The unaccustomed labor—for Guzzy was a bookkeeper—made his arms ache severely, but still he sawed away.

He wondered what his employer would say should he be found out, but still he sawed.

Visions of the uplifted hands and horror-struck countenances of his brother Church-members came before his eyes, and the effect of his example upon his Sunday-school class, should he be discovered, tormented his soul; but neither of these influences affected his saw.

Bar after bar disappeared, and when Guzzy finally stopped to rest, Beigh saw a small square of black sky, unobstructed by any bars whatever.

"Now," whispered Guzzy, "I'll drop in a small box you can stand on, so you can put your hands out and let me file off your irons. I brought a file or two, thinking they might come handy."

Five minutes later the convict, his hands unbound, crawled through the window, and was helped to the ground by Guzzy.



Seizing the file from the little bookkeeper, Beigh commenced freeing his feet. Suddenly he stopped and whispered:

"You'd better go now. I can take care of myself, but if those cursed officers should take a notion to look around, it would go hard with you. Run, God bless you, run!"

But little Guzzy straightened himself and folded his arms.

The convict rasped away rapidly, and finally dropped the file and the fragments of the last fetter. Then he seized little Guzzy's hand.

"My friend," said he, "criminal though I am, I am man enough to appreciate your manliness and honor. I think I am smart enough to keep myself free, now I am out of jail. But, if ever you want a friend, tell Helen, she will know where I am, and I will serve you, no matter what the risk and pain."

"Thank you," said Guzzy; "but the only favor I'll ever ask of you might as well be named now, and you ought to be able to do it without risk or pain either. It's only this; be an honest man, for Helen's sake."

Beigh dropped his head.

"There are men who would die daily for the sake of making her happy, but you've put it out of their power, seeing you've married her," continued Guzzy. "I'm nothing to her, and can't be, but for her sake to-night I've broken open the gunsmith's shop, broken a jail, and"—here he stooped, and picked up a bundle—"robbed my own employer's store of a suit of clothes for you, so you mayn't be caught again in those prison stripes. If I've made myself a criminal for her sake: can't her husband be an honest man for the same reason?"

The convict wrung the hand of his preserver. He seemed to be trying to speak, but to have some great obstruction in his throat.

Suddenly a bright light shone on the two men, and a voice was heard exclaiming, in low but very ferocious tones:

"Do it, you scoundrel, or I'll put a bullet through your head!"

Both men looked up to the window of the cell, and saw a bull's-eye lantern, the muzzle of a pistol, and the face of the Bowerton constable.

The constable's right eye, the sights of his pistol and the breast of the convict were on the same visual line.

Without altering his position or that of his weapon, the constable whispered:

"I've had you covered for the last ten minutes. I only held in to find out who was helping you; but I heard too much for my credit as a faithful officer. Now, what are you going to do?"

"Turn over a new leaf," said the convict, bursting into tears.

"Then get out," whispered the officer, "and be lively, too—it's almost daybreak."

"I'll tell you what to do," said little Guzzy, when the constable hurriedly whispered:

"Wait until I get out of hearing."

* * * * *

The excitement which possessed Bowerton the next morning, when the events of the previous night were made public, was beyond the descriptive powers of the best linguists in the village.

Helen Wyett a burglar's wife!

At first the Bowertonians scarcely knew whether it would be proper to recognize her at all, and before they were able to arrive at a conclusion the intelligence of the convict's escape, the breaking open of the gunsmith's shop, the finding of the front door of Cashing's store ajar, and the discovery by Cashing that at least one suit of valuable clothing had been taken, came upon the astonished villagers and rendered them incapable of reason, and of every other mental attribute except wonder.

That the prisoner had an accomplice seemed certain, and some suspicious souls suggested that the prisoner's wife might have been the person; but as one of the officers declared he had watched her house all night for fear of some such attempt, that theory was abandoned.

Under the guidance of the constable, who zealously assisted them in every possible manner, the officers searched every house in Bowerton that might seem likely to afford a hiding-place, and then departed on what they considered the prisoner's most likely route.

For some days Helen Wyett gave the Bowertonians no occasion to modify their conduct toward her, for she kept herself constantly out of sight.

