ocean House boarders weak-minded?" I inquired, seeking information.

Captain Bailey bounced on his overturned mackerel-keg like a fat, tan-colored rubber ball.

"My land!" he snapped. "Would they board at the Ocean House if they wan't weak-minded? This feller wan't an Ocean Houser, though. He was young Stumpton's automobile skipper-shover, or shofer, or somethin' they called him. He answered to the hail of Billings, and his home port was the Stumptons' ranch, way out in Montana. He'd been here in Orham only a couple of weeks, havin' come plumb across the United States to fetch his boss the new automobile. You see, 'twas early October. The Stumptons had left their summer place on the Cliff Road, and was on their way south for the winter. Young Stumpton was up to Boston, but he was comin' back in a couple of days, and then him and the shover was goin' automobilin' to Florida. To Florida, mind you! In that thing! If it was me I'd buy my ticket to Tophet direct and save time and money.

"Well, anyhow, this critter Billings he ain't never smelt salt water afore, and he don't like the smell. He makes proclamations that Orham is nothin' but sand, slush, and soft drinks. He won't sail, he can't swim, he won't fish: but he's hankerin' to shoot somethin', havin' been brought up in a place where if you don't shoot some of the neighbors every day or so folks think you're stuck up and dissociable. Then somebody tells him it's the duckin' season down to Setuckit P'int, and he says he'll spend his day off, while the boss is away, massycreein' the coots there. This same somebody whispers that I know so much about ducks that I quack when I talk, and he comes cruisin' over in the buzz-cart to hire me for guide. And--would you b'lieve it?--it turns out that he's cal'latin' to make his duckin' v'yage in that very cart. I was for makin' the trip in a boat, like a sensible man, but he wouldn't hear of it.

"'Land of love!' says I. 'Go to Setuckit in a automobile?'

"'Why not?' he says. 'The biscuit-shooter up at the hotel tells me there's a smart chance of folks goes there a-horse-back. And where a hoss can travel I reckon the old gal here'--slappin' the thwart of the auto alongside of him--'can go too!'

"'But there's the Cut-through,' says I.

"'Tain't nothin' but a creek when the freshet's over, they tell me,' says he. 'And me and the boss have forded four foot of river in this very machine.'

"By the 'freshet' bein' over I judged he meant the tide bein' out. And the Cut-through ain't but a little trickle then, though it's a quarter-mile wide and deep enough to float a schooner at high-water. It's the strip of channel that makes Setuckit Beach an island, you know. The gov'ment has had engineers down dredgin' of it out, and pretty soon fish-boats'll be able to save the twenty-mile sail around the P'int and into Orham Harbor at all hours.

"Well, to make a long story short, I agreed to let him cart me to Setuckit P'int in that everlastin' gas-carryall. We was to start at four o'clock in the afternoon, 'cause the tide at the Cut-through would be dead low at half-past four. We'd stay overnight at my shanty at the P'int, get up airly, shoot all day, and come back the next afternoon.

"At four prompt he was on hand, ready for me. I loaded in the guns and grub and one thing or 'nother, and then 'twas time for me to get aboard myself.

"'You'll set in the tonneau,' says he, indicatin' the upholstered after-cockpit of the concern. I opened up the shiny hatch, under orders from him, and climbed in amongst the upholstery. 'Twas soft as a feather-bed.

"'Jerushy!' says I, lollin' back luxurious. 'This is fine, ain't it?'

"'Cost seventy-five hundred to build,' he says, casual. 'Made to order for the boss. Lightest car of her speed ever turned out.'

"'Go 'way! How you talk! Seventy-five hundred what? Not dollars?'

"'Sure,' he says. Then he turns round--he was in the bow, hangin' on to the steerin'-wheel--and looks me over, kind of interested, but superior. 'Say,' he says, 'I've been hearin' things about you. You're a hero, ain't you?'

"Durn them Orham gabblers! Ever sence I hauled that crew of seasick summer boarders out of the drink a couple of years ago and the gov'ment gave me a medal, the minister and some more of his gang have painted out the name I was launched under and had me entered on the shippin'-list as 'The Hero.' I've licked two or three for callin' me that, but I can't lick a parson, and he was the one that told Billings.

"'Oh, I don't know!' I answers, pretty sharp. 'Get her under way, why don't you?'

"All he done was look me over some more and grin.

"'A hero! A real, live gov'ment-branded hero!' he says. 'Ain't scared of nothin', I reckon--hey?'

"I never made no answer. There's some things that's too fresh to eat without salt, and I didn't have a pickle-tub handy.

"'Hum!' he says again, reverend-like. 'A sure hero; scared of nothin'! Never rode in an auto afore, did you?'

"'No,' says I, peppery; 'and I don't see no present symptoms of ridin' in one now. Cast off, won't you?'

"He cast off. That is to say, he hauled a nickel-plated marlinspike thing towards him, shoved another one away from him, took a twist on the steerin'-wheel, the go-cart coughed like a horse with the heaves, started up some sort of buzz-planer underneath, and then we begun to move.

"From the time we left my shanty at South Orham till we passed the pines at Herrin' Neck I laid back in that stuffed cockpit, feelin' as grand and tainted as old John D. himself. The automobile rolled along smooth but swift, and it seemed to me I had never known what easy trav'lin' was afore. As we rounded the bend by the pines and opened up the twelve-mile narrow white stretch of Setuckit Beach ahead of us, with the ocean on one side and the bay on t'other, I looked at my watch. We'd come that fur in thirteen minutes.

"'Land sakes!' I says. 'This is what I call movin' right along!'

"He turned round and sized me up again, like he was surprised.

"'Movin'?' says he. 'Movin'? Why, pard, we've been settin' down to rest! Out our way if a lynchin' party didn't move faster than we've done so fur, the center of attraction would die on the road of old age. Now, my heroic college chum,' he goes on, callin' me out of my name as usual, 'will you be so condescendin' as to indicate how we hit the trail?'

"Hit--hit which? Don't hit nothin', for goodness' sake! Goin' the way we be, it would----'

"'Which way do we go?'

"'Right straight ahead. Keep on the ocean side, 'cause there's more hard sand there, and--hold on! Don't do that! Stop it, I tell you!'

"Them was the last rememberable words said by me durin' the next quarter of an hour. That shover man let out a hair-raisin' yell, hauled the nickel marlinespike over in its rack, and squeezed a rubber bag that was spliced to the steerin'-wheel. There was a half dozen toots or howls or honks from under our bows somewheres, and then that automobile hopped off the ground and commenced to fly. The fust hop landed me on my knees in the cockpit, and there I stayed. 'Twas the most fittin' position fur my frame of mind and chimed in fust-rate with the general religious drift of my thoughts.

"The Cut-through is two mile or more from Herrin' Neck. 'Cording to my count we hit terra cotta just three times in them two miles. The fust hit knocked my hat off. The second one chucked me up so high I looked back for the hat, and though we was a half mile away from it, it hadn't had time to git to the ground. And all the while the horn was a honkin', and Billings was a screechin', and the sand was a flyin'. Sand! Why, say! Do you see that extra bald place on the back of my head? Yes? Well, there was a two-inch thatch of hair there afore that sand-blast ground it off.

