"Good heavens! You thought that?"

"My dear fellow, you write now, don't you? I'm giving you a bit of psychology—showing you the point of view of the worm writhing beneath the boot of lordly Man. But, always, I meant to turn, if I got the chance. I washed myself; I shaved; I slipped into your nice clean clothes. I'll admit that the warm water removed some encrusted mud from my mind, but it sharpened rather then obscured my resolution to make the most of what looked like a last chance. But when you uncorked that Leoville, shame spoiled it for me."

"You drank only two glasses, I remember."

"It brought everything back—everything! If I had had one more glass, I should have laid myself at your feet, whining and whimpering. The cigar that I smoked afterwards was poppy and mandragora. Through a cloud of smoke I saw all the pleasant years that were gone. Again I weakened. I had aroused your interest. I could have sponged upon you indefinitely. At that moment I saw the safe. Your brother imprudently mentioned that a large sum of money lay inside it. I made up my mind instantly to take the money, and did so that night. The dog was licking my hand as I robbed you. But next morning——"

He paused, then he laughed lightly. "Next morning——"

"You appeared with the kit-bag! That disconcerted me terribly. It proved what I had not perceived—that you two young Englishmen, tenderfeet both of you, had realised what you were doing, had seriously faced the responsibility of resurrecting the dead. The letter to the cashier, the twenty-dollar bill I found in my coat- pocket—these were as scorpions. But I hadn't the nerve to own up. So I carried the money to the bank and deposited it to your account."

"Then you bought a six-shooter."

"Yes; I meant to try another world. I had had enough of this one. I couldn't go back to my wallow."

"What restrained you?"

"The difficulty of finding a hiding-place. If my body were discovered, I knew that it would be awful for you."

"Thanks."

"It's easy to find a hole, but it's not easy to pull a hole in after one—eh? Still, I thought I should find some wild gulch on the Santa Barbara trail, amongst those God-forsaken foothills. The buzzards would pull the hole in within forty-eight hours."

"Ah! the buzzards." I shivered, seeing once more those grim sextons of the Pacific seaboard.

"I found the right place; and just then I saw the stage crawling up the grade. Immediately the excitement of a new sensation gripped me. I had a taste of it when I opened your safe. It seized me again, relentlessly. If I were successful, I might begin again; if I failed, I could shoot myself without imposing an atrocious remorse upon you. Well, the pluck of that driver upset my plans—the plans of an amateur. I ought to have held them up on the upgrade."

"And after you failed——"

"Ah! after I failed I had a lucid interval. Don't laugh! I was hungry and thirsty. The most pressing need of my nature at that moment was a square meal. I walked to a hotel, and was nailed. Your brother's letter to the cashier saved me. I realised dimly that I had become respectable, that I looked—for the deputy sheriff told me so—an English gentleman—Mr. Johnson, your friend. That's about all."

"All?" I echoed, in dismay.

"The rest is so commonplace. I got a small job as clerk in a fruit- packing house. It led to better things. I suppose I am my father's son. I failed to make a living, spoiling canvas, but as a business man I have been a mild success."

"And what are you doing now?"

"I buy and sell claret. Any other question?"

"Yes. How did you open our burglar-proof safe?"

Johnson laughed.

"My father was a manufacturer of safes," he answered. "I know the tricks of my trade."



IX

UNCLE JAP'S LILY

Jaspar Panel owned a section of rough, hilly land to the north-east of Paradise. Everybody called him Uncle Jap. He was very tall, very thin, with a face burnt a brick red by exposure to sun and wind, and, born in Massachusetts, he had marched as a youth with Sherman to the sea. After the war he married, crossed the plains in a "prairie schooner," and, eventually, took up six hundred and forty acres of Government land in San Lorenzo County. With incredible labour, inspired and sustained by his natural acuteness, he wrought a miracle upon a singularly arid and sterile soil. I have been told that he was the first of the foothill settlers to irrigate abundantly, the first to plant out an orchard and vineyard, the first, certainly, to create a garden out of a sage-brush desert. Teamsters hauling wheat from the Carisa plains used to stop to shake the white alkaline dust from their overalls under Uncle Jap's fig trees. They and the cowboys were always made welcome. To such guests Uncle Jap would offer figs, water-melons, peaches, a square meal at noon, and exact nothing in return except appreciation. If a man failed to praise Uncle Jap's fruit or his wife's sweet pickles, he was not pressed to "call again." The old fellow was inordinately proud of his colts, his Poland-China pigs, his "graded" bull, his fountain in the garden.

"Nice place you have, Mr. Panel," a stranger might say.

"Yas; we call it Sunny Bushes. Uster be nothin' but sun an' bushes onst. It's nice, yas, and it's paid for."

"What a good-looking mare!"

"Yas; she's paid for, too."

Everything on the ranch, animal, vegetable, and mineral, was "paid for." Uncle Jap was the last man to hurt anybody's feelings, but the "paid for" rankled on occasion, for some of his visitors stood perilously near the edge of bankruptcy, and, as a rule, had not paid for either the land they occupied, or the cattle they branded, or the clothes they wore. To understand this story you must grasp the fact that Uncle Jap lived with credit and not on it.

His wife, also of New England parentage, had a righteous horror of debt bred in her bone. Uncle Jap adored her. If he set an extravagant value upon his other possessions, what price above rubies did he place upon the meek, silent, angular woman, who had been his partner, companion, and friend for more than a quarter of a century. Sun and wind had burnt her face, also, to the exact tint of her husband's. Her name was Lily.

"And, doggone it, she looks like a lily," Uncle Jap would say, in moments of expansion. "Tall an' slim, yas, an' with a little droop of her head. I'd ought ter be grateful to God fer givin' me sech a flower outer heaven—an' I am, I am. Look at her now! What a mover!"

Uncle Jap's Lily chasing a hen certainly exhibited an activity surprising in one of her years. By a hairbreadth she missed perfection. Uncle Jap had been known to hint, nothing more, that he would have liked a dozen or so of babies. The hint took concrete form in: "I think a heap o' young things, colts, kittens, puppies—an' the like." Then he would sigh.

We came to California in the eighties, and in '93, if my memory serves me, Uncle Jap discovered bituminous rock in a corner of his ranch. He became very excited over this find, and used to carry samples of ore in his pocket which he showed to the neighbours.

"There's petroleum whar that ore is—sure. An' ef I could strike it, boys, why, why I'd jest hang my Lily with di'monds from her head to her feet, I would."

This, mind you, was before the discovery of the now famous oil fields. Even in those early days experts were of opinion that oil might be found below the croppings of bituminous rock by any pioneer enterprising enough to bore for it.

About this time we began to notice that Uncle Jap was losing interest in his ranch. Cattle strayed through the fence because he neglected to mend it, calves escaping were caught and branded by unscrupulous neighbours, a colt was found dead, cast in a deep gulch.

"What's the matter with Uncle Jap?" we asked, at the May-Day picnic.

Mrs. Fullalove, a friend of Mrs. Panel, answered the question.

"I'll tell ye," she said sharply. "Jaspar Panel has gotten a disease common enough in Californy. He's sufferin' from a dose o' swelled head."

Mrs. Panel sprang to her feet. Her face was scarlet; her pale eyes snapped; the nostrils of her thin nose were dilated.

"Susan Jane Fullalove," she cried shrilly, "how dare you?"

Mrs. Fullalove remained calm.

"It's so, Lily. Yer so thin, I didn't see ye sittin' edgeways, but ye needn't to ramp an' roar. Yer ranch is flyin' to flinders because Mr. Panel's tuk a notion that it's a-floatin' on a lake of ile."

"An' mebbe it is," replied Mrs. Panel, subsiding.

Shortly afterwards we heard that Uncle Jap was frequenting saloons, hanging about the hotels in the county town, hunting, of course, for a capitalist who would bore for oil on shares, seeking the "angel" with the dollars who would transport him and his Lily into the empyrean of millionaires. When he confided as much to us, my brother Ajax remarked—

"Hang it all, Uncle Jap, you've got all you want."

"That's so. I hev. But Lily——Boys, I don't like ter give her away— this is between me an' you—she's the finest in the land, ain't she? Yas. An' work? Great Minneapolis! Why, work come mighty near robbin' her of her looks. It did, fer a fact. An' now, she'd ought ter take things easy, an' hev a good time."

"She does have a good time."

"Ajax, yer talkin' through yer hat. What do you know of wimmenfolk? Not a derned thing. They're great at pretendin'. I dessay you, bein' a bachelor, think that my Lily kind o' wallers in washin' my ole duds, an' cookin' the beans and bacon when the thermometer's up to a hundred in the shade, and doin' chores around the hog pens an' chicken yards? Wal—she don't. She pretends, fer my sake, but bein' a lady born an' bred, her mind's naterally set on—silks an' satins, gems, a pianner— an' statooary."

"I can't believe it," said my brother. "Mrs. Panel has always seemed to me the most sensible woman——"

"Lady, if you please."

"I beg pardon—the most sensible lady of my acquaintance, and the most contented with the little home you've made for her."

"She helped make it. O' course, it's nateral, you bein' so young an' innercent, that you should think you know more about Mis' Panel's inside than I do, but take it from me that she's pined in secret for what I'm a-goin' ter give her before I turn up my toes."

With that he rode away on his old pinto horse, smiling softly and nodding his grizzled head.

Later, he travelled to San Francisco, where he interviewed presidents of banks and other magnates. All and sundry were civil to Uncle Jap, but they refused to look for a needle in a haystack. Uncle Jap confessed, later, that he was beginning to get "cold feet," as he expressed it, when he happened to meet an out-of-elbows individual who claimed positively that he could discover water, gold, or oil, with no tools or instruments other than a hazel twig. Uncle Jap, who forgot to ask why this silver-tongued vagabond had failed to discover gold for himself, returned in triumph to his ranch, bringing with him the wizard, pledged to consecrate his gifts to the "locating" of the lake of oil. In return for his services Uncle Jap agreed to pay him fifty dollars a week, board and lodging included. When he told us of the bargain he had made, his face shone with satisfaction and confidence. He chuckled, as he added slyly—

"I peeked in to some o' them high-toned joolery stores on Montgomery and Kearney Streets. Yas, I did. An' I priced what they call a ti- airy, sort o' di'mond crown. They run up into the thousands o' dollars. Think o' Mis' Panel in a ti-airy, boys; but shush-h-h- h! Not a word to her—eh?"