When, however, she did appear in the street again, she met only the kindest looks and salutations, for the venerable Squire Jones had talked incessantly in praise of her courage and affection, and the Squire's fellow-townsmen knew that when their principal magistrate was affected to tenderness and mercy, it was from causes which would have simply overwhelmed any ordinary mortal.

It was months before Bowerton gossip descended again to its normal level; for a few weeks after the escape of Beigh, little Guzzy, who had never been supposed to have unusual credit, and whose family certainly hadn't any money, left his employer and started an opposition store.

Next to small scandal, finance was the favorite burden of conversation at Bowerton, so the source of Guzzy's sudden prosperity was so industriously sought and surmised that the gossips were soon at needles' points about it.

Then it was suddenly noised abroad that Mrs. Baggs, Sr., who knew everybody, had given Guzzy a letter of introduction to the Governor of the State.

Bowerton was simply confounded. What could he want? The Governor had very few appointments at his disposal, and none of them were fit for Guzzy, except those for which Guzzy was not fit.

Even the local politicians became excited, and both sides consulted Guzzy.

Finally, when Guzzy started for the State capital, and Helen Wyett, as people still called her, accompanied him, the people of Bowerton put on countenances of hopeless resignation, and of a mute expectation which nothing could astonish.

It might be an elopement—it might be that they were going as missionaries; but no one expressed a positive opinion, and every one expressed a perfect willingness to believe anything that was supported by even a shadow of proof.

Their mute agony was suddenly ended, for within forty-eight hours Guzzy and his traveling companion returned.

The latter seemed unusually happy for the wife of a convict, while the former went straight to Squire Jones and the constable's.

Half an hour later all Bowerton knew that William Beigh, alias Bay Billy, alias Handsome, had received a full and free pardon from the Governor.

The next day Bowerton saw a tall, handsome stranger, with downcast eyes, walk rapidly through the principal street and disappear behind Mrs. Wyett's gate.

A day later, and Bowerton was electrified by the intelligence that the ex-burglar had been installed as a clerk in Guzzy's store.

People said that it was a shame—that nobody knew how soon Beigh might take to his old tricks again. Nevertheless, they crowded to Guzzy's store, to look at him, until shrewd people began to wonder whether Guzzy hadn't really taken Beigh as a sort of advertisement to draw trade.

A few months later, however, they changed their opinions, for the constable, after the expiration of his term of office, and while under the influence of a glass too much, related the whole history of the night of Beigh's first arrival at Bowerton.

The Bowertonians were law-abiding people; but, somehow, Guzzy's customers increased from that very day, and his prosperity did not decline even after "Guzzy & Beigh" was the sign over the door of the store which had been built and stocked with Mrs. Wyett's money.



A ROMANCE OF HAPPY REST.

Happy Rest is a village whose name has never appeared in gazetteer or census report. This remark should not cause any depreciation of the faithfulness of public and private statisticians, for Happy Rest belonged to a class of settlements which sprang up about as suddenly as did Jonah's Gourd, and, after a short existence, disappeared so quickly that the last inhabitant generally found himself alone before he knew that anything unusual was going on.

When the soil of Happy Rest supported nothing more artificial than a broken wagon wheel, left behind by some emigrants going overland to California, a deserter from a fort near by discovered that the soil was auriferous.

His statement to that effect, made in a bar-room in the first town he reached thereafter, led to his being invited to drink, which operation resulted in certain supplementary statements and drinks.

Within three hours every man within five miles of that barroom knew that the most paying dirt on the continent had been discovered not far away, and three hours later a large body of gold-hunters, guided by the deserter, were en route for the auriferous locality; while a storekeeper and a liquor-dealer, with their respective stocks-in-trade, followed closely after.

The ground was found; it proved to be tolerably rich; tents went up, underground residences were burrowed, and the grateful miners ordered the barkeeper to give unlimited credit to the locality's discoverer. The barkeeper obeyed the order, and the ex-warrior speedily met his death in a short but glorious contest with John Barleycorn.