"When I went up on the third jounce I noticed the Cut-through just ahead. Billings see it, too, and--would you b'lieve it?--the lunatic stood up, let go of the wheel with one hand, takes off his hat and waves it, and we charge down across them wet tide flats like death on the woolly horse, in Scriptur'.

"'Hi, yah! Yip!' whoops Billings. 'Come on in, fellers! The water's fine! Yow! Y-e-e-e! Yip!'

[Illustration: "FOR A SECOND IT LEFT OFF RAININ' SAND, AND THERE WAS A TYPHOON OF MUD AND SPRAY"]

"For a second it left off rainin' sand, and there was a typhoon of mud and spray. I see a million of the prettiest rainbows--that is, I cal'lated there was a million; it's awful hard to count when you're bouncin' and prayin' and drowndin' all to once. Then we sizzed out of the channel, over the flats on t'other side, and on towards Setuckit.

"Never mind the rest of the ride. 'Twas all a sort of constant changin' sameness. I remember passin' a blurred life-savin' station, with three--or maybe thirty--blurred men jumpin' and laughin' and hollerin'. I found out afterwards that they'd been on the lookout for the bombshell for half an hour. Billings had told around town what he was goin' to do to me, and some kind friend had telephoned it to the station. So the life-savers was full of anticipations. I hope they were satisfied. I hadn't rehearsed my part of the show none, but I feel what the parson calls a consciousness of havin' done my best.

"'Woa, gal!' says Billings, calm and easy, puttin' the helm hard down. The auto was standin' still at last. Part of me was hangin' over the lee rail. I could see out of the part, so I know 'twas my head. And there alongside was my fish-shanty at the P'int, goin' round and round in circles.

"I undid the hatch of the cockpit and fell out on the sand. Then I scrambled up and caught hold of the shanty as it went past me. That fool shover watched me, seemin'ly interested.

"'Why, pard,' says he, 'what's the matter? Do you feel pale? Are you nervous? It ain't possible that you're scared? Honest, now, pard, if it weren't that I knew you were a genuine gold-mounted hero I'd sure think you was a scared man.'

"I never said nothin'. The scenery and me was just turnin' the mark buoy on our fourth lap.

"'Dear me, pard!' continues Billings. 'I sure hope I ain't scared you none. We come down a little slow this evenin', but to-morrow night, when I take you back home, I'll let the old girl out a little.'

"I sensed some of that. And as the shanty had about come to anchor, I answered and spoke my mind.

"'When you take me back home!' I says. 'When you do! Why, you crack-brained, murderin' lunatic, I wouldn't cruise in that buzz-wagon of yours again for the skipper's wages on a Cunarder! No, nor the mate's hove in!'

"And that shover he put his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed.

II

"I tell you I had to take it that evenin'. All the time I was cookin' and while he was eatin' supper, Billings was rubbin' it into me about my bein' scared. Called me all the salt-water-hero names he could think of--'Hobson' and 'Dewey' and the like of that, usin' 'em sourcastic, of course. Finally, he said he remembered readin' in school, when he was little, about a girl hero, name of Grace Darlin'. Said he cal'lated, if I didn't mind, he'd call me Grace, 'cause it was heroic and yet kind of fitted in with my partic'lar brand of bravery. I didn't answer much; he had me down, and I knew it. Likewise I judged he was more or less out of his head; no sane man would yell the way he done aboard that automobile.

"Then he commenced to spin yarns about himself and his doin's, and pretty soon it come out that he'd been a cowboy afore young Stumpton give up ranchin' and took to automobilin'. That cleared the sky-line some of course; I'd read consider'ble about cowboys in the ten-cent books my nephew fetched home when he was away to school. I see right off that Billings was the livin' image of Deadwood Dick and Wild Bill and the rest in them books; they yelled and howled and hadn't no regard for life and property any more'n he had. No, sir! He wan't no crazier'n they was; it was in the breed, I judged.

"'I sure wish I had you on the ranch, Grace,' says he. 'Why don't you come West some day? That's where a hero like you would show up strong.'

"'Godfrey mighty!' I sings out. 'I wouldn't come nigh such a nest of crazy murderers as that fur no money! I'd sooner ride in that automobile of yours, and St. Peter himself couldn't coax me into that again, not if 'twas fur a cruise plumb up the middle of the golden street!'

"I meant it, too, and the next afternoon when it come time to start for home he found out that I meant it. We'd shot a lot of ducks, and Billings was havin' such a good time that I had to coax and tease him as if he was a young one afore he'd think of quittin'. It was quarter of six when he backed the gas-cart out of the shed. I was uneasy, 'cause 'twas past low-water time, and there was fog comin' on.

"'Brace up, Dewey!' says he. 'Get in.'

"'No, Mr. Billings,' says I. 'I ain't goin' to get in. You take that craft of yourn home, and I'll sail up alongside in my dory.'

"'In your which?' says he.

"'In my dory,' I says. 'That's her, hauled up on the beach abreast the shanty.'

"He looked at the dory and then at me.

"'Go on!' says he. 'You ain't goin' to pack yourself twelve mile on that shingle?'

"'Sartin I am!' says I. 'I ain't takin' no more chances.'

"Do you know, he actually seemed to think I was crazy then. Seemed to figger that the dory wan't big enough; and she's carried five easy afore now. We had an argument that lasted twenty minutes more, and the fog driftin' in nigher all the time. At last he got sick of arguin', ripped out something brisk and personal, and got his tin-shop to movin'.

"'You want to cross over to the ocean side,' I called after him. The Cut-through's been dredged at the bay end, remember.'

"Be hanged!' he yells, or more emphatic. And off he whizzed. I see him go and fetched a long breath. Thanks to a merciful Providence, I'd come so fur without bein' buttered on the undercrust of that automobile or scalped with its crazy shover's bowie-knife.

"Ten minutes later I was beatin' out into the bay in my dory. All around was the fog, thin as poorhouse gruel so fur, but thickenin' every minute. I was worried; not for myself, you understand, but for that cowboy shover. I was afraid he wouldn't fetch t'other side of the Cut-through. There wan't much wind, and I had to make long tacks. I took the inshore channel, and kept listenin' all the time. And at last, when 'twas pretty dark and I was cal'latin' to be about abreast of the bay end of the Cut-through, I heard from somewheres ashore a dismal honkin' kind of noise, same as a wild goose might make if 'twas chokin' to death and not resigned to the worst.

"'My land!' says I. 'It's happened!' And I come about and headed straight in for the beach. I struck it just alongside the gov'ment shanty. The engineers had knocked off work for the week, waitin' for supplies, but they hadn't took away their dunnage.

"'Hi!' I yells, as I hauled up the dory. 'Hi-i-i! Billings, where be you?'

"The honkin' stopped and back comes the answer; there was joy in it.

"'What? Is that Captain Stitt?'

"'Yes,' I sings out. 'Where be you?'

"'I'm stuck out here in the middle of the crick. And there's a flood on. Help me, can't you?'

"Next minute I was aboard the dory, rowin' her against the tide up the channel. Pretty quick I got where I could see him through the fog and dark. The auto was on the flat in the middle of the Cut-through and the water was hub high already. Billings was standin' up on the for'ard thwart, makin' wet footmarks all over them expensive cushions.

"'Lord,' says he, 'I sure am glad to see you, pard! Can we get to land, do you think?'

"'Land?' says I, makin' the dory fast alongside and hoppin' out into the drink. 'Course we can land! What's the matter with your old derelict? Sprung a leak, has it?'