We pledged ourselves to secrecy, but when Uncle Jap's back was turned, Ajax cursed the wizard as the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims cursed the jackdaw. When we saw Mrs. Panel, she seemed to be thinner and more angular, but her lips were firmly compressed, as if she feared that something better left unsaid might leak from them. An old sunbonnet flapped about her red, wrinkled face, her hands, red and wrinkled also, trembled when we inquired after the wizard and his works.

"He's located the lake," she replied. Suppressed wrath boiled over, as she added fiercely: "I wish 'twas a lake o' fire an' brimstone, an' him a-bilin' in the middle of it." Then, reading the sympathy in our eyes, she continued quickly: "I ain't denyin' that Jaspar has a right to do what he pleases with what lies out o' doors. He never interfered with me in my kitchen, never! Would you gen'lemen fancy a glass o' lemonade? No? Wal—I'm glad you called in, fer I hev been feelin' kind o' lonesome lately."

What Uncle Jap's Lily suffered when he mortgaged all his cattle to sink a well nobody knows but herself, and she never told. The wizard indicated a certain spot below the croppings of bituminous rock; a big derrick was built; iron casing was hauled over the Coast Range; the well was bored.

Then, after boring some two thousand feet, operations had to be suspended, because Uncle Jap's dollars were exhausted, and his patience. The wizard swore stoutly that the lake was there, millions and millions of barrels of oil, but he deemed it expedient to leave the country in a hurry, because Uncle Jap intimated to him in the most convincing manner that there was not room in it for so colossal a fraud. The wizard might have argued the question, but the sight of Uncle Jap's old Navy six-shooter seemed to paralyse his tongue.

After this incident Uncle Jap ranched with feverish energy, and Mrs. Fullalove said that the old man had gotten over a real bad dose of swelled head.

* * * * *

Five years later came the oil boom!

Everybody knows now that it flowed in prodigious quantities into the vats of one man, whom we shall speak of with the respect which the billionaire inspires, as the Autocrat of Petroleum. Let us hasten to add that we shall approach him in the person of his agent, who, so far as Uncle Jap was concerned, doubtless acted in defiance of the will of the greatest church builder and philanthropist in the world.

Oil was struck in pints, quarts, gallons, buckets, and finally in thousands and tens of thousands of barrels! It flowed copiously in our cow-county; it greased, so to speak, the wheels—and how ramshackle some of them were!—of a score of enterprises, it saturated all things and persons.

Now, conceive, if you can, the triumphant I-told-you-so-boys expression of Uncle Jap. He swelled again visibly: head first, then body and soul. The county kowtowed to him. Speculators tried to buy his ranch, entreated him to name a price.

"I'll take half a million dollars, in cold cash," said Uncle Jap.

The speculators offered him instead champagne and fat cigars. Uncle Jap refused both. He was not going to be "flimflammed," no, sir! Not twice in his life, no, Siree Bob! He, by the Jumping Frog of Calaveras, proposed to paddle his own canoe into and over the lake of oil. If the boys wished him to forgo the delights of that voyage, let 'em pungle up half a million—or get.

They got.

Presently, after due consultation with a famous mining engineer, Uncle Jap mortgaged his cattle for the second time, and sank another well. He discovered oil sand, not a lake. Then he mortgaged his land, every stick and stone on it, and sunk three more wells. It was a case of Bernard Palissy. Was Bernard a married man? I forget. If so, did he consult his wife before he burnt the one and only bed? Did she protest? It is a fact that Uncle Jap's Lily did not protest. She looked on, the picture of misery, and her mouth was a thin line of silence across her wrinkled impassive countenance.

When every available cent had been raised and sunk, the oil spouted out. Who looked at the fountain in the patch of lawn by the old fig trees? Possibly Mrs. Panel. Not Uncle Jap. He, the most temperate of men, became furiously drunk on petroleum. He exuded it from every pore. Of course he was acclaimed by the county and the State (the Sunday editions published his portrait) as the star-spangled epitome of Yankee grit and get-there.

At this point we must present, with apologies, the agent of the Autocrat, the agent, the High-muck-a-muck of the Pacific Slope, with a salary of a hundred thousand a year and perks! In his youth Nat Levi smelt of fried fish, unless the smell was overpowered by onions, and he changed his lodgings more often than he changed his linen. Now you meet him as Nathaniel Leveson, Esquire, who travelled in his private car, who assumed the God, when the God was elsewhere, who owned a palace on Nob Hill, and some of the worst, and therefore the most paying, rookeries in Chinatown, who never refused to give a cheque for charitable purposes when it was demanded in a becomingly public manner, who, like the Autocrat, had endowed Christian Churches, and had successfully eliminated out of his life everything which smacked of the Ghetto, except his nose.

Nathaniel Leveson visited our county, opened an office, and began to lay his pulpy white hands upon everything which directly or indirectly might produce petroleum. In due season he invited Uncle Jap to dine with him at the Paloma Hotel, in San Lorenzo. The old man, with the hayseed in his hair, and the stains of bitumen upon his gnarled hands, ate and drank of the best, seeing a glorified vision of his Lily crowned with diamonds at last. The vision faded somewhat when Nathaniel began to talk dollars and cents. Even to Uncle Jap, unversed in such high matters as finance, it seemed plain that Leveson & Company were to have the dollars, and that to him, the star-spangled epitome of Yankee grit and get-there were to be apportioned the cents.

"Lemme see," he said, with the slow, puzzled intonation of the man who does not understand; "I own this yere oil——"

"Subject to the mortgage, Mr. Panel, I believe?"

"That don't amount to shucks," said Uncle Jap.

"Quite so. Forgive me for interrupting you."

"I own this yere oil-field, lake I call it, and, bar the mortgage, it's bin paid for with the sweat of my—soul."

He brought out the word with such startling emphasis, that Nathaniel nearly upset the glass of fine old cognac which he was raising to his lips.

"Yas, my soul," continued Uncle Jap, meditatively. "I risked everything I'd got. Man," he leant across the gaily decorated table, with its crystal, its pink shades, its pretty flowers, and compelled his host to meet his flaming eyes,—"man, I risked my wife's love and respect. And," he drew a deep breath, "by God, I was justified. I got there. If I hadn't," the fire died down in his mild blue eyes, and the thin body seemed to wither and shrink,—"if I hadn't struck it, it would hev killed her, the finest lady in the land, an' me too. It was nip an' tuck with both of us. And now," his voice warmed into life again,—"and now you offer me fifty thousand dollars."

"I am anxious to treat you right, Mr. Panel. Another glass of brandy? No. Between ourselves the market is getting weaker every day. Fifty thousand profit, perhaps, may seem a small sum to you, but I cannot offer more. You are at perfect liberty to refuse my cheque; others, perhaps——"

Uncle Jap rose up grim and gaunt.

"I've ate dinner with you," he murmured, "so I'll say nothing more than 'thank you' and 'good-bye.'"

"Good-bye, Mr. Panel. At any time, if you have reason to change your mind, I shall be glad to talk business with you."

Uncle Jap returned to his own hotel to pass a restless night. Next day he sought a certain rich man who had a huge ranch in our county. The rich man, let us call him Dives, had eaten Uncle Jap's figs, and taken his advice, more than once, about cattle.

"Who's a-buyin' oil lakes?" demanded Uncle Jap.

"Nathaniel Leveson."

"Who else?"

Dives eyed Uncle Jap keenly. Rich men don't tell all they know, otherwise they would not be rich. Still, those figs and that water- melon on a broiling July afternoon had tasted uncommonly good!

"Look here, Mr. Panel, I think I can guess what has happened. Somebody has tried to squeeze you—eh?"

"That's so."

"Um! You're not the first."

"I wan't squeezed."

"Not yet, but——Mr. Panel, I should like to do you a service, and I know you to be an intelligent man. Do you see this sheet of blotting- paper?"

The blotting-paper lay immaculate upon the desk. Dives took a clean quill, dipped it into ink, and held it poised over the white pad. Uncle Jap watched him with interest.

"This," continued Dives, thoughtfully, "represents you and your ranch, Mr. Panel," he made a small dot upon the blotting-paper. "This," he made a much larger dot, "represents me and all I have. Now Leveson represents—this."

With a violent motion, quite contrary to his usual gentle, courteous manner, Dives plunged the quill to the bottom of the ink pot, withdrew it quickly, and jerked its contents upon the blotting-paper. A huge purple blot spread and spread till the other small blots were incorporated.

"D—n him!" spluttered Uncle Jap.

Dives shrugged his shoulders, and smiled.

"My advice is: take what Leveson offers."

"Fifty thousand for millions?"

"Possibly. Can you touch them, if Omnipotence forbids?"

Dives stared moodily at the big purple blot; then picking up the sheet of blotting-paper he tore it to pieces with his nervous, finely-formed fingers, and dropped it into the waste-paper basket. When he looked up, he saw that Uncle Jap's mild blue eyes were curiously congested.

"You might see So-and-so," Dives named a banker. "I'll write a note of introduction." Then he added with a faint inflection of derision: "I fear it will be of no service to you, because few business men care to buy trouble even at a bargain."

All this Ajax and I heard from Uncle Jap, after he returned from San Lorenzo without selling Sunny Bushes to So-and-so. None the less, he brought back a pair of small diamond ear-rings.

"Lily's ears ain't pierced," he explained; "but she'll hev a reel splendid time lookin' at 'em, jest as I uster hev with my nightie."

"Your—nightie?"

Uncle Jap chuckled and rubbed together his bony hands, cracking the joints.