There was no available lumber from which to construct a coffin, and the storekeeper had no large boxes; but as the liquor-seller had already emptied two barrels, these were taken, neatly joined in the centre, and made to contain the remains of the founder of the hamlet. The method of his death and origin of his coffin led a spirituous miner to suggest that he rested happily, and from this remark the name of the town was elaborated.

Of course, no ladies accompanied the expedition. Men who went West for gold did not take their families with them, as a rule, and the settlers of new mining towns were all of the masculine gender.

When a town had attained to the dignity of a hotel, members of the gentler sex occasionally appeared, but—with the exception of an occasional washerwoman—their influence was decidedly the reverse of that usually attributed to woman's society.

For the privileges of their society, men fought with pistols and knives, and bought of them disgrace and sorrow for gold. But at first Happy Rest was unblessed and uncursed by the presence of any one who did not wear pantaloons.

On the fifth day of its existence, however, when the arrival of an express agent indicated that Capital had formally acknowledged the existence of Happy Rest, there was an unusual commotion in the never-quiet village.

An important rumor had spread among the tents and gopher-holes, and, one after another, the citizens visited the saloon, took the barkeeper mysteriously aside, and, with faces denoting the greatest concern, whispered earnestly to him. The barkeeper felt his importance as the sole custodian of all the village news, but he replied with affability to all questions:

"Well, yes; there had a lady come; come by the same stage as the express agent. What kind?—Well, he really couldn't say—some might think one way, an' some another. He thought she was a real lady, though she wouldn't 'low anything to be sent her from the bar, and she hedn't brought no baggage. Thought so—knowed she was a lady—in fact, would bet drinks for the crowd on it. 'Cos why?—'Cos nobody heerd her cuss or seed her laugh. H'd bet three to two she was a lady—might bet two to one, ef he got his dander up on the subject. Then, on t'other hand, she'd axed for Major Axel, and the major, ez everybody know'd, was—well, he wasn't 'xactly a saint. Besides, as the major hedn't come to Happy Rest, nohow, it looked ez if he was dodgin' her for somethin'. Where was she stopping?—up to Old Psalmsinger's. Old Psalm bed turned himself out of house an' home, and bought her a new tea-kettle to boot. If anybody know'd anybody that wanted to take three to two, send him along."

A few men called to bet, and bets were exchanged all over the camp, but most of the excitement centred about the storekeeper's.

Argonauts, pioneers, heroes, or whatever else the early gold-seekers were, they were likewise mortal men, so they competed vigorously for the few blacking-brushes, boxes of blacking, looking-glasses, pocket-combs and neckties which the store contained. They bought toilet-soap, and borrowed razors; and when they had improved their personal appearance to the fullest possible extent, they stood aimlessly about, like unemployed workmen in the market-place. Each one, however, took up a position which should rake the only entrance to old Psalmsinger's tent.

Suddenly, two or three scores of men struck various attitudes, as if to be photographed, and exclaimed in unison:

"There she is!"

From the tent of old Psalmsinger there had emerged the only member of the gentler sex who had reached Happy Rest.

For only a moment she stood still and looked about her, as if uncertain which way to go; but before she had taken a step, old Psalmsinger raised his voice, and said:

"I thort it last night, when I only seed her in the moonlight, but I know it now—she's a lady, an' no mistake. Ef I was a bettin' man, I'd bet all my dust on it, an' my farm to hum besides!"

A number of men immediately announced that they would bet, in the speaker's place, to any amount, and in almost any odds. For, though old Psalm, by reason of non-participation in any of the drinks, fights, or games with which the camp refreshed itself, was considered a mere nonentity, it was generally admitted that men of his style could tell a lady or a preacher at sight.

The gentle unknown finally started toward the largest group of men, seeing which, several smaller groups massed themselves on the larger with alacrity.

As she neared them, the men could see that she was plainly dressed, but that every article of attire was not only neat but tasteful, and that she had enough grace of form and carriage to display everything to advantage. A few steps nearer, and she displayed a set of sad but refined features, marred only by an irresolute, purposeless mouth.

Then an ex-reporter from New York turned suddenly to a graceless young scamp who had once been a regular ornament to Broadway, and exclaimed:

"Louise Mattray, isn't it?"