"He went on to explain that the automobile had broke down when he struck the flat, and he couldn't get no further. He'd been honkin' and howlin' for ten year at least, so he reckoned.

"'Why in time,' says I, 'didn't you mind me and go up the ocean side? And why in nation didn't you go ashore and-- But never mind that now. Let me think. Here! You set where you be.'

"As I shoved off in the dory again he turned loose a distress signal.

"'Where you goin'?' he yells. 'Say, pard, you ain't goin' to leave me here, are you?'

"'I'll be back in a shake,' says I, layin' to my oars. 'Don't holler so! You'll have the life-savers down here, and then the joke'll be on us. Hush, can't you? I'll be right back!'

III

"I rowed up channel a little ways, and then I sighted the place I was bound for. Them gov'ment folks had another shanty further up the Cut-through. Moored out in front of it was a couple of big floats, for their stone-sloops to tie up to at high-water. The floats were made of empty kerosene-barrels and planks, and they'd have held up a house easy. I run alongside the fust one, cut the anchor-cable with my jack-knife, and next minute I was navigatin' that float down channel, steerin' it with my oar and towin' the dory astern.

"'Twas no slouch of a job, pilotin' that big float, but part by steerin' and part by polin' I managed to land her broadside on to the auto. I made her fast with the cable ends and went back after the other float. This one was a bigger job than the fust, but by and by that gas-wagon, with planks under her and cable lashin's holdin' her firm, was restin' easy as a settin' hen between them two floats. I unshipped my mast, fetched it aboard the nighest float, and spread the sail over the biggest part of the brasswork and upholstery.

"'There,' says I, 'if it rains durin' the night she'll keep pretty dry. Now I'll take the dory and row back to the shanty after some spare anchors there is there.'

"'But what's it fur, pard?' asks Billings for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time. 'Why don't we go where it's dry? The flood's risin' all the time.'

"'Let it rise,' I says. 'I cal'late when it gets high enough them floats'll rise with it and lift the automobile up too. If she's anchored bow and stern she'll hold, unless it comes on to blow a gale, and to-morrow mornin' at low tide maybe you can tinker her up so she'll go.'

"'Go?' says he, like he was astonished. 'Do you mean to say you're reckonin' to save the car?'

"'Good land!' I says, starin' at him. 'What else d'you s'pose? Think I'd let seventy-five hundred dollars' wuth of gilt-edged extravagance go to the bottom? What did you cal'late I was tryin' to save--the clam-flat? Give me that dory-rope; I'm goin' after them anchors. Sufferin' snakes! Where is the dory? What have you done with it?'

"He'd been holdin' the bight of the dory-rodin'. I handed it to him so's he'd have somethin' to take up his mind. And, by time, he'd forgot all about it and let it drop! And the dory had gone adrift and was out of sight.

"'Gosh!' says he, astonished-like. 'Pard, the son of a gun has slipped his halter!'

"I was pretty mad--dories don't grow on every beach-plum bush--but there wan't nothin' to say that fitted the case, so I didn't try.

"'Humph!' says I. 'Well, I'll have to swim ashore that's all, and go up to the station inlet after another boat. You stand by the ship. If she gets afloat afore I come back you honk and holler and I'll row after you. I'll fetch the anchors and we'll moor her wherever she happens to be. If she shouldn't float on an even keel, or goes to capsize, you jump overboard and swim ashore. I'll----'

"'Swim?' says he, with a shake in his voice. 'Why, pard, I can't swim!'

"I turned and looked at him. Shover of a two-mile-a-minute gold-plated butcher-cart like that, a cowboy murderer that et his friends for breakfast--and couldn't swim! I fetched a kind of combination groan and sigh, turned back the sail, climbed aboard the automobile, and lit up my pipe.

"'What are you settin' there for?' says he. 'What are you goin' to do?'

"'Do?' says I. 'Wait, that's all--wait and smoke. We won't have to wait long.'

"My prophesyin' was good. We didn't have to wait very long. It was pitch dark, foggy as ever, and the tide a risin' fast. The floats got to be awash. I shinned out on to 'em picked up the oar that had been left there, and took my seat again. Billings climbed in too, only--and it kind of shows the change sence the previous evenin'--he was in the passenger-cockpit astern and I was for'ard in the pilot house. For a reckless dare-devil he was actin' mighty fidgety.

"And at last one of the floats swung off the sand. The automobile tipped scandalous. It looked as if we was goin' on our beam-ends. Billings let out an awful yell. Then t'other float bobbed up and the whole shebang, car and all, drifted out and down the channel.

"My lashin's held--I cal'lated they would. Soon's I was sure of that I grabbed up the oar and shoved it over the stern between the floats. I hoped I could round her to after we passed the mouth of the Cut-through, and make port on the inside beach. But not in that tide. Inside of five minutes I see 'twas no use; we was bound across the bay.

"And now commenced a v'yage that beat any ever took sence Noah's time, I cal'late; and even Noah never went to sea in an automobile, though the one animal I had along was as much trouble as his whole menagerie. Billings was howlin' blue murder.

"'Stop that bellerin'!' I ordered. 'Quit it, d'you hear! You'll have the station crew out after us, and they'll guy me till I can't rest. Shut up! If you don't, I'll--I'll swim ashore and leave you.'

"I was takin' big chances, as I look at it now. He might have drawed a bowie-knife or a lasso on me; 'cordin' to his yarns he'd butchered folks for a good sight less'n that. But he kept quiet this time, only gurglin' some when the ark tilted. I had time to think of another idee. You remember the dory-sail, mast and all, was alongside that cart. I clewed up the canvas well as I could and managed to lash the mast up straight over the auto's bows. Then I shook out the sail.

"'Here!' says I, turnin' to Billings. 'You hang on to that sheet. No, you needn't nuther. Make it fast to that cleat alongside.'

"I couldn't see his face plain, but his voice had a funny tremble to it; reminded me of my own when I climbed out of that very cart after he'd jounced me down to Setuckit, the day before.

"'What?' he says. 'Wh-what? What sheet? I don't see any sheet. What do you want me to do?'

"'Tie this line to that cleat. That cleat there! Cleat, you lubber! Cleat! That knob! Make it fast! Oh, my gosh t'mighty! Get out of my way!'

"The critter had tied the sheet to the handle of the door instead of the one I meant, and the pull of the sail hauled the door open and pretty nigh ripped it off the hinges. I had to climb into the cockpit and straighten out the mess. I was losin' my temper; I do hate bunglin' seamanship aboard a craft of mine.

"'But what'll become of us?' begs Billings. 'Will we drown?'

"'What in tunket do we want to drown for? Ain't we got a good sailin' breeze and the whole bay to stay on top of--fifty foot of water and more?'

"'Fifty foot!' he yells. 'Is there fifty foot of water underneath us now? Pard, you don't mean it!'

"'Course I mean it. Good thing, too!'

"'But fifty foot! It's enough to drown in ten times over!'

"'Can't drown but once, can you? And I'd just as soon drown in fifty foot as four--ruther, 'cause 'twouldn't take so long.'

"He didn't answer out loud; but I heard him talkin' to himself pretty constant.