"Yas, my nightie. Never tole you boys about that, did I? Wal, about a month before Lily an' me was fixin' up to get merried, she made me a nightie. It was mos' too dressy fer a lady to wear, let alone a critter like me who'd allus slep' in his pants an' day shirt. 'Twas of fine linen, pleated, and fixed with ribands, yaller riband, I chose the colour. Lily was kinder stuck on pale blue, but I liked yaller best. Lily knew what I' do with that nightie, an' I done it. I put it away in the tissoo paper 'twas wrapped in, an' I hev it still. I've got more solid satisfaction out of lookin' at it than I ever hev out o' my bank book. An," he concluded warmly, "Lily's goin' ter feel jest that way about these yere sollytaires."

What followed immediately afterwards is county history. Uncle Jap decided to borrow money to develop his bonanza. The Autocrat, with tentacles stretching to the uttermost ends of the earth, may—I dare not affirm that he did—have issued instructions that such money as Jaspar Panel asked for was to be paid. Jaspar Panel asked for a good deal, and got it. He sunk more wells and capped them; he built reservoirs, he laid down pipe line. The day of triumph dawned when an English company offered to take all the oil Uncle Jap could supply, provided it were delivered free on board their vessels. Then came the crushing blow that the railroad would not transport Mr. Panel's petroleum. If they did—this was not the reason given by the shipping agents—the Autocrat might be displeased.

Meantime the banks politely requested Jaspar Panel to meet his obligations.

Hitherto, Uncle Jap had been a man of simple and primitive beliefs. He had held, for instance, that a beneficent Providence will uphold Right against Might; he had pinned his faith to the flag under which he fought and bled when a boy; he had told his Lily (who believed him) that American citizenship is a greater thing than a Roman's in Rome's palmiest day: a phrase taken whole from the mouth of a Fourth of July orator. Last of all, he had believed devoutly in his own strong hands and will, the partnership of mind and muscle which confronts seemingly insuperable obstacles confident that it can destroy them.

And now, hour by hour, day by day, conviction settled upon his soul that in this world one only reigned supreme: the Autocrat of Oil, whose High Priest was Nathaniel Leveson. After heart-rending months of humiliation, upon the eve of foreclosure by the banks, Uncle Jap wrote a forlorn letter to Nathaniel, accepting his offer of fifty thousand dollars for the lake of oil. Mr. Leveson, so a subordinate replied, was not buying oil properties! For the moment he was interested in other matters ... Uncle Jap happened to read next day that Leveson, treading in the footsteps of his Master, was about to present a splendid church to the people of San Lorenzo. Uncle Jap stared at the paper till it turned white, till he saw in the middle of it a huge purple blot ever-increasing in size.

That evening he cleaned his old six-shooter, which had made the climate of the county so particularly pestilential for the wizard with the hazel twig.

"Pore critter," he muttered as he wiped the barrel, "he was down to his uppers, but this feller———" Mrs. Panel, putting away the supper things, heard her husband swearing softly to himself. She hesitated a moment; then she came in, and seeing the pistol, a gasp escaped her.

"What air you doin' with that, Jaspar Panel?"

Uncle Jap coughed.

"There's bin a skunk around," he said. "I've kind o' smelled him for weeks past, hain't you?"

"I never knowed you to shoot a skunk with anything but a shot-gun."

"That's so. I'd disremembered. Wonder if I kin shoot as straight as I used ter?"

For answer his wife, usually so undemonstrative, bent down, took the pistol from his hand, put it back into the drawer, and, slightly blushing, kissed the old man's cheek.

"Why, Lily, what ails ye?"

His surprise at this unwonted caress brought a faint smile to her thin lips.

"Nothing."

"Ye ain't tuk a notion that yer goin' to die?"

"Nothing ails me, Jaspar," her voice was strong and steady. "I'm strong as I was twenty year ago, or nearly so. I kin begin life over agen, ef I hev to."

"Who said you hed to?" enquired her husband fiercely. "Who said you hed to?" he repeated. "Susan Jane Fullalove? I'd like ter wring her dam neck. Oh, it wan't her, eh? Wal, you take if from me that you ain't agoin' to begin life agen onless it's in a marble hall sech as you've dreamed about ever since you was shortcoated. Let me hear no more sech talk. D'ye hear?"

"I hear," she answered meekly, and went back to her kitchen.

* * * * *

Next day she came to us across the cow-pasture as we were smoking our pipes after the mid-day meal. We guessed that no light matter had brought her afoot, with such distress upon her face.

"I'm in trouble," she said nervously.

"We are your friends," said Ajax gravely.

"Jaspar's gone to town," she gasped.

Uncle Jap, since the striking of the oil, had been in the habit of going to town so often that this statement aroused no surprise. We waited for more information.

"I'm scared plum ter death," Mrs. Panel continued. "I want ter foller him at onst. Jaspar's taken the team. I thought maybe you'd hitch up and drive me in this afternoon—now."

The last word left her lips with a violence that was positively imperative.

"Certainly," said Ajax. He turned to leave the room. We neither of us asked a question. Upon the threshold he addressed me:

"I'll bring the buggy round while you change."

I reflected that it was considerate of Ajax to allow me to drive Mrs. Panel the twenty-six miles between our ranch and San Lorenzo. I nodded and went into my bedroom.

* * * * *

For the first ten miles, Mrs. Panel never opened her lips. I glanced occasionally at her impassive face, wondering when she would speak. Somehow I knew that she would speak, and she did. It was like her to compress all she had left unsaid into the first sentence.

"Jaspar's gone plum crazy with trouble! he took his six-shooter with him."

After that, details given with a descriptive realism impossible to reproduce. The poor creature revealed herself to me during the next few minutes as I feel sure she had never revealed herself to her husband.

"He's mad, plum crazy," she pleaded. "Nobody knows what he's suffered but me. I don't say it ain't a jedgment, mebbe it is. We thought we was jest about right. The pride we took in Sunny Bushes was sinful; yas, it was. The Lord has seen fit to chastise us, an' I'm willin', I tole Jaspar so, ter begin agen. We're healthy, an strong, though we don't look it, I'll allow. Jaspar is plum crazy. His words las' night proved it. He said we might begin life agen in a marble hall sech as I hed dreamed about. Good land o' Peter! I never dreamed of marble halls in all my life, but I dassn't contradict him."

"He believes you dreamed of them," I said, "and he is quite sure you ought to live in them."

"He thinks the world o' me," said Mrs. Panel, in a softer tone, "but this world an' the next won't turn him from what he's set his mind to do. I'd oughter be ashamed o' speakin' so of him, but it's so. Mercy! I hev been talkin'."

She said no more till we descended from the buggy in the livery stable where Jaspar was in the habit of putting up his horses.

"You ain't seen Mr. Panel, hev you?" she asked the ostler.

"He's around somewheres," the man replied. With this information we started out to look for him. Away from the familiar brush hills, confronted by strange faces, confused, possibly, by the traffic, my companion seemed so nervous and helpless that I dared not leave her. Almost unconsciously, we directed our steps towards the Amalgamated Oil Company's office. Here we learned that Leveson was in town, and that Uncle Jap had called to see him.

"Did he see him?" Mrs. Panel's voice quavered.

"No," the clerk answered curtly; then he added: "Nobody sees the boss without an appointment. We told Mr. Panel to call to-morrow."

If the clerk had spoken with tongues of angels Lily could not have assumed a more seraphic expression.

"An' where is he now?" she asked.

"Your husband, ma'am? I can't tell you."

"I mean Mr. Leveson."

"He's in there," the private room was indicated, "and up to his eyes in work. He won't quit till he goes to dinner at the Paloma. D'ye hear the typewriters clicking? He makes things hum when he's here, and don't you forget it."

"I shall never forget that," said Mrs. Panel, in an accent which made me remember that her grandfather had been a graduate of Harvard University. "Good-afternoon."

We walked on down the street. Suddenly, Mrs. Panel staggered, and might have fallen had I not firmly grasped her arm.

"I dunno' what ails me," she muttered.

"Did you eat any breakfast this morning?"

"I dunno' as I did," she admitted with reluctance.

"Did you eat any dinner?"

"Mebbee I didn't." Her innate truthfulness compelled her to add with a pathetic defiance: "I couldn't hev swallered a mossel to save my life."

I took her to a restaurant, and prescribed a plate of soup and a glass of wine. Then I said with emphasis:

"Now, look here, Mrs. Panel! I want you to rest, while I hunt up Mr. Panel. When I find him I'll bring him to you."

"An' s'pose he won't come?"

"He will come."

"No, he won't; not till he's done what he's set his mind to do. Was you aimin' to hunt fer Jaspar up an' down this town?"

"Certainly. It's not as big as you think."

"'Pears to me it'd be a better plan to keep an eye on the other feller."

With a woman's instinct she had hit the mark.

"Perhaps it would," I admitted.

"I noticed one or two things," she continued earnestly. "Near the office is an empty lot with trees and bushes. I'd as lief rest there as here ef it's the same to you. Then you kin look around for Jaspar, if ye've a mind to."

"And if I find him?"

"Watch him, as I shall watch the other feller."

"And then——"

"The rest is in the dear Lord's hands."

She adjusted the thick veil which Southern Californian women wear to keep the thick dust from their faces, and together we returned to Leveson's office. Passing the door, I could hear the typewriters still clicking. Mrs. Panel sat down under a tree in the empty lot, and for the first time since we had met that day spoke in her natural tones.

"I come away without feeding the chickens," she said.

I looked at my watch; it was nearly six. One hour of daylight remained. Leveson, I happened to know, was in the habit of dining about half-past six. He often returned to the office after dinner. Between the Hotel Paloma, which lay just outside the town and the office ran a regular service of street cars. Leveson was the last man in the world to walk when he could drive. It seemed reasonably certain that Jaspar, failing to see Leveson at the office, would try to speak to him at the hotel. From my knowledge of the man's temperament and character, I was certain that he would not shoot down his enemy without warning. So I walked up to the hotel feeling easier in my mind. The clerk, whom I knew well, assigned me a room. I saw several men in the hall, but not Uncle Jap.