"'Tis, by thunder!" replied the young man. "I knew I'd seen her somewhere. Wonder what she's doing here?"

The reporter shrugged his shoulders.

"Some wild-goose speculation, I suppose. Smart and gritty—if I had her stick I shouldn't be here—but she always slips up—can't keep all her wires well in hand. Was an advertising agent when I left the East—picked up a good many ads, too, and made folks treat her respectfully, when they'd have kicked a man out of doors if he'd come on the same errand."

"Say she's been asking for Axel," remarked the young man.

"That so!" queried the reporter, wrinkling his brow, and hurrying through his mental notebook. "Oh, yes—there was some talk about them at one time. Some said they were married—she said so, but she never took his name. She had a handsome son, that looked like her and the major, but she didn't know how to manage him—went to the dogs, or worse, before he was eighteen."

"Axell here?" asked the young man.

"No," replied the reporter; "and 'twouldn't do her any good if he was. The major's stylish and good-looking, and plays a brilliant game, but he hasn't any more heart than is absolutely necessary to his circulation. Besides, his—"

The reporter was interrupted by a heavy hand falling on his shoulder, and found, on turning, that the hand belonged to "The General."

The general was not a military man, but his title had been conferred in recognition of the fact that he was a born leader. Wherever he went the general assumed the reins of government, and his administration had always been popular as well as judicious.

But at this particular moment the general seemed to feel unequal to what was evidently his duty, and he, like a skillful general, sought a properly qualified assistant, and the reporter seemed to him to be just the man he wanted.

"Spidertracks," said the general, with an air in which authority and supplication were equally prominent, "you've told an awful sight of lies in your time. Don't deny it, now—nobody that ever reads the papers will b'leeve you. Now's yer chance to put yer gift of gab to a respectable use. The lady's bothered, and wants to say somethin' or ask somethin', and she'll understand your lingo better'n mine. Fire away now, lively!"

The ex-shorthand-writer seemed complimented by the general's address, and stepping forward and raising the remains of what had once been a hat, said:

"Can I serve you in any way, madame?"

The lady glanced at him quickly and searchingly, and then, seeming assured of the reporter's honesty, replied:

"I am looking for an old acquaintance of mine—one Major Axell."

"He is not in camp, ma'am," said Spidertracks. "He was at Rum Valley a few days ago, when our party was organized to come here."

"I was there yesterday," said the lady, looking greatly disappointed, "and was told he started for here a day or two before."

"Some mistake, ma'am, I assure you," replied Spidertracks. "I should have known of his arrival if he had come. I'm an old newspaper man, ma'am, and can't get out of the habit of getting the news."

The lady turned away, but seemed irresolute. The reporter followed her.

"If you will return to Rum Yalley, ma'am, I'll find the major for you, if he is hereabouts," said he. "You will be more comfortable there, and I will be more likely than you to find him."

The lady hesitated for a moment longer; then she drew from her pocket a diary, wrote a line or two on one of its leaves, tore it out and handed it to the reporter.

"I will accept your offer, and be very grateful for it, for I do not bear this mountain traveling very well. If you find him, give him this scrawl and tell him where I am—that will be sufficient."

"Trust me to find him, ma'am," replied Spidertracks. "And as the stage is just starting, and there won't be another for a week, allow me to see you into it. Any baggage?"

"Only a small hand-bag in the tent," said she.

They hurried off together, Spidertracks found the bag, and five minutes later was bowing and waving his old hat to the cloud of dust which the departing stage left behind it. But when even the dust itself had disappeared, he drew from his pocket the paper the fair passenger had given him.

"'Tain't sealed," said he, reasoning with himself, "so there can't be any secrets in it. Let's see—hello! 'Ernest is somewhere in this country; I wish to see you about him—and about nothing else.' Whew-w-w! What splendid material for a column, if there was only a live paper in this infernal country! Looking for that young scamp, eh? There is something to her, and I'll help her if I can. Wonder if I'd recognize him if I saw him again? I ought to, if he looks as much like his parents as he used to do. 'Twould do my soul good to make the poor woman smile once; but it's an outrageous shame there's no good daily paper here to work the whole thing up in. With the chase, and fighting, and murder that may come of it, 'twould make the leading sensation for a week!"