IV

"We was well out in the bay by now, and the seas was a little mite more rugged--nothin' to hurt, you understand, but the floats was all foam, and once in a while we'd ship a little spray. And every time that happened Billings would jump and grab for somethin' solid--sometimes 'twas the upholstery and sometimes 'twas me. He wan't on the thwart, but down in a heap on the cockpit floor.

"'Let go of my leg!' I sings out, after we'd hit a high wave and that shover had made a more'n ordinary savage claw at my underpinnin'. 'You make me nervous. Drat this everlastin' fog! Somethin' 'll bump into us if we don't look out. Here, you go for'ard and light them cruisin'-lights. They ain't colored 'cordin' to regulations, but they'll have to do. Go for'ard! What you waitin' for?'

"Well, it turned out that he didn't like to leave that cockpit. I was mad.

"'Go for'ard there and light them lights!' I yelled, hangin' to the steerin' oar and keepin' the ark runnin' afore the wind.

"'I won't!' he says, loud and emphatic. 'Think I'm a blame fool? I sure would be a jack-rabbit to climb over them seats the way they're buckin' and light them lamps. You're talkin' through your hat!'

"Well, I hadn't no business to do it, but, you see, I was on salt water, and skipper, as you might say, of the junk we was afloat in; and if there's one thing I never would stand it's mutiny. I hauled in the oar, jumped over the cockpit-rail, and went for him. He see me comin', stood up, tried to get out of the way, and fell overboard backwards. Part of him lit on one of the floats, but the biggest part trailed in the water between the two. He clawed with his hands, but the planks was slippery, and he slid astern fast. Just as he reached the last plank and slid off and under I jumped after him and got him by the scruff of the neck. I had hold of the lashin'-end with one hand and we tailed out behind the ark, which was sloppin' along, graceful as an elephant on skates.

"I was pretty well beat out when I yanked him into that cockpit again. Neither of us said anything for a spell, breath bein' scurce as di'monds. But when he'd collected some of his, he spoke.

"'Pard,' he says, puffin', 'I'm much obleeged to you. I reckon I sure ain't treated you right. If it hadn't been for you that time I'd----'

"But I was bilin' over. I whirled on him like a teetotum.

"'Drat your hide!' I says. 'When you speak to your officer you say sir! And now you go for'ard and light them lights. Don't you answer back! If you do I'll fix you so's you'll never ship aboard another vessel! For'ard there! Lively, you lubber, lively!'

"He went for'ard, takin' considerable time and hangin' on for dear life. But somehow or 'nuther he got the lights to goin'; and all the time I hazed him terrible. I was mate on an Australian packet afore I went fishin' to the Banks, and I can haze some. I blackguarded that shover awful.

"'Ripperty-rip your everlastin' blankerty-blanked dough-head!' I roared at him. 'You ain't wuth the weight to sink you. For'ard there and get that fog-horn to goin'! And keep it goin'! Lively, you sculpin! Don't you open your mouth to me!'

"Well, all night we sloshed along, straight acrost the bay. We must have been a curious sight to look at. The floats was awash, so that the automobile looked like she was ridin' the waves all by her lonesome; the lamps was blazin' at either side of the bow; Billings was a tootin' the rubber fog-horn as if he was wound up; and I was standin' on the cushions amidships, keepin' the whole calabash afore the wind.

"We never met another craft the whole night through. Yes, we did meet one. Old Ezra Cahoon, of Harnis, was out in his dory stealin' quahaugs from Seth Andrews's bed over nigh the Wapatomac shore. Ezra stayed long enough to get one good glimpse of us as we bust through the fog; then he cut his rodin' and laid to his oars, bound for home and mother. We could hear him screech for half an hour after he left us.

"Ez told next day that the devil had come ridin' acrost the bay after him in a chariot of fire. Said he could smell the brimstone and hear the trumpet callin' him to judgment. Likewise he hove in a lot of particulars concernin' the personal appearance of the Old Boy himself, who, he said, was standin' up wavin' a redhot pitchfork. Some folks might have been flattered at bein' took for such a famous character; but I wan't; I'm retirin' by nature, and, besides, Ez's description wan't cal'lated to bust a body's vanity-biler. I was prouder of the consequences, the same bein' that Ezra signed the Good Templars' pledge that afternoon, and kept it for three whole months, just sixty-nine days longer than any previous attack within the memory of man had lasted.

"And finally, just as mornin' was breakin,' the bows of the floats slid easy and slick up on a hard, sandy beach. Then the sun riz and the fog lifted, and there we was within sight of the South Ostable meetin'-house. We'd sailed eighteen miles in that ark and made a better landin' blindfold than we ever could have made on purpose.

"I hauled down the sail, unshipped the mast, and jumped ashore to find a rock big enough to use for a makeshift anchor. It wan't more'n three minutes after we fust struck afore my boots hit dry ground, but Billings beat me one hundred and seventy seconds, at that. When I had time to look at that shover man he was a cable's-length from high-tide mark, settin' down and grippin' a bunch of beach-grass as if he was afeard the sand was goin' to slide from under him; and you never seen a yallerer, more upset critter in your born days.

"Well, I got the ark anchored, after a fashion, and then we walked up to the South Ostable tavern. Sim Small, who runs the place, he knows me, so he let me have a room and I turned in for a nap. I slept about three hours. When I woke up I started out to hunt the automobile and Billings. Both of 'em looked consider'ble better than they had when I see 'em last. The shover had got a gang of men and they'd got the gas-cart ashore, and Billings and a blacksmith was workin' over--or rather under--the clockwork.

"'Hello!' I hails, comin' alongside.

"Billings sticks his head out from under the tinware.

"'Hi, pard!' says he. I noticed he hadn't called me 'Grace' nor 'Dewey' for a long spell. 'Hi, pard,' he says, gettin' to his feet, 'the old gal ain't hurt a hair. She'll be good as ever in a couple of hours. Then you and me can start for Orham.'

"'In her?' says I.

"'Sure,' he says.

"'Not by a jugful!' says I, emphatic. 'I'll borrer a boat to get to Orham in, when I'm ready to go. You won't ketch me in that man-killer again; and you can call me a coward all you want to!'

"'A coward?' says he. 'You a coward? And--Why, you was in that car all night!'

"'Oh!' I says. 'Last night was diff'rent. The thing was on the water then, and when I've got enough water underneath me I know I'm safe.'

"'Safe!' he sings out. 'Safe! Well, by--gosh! Pard, I hate to say it, but it's the Lord's truth--you had me doin' my "Now I lay me's!"'

"For a minute we looked at each other. Then says I, sort of thinkin' out loud, 'I cal'late,' I says, 'that whether a man's brave or not depends consider'ble on whether he's used to his latitude. It's all accordin'. It lays in the bringin' up, as the duck said when the hen tried to swim.'

"He nodded solemn. 'Pard,' says he, 'I sure reckon you've called the turn. Let's shake hands on it.'"

FOOTNOTE:

[L] Reprinted from "The Depot Master." Copyright, 1910, by D. Appleton and Company.

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[Illustration]

XIV--The Dollar[M]

By Morgan Robertson

HIS name was Angus Macpherson--pronounced MacPhairson--but he was so intensely Scotch that in every ship he had sailed in men called him Scotty. He had a face like a harvest-moon, with a sorrowful expression of the eyes, a frame like a gladiator's, a brogue modified from its original consistency to an understandable dialect, and the soul of a Scotchman--which means that he was possessed by two dominant and conflicting passions, love of God and love of Mammon. Add to these attributes a masterful knowledge of seamanship and an acquaintance with navigation, and you have a rough sketch of him as he stood at the wheel of a tow-barge just out of New York.