"Does Mr. Leveson dine about half-past six?" I asked.

The clerk raised his brows.

"That's queer," he said. "You're the second man to ask that question within an hour. Old man Panel asked the same thing."

"And what did you tell him?"

"Mr. Leveson don't dine till seven. He goes to the church first."

If the man had said that Leveson went to Heaven I could not have been more surprised. Then I remembered what I had read in the local papers. I had not seen the church yet. I had not wished to see it, knowing that every stone in it was paid for with the sweat—as Uncle Jap had put it—of other men's souls.

"Where is this church?"

"You don't know? Third turning to the left after passing the Olive Branch Saloon."

"Leveson owns that too, doesn't he?"

The clerk yawned. "I dare say. He owns most of the earth around here, and most of the people on it."

I walked quickly back towards the town, wondering what took Leveson to the church. No doubt he wanted to see if he were getting his money's worth, to note the day's work, perhaps to give the lie to the published statement that he built churches and never entered them. Nearly half-an-hour had passed since I left Mrs. Panel.

When I reached the third turning to the left I saw the church, certainly the handsomest in San Lorenzo. It stood in a large lot, littered with builders' materials. The workmen had left it at six. The building had an indescribably lifeless aspect. An hour before men had been busy within and without it, now not a soul was to be seen. I had time to walk round it, to note that the doors were locked, to note also, quite idly, that the window of the vestry was open. I could see no signs of Uncle Jap.

Coming round to the front, I saw in the distance a portly figure approaching, followed by a thin, dust-coloured wraith of a woman. I slipped behind a tree and waited. Leveson strolled up, bland and imposing. He stood still for a moment, staring intently at the outside of his church now completed. Then, taking a key from his pocket, he opened the vestry door and entered the building, closing the door behind him. I went to meet Mrs. Panel.

"Seen Jaspar?"

"I haven't."

"What's that feller," she always spoke of Leveson as a 'feller,' "doin' in a church?"

"It's his church. He built it."

"Good Land o' Peter! What's he doin' in it anyway?"

"Not praying, I think."

"Shush-h-h-h."

Mrs. Panel touched my arm, thrusting out her lean face in an attitude of intense attention. I strained my own ears, fairly good ones, but heard nothing.

"Jaspar's in there," said his wife. "I hear his voice."

She trembled with excitement. Obviously, Jaspar had concealed himself somewhere in the vestry. No time was to be lost.

Turning the north-east corner of the building, where the vestry is situated, I crawled under the window, followed by Mrs. Panel. The two men were within a few feet of us. Uncle Jap's slightly high-pitched tones fell sharply upon the silence.

"This is a leetle surprise party, ain't it?" he was saying.

Leveson answered thickly: "What are you doing here, sir?"

Although I risked discovery at an inopportune moment, I could not resist the temptation to raise my eyes level with the sill of the window. So did Uncle Jap's Lily. We both peered in. Uncle Jap was facing Leveson; in his hand he held the long-barrelled six-shooter; in his eyes were tiny pin-point flashes of light such as you see in an opal on a frosty morning. Terror had spread a grim mask upon the other; his complexion was the colour of oatmeal, his pendulous lips were quivering, his huge body seemed of a sudden to be deflated. He might have been an empty gas bag, not a man.

"I'm goin' to tell ye that," continued Uncle Jap mildly, "I come here to hev a leetle talk with you. Sinse I've bin in San Lorenzy County two men hev tried to ruin me: one left the county in a hurry; you're the other."

"I give you my word of honour, Mr. Panel——"

"That's about all you would give, an' it ain't wuth takin'."

"Do you mean to kill me?"

"Ef I hev to, 't won't keep me awake nights."

In my ear I heard his Lily's attenuated whisper: "Nor me neither, if Jaspar ain't caught."

And I had thought that solicitude for Jaspar's soul had sent his Lily, hot-foot to prevent the crime of—murder! I learnt something about women then which I shall not forget.

"You propose to blackmail me, I suppose?"

"Ugly word, that, but it's yours, not mine. I prefer to put it this way. I propose to consecrate this yere church with an act o' justice."

"Go on!"

"This county wan't big enough for the other feller an' me, so he had to go; it ain't big enough to-day for you an' me, but this time, I'm a-goin', whether you stay in it or under it."

At the word "under" Uncle Jap's Lily nudged me. I looked at her. Her face was radiant. Her delight in her husband at such a moment, her conviction that he was master of the situation, that he had regained by this audacious move all the prestige which he had in her estimation, lost—these things rejuvenated her.

"It's a question of dollars, of course?"

"That's it. Before you ask for credit with the angel Gabriel, you've got to squar' up with Jaspar Panel."

"With the dear Lord's help, Jaspar has found a way," whispered the joyful voice in my ear.

"How much?" demanded Leveson. His colour was coming back.

"We've got to figger on that. Take a pencil an' paper an' sit down."

"This is ridiculous."

"Sit down, you——"

Nathaniel Leveson sat down. The vestry had been used by the contractor as an office; the plain deal table was littered with scraps of paper. Leveson took out a gold pencil-case.

"Married man, ain't ye?" said Uncle Jap, with seeming irrelevance.

"Yes."

"Ever give your wife a ti-airy: diamond crown, sorter?"

"What the——"

"Answer—quick!"

"Yes."

"What did ye pay for it? Quick!"

"Ten thousand dollars."

"Put that down first."

The joy and gladness had entirely melted out of Mrs. Panel's thin voice as she whispered dole-fully to me: "Jaspar is crazy, after all."

"No, he isn't," I whispered back.

Jaspar continued in a mild voice: "What does a way-up outfit o' lady's clothes cost: sealskin sacques, satins, the best of everything outside and in?"

"I don't know."

"You've got to figger it out—quick!"

"Say ten thousand, more or less."

"Put down fifteen; I'd jest as lief it was more 'n less. Put down a hundred dollars fer me, I mean to hev a good suit o' clothes myself. What does that come to?"

"Twenty-five thousand, one hundred dollars. Aren't you wasting time, Mr. Panel?"

"Nit. Of course if we happened to be interrupted it might be awkward fer you. If somebody should call, you'll say, of course, that yer very particularly engaged, eh?"

"Yes," said Nathaniel Leveson. "To oblige me, Mr. Panel, take your finger from that trigger."

"Ah? I'd ought ter hev done that before. I'd disremembered 'twas a hair trigger. Now then, put down Sunny Bushes, includin' the oil lake, at yer own figger, fifty thousand. Got it? Yas. Now then, for wear an' tear of two precious souls an' bodies—that's it! Fifty thousand more. Got it? Yas. How much now?"

"One hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred dollars."

"Right! What does a marble hall cost?"

"A marble——"

"You heard what I said plain enough. You live in one yerself. What did that leetle shebang on Nob Hill cost ye?"

"Four hundred thousand dollars."

"Jiminy Christmas! Marble halls come high, but you've a large fam'ly, more's the pity. Put down seventy-five thousand. Got it? Yas. Now then, about statooary—"

"Good God!"

"Don't call on the Lord so loud. I reckon he's nearer than you give Him credit fer. Statooary comes high, too, but one don't want overly much of it. A leetle gives a tone to a parlour. Put down five thousand. Got it! Yas. Furniture an' fixins, lemmee see! Wal, when it comes to buyin' fixin's, Mis' Panel beats the world. Put down ten thousand more. Total, please!"

"Two hundred and fifteen thousand and one hundred dollars."

"Make out yer personal note to me an' Mis' Panel fer that amount. One day after date. An' consideration. Sunny Bushes, oil, mortgage an' all, but not the stock, I wouldn't sell any living critter to sech as you. There's pen an' ink all handy."

We heard the scratching of pen on paper.

"Ye look mighty pleased," said Uncle Jap, "an' it's not because yer gittin' a property wuth a million for a quarter its value, nor because late in the day ye've squared an ugly account, but because yer thinkin' that this yere note ain't wuth the paper it's written on. An' it ain't-yit."

Again Mrs. Panel nudged me. Her beatific expression told me more eloquently than words that her Jasper was the greatest man on earth.

"Notes-of-hand given by onreliable parties must be secured," said Uncle Jap slowly. "This yere is goin' to be secured by a confession, dictated by me, written out an' signed by you. When the note is paid, I hand over the confession—see! If the note ain't paid prompt, the confession goes to the noospapers of this enlightened land. I shall git something from them for sech a remarkable doccyment. But, first of all, here an' now, you can make a small payment on the note. Give me that di'mond ring, an' the di'mond pin. Quick!"

A moment later these corruscating gems were swept into Uncle Jap's hand.

"What did they cost ye?"

"Twenty-seven hundred dollars."

"Suffering Moses! Endorse that as paid on the back of the note. Got it down? Yas." Uncle Jap folded up the note and placed it carefully in a large pocket-book. "Now write out, good an' plain, what I tell ye. Ready? Date an' address first. That's right. Now——"

Obviously, he was pulling himself together for a tremendous literary effort. Mrs. Panel had hold of my arm, and was squeezing it hard. Uncle Jap began—

"'This is to certify that I, Nathaniel Leveson, the undersigned, have been fooling with the wrong end of a mule, viz., Jasper Panel, who's as self-opinionated a critter as ever marched with Sherman to the Sea——' What air you doing?"

Leveson had laid down his pen. "This is farce," he said sharply.