The agonized reporter clasped his hands behind him and walked slowly back to where he had left the crowd. Most of the citizens had, on seeing the lady depart, taken a drink as a partial antidote to dejection, and strolled away to their respective claims, regardless of the occasional mud which threatened the polish on their boots; but two or three gentlemen of irascible tempers and judicial minds lingered, to decide whether Spidertracks had not, by the act of seeing the lady to the stage, made himself an accessory to her departure, and consequently a fit subject for challenge by every disappointed man in camp.

The reporter was in the midst of a very able and voluble defense, when the attention of his hearers seemed distracted by something on the trail by which the original settlers had entered the village.

Spidertracks himself looked, shaded his eyes, indulged in certain disconnected fragments of profanity, and finally exclaimed:

"Axell himself, by the white coat of Horace Greeley! Wonder who he's got with him! They seem to be having a difficulty about something!"

The gentlemen who had arraigned Spidertracks allowed him to be acquitted by default. Far better to them was a fight near by than the most interesting lady afar off.

They stuck their hands into their pockets, and stared intently. Finally one of them, in a tone of disgusted resignation, remarked:

"Axell ought to be ashamed of hisself; he's draggin' along a little feller not half the size he is. Blamed if he ain't got his match, though; the little feller's jest doin' some gellorious chawin' an' diggin'."

The excitement finally overcame the inertia of the party, and each man started deliberately to meet the major and his captive. Spidertracks, faithful to his profession, kept well in advance of the others. Suddenly he exclaimed to himself:

"Good Lord! don't they know each other? The major didn't wear that beard when in New York; but the boy—he's just the same scamp, in spite of his dirt and rags. If she were to see them now—but, pshaw! 'twould all fall flat—no live paper to take hold of the matter and work it up."

"There, curse your treacherous heart!" roared the major, as he gave his prisoner a push which threw him into the reporter's arms. "Now we're in a civilized community, and you'll have a chance of learning the opinions of gentlemen on such irregularities. Tried to kill me, gentlemen, upon my honor!—did it after I had shared my eatables and pocket-pistol with him, too. Did it to get my dust. Got me at a disadvantage for a moment, and made a formal demand for the dust, and backed his request with a pistol—my own pistol, gentlemen! I've only just reached here; I don't yet know who's here, but I imagine there's public spirit enough to discourage treachery. Will some one see to him while I take something?"

Spidertracks drew his revolver, mildly touched the young man on the shoulder, and remarked:

"Come on."

The ex-knight of the pencil bowed his prisoner into an abandoned gopher-hole (i.e., an artificial cave,) cocked his revolver, and then stretched himself on the ground and devoted himself to staring at the unfortunate youth. To a student of human nature Ernest Mattray was curious, fascinating, and repulsive. Short, slight, handsome, delicate, nervous, unscrupulous, selfish, effeminate, dishonest, and cruel, he was an excellent specimen of what city life could make of a boy with no father and an irresolute mother.

The reporter, who had many a time studied faces in the Tombs, felt almost as if at his old vocation again as he gazed into the restless eyes and sullen features of the prisoner.

Meanwhile Happy Rest was becoming excited. There had been some little fighting done since the settlement of the place, but as there had been no previous attempt at highway robbery and murder made in the vicinity, the prisoner was an object of considerable interest.

In fact, the major told so spirited a story, that most of the inhabitants strolled up, one after another, to look at the innovator, while that individual himself, with the modesty which seems inseparable from true greatness, retired to the most secluded of the three apartments into which the cave was divided, and declined all the attentions which were thrust upon him.

The afternoon had faded almost into evening, when a decrepit figure, in a black dress and bonnet, approached the cave, and gave Spidertracks a new element for the thrilling report he had composed and mentally rearranged during his few hours of duty as jailer.

"Beats the dickens," muttered the reporter to himself, "how these Sisters of Charity always know when a tough case has been caught. Natural enough in New York. But where did she come from? Who told her? Cross, beads, and all. Hello! Oh, Louise Mattray, you're a deep one; but it's a pity your black robe isn't quite long enough to hide the very tasty dress you wore this morning? Queer dodge, too—wonder what it means? Wonder if she's caught sight of the major, and don't want to be recognized?"