Her name was the Anita, and she was the second barge in a tow of two. Ahead of her, at the end of a ninety-fathom steel tow-line, was the sister barge Champion, and at an equal distance farther ahead was the steamer Proserpine. Each barge carried stump spars and mutton-leg canvas--which was why Scotty, weary of the endless work in the deep-water windjammers, had gone "tow-barging"--and the three craft belonged to one owner.

The skipper, a young man with a humorous face and democratic manner, as became a lowly barge skipper, appeared before the Scotsman, jingling in his hand a number of bright silver dollars. Scotty eyed them hungrily.

"Fine, aren't they, Scotty?" he said. "How many of these plunkers does the devil need to buy your soul?"

"More than you can count, Cappen Bolt," answered Scotty, gravely. "My soul no belongs to me, but to my Maker."

"Nonsense," laughed the captain. "A Scot loves the siller first, his Maker next. Why, a Jew can't make a living in your country, Scotty."

"Possibly not, cappen; but it's no because Scotchmen are dishonest. The Lord has given us wits--that's all."

"Dead broke, Scotty?" asked Captain Bolt, idly.

"I banked the most o' my pay, sir. Ay, I'm what you might call broke."

"Too bad! Ought to have held some out. There'll be no money at Philadelphia. Owner's kickin'. Wants to save the interest, and he won't pay off till we get back."

Scotty's face assumed a rueful expression, and Captain Bolt watched it from the tail of his eye; then, before Scotty could speak, the prolonged clatter of the steward's dinner-bell began, and the captain moved towards the companion, pocketing the coins as he went. One fell on the deck, the noise of the bell preventing its fall being heard, and the captain did not see it. But Scotty did, and he watched it roll back towards the taffrail, assume a spiral motion, and lie down just aft of the quarter-bitt. The captain was now down in the cabin, but Scotty picked up the coin to hold for him until he came up. He should have let it lie.

For it was bright and beautiful to look at, hard and slippery to the touch as he held it in his trousers pocket, a pleasing contrast to the coming emptiness of that pocket in Philadelphia. Scotty's soul went through the usual conflict in such cases, and when Captain Bolt came up, rubbing his mouth, love of Mammon had won over love of God, and he said nothing about it. Shortly after, he was relieved, and he went forward. On the way a revulsion set in, and he turned back, resolved to hand it over, as though he had forgotten; but the captain had stepped below again, and with the memory of his boasted honesty and the certainty of the captain's skepticism and ridicule in his mind, he turned again and went to the forecastle. When he had eaten his dinner, and slept four hours, he found on waking that his inclination to return it was stronger than at noon; but the certainty of being disbelieved had gained equally in strength, and the dollar remained in his pocket--a source of guilty joy and expectant misgiving. He longed for the day when it would be spent and off his mind, and calculated the days and hours before the tow would reach Philadelphia.

But Scotty did not reach Philadelphia; he fell overboard just within the Delaware capes and though he bawled lustily as the black side of the barge slipped by him in the darkness, and was answered in kind by his watchmates above, the noise did not reach the relentless power eleven hundred feet away, and he was left behind. But one had thrown him a life-buoy, and on this he floated until daylight, when an outbound tug picked him up. The tug was bound to Boston.

"I'll e'en make the best o' it," said Scotty, as he wrung out his wet clothing in the tug's small forecastle. "And I'll regard the dollar as a special deespensation of an all-wise Providence; for what would I do in Boston wi'oot a bit o' money in my clothes?"

But he did not reach Boston. The tug had a full crew, scant accommodations, and a hard-hearted captain, who decreed that Scotty should be put aboard the first craft that would take him. This happened to be a three-skysail-yard American ship--the Baltimore--two days out from New York for Shanghai, whose skipper backed his yard in answer to the tug-captain's offer to give him a sailor, and whose third-mate received Scotty--not with open arms, but clinched fists, as he dropped, swearing, to the deck in a bosun's chair.

"You ought to be glad you're alive," said her skipper, harshly, when Scotty had, later, come aft to protest against his abduction. "He pulled you out of a life-buoy, where you'd ha' drowned 'fore the next craft came along, and puts you aboard a big, safe ship where you couldn't fall overboard if you tried. Get forward, now, and stop this talk."

"And am I to be put on the articles?" demanded Scotty. "I expect to wark where'er I be; but do I get pay, I'm askin'?"

"No. My articles are full. You'll wark your passage."

"Four months' sleevery in a hell-ship," growled Scotty, as he went forward. "This comes o' back-sleedin'. Lord forgi' me for it, but the punishment is hard. Howe'er, I'll just hang on to the dollar. I'll ha' earned it long this side o' the cape."

He did, and continued to earn it until the ship had neared the Yangtse-Kiang. Marked for the officers' attentions by his initial profane and irreverent comment on his transferral by the tug-captain, he was assaulted on the slightest provocation by the mates--no bigger than he or more skillful of fist, but justified by the law--and, though easily the best sailorman of the mixed crew, was put at distasteful tasks while inferior men worked at sailorly work on ropes and rigging.

There was nothing of this in the watch below, for Scotty could thrash the best two men forward, and led them all in forecastle discourse; but as it was a mixed crew, none too honest, in his opinion, he made a monk-bag--a leather pocket--for his dollar, and hung it around his neck; and, to further protect the precious coin, forswore his religion, called himself a Catholic and the monk-bag a phylactery, with a saint's relic within. This brought him to the notice of a gentle-souled Portuguese of the crew, a true believer, who made friends with the Scot and earned his confidence before he learned of the shamness of the phylactery. Scotty, on lookout one night, told him this in a burst of confidence that also included a confession of his peculation. His friend, horrified, not at the theft, but at the sacrilegious fraud, informed him that the coin was accursed, that his soul was accursed, and that the only salvation for him in this life and the next was, first, that he return the stolen dollar by hand to its rightful owner, next that he become a real believer in the only true church instead of an impostor.

"If you do not," he said, "you have alla time badda luck till you die, then purgatory and the flame."

Perhaps the flames of Sheol could not have turned Scotty from his faith; but he was certainly impressed with the first clause of the obligation.

"Ye maun be right, Manuel," he said; "for, though I thought it a deespensation, I find that all my hard luck came after it. I'll gie it back when I may."

"Who's on lookout here?" demanded the burly third mate as he climbed the forecastle steps. "Hey, who's on lookout?"

"I am, sir," answered Scotty, as Manuel drew out of the way.

"Get down on the main-deck, you dago son of a thief," bellowed the officer, aiming a kick at the retreating Portuguese. "D' ye see that light?" he said to Scotty. "With a man to help you keep lookout, d' ye see it?"

Scotty, derelict in his duty, did not see it for some moments--in fact, not until the third mate was through with him. Then he looked through closing eyes to where the third mate pointed--dead ahead, where a white light shone faintly in the darkness.

"Ay, ay, sir," he said, thickly. "I see it; and I'll e'en remember this night when I meet ye on shore, Mr. Smart. I'm no shipped in the craft, and it's a matter for the underwriters to know--puttin' me on lookout. As it is, I doot I'd meet trouble should I pull yer head off the noo. I'm no a shipped man, d' ye hear?"