"We'll hev your criticism after the play is over," retorted Uncle Jap decisively. "I'm talkin' now. Pick up that thar pen, and don't lay it down agen till I tell ye, or," the muzzle of the Colt almost touched the perspiring forehead of the Colossus, "or else, by Golly, thar'll be a terr'ble muss to clean up in here to-morrer mornin'. That's better. Lemmee see, whar was I? 'Sherman to the Sea,' yas. Now: 'I tried to down Jasper Panel, and he's downed me. I'm a nateral born hog, and I eat with all four feet in the trough.' Underline that, it's good. 'I'm big, an sassy, an' full o' meanness, but what sand I've got ain't to be seen with a double-barrelled microscope. I'm as false as Judas; an' Ananias wouldn't be seen walkin' arm in arm with me in the place whar I'd oughter be to-night. I'd steal milk from a blind kitten an' sell it as cream to my own mother five minutes after.' Underline that: it's straight goods. Now then fer the finish. 'I wouldn't offer a fair price fer Sunny Bushes, because I aimed ter git it fer nothing. I wouldn't allow others to buy it fer the same reason. I used the power that the Devil give me to prevent a railroad, which I own, furnishin' cars to J. Panel, an' las'ly, I caused money ter be loaned to said J. Panel so's to git him completely under my heel. Also I built a church in San Lorenzy, an' I write these yere lines in the vestry of it as a sorter penance. I swear solemn that this is the first time in my life that I ever tole the truth, an' I'll never do it agen, if I know myself.'

"Sign that, an' give it ter me," said Uncle Jap.

Leveson, purple with rage and humiliation, signed it.

* * * * *

At this psychological moment we made our presence known.

"Uncle Jap," said I, "don't you think that document ought to be witnessed."

"Jee-whillikins! Ef it ain't you. Who's that a-peekin' behind ye?"

"It's me, Jaspar," said Mrs. Panel meekly.

Uncle Jap unlocked the door of the vestry and let us in. Leveson sat huddled up in his chair. Uncle Jap prodded him with the ancient pistol which he still held in his hands.

"Can't you offer a lady a chair?" he said testily. Leveson offered his chair, upon the extreme edge of which Mrs. Panel deprecatingly seated herself. Uncle Jap eyed her with wrinkled interrogation.

"What in thunder brought ye to San Lorenzy?"

Mrs. Panel twisted her fingers.

"I looked in the drawer, an' I see that," she indicated the weapon, "was missin'."

"Did ye? Now, Lily Panel, you don't mean to tell me that you thought I was goin' ter murder this feller?"

Mrs. Panel looked at Leveson with an expression which I have seen in the eyes of foothill mothers, whose children run barefoot, when they have found a rattlesnake. Then she drawled out: "Wal, I hoped you might, but——"

"Why, Lily! You hoped I might?"

"Yes; but I feared you'd git murdered first. Oh Jaspar, I didn't know you was sech a man."

She stood up, her eyes were shining, her face radiant "Fergive me, but I reckoned you—was—petered—out?"

"Petered out—me?"

"Yas; I'm a silly, fullish woman."

"No, you ain't. Petered out—me? Wal," he glanced at Leveson, "somebody is petered out, but it ain't me. Did ye ever see a man scairt worse'n him? I scairt the wizard some; yas I did, but he could run: this feller can't crawl, I reckon. An' this yere Colt wan't loaded then, an' it ain't loaded—now. Look! What an appetite I hev! Who says supper? Now, mister," he addressed Leveson, "seein' as the starch is outer you, I'll give ye my arm as fur as the Paloma."

"Leave me," gurgled Leveson.

"I'm too good a Christian. In the state yer in it'd kill ye to meet somebody else ye've robbed. It's too risky."

"Go, you scoundrel! Authority was returning to his voice; the old arrogance gleamed in his eyes.

"Scoundrel—hay?" Uncle Jap's voice became savage. "You come along with me—quick an' quiet. This old Colt ain't loaded, but ef I hit you over the head with the butt of it, ye'll think it is. Come!"

In silence the four of us marched up to the Paloma, and into the big hall where a dozen men were smoking. Uncle Jap addressed the clerk in a loud, clear voice.

"Mr. Leveson," he said, "has just concluded a leetle deal with me. He's bought Sunny Bushes an' the lake of ile for two hundred and fifteen thousand and one hundred dollars. Here is his note. Put it in the safe for me till to-morrer."

The chatter in the big room had ceased long before Uncle Jap had finished. More than one man present divined that something quite out of the ordinary had taken place. Leveson moistened his lips with his tongue. His chance had come. Had he chosen to repudiate the note, had he denounced Uncle Jap as obtaining at the pistol point what could be obtained in no other way, the law of the land would have released him from his bond. But Uncle Jap had read him aright: he was a coward.

"Yes," he said. "I've bought Sunny Bushes."

"An' dirt cheap, too," said Uncle Jap. He spoke to the clerk in his usual mild voice: "Can you give Mis' Panel an' me accommodation?"

"Certainly, Mr. Panel. What sort of accommodation, sir?"

Uncle Jap looked fondly at his wife. I doubt if she had ever crossed the threshold of the Paloma before. I could see her blinking at the marble columns, at the velvet pile rugs, and the innumerable electric lights just turned on.

"What sorter accommodation?" repeated Uncle Jap. "Why, anything'd do fer me, but Mis' Panel is mighty particular. We'll take the bridal suit, if it ain't engaged."

"Certainly; sitting-room, bedroom, and bathroom upon the first floor," said the clerk, striking a bell for the hall porter.

"Come, Lily," said Uncle Jap.

She raised her head, as if she were about to protest; then she smiled contentedly, and followed him out of the old life into the new.



X

WILKINS AND HIS DINAH

Wilkins had a pair of eyes that had seen better days. His features were still good, and the complexion showed quality of texture: a bloom often seen upon the faces of middle-aged men who in youth have been fair. His figure was imposing. When he lounged into a room, even a bar-room, he took the stage, so to speak; you were bound to look at him. When he spoke you listened to words, wise or otherwise. When he smiled you were seized with an absurd desire to shake his hand!

He was herding sheep for Silas Upham, a man of flocks and herds, and the father of one child, Hetty. Meeting Wilkins for the first time, I wondered what Hetty thought of her sire's shepherd.

Wilkins told us that our back fence was down, and that a bunch of steers had broken through into Upham's alfalfa. We thanked him, offering whisky and tobacco. He accepted both with captivating smile and easy nod. A minute later he was sitting in our most comfortable chair, staring at our books and engravings. His eyes lingered upon the best of these with a look of recognition. He asked no questions.

Next day we rode over to his hut, and smoked some pipes. Wilkins spoke of India, Australia, France, and Italy, but he never mentioned England. Nor did we. Presently, somewhat to our surprise, Hetty Upham cantered into camp. The day happened to be unusually hot, which accounted, perhaps, for her rosy cheeks. She delivered a message to Wilkins, exchanged a few words with us, and galloped off.

"Goes faster than she came," said Ajax.

"Yes," said Wilkins. Then he added, with emphasis: "I don't blame any girl from galloping away from such a hole as this." With a derisive glance he indicated the flies swarming about his pots and pans, the ill-trimmed lamp reeking of petroleum, the rough bunk wherein he slept, the rusty stove. We contrasted these sordid surroundings with the splendours of Silas Upham's front parlour, and then we stared furtively at Wilkins.

About a week later Wilkins supped with us. Warmed by good food and drink, his reserve concerning himself somewhat melted. We learned that he had been but two weeks in Upham's service, that he had worked his passage down the coast from Vancouver to San Francisco.

"And how do you like the Uphams?" said Ajax.

The use of the plural provoked a slight smile.

"Naturally, I don't see much of them," said Wilkins.

He picked up an old photograph album, and began to turn over its pages. Obviously, his thoughts were elsewhere; and the sound of his own voice must have startled him.

"By Jove—it's old Sam!"

He spoke in a whisper, as if to himself.

"Yes—it's old Sam," said Ajax quickly. "You were at Harrow?"

Wilkins' eyelids fluttered; then he met our glance with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Yes."

He stared at the portrait of Sam, the Custos of the School, the familiar of the Yard, of the Fourth Room Form, Sam, the provider of birches, Sam of the port wine nose.

"We were at Harrow," said Ajax. "What house was yours?"

Wilkins hesitated; then he said slowly: "Tommy's."

"We were at Billy's."

Wilkins abruptly changed the subject, and soon after he left us. We rushed to the Harrow register. Yes, in Tommy's house, some seven years before our time, there had been a certain Theodore Vane Wilkins. Ajax, whose imagination runs riot, began to prattle about a Dinah, a Delilah of a Dinah, who had wrecked our schoolfellow's life. And, during the ensuing week, Dinah was continually in his mouth. Wilkins had moved camp, and we saw nothing of him. What we heard, however, must be set down. Silas Upham asked us to spend Sunday at his house. At dinner I sat next pretty little Hetty, and at once she spoke of Wilkins. To my annoyance, Ajax introduced the ridiculous Dinah, the perfidious creature of his fancy. Ajax was in his salad days, but he ought to have known, even then, that if you want to interest a maid in a man, tell her that the man has suffered at the hands of another maid. Hetty's blue eyes sparkled, her dimpled cheeks glowed with sympathy and indignation.

"Schoolfellow o' yours, was he? Well—I may make that feller foreman one o' these days," said Silas, with a fond, foolish glance at his daughter. Hetty could do what she pleased with her sire—and knew it.

"Poppa," said Miss Hetty, "you're all sorts of a darling, and I must kiss you."

Then she and Ajax strolled on to the verandah, and I found myself alone with my host. He said meaningly: "Wilkins has had a tough row to hoe—eh? But he's a perfect gentleman, straight, sober, and a worker. I've been looking for a man that is a man to run things here, now that I'm getting a bit stiff in the joints. Hetty likes him first-rate too."

All this in an interrogatory tone. Of course, it was easy to fill the lacunae in the text. Silas Upham adored his daughter and his ranch. If Hetty married Wilkins, the artful Silas would gain an able- bodied, capable major-domo, and he would not lose his pet lamb. I said, rather tartly—

"Look here, Upham, you know nothing of Wilkins, and I advise you and— er—Miss Hetty to go slow."

"I do go slow," said my host, "but Hetty likes to buzz along. She's a mover, she is."

As we rode home I told Ajax that Opportunity had thrust into Wilkins' hand a very tempting morsel. Was he going to swallow it? And ought we to ask some questions?