The last was like the roar of an angry bull, and the officer backed away from the enraged Scotchman. Then he descended the steps, and in a minute a man came up and relieved him.

The light did not move, and, the wind being gentle, the day broke before the ship had come up to it. Then they saw a black tramp steamer, rolling easily in the trough, with a string of small flags flying from aloft and the English ensign from the flag-staff at the taffrail. There was an exchange of signals between the two crafts until eight bells struck, and then Scotty, just about to sit down to his breakfast, was called aft and told to get his belongings ready for another trans-shipment. Scotty's belongings, the few rags he had collected by various methods from his shipmates, were hardly worth taking; but he regretted his breakfast, though glad to quit the ship. As he slid down the davit-tackle he surmised the meaning of the change by the expression on the third mate's face as he peered over the rail, and some words uttered by the captain, among which he only made out one--"underwriters."

"I'm told," said the semi-uniformed captain of the tramp, "that you are a castaway, picked up on the American coast, and are discontented with the ship."

"I dinna ken what the sleeve-drivers telt ye, cappen," answered Scotty, his brogue a little thicker from his emotions, "but I agree that I'm discontented."

"What's wrong with your face?"

"Ran foul o' the third mate's fist for no seem' your light. I were no one o' the crew, yet they put me on lookout. And I strongly suspect, cappen, that I'm bundled off mair on account o' that than because of my discontent."

"Possibly; but I'm a man short, and will sign you at Shanghai wages--three pounds a month. You will not be struck here, and will be well treated while you do your work. We're bound for Boston, and will go on when the engine is mended."

"I'm obleeged to ye, sir," said Scotty, radiantly. "And Boston's the port for me, sir. I've strong reasons for strikin' that coast."

He still had his dollar secure in its leather casing, hung to his neck, but in this ship he said nothing about it.

Nothing unpleasant happened to him on this passage homeward; and he fondly believed that his sincere intent to return the dollar to Captain Bolt had changed his luck--that his painful friction with Mr. Smart's fist was a providential happening; but Providence had ordered otherwise, and in this manner: The steamer captain, ahead of his reckoning while approaching the coast in thick fog, ran his ship at full speed onto the sands of Cape Cod. He was unable to back off; a rising wind and sea threw the steamer broadside to the beach, and here she churned a hole for herself from which a wrecking tug could hardly pull her.

But a wrecking tug was sent for, by signals to the shore when the fog lifted, and in time one arrived, with a lifeboat in tow--which was a lucky forethought of some one, for the rising wind and sea had developed into a storm that was breaking the ship in pieces. Anchored well out, and steaming with full power into the teeth of the gale, the tug slacked down the lifeboat, and one by one the crew sprang into the sea and was pulled in. Six trips in and out completed the rescue, and Scotty came out on the last, with the frantic captain, who never ceased his bitter self-reproach.

But Scotty, irresponsible, had troubles of his own; he was wet and cold--for it was midwinter--and once aboard the wrecking tug, he fled the captain's inward objurgations, and sought the warmth of the firehold. Here he burrowed far along beside the boilers, and being utterly exhausted as well as chilled and drenched, and far from the captain's voice, fell into a sleep which lasted until the tug had tied up at Boston; then he came out, to find his shipmates gone ashore.

"Are you the missing man o' that crew?" asked the mate of the tug. "Your skipper says to stay here, and he'll bring you your pay."

"That's gude," answered Scotty, cheerfully. "But I'll just stretch my legs on the dock a wee bit, for it's a long time since I've been ashore."

The tug was moored outside of a small schooner, whose crew, as he crossed her deck, were "loosing" sails, singling lines and making other obvious preparations to getting away. As he mounted her rail to climb to the dock, he saw his captain looking sadly down on him.

"It's just as well, my man," he said, "that you couldn't be found; for I didn't sign you before the consul, and want no complications. However, I'll pay you here. Just sign this receipt--an even two months at three pounds a month."

"Ay, ay, sir--and thank you, cappen."

He reached up and secured the slip of paper and a pencil handed down; then, first examining the document with Scottish caution, knelt down and signed his name to a receipt for six pounds. Passing it up, he received a cylindrical roll of coins from the captain, and thanked him again. Then he turned to drop to the deck; but his foot slipping on the hard, painted rail, he came down on all fours, and the roll of coin left his grasp.

"Catch it--quick!" called the captain from above. "Look out for that scupper; it's rolling right into it."

Scotty made a frantic scramble towards his treasure, and just missed closing his fingers on it before it rolled into the scupper; then he heard the tinkling sound as it struck the water over the side.

"Domnation!" he roared, as he rose to his feet. "Twa months' pay gone to the de'il, and I never e'en laid eyes on it."

"I'm very sorry, my man," said the captain. "There were six gold sovereigns, and I have your receipt. I can't pay you again."

"Na, na, cappen," answered Scotty, as sadly as the captain. "'Tis na fault o' yourn, nor mine; it's my luck, and it'll ne'er change till I git to New York and find my old skipper. I'm under a curse, I am."

But the captain had gone.

"Want to get to New York?" asked a voice behind him.

"That I do," said Scotty, shortly, as he faced the speaker. It was the captain of the schooner.

"I'm a man short," he said. "Where's your clo's?"

"On my back, cappen. I lost twa months' pay the noo, and can't repleenish my wardrobe."

"It's fine weather, and you won't need any. I pay twenty a month. Turn to."

Scotty went to New York in this schooner--that is, he went as far as the Sandy Hook Lightship, where the skipper, a man of poor judgment, mistakingly put about under the bow of an outward-bound steamer, which had slowed down to discharge her pilot, and which went ahead too soon for the welfare of that schooner. The impact was not dead on--it was a glancing blow that the schooner received, and it only carried away the weather main rigging and the davit on the stern. But Scotty was at work in this weather main rigging, and foreseeing disaster to the frail spider web to which he clung, he leaped for the big stockless anchor of the steamer just before it caught the shrouds. On this he sat perched, while wire rope snapped over and around him, and as the steamer forged ahead, managed to make himself heard over the shouts and curses with which the two skippers paid their parting compliments. He was lifted up and taken to the captain--a man black in the face from rage and overstrained vocabulary.

The captain greeted Scotty with inarticulate snorts.

"And can ye put me on some craft bound in, cappen?" asked Scotty, anxiously.

"Na-ow," roared the irate man. "Put you 'board nothing. Nor will I put you on the articles, curse you. I'll put you to work, and if you don't work your hands off, I'll charge you for your passage to Melbourne. Get out o' this."

"I tell ye," roared Scotty, in return, equally enraged at the prospect of another trip to the antipodes, "if ye don't get rid of me, ye'll no reach Melbourne. I'm a Jonah--a Jonah from the curse that has come to me. Put me ashore, ye poor, unfortunate fule."

Scotty was led away--after the gentle manner of the sea--and, in spite of his loud protestations that he was a competent able seaman, placed at the degrading labor of coal passing. When the cooler atmosphere of the stoke-hole had lowered his temperature somewhat, he again went to the captain and earnestly told his story--of his theft, his bad luck and the bad luck he had brought to others.

"The curse is a-warkin' and a-growin' on me, cappen," he concluded, sorrowfully. "I'm the line-e-al desceendent o' the Flyin' Dutchman, sir. And I'll wrack your ship wi'oot meanin' to."

"I've read the Bible," said the captain, calmly. "I know what to do with Jonahs. I always throw them overboard."

Scotty shoveled and wheeled coal for three months, then his prediction was fulfilled. Within a day's run to Melbourne, the screw slipped off the tail-shaft, and as it went to the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the racing engine went to pieces. This might not have prevented the steamer's reaching port under sail or tow, but the forward crank-pin broke, and the piston drove up with nothing to stop it, fetched up with a mighty jolt against the cylinder head--which held--and disconnected most of the bolts which bound the cylinder to its bed.

As the steamer fell off in the hollow of the sea, she rolled, and at the third roll the half-ton of metal toppled over, crashed down through the bottom of the ship, and sought the company of the screw. She was a compartmentless steamer, and in half an hour had followed, leaving her crew afloat in boats and on life-rafts. Scotty found himself in the boat with the captain, and wisely anticipating rebuke, had brought his shovel. The captain glared unspeakable things at him.

"It'll do ye no good the noo, cappen," said Scotty, anticipating the captain's outburst. "And if you, or a man o' your crew, lay the weight o' your finger upon me, I'll brain ye wi' my staff of office"--he elevated the shovel. "I warned ye in time; ye should ha' heeded me."

"Put down your shovel, and take an oar," commanded the captain. "I'd shoot you dead if it wasn't for the law. But you'll get out o' this boat, onto the first craft we meet--bound in or bound out."

"It'll be bound out, cappen," said Scotty, gravely. "Ha' no fear o' that."

It was an Italian bark, and as Scotty had predicted, she was bound out--to Rio Janeiro, as Scotty learned later. When the flotilla of boats swarmed into her path, she backed her main yards with much chattering and yelling of her crew, and Scotty's boat approached her side, where a Jacob's-ladder hung invitingly.

"Get up there, you miserable Sawnee," said the skipper. "I wouldn't put you aboard a white man's vessel, for you'll wreck her as you did mine."

It is very impolite, and sometimes inexpedient, to call a Scot a Sawnee.

Scotty climbed the ladder with his shovel, and when he stood upon the rail, turned and let it fly towards the captain in the stern-sheets. Had it struck edge first it would have cut him in two; as it happened, the handle merely flattened his nose. The captain sank down, then, rising, fired a revolver at Scotty, but missed, and forthwith ordered his men to give way.

And then, amid the excited cries and orders of the Italian captain, Scotty was pulled down from the rail, mobbed around the deck a little--though he fought furiously--by the three mates of the bark, and bundled into a hatch-house. And long after he was locked in he could hear the excited and puzzled accents of the Italian captain, calling to the misguided castaways, who would not be rescued; then he heard the yards braced, and knew that he was homeward bound.

"If the bloody hooker don't sink on the way," he growled. "Howe'er, I'll no revile the craft that carries me, for it's lang odds she gits the warst o' it."

Shipboard etiquette is international. Scotty, in throwing the shovel, had violated the strictest clause in the code, and the Italian captain, though understanding nothing of the circumstances, had sensed the enormity of his offense, and punished him. But he was not confined long; the door was soon opened, and from the jabbering and gestures of the three mates he understood that he was to go forward. He went, and with a bucket of salt water and a piece of old canvas so improved his personal appearance as to partly overrule the prejudice against him.

Seamanship, like nautical etiquette, is international, and though he understood not one word of what was said to him, and though not a man aboard understood him, yet he knew what to do without orders, and soon proved himself superior to any of the officers. The rather impulsive, but generous, captain noticed this, and made as much of him as was possible without a common means of communication; but Scotty ascribed it to the influence of the unblessed, but jealously guarded, leather pendant often visible on his hairy chest. He made the most of this influence among the men forward, and even went to the blasphemous extent of making the sign of the cross on occasions, and repeating certain words, picked up from his devout shipmates, of the Roman Catholic ritual. But when he prayed, alone and in the silence of the night, he prayed for forgiveness, for the removal of the curse, for opportunity to redeem himself--for the test of a ten-mile swim or a thousand-mile walk, to the end that he might place that stolen dollar in the hand of Captain Bolt.

But his prayers availed not. He became a man without a country. The Italian bark caught fire in the South Atlantic, and in the confusion of abandoning the charred and sinking hulk, Scotty found himself alone in a small quarter-boat, which, like himself, had been left behind, and which he had lowered and unhooked unaided. But he had been unable to find the oars, and the other boats were far away; so he spent seven days and nights in the cockle-shell, freezing by night, roasting by day, with the horrors of hunger and thirst for company, and was then rescued in a delirious state of mind by a Norwegian barkentine, bound for Cape Town.

There is no need of recounting his further adventures in detail. He had now been a year without touching land, and he spent four more at sea before there came to him even a gleam of hope. No matter what the craft, or what the port bound for, something occurred to destroy the ship or prevent him finishing the passage. At times, when an alleged advance of pay was worked off, he drew clothing from the ship's slop chest, and always left it behind when the curse closed down upon him and removed him from that ship. Once he was abandoned with a boy, third mate, and three others on a derelict which they had been sent to inspect, and from the neighborhood of which a furious gale drove their own vessel. They were rescued just before the derelict sank. Again, in Manila Bay, he swam to a near-by ship which he had heard was bound to New York, and secreted himself, only to find when at sea that she was bound for Liverpool. He made the stormy passage of the Horn in midwinter with the clothing he stood in.

Too eager to touch dry land at Liverpool, he quit the ship in a runner's boat before docking, and the boat getting in the way of an outbound ocean-tug, he went to sea on the tug, and was again put aboard the first craft met, an English four-master, bound for Calcutta. And it was in this ship that there came to him the gleam of hope mentioned. In her forecastle he found the quondam third mate of the big skysail-yarder, the Mr. Smart who, backed by the law, had thrashed him on the forecastle deck and later arranged his transfer to the tramp.

Scotty had long since forgiven him, regarding him as but an instrument of the Lord. But the instrument, down on his luck and 'fore-the-mast in a "lime-juicer," must needs refer to it, again and again, until the sorely tried man gave way. Then occurred one of the shortest and fiercest fights that ever delighted the souls of English sailors. Scotty did the fighting, and he struck out twice; but each blow was like the kick of a mule, and Smart was carried aft to have his broken ribs and jawbone reset, while Scotty went in irons for murderous assault; but the captain released him on learning that the war began in an American ship. There was no further trouble between these two, but Scotty drew comfort and hope from the incident because it seemed his first victory over the forces that opposed him.

Cholera was rampant in Calcutta, and not a man but the skipper left the ship while there; then she sailed for New York, and Scotty's hope increased. He carefully guarded the black and grimy talisman of evil that hung to his neck, and prayed fervently for the final test that would redeem him; and he prayed, too--for his great trouble had softened and spiritualized him--that this big ship and large company should not suffer disaster on his account.

But as the ship reached soundings it seemed that the prayer was to be unanswered; for she came driving up to the light-ship before a southerly gale and sea that prevented any sail holding but the foresail and three lower topsails. All lighter canvas was blown away--and lower topsails and a lee shore are a bad combination.