I think it was on the following Wednesday that Wilkins walked over to the ranch-house, and asked for a job.

"I've left Upham," he said curtly.

We had not much to offer; such as it was, Wilkins accepted it. Ajax drove to Upham's to fetch Wilkins' blankets and belongings. When he came back, he drew me aside.

"Silas offered him the billet of foreman. Wilkins refused it."

* * * * *

A month passed. Wilkins worked hard at first, and his ability, his shrewdness, confounded us, as it had confounded Silas Upham. Then, he began to slack, as boys put it. Small duties were ill done or not done at all. But we liked him, were, indeed, charmed by him. As Ajax remarked, Fascination does not trot in the same class with Respect.

Twice I caught that shameless little witch, Hetty, in our back pasture, where Wilkins was splitting rails. Thrice a week she called at the ranch-house on her way to the post office.

"She means to marry Wilkins," said Ajax to me. "And why not? If one woman has made him—er—invertebrate, let Hetty Upham put backbone into him."

That evening we asked Wilkins to witness a legal paper, some agreement or other. He signed his name Henry Wilkins. Ajax stared at me; then he walked to the bookcase. His voice was very hard, as he turned, Harrow register in hand, and said: "The only Wilkins at Tommy's was Theodore Vane Wilkins."

Wilkins rose, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. Ajax scowled.

"We told Silas Upham that you were an old Harrovian," began my brother.

"So I am; but my name is not Wilkins." He lit a cigarette, before he continued quietly: "I'm a fraud. I'm not even an Englishman. My father was a Southerner. He settled in England after the war. He used to say bitterly that he had been born the wrong side of the Atlantic. He died soon after I left Harrow. With what money he left me I travelled all over the world: shooting, fishing, and playing the fool.

"When I found myself stony-broke, I hunted up my Baltimore relations. Some of them told me it was easier to marry money than to make it. My name—I'll keep that to myself, if you don't mind—had a certain value in the eyes of a rich girl I knew. At the same time there was another girl——"

"Ah—Dinah," Ajax murmured.

"We'll call her Dinah. Dinah," his voice shook for a moment, "Dinah cared for me, and I—I cared for her. But the girl with money had a blaring, knock-me-down sort of beauty that appeals to men. Lots of fellows were after her. Dinah had only me. Dinah was mine, if I chose to claim her; the other had to be won. The competition, plus the coin, ensnared me. I became engaged to the rich girl. I don't think I knew then what I was doing to—Dinah. Within a fortnight I was struck down with scarlet fever. The rich girl—she was game as a pebble—nursed me. I became delirious. My nurse listened to my ravings for two days and nights; then she went away. I came to my senses to find Dinah at my bedside. The other wrote later, releasing me from the engagement and bidding me marry the girl whose name had been on my lips a thousand times. I laughed, and showed the letter to Dinah. A friend promised me work. Dinah and I were going to live in a cottage, and be happy for ever and ever....

"And then she—sickened!"

In the dreary silence that followed, neither Ajax nor I were able to speak.

"And—and she died."

* * * * *

The poor fellow left us next day, and we never saw him again. It is to be remembered that he never encouraged Hetty Upham, whose infatuation was doubtless fanned by his indifference. She offered him bread, nay, cakes and ale, but he took instead a stone, because cakes and ale had lost their savour. We heard, afterwards, that he died on the Skagway Pass in an attempt to reach the Klondyke too early in the spring. He was seeking the gold of the Yukon placers; perhaps he found, beyond the Great White Silence, his Dinah.



XI

A POISONED SPRING

In our bunk-house three of the boys were about to turn into bed. They had worked hard all day, driving cattle into the home-pasture for the spring rodeo, and on the morrow they would have to work harder still, cutting out the steers and branding the calves.

"Who is this Perfessor?" asked Dan.

Jimmie, who was rubbing tallow on to his lariat, answered—

"There's a piece about him in the Tribune."

Pete picked up the county paper, which happened to be lying on the floor. He read aloud, in a sing-song drawl—

"'We are greatly honoured by the presence amongst us of Professor Adam Chawner, the eminent surgeon and pathologist——'"

"How's that?" demanded Dan.

"Surgeon an' path—ologist."

"What's path—ologist?"

Pete expectorated a contempt for ignorance which he was too polite to put into words. Then he said suavely—

"A pathologist is a kind o' pathfinder. Comes from the Greek, I reckon: path—logus—skilled in finding noo paths to knowledge. See!"

"If you ain't a walkin' dictionary!"

"It comes nateral to me," Pete admitted modestly. He continued—

"'The Professor, instead of taking a well-earned holiday in our land of roses and sunshine, proposes to study at first hand the micrococci of a deadly disease which, we are given to understand, is peculiar to this part of California....'"

"Never heard of a deadly disease peculiar to these parts," said Jimmie thoughtfully,—"always exceptin' Annie-dominie."

"'Peculiar to this part of California,'" continued Pete, "'and likely, given certain conditions, to develop into an epidemic as terrible and mysterious as the sleeping sickness.'"

"Sleepin' sickness? What's that?"

"Dan, yer ignorance is disgraceful. Sleepin' sickness is common as hives amongst the cannibals. After a square meal o' missionary, the critters fall asleep, and they don't never wake up neither. Serve 'em right, too."

"Go on, Pete."

Pete, with a thick thumb upon the right line, went on—

"'The Professor's researches here may prove of vital importance. And, speaking for our fellow-citizens, we venture to assure this distinguished pathologist of our cordial desire to co-operate, so far as it may be possible, in the important work which he has undertaken.'"

"Slings words, that feller," remarked Jimmie. "But what in thunder is Perfessor Adam Chawner a-doin' in Paradise?"

"Come, mebbee, to see you rope steers," suggested Dan.

"I shall aim not to disappoint him," replied Jimmie. "All the same, I ask you fellers straight: Has he come here to—work?"

"Meanin'?"

"If this yere deadly disease is on the rampage I, for one, 'd like to know it."

"Me too," drawled Dan.

A silence followed as Jimmie coiled up his rope. Pete began to remove his boots. Dan, very furtively, placed a finger upon his pulse. Then he said with constraint—

"Boys, I don't want any joshin'. I've not felt extry spry lately."

"Same here," said Jimmie quickly.

Pete smiled sarcastically.

"A little bird tole me," he remarked slowly, looking at Dan, "as how Miss Mary Willing was seen a-buggy-ridin' las' Sunday with Jack Rice."

"It's true," said Dan, shortly. "Me and Mame is at outs. If I was dyin', I couldn't forgive her!"

"You don't say?" cried Jimmie. "Wal, Miss Edna Parkinson an' yours truly ain't goin' ter speak never no more, neither. That hound Ikey Greenberg has cut in with a noo Prince Albert coat. It's upset me considerable."

"My trouble ain't heart only," said Dan.

"Stomach?" suggested Pete.

"All overish, mostly."

"You ain't bin readin' the advertisements o' quack doctors, hev ye?"

"Not since I was twenty. They did give me fits at one time. Boys"—he began to scratch himself furiously—"I've a feelin' as if I was afire inside."

"Maw used ter give me sarsaparilla," said Jimmie.

"My folks," observed Pete, "never tuk nothin' but castor ile. Must ha' downed a barrel o' that when I was a kid."

"This thing is drivin' me crazy," said Dan.

"Wal," replied Pete deliberately, "I know what I'd do, and I'd do it quick. This yere Professor is on the ranch, and he's a dandy. After the rodeo, you jest sachay up to him an' tell him what you've tole us. If he don't take the kinks outer yer, he's a fraud. See!"

"Gosh," exclaimed Dan, "I'll do it!"

They turned in.

* * * * *

The Professor next day watched the rodeo from a platform erected near the biggest of our corrals. This was his first visit to California, and he was mightily impressed by the skill and vigour of the vaqueroes. To Ajax he declared that he was amazed to find such splendid specimens in that particular locality. Ajax smiled.

"We have not much," he said, "but we feel that we have a right to expect high health. We used to say," he added, "that sickness was unknown in our hills till a wise doctor settled here from the East."

The Professor frowned.

"I rose at six," he said austerely. "I made a microscopical examination of the water in your new spring, which rises, I venture to remind you, through soil which is undoubtedly diatomaceous."

"That sounds awful."

"Diatoms in a fossilised condition are silicious, and they are to be found in Virginia, in Bermuda, and here."

"Professor, I am an ignoramus."

"Then it is my duty to inform you that the man or woman who drinks water from that spring is swallowing millions of tiny flint knives, hard as diamond dust—indeed, diatomaceous earth is used commercially as a polishing powder."

"You mean that if we drink that water we shall be polished off?"

The Professor glared. Like many distinguished scientists, he took himself seriously, and he knew that this was a serious matter.

"Those tiny flint knives cut to ribands the mucous membrane."

"Fortunately," said Ajax, "we don't drink that water. The spring was only developed a few days ago." In a graver voice he continued: "We are exceedingly obliged to you. Of course we shall warn our men."

"Has nobody drunk of that spring?"

Ajax thought that he detected a note of disappointment. He replied reflectively: "I don't think so. The cattle have used it. It doesn't seem to have affected them."

"Are you sure of that?" he demanded sharply.

"You can ask our foreman."

Later, the Professor did so. Uncle Jake came out of the corrals, carrying a branding-iron and found himself confronted by a short, thick-set man with prominent, slightly congested grey eyes, which shone keenly out of an immense head.

"I am Professor Chawner, of the Smithsonian. I wish to ask you a question."

"Perfessor, I'm happy to meet ye. It tickles me to death to answer questions. And I stand by the editor o' The Tribune. If I kin co-operate in yer important work, why, count me in."

The Professor raised his grizzled brows in astonishment, but he said politely—

"I am very much obliged to you. My question is this: 'Do the cattle drink at the spring which bubbles out of that hill yonder?'"

"Some of 'em do."

"Regularly?"