The captain could not conceal his anxiety; there had been no sign of a pilot, and though the holding ground was good, his anchors were small--too small for his big ship. To add to the danger, the spume and spin-drift from the combers were thickened by a mist that seemed to descend from above, blotting out the distant light-ship. But this mist was ahead; astern, the horizon was visible, and far this side of the horizon--not half a mile on the port quarter--was a sight that sent the blood coursing through poor Scotty's veins, and a prayer of thanksgiving to his lips.

Coming along before the storm, but on a convergent course which would soon bring her in the big ship's wake, was the steamer Proserpine towing her barges. Scotty knew them; every detail was pictured on his brain. He knew that big funnel, and big nigger-head in the bow; he knew the stump bowsprit of the Champion, with its one-chain bobstay; and he knew the Anita behind her, straight-stemmed, black and dingy.

And as he looked there came to him the conviction that here was the test required of him--that if he, the Jonah of many ships, should remain where he was, there would be one more catastrophe on the list, while some maneuvering of fate would again send him to sea; but that if he rid the ship of his presence, there was a chance, not only for the ship, but for himself.

Mounting the forecastle deck--where he had a right to be--he watched and waited until the three crafts astern were as one in the wake; then, shedding his oilskins and boots, he sprang overboard. He heard the shouts of a shipmate, and as he came to the surface, saw men on the rail, looking and waving. He saw the second mate heave over a life-buoy, but it fell short, and he did not swim for it. The ship went on, for a square-rigged craft may not round to in a gale.

Scotty swam shoreward at first, for he knew that the steamer and tow would make leeway. On the tops of the seas he took his bearings, and then swam, or paddled, according to the inclination of the steamer's bow. In the hollows he swam towards her. Nearer and nearer she came, and at last he began hailing; but not a man could be seen on her deck, and the bridge was empty; the captain or mate on duty was in the warm pilot-house, no doubt--after the manner of tug-men. Hailing frantically, he met the wash of her bow wave and went under; when he came up she was past him, with her white-painted name staring at him. No one had seen or heard him.

The Champion was coming, and he swam into her path, barely missing a clutch at the steel towline whizzing past him. He hailed her, but there was no response. How could they hear, in the teeth of that furious wind? Realizing this, he saved his breath.

The barge, rolling along before the sea, was making good weather of it, yet she lifted and plunged heavily as the big billows passed beneath her--the chain bobstay often rising six feet out of water, and again sinking as far below. To catch this chain was all that he could hope for; to miss it meant death; for even should he be seen or heard as he passed astern, no power on earth could bring that tug back to windward in such a sea.

When but twenty feet away from him the bow lifted, dripping water from the hawse-pipes--and to the agonized man beneath it this bow and dripping hawse-pipes bore a harrowing resemblance to a large, implacable, yet weeping face, a face that expressed sorrow and condemnation--then it fell upon him, and the heavy iron chain struck his head, then glanced to his shoulder and bore him under. But the downward blow gave him his grip upon it; had it struck him while lifting, he might not have held.

Clinging for dear life, unable to move himself an inch against the rush of water, with head swimming from the impact of the chain, and lungs bursting from lack of air, he waited for the rise, and when it came, moved upward a foot. Then he was borne under again, this time with his lungs full of air, and he suffered less; and when he was lifted out, he gained another foot.

Four times he was plunged under before he had climbed high enough to avoid it, and then he rested, until his head cleared and the awful pain of fatigue left his arms. When strength came back he mounted to the bowsprit, crept in to the topgallant forecastle, and sprang down on the main-deck, to the consternation of two men at the weather fore-rigging. These were foremast hands, and Scotty had no present use for them. He ran past them in his stocking-feet--and they gave room to the wild-eyed apparition--and aft to the poop, where, besides the helmsman, was a man who might be captain or mate, but who could certainly inform him.

"Is Cappen Bolt in charge o' the Anita the neo?" he asked, hoarsely, as he halted before him.

"Yes. Who are you?" asked the astounded man.

"God be thankit!" exclaimed Scotty, and he mounted the taffrail--not for a swim this time, there was no need of it. Stretching back to the Anita was a steel trolley, which was all he wanted. Before the man could do more than yell at him, Scotty had hitched himself out on the towline beyond reach; then, for faster progress, he swung beneath it, head aft and downward, and in this position, hand over hand and leg over leg, he made his way along until the water took him. Filling his lungs with air and locking arms and legs around the rope, he let himself go; and he slid at the speed of the tug down the trolley and up again, traversing half of the length of the towline beneath the surface.

He was nearly dead and fully blind when he felt air on his face, and had only time to take a breath when a following sea immersed him again. But with another breath, he began to climb.

Captain Bolt, aft on the poop, saw men on the Champion waving arms and pointing a megaphone his way. He could not hear, nor could he hope to from the bow, yet he ran forward. As he reached the forecastle steps, an unkempt figure came in over the bow--a big, rawboned man in dripping rags, with blood streaming from arms and legs, with a red, round, and sorrowful face bordered by long, matted, gray hair-with the gleam of incipient insanity in the eyes. He sprang off the forecastle and faced the captain.

"Cappen Bolt," he stammered, as he tore at a small leather bag with fingers and teeth. "Cappen--cappen--here it is. I've fetched it t' ye. I never spent it." From the bag came a stained and oxidized coin, which he forced into the amazed captain's hand. Then, sinking to his knees, he lifted his eyes to heaven, muttered a few inarticulate words, and fell over in a swoon.

"Here!" called the captain, sharply, to two of his men who had drawn near. "Take him below and strip him. Put him to bed, and I'll get some brandy. Lord knows who he is, or where he came from, but he's in a bad way."

Scotty was carried down the forecastle stairs and cared for; but he did not waken to drink the captain's brandy; the swoon took on the form of child-like sleep, and the sleep continued until the barges had made port and moored to the dock. Here, amid the confusion of making fast, opening hatches, and rigging cargo gear, Captain Bolt had about forgotten the mysterious stranger in his forecastle, and was only reminded of him when the captain of the Champion came aboard to inquire.

"He climbed up my bobstays, no doubt; he must have fallen overboard from that big Englishman that anchored in the Horseshoe. Went crazy in the water, I suppose. He went out on your towline like a monkey. I wouldn't ha' believed a man could stand it. He was three minutes under water."

"I can't make it out," said Captain Bolt. "He put this in my hand"--he held out the blackened dollar--"and then went daffy. He's down below now. No, here he comes."

Scotty had climbed to the deck. He stood near the hatch, looking about with a doubtful, bewildered air at the docks and shipping. Then his face cleared a little, and like a cat in a strange street he moved slowly and hesitatingly along the rail towards the fore rigging. Then with one bound he swung himself to the top of the rail, and a mighty upward jump landed him on the string-piece of the dock. Here he paused long enough to sink to his knees and elevate his clasped hands; then he rose, walked hurriedly, and, breaking into a run, disappeared from sight behind the crowd of horses and trucks on the dock.

"By the Lord," exclaimed Captain Bolt, "I know him! It's Scotty. I lost him overboard off the Delaware capes five years ago. How'd he get picked up, I wonder? Where's he been? And this----" he produced the dollar. "I wonder if--why, very likely--a Scotchman has a conscience. Say, cappen, this seems funny. I put up a job on Scotty. I pretended to lose a dollar to see if he'd keep it, and he did. And I'll bet this is the one." He opened his knife and cut into the dingy coin. "Yes, it was a counterfeit."

FOOTNOTE:

[M] Reprinted by special permission from "Land Ho." Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.