"Not to say reglerly, Perfessor. It's this way with cattle on a ranch as well watered as ours. They drink when they feel like it, and they drink where the water is handy to the feed. Come to think of it, there never has been much feed around that spring; and it never flowed good and hard till we opened it a few days ago."

"Since you opened it, to your personal knowledge, have cattle drunk of it?"

Uncle Jake scratched his head. The Professor's manner was impressive.

"Have you seen cattle actually drinking that water?"

"I dunno' as I have. I've seen 'em standing in it."

"Animals have remarkable subjective intelligence—what you would term instincts. It would be extremely interesting to determine whether such instincts have prevented them from drinking water unfit for animal consumption."

"Unfit for animal consumption? By gosh, that's what killed our cow, I reckon! We found her lyin' by the spring, cold an' stiff, two days ago!"

"Have you buried the carcass?"

"Not much. Turkey-buzzards attend to our cow funerals."

"Of course. You look excited, my friend."

"I am. We've lost other cattle and colts in this yere pasture."

"Ah!" murmured the Professor. His expression became benignant.

"We s'posed," continued Uncle Jake, "that they died o' old age."

"You mentioned colts?"

"I did so. Colts die anyhow and anyway. It's a solid fact that we've lost more animals in this pasture than anywheres else. I'll take my oath to that."

"Good!" said the Professor heartily. "You have given to me information of value."

The Professor returned to the corrals. Under the trees, close to the creek, in whose cooling waters stood bottles of beer and wine, a tender calf was being barbecued. Upon long willow spits sizzled and frizzled toothsome morsels, made more toothsome by the addition of a sauce cunningly compounded of chillies, tomatoes, and the pungent onion. The Professor made a noble meal. He was delighted to observe how few of the guests slaked their thirst with water, and he quoted the famous quatrain:

"Let princes revel at the pump; Let peers with ponds make free; But whisky, beer, or even wine, Is good enough for me."

After the rodeo, the Professor lighted a large cigar and composed himself under a live-oak. His mind, ever active, was wandering through the home-pasture seeking the fatal spring. He was trying to estimate the effect of silicious matter upon the mucous membrane of a cow, when he saw Dan, sombrero in hand, bowing low before him.

"Hello!" said the Professor, his eye resting professionally upon Dan's splendid proportions. What a "subject" to cut up! What a skeleton to articulate!

"Perfessor!" said Dan, "I want you to hev a look at me."

The Professor looked at him.

"My young friend," he said genially, "you're worth looking at. Do you drink water?"

"When I can't git nothing else," replied Dan.

"Water it is, and lots of it, except when I strike town."

"If you must drink water," said the Professor with authority, "have it distilled."

"Jeeroosalem!" exclaimed Dan. "That's a gilt-edged idea. Perfessor, ye're a pathologist, ain't yer?"

The Professor nodded. Genius, however exalted, acknowledges unsolicited testimonials from any source. He saw plainly that in Dan's eyes he loomed gigantic.

"I am," he replied graciously.

"A path-finder, a seeker-out of noo tracks to knowledge?"

"You might express it worse," said the Professor. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm a mighty sick man," said Dan solemnly.

The Professor was so astonished that he nearly bit through his excellent cigar; but at once a flame sparkled in his grey eyes. If Dan, with his appearance of robust health, was really a mighty sick man, why, then, his case challenged attention. He stood up and, so to speak, spread his wings, hovering over his lawful prey.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"I'm afire with itching. At this moment I feel as if some dev'lish imps was stickin' needles into me."

The Professor felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, and nodded sapiently.

"You've been drinking the water of that new spring."

"I hev. I helped open it up."

"Did you drink much of it?"

"Oceans!"

"My poor fellow, I am distressed beyond words. I promise you that you shall have every care and attention. I won't leave this ranch till— till the end."

"The end?"

"You are a remarkable specimen—probably you will make a gallant fight—but I cannot disguise from you—it would be criminal to do so— that you ought to put your house in order."

"Hav'n't got no house," said Dan, not quite comprehending, but sadly frightened. "Me and Mame expected to build next year, but that's off."

"Next year!" echoed the Professor testily. "The question is: Where will you be next week?"

Dan staggered. The Professor, having long retired from active practice, remembered with a qualm that he might have broken this appalling news more considerately. He said quietly—

"I beg your pardon. I ought to have tempered this; but you are an American, and strong enough at this moment to know the truth. I may pull you through. Without boasting, there is not another man in America, or Europe either, who would say as much."

"Christopher Columbus!"

"I don't call myself that," said the Professor modestly, "but I may claim to have discovered pathogenic continents. Now, my boy"—he took hold firmly of Dan's arm—"I am going to put you to bed."

"No, you ain't," said Dan. "I've chores to do. I can't be spared."

The Professor nodded.

"You're a stout fellow. After all, half-an-hour won't make any material difference."

"In half-an-hour you'll find me in the bunk-house. I'm obligated to ye," he added hastily. "So long!"

He strode off. The Professor nodded approvingly. He had grit himself, and esteemed it highly in others.

"I must pull him through," he muttered.

* * * * *

When the Professor reached the bunk-house, he found three tall strong men awaiting him. Their faces, tanned by many suns, exhibited a curious uniformity of tint—the colour of dirty gruel.

Dan said in a voice that trembled—

"These are my friends, Jimmie Barker and Pete Holloway. They helped open up that derned spring. They drank a plenty of the water. Jimmie, here, couldn't git enough of it. They've the same symptoms as I hev."

Jimmie and Pete writhed.

"Pins and needles all over," said Pete.

"Went to sleep on an ants' nest onst," said Jimmie faintly. "This is a heap worse."

"Heaven help you!" ejaculated the Professor.

"'Pears to me," said Dan solemnly, "from what you said just now, we're in the mulligatawny."

The Professor muttered something encouraging, but he remembered the cow.

"To bed with you," he commanded.

Within half-an-hour everyone on the ranch had heard the news. The Professor alone remained monumentally impassive.

"All that is humanly possible shall be done," he affirmed.

"And your treatment?" said I.

"I have no drugs here, but already I have despatched a man to San Lorenzo for strychnia, which in the first stage is invaluable. Meantime I must do what I can with whisky. Have you plenty of whisky?"

"Yes, but——"

"I want a gallon of it."

"Of course you are aware—you know, I mean——"

The Professor waved a powerful arm; beneath his shaggy brows his grey eyes sparkled angrily.

"I know what I am doing," he said sharply, "and I cannot waste valuable time imparting to a layman knowledge gathered during a lifetime. The whisky, please—at once."

I obeyed meekly. Five minutes later, the Professor was walking towards the bunk-house with a gallon demijohn tucked under his arm. A quarter of an hour afterwards he might have been seen returning. His eyes were positively snapping with vigour and excitement, for he loved a fight for a fight's sake. Ajax met him.

"Professor," he said, "I don't want you to impart the knowledge of a lifetime to me, but do, please, tell us something. We are on edge with anxiety."

The man of science melted. With a shrug of his massive shoulders, he said, mildly for him—

"My dear sir, I will try to gratify a not unreasonable curiosity. I did not wish to alarm you prematurely this morning, but the worst has happened. The silicious fragments in that confounded earth have lacerated terribly the mucous membranes of these three unfortunate young men. That in itself is a matter of small importance. The mucous membrane is most delicate, but it has quite amazing capacities of repairing itself. The point is this. The water in that spring, and— I'll be perfectly frank—the water in most of the surface springs in this particular locality, is simply swarming with pathogenic germs, and amongst them I identified this morning the as yet unnamed coccus which I had the honour to discover, and which is as deadly as the coma bacillus of Asiatic cholera, or—shall I say?—the highly specialised venom of the rattlesnake."

"Great Scot!"

"This coccus, my dear friend, increases and multiplies under certain conditions. It exacts a highly lacerated condition of the mucous membrane into which it burrows. Fortunately it is rare; fortunately, also, it is seldom found in water which has filtered through diatomaceous earth; for these fossilised deposits are only found here and there, and, as a rule, not near water."

"They are three good fellows."

"I hope to pull them through," said the Professor stoutly. "For the moment there is nothing more to be done. They are in bed, and, not to put a fine point on it, half-drunk. Alcohol stupefies the cocci, but it does not destroy them. I shall pour whisky down their throats till the drugs I have ordered arrive from San Lorenzo. I have told your foreman that my patients are not to be disturbed. After supper I shall administer another dose of whisky."

An hour later, the Professor, accompanied by me, returned to the bunk- house.

"I hope to find them asleep," he said. "I gave them enough alcohol to induce stupor."

"How much?"

"At least a quart."

I said with deference—

"I do not presume to question your treatment, but cowboys can carry an amazing quantity of whisky. Alcohol is a stimulant-narcotic, isn't it?"

"Perfectly."

"It stimulates first. Speaking from a variegated experience of cowboys, I should say that a quart of well-matured Bourbon would barely suffice to stimulate three powerful young men."

"'Um!" said the Professor thoughtfully. "I had not considered that. They assured me they were water-drinkers. However, a mistake of that sort is easily rectified."

So speaking, he tiptoed to the door of the bunk-house, and, finger upon lips, entered. Immediately a sharp exclamation indicated that something surprising had occurred. I followed quickly, to find the Professor staring, pop-eyed, at three vacant bunks.

"Gone!" said the Professor, in stupefaction.

"They can't have gone far, sir."

But within five minutes judgment upon this important point had to be suspended. Uncle Jake had obeyed instructions only too well. He had not been near the bunk-house. Indeed, he and the other ranch hands had been eating supper more than a hundred yards away. He was the first to suggest that no cowboy travelled far afoot—a suggestion that sent the Professor at a smart trot towards the big barn. Here, also, were three vacant stalls.

The Professor's patients, illustrating pathetically the ruling passion, had mounted and galloped away. Uncle Jake said, with a curious air of conviction—

"It's my idee that they want to hev one good time in town before they cash in their checks."

"Incredible!" ejaculated the famous pathologist. He looked askance at me. I replied hesitatingly—

"I think it is possible, perhaps probable."

"If they're makin' San Lorenzy," said Uncle Jake, "we'll find their store clothes gone too."

We hastened to the bunk-house. Yes, upon the floor lay flannel shirts and jumpers and overalls. In a corner, where the Professor had left it, stood the demijohn of whisky. Uncle Jake lifted it.

"Gosh," said he, "the whisky's gone, too!"

"Thank Heaven!" muttered the Professor, wiping his forehead.

"Why?"

"Don't you understand? By the luck of things, they've taken their medicine!"

"A quart apiece!" I gasped. "We shall find them dead drunk on the road."

Uncle Jake delivered himself—

"It's my idee that they've jest filled up three bottles. There's a rubbish heap outside."

"We must follow them," said the Professor, grimly. He was no horseman, and San Lorenzo was six-and-twenty miles away.

"Yes," said Uncle Jake.

As they approached the barn, the Professor whispered to me—

"There is nothing to regret. If I can get these boys into the County Hospital before to-morrow morning, I shall have done a splendid night's work. Pick me out a decently mannered horse."

* * * * *

After the Professor had administered the first dose of alcohol, his patients lay quiet for at least three minutes. Then Jimmie said dolefully—

"Badly as she's treated me, I'd like to kiss my Edna good-bye."

In the silence that followed Pete's rather rasping voice was heard—

"I ain't got no best girl!"

"Ye're in luck," groaned Dan. "This may break pore Mame's heart. When I'm gone, she'll remember that onst I was the greatest thing on this green earth to her."

Presently Pete remarked: "Surgeon an' pathologist is the Perfessor."

"Meanin'?"

"Like as not he'll operate."

"Operate?"

"Cut us open, you derned fool!"

Dan retorted savagely: "Now ye're so near yer end, I'd go easy with sech talk, if I was you."

"I beg yer pardon," said Pete, "but I'm scairt of the Perfessor's eye. Anyways, sink or swim, I'll hev no man gittin' his knife into me."

Dan sat up.

"Boys," he said emphatically, "you kin do as you please, but I'm goin' to hev a las' kind word with my Mame."

He slipped out of his bunk.

"Me too," said Jimmie. He glanced at Pete, who lay still. "My regards to the Perfessor, and tell him that he'll find us at old man Greiffenhagen's. I'll hev one more taste of happiness before I die."

Dan hauled out his battered trunk and opened it. Pete sat up.

"Talkin' o' tasting, so will I," said he. "Give me that ther demijohn. I'll die like the Dook o' Clarence."

Jimmie picked up the demijohn and looked at it with lingering eyes.

"Sorry I promised Maw to let whisky alone."

"If it comes to that," said Pete, "what's the matter with callin' it medicine?"

"Gee! So it is." He took out the cork and tipped up the demijohn, balancing it skilfully upon his right forearm.

"Pass it over," said Pete.

"After you," added Dan.

"Go easy," said Pete shortly. "You two fellers mean to expire in the arms o' ministerin' angels. Leave the demijohn with me."

"What! You'd hog all the medicine? Why, Pete Holloway, I thought you was white!"

"Put that demijohn down."

Dan glanced at Jimmie, who was drawing on his best pants.

"Say, Jimmie, we'll hev to take the medicine along. There's a plenty for Pete in the cellar."

Pete slipped out of his bunk.

"Look ye here," he said. "I ain't goin' to face the Perfessor alone. I'll come with ye, but let there be no huggin' before me; and, I say, divide the medicine."

"Now yer talkin'," said Dan, approvingly.

The three men dressed rapidly, opened the door, and peered out. Nobody being in sight, they secured three empty bottles, which they filled with the medicine. Five minutes later they were leading their saddle- horses out of the barn. Unobserved, they mounted and took the road.

"How air you two feelin'?" said Pete, as they broke into an easy "lope."

"Thunder and Mars!" exclaimed Dan. "It's a doggoned fact, but I'm feeling fine."

"It's the medicine," said Jimmie, athirst for more.

"The Perfessor's a stem-winder, an' no mistake," said Pete. "Let's drink his health—onst."

They did so—twice.

Old man Greiffenhagen's was about two miles distant. With him lodged Miss Edna Parkinson and Miss Mary Willing. These young ladies were bosom friends, and members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. We describe them adequately enough by adding that they were capable, pretty and good.

By this time it was nearly nine o'clock, but a light shone in the Greiffenhagen parlour. As the young men dismounted and hitched their horses to the fence, the strains from an American organ were heard.

Pete rapped upon the door, which was opened by Greiffenhagen. He kept the village store, which was also the post-office, and, although German himself, had married an American wife. Pete said in a loud voice—

"It's kind o' late, but this is a P.P.C. call."

As he spoke, there was wafted to the nostrils of Greiffenhagen the familiar fragrance of Bourbon. He glanced at Dan and Jimmie. Each appeared almost abnormally sober and solemn. At this moment Miss Mary Willing flitted up.

"Why, it's Mr. Holloway!" she exclaimed stiffly.

The three entered. As they passed the threshold, Jimmie stumbled, but recovered himself. He saluted the ladies with decorum, and the three sat down upon the edge of the chairs that were offered to them. Then Miss Edna Parkinson, who was the only person present besides Pete who understood what was meant by a P.P.C. call, and who knew also that, the big rodeo being over, it was possible that the three cowboys had been discharged, said sympathetically—

"You ain't leaving these parts, are you?"

Pete answered grimly: "It's more'n likely that we air."

Edna glanced at Mamie, who was sniffing.

"What is it I smell?" she asked.

"Medicine," said Dan. He knew that Pete, the walking dictionary, could be trusted to break the appalling news to these unhappy girls. He glanced at Mr. Holloway and nodded.

"Yes," said Pete, "you smell medicine. It was prescribed by the distinguished surgeon an' pathologist, Perfessor Adam Chawner."

"Prescribed? Why?"

Once, in the dear dead days that were gone, Pete had owned a best girl, who had treated him ill. Ever since he had exhibited a not too chivalrous desire to "git even" with the fond but fickle sex. Also he had no respect for the W.C.T.U.

"The trouble come o' drinkin' too much water."

"Too much water?"

"We three hev bin wallerin' at a pizoned spring. The Perfessor may pull us through, but it's no cert. Much the contrairy. Likely as not you'll be attendin' our funerals within' the week. Dan and Jimmie tuk a notion that they'd like to forgive ye, an' I come along too because I reckon misery loves company. But I made this stippilation—no huggin' before me, if you please."

"Is he—d-d-drunk?" faltered Edna.

"I'm nearly drunk," said Pete. "This yere pizon is same as rattlesnake pizon. We've got to be kep' filled plum up with whisky." He produced his bottle and placed it carefully upon the floor, then he added: "When I can't help myself, I count on you, old man"—he looked at Greiffenhagen—"to pour it down my throat."

"Dan," said Miss Willing, "can't you say something?"

"I'm razzle-dazzled," said Dan. "But I couldn't die without forgivin' yer."

"Edna," said Jimmie, with a sob in his voice, "I have no hard feelin's left."

"These three beasts," said Mrs. Greiffenhagen, in a hard, unwavering voice, "are disgracefully and unblushingly intoxicated. Girls, leave the room!"

The girls looked at each other. Mamie Willing leapt to the situation. Upon a small marble-topped table reposed an immense family Bible. Mamie lifted it and approached Pete.

"Swear on this that your terrible story is true."

"I swear," said Pete solemnly, and he kissed the Book. Edna flung herself into Jimmie's arms; Mamie, after replacing the Bible, knelt sobbing at Dan's side. Pete said helplessly to old man Greiffenhagen: "Take me outer this!"

Mrs. Greiffenhagen said in the same hard monotone: "Mr. Greiffenhagen, either these men leave this house or I do."

The storekeeper led his wife aside and whispered to her. She nodded none too graciously, and he hurried from the room.

"Wheer's he goin'?" asked Pete.

"He's goin' up ter the ranch-house," said Mrs. Greiffenhagen spitefully, "ter fetch the Professor."

"Very right an' proper," yawned Pete. "Would it be trespassin' too much on yer kindness to ask for three glasses? It's time we downed some more medicine, an' I don't like to drink outer the bottle in this yere parlour."

Mrs. Greiffenhagen folded her hands. She had been heard to declare in public that if she were dying, and a thimbleful of whisky would restore her to health and Mr. Greiffenhagen, she would not swallow it.

The three men took more medicine. Presently Mamie supported Dan to the sofa; Edna was sitting on the floor with Jimmie's head on her lap. Mrs. Greiffenhagen glared at Pete, who from time to time kissed his hand to her. Not till she heard footsteps on the porch outside did the good lady rise from her chair. She opened the door to admit her husband. He reeled in.

"You too!" she said in a freezing voice.

Greiffenhagen explained. The boys were really poisoned, and whisky must be poured down their throats till stronger remedies arrived. The Professor, Ajax, and Uncle Jake were riding to San Lorenzo upon a wild-goose chase. He added that the boss was driving down with more whisky.

Within a few minutes I arrived with the whisky; and Mrs. Greiffenhagen was constrained to unbend. It was decided to put the men to bed, pending the arrival of the Professor. Two vaqueros were galloping after him in the hope of overtaking him before he had gone too far. Dan was undressed and placed in Miss Willing's muslin-curtained bed; Jimmie who would not permit his clothes to be removed, was laid upon the couch of Edna Parkinson. Pete was carried into the Greiffenhagen bedroom, and deposited, boots and all, upon a spotless white bedspread.

"Jiminy Christmas," said Greiffenhagen, "ain't it awful!"

At regular intervals the medicine was administered. Finally, what the Professor had desired came to pass. The three men lay senseless, breathing stertorously. To achieve this result more than a gallon of the best whisky had been used! Mamie and Edna began to exhibit symptoms of hysteria.

"I'll never leave my Dan—never!" declared Mamie, when it was suggested that she should return to the parlour.