The figure approached.

"May I see the prisoner?" she asked.

"No one has a better right, Mrs. Mattray," said the guardian of the cave, with a triumphant smile, while the poor woman started and trembled. "Don't be frightened—no one is going to hurt you. Heard all about it, I suppose?—know who just missed being the victim?"

"Yes," said the unhappy woman, entering the cave.

When she emerged it was growing quite dark. She passed the reporter with head and vail down, and whispered:

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it," said the reporter, quickly. "Going to stay until you see how things go with him?"

She shook her head and passed on.

The sky grew darker. The reporter almost wished it might grow so dark that the prisoner could escape unperceived, or so quickly that a random shot could not find him. There were strange noises in camp.

The storekeeper, who never traveled except by daylight, was apparently harnessing his mules to the wagon—he was moving the wagon itself to the extreme left of the camp, where there was nothing to haul but wood, and even that was still standing in the shape of fine old trees.

There seemed to be an unusual clearness in the air, for Spidertracks distinctly heard the buzz of some earnest conversation. There seemed strange shadows floating in the air—a strange sense of something moving toward him—something almost shapeless, yet tangible—something that approached him—that gave him a sense of insecurity and then of alarm. Suddenly the indefinable something uttered a yell, and resolved itself into a party of miners, led by the gallant and aggrieved major himself, who shouted:

"Lynch the scoundrel, boys—that's the only thing to do!"

The excited reporter sprang to his feet in an agony of genuine humanity and suppressed itemizing, and screamed:

"Major, wait a minute—you'll be sorry if you don't!"

But the gallant major had been at the bar for two or three hours, preparing himself for this valorous deed, and the courage he had there imbibed knew not how to brook delay—not until the crowd had reached the mouth of the cave and found it dark, and had heard one unduly prudent miner suggest that it might be well to have a light, so as to dodge being sliced in the dark.

"Bring a light quick, then," shouted the major. "I'll drag him out when it comes; he knows my grip, curse him!"

A bunch of dried grass was hastily lighted and thrown into the cave, and the major rapidly followed it, while as many miners as could crowd in after him hastened to do so. They found the major, with white face and trembling limbs, standing in front of the lady for whose sake they had done so much elaborate dressing in the morning, and who they had afterwards wrathfully seen departing in the stage.

The major rallied, turned around, and said:

"There's some mistake here, gentlemen. Won't you have the kindness to leave us alone?"

Slowly—very slowly—the crowd withdrew. It seemed to them that, in the nature of things, the lady ought to have it out with the major with pistols or knives for disturbing her, and that they, who were in all the sadness of disappointment at failure of a well-planned independent execution, ought to see the end of the whole affair. But a beseeching look from the lady herself finally cleared the cave, and the major exclaimed:

"Louise, what does this mean?"

"It means," said the lady, with most perfect composure, "that, thanks to a worthless father and a bad bringing-up by an incapable mother, Ernest has found his way into this country. I came to find him, and I found him in this hole, to which his affectionate father brought him to-day. It is about as well, I imagine, that I helped him to escape, seeing to what further kind attentions you had reserved him."

"Please don't be so icy, Louise," begged the major. "He attempted to rob and kill me, the young rascal; besides, I had not the faintest idea of who he was."

"Perhaps," said the lady, still very calm, "you will tell me from whom he inherited the virtues which prompted his peculiar actions towards you? His mother has always earned her livelihood honorably."

"Louise," said the major, with a humility which would have astonished his acquaintance, "won't you have the kindness to reserve your sarcasm until I am better able to bear it? You probably think I have no heart—I acknowledge I have thought as much myself—but something is making me feel very weak and tender just now."

The lady looked critically at him for a moment, and then burst into tears.

"Oh, God!" she sobbed, "what else is there in store for this poor, miserable, injured life of mine?"

"Restitution," whispered the major softly—"if you will let me make it, or try to make it."

The weeping woman looked up inquiringly, and said only the words:

"And she?"

"My first wife?" answered the major. "Dead—really dead, Louise, as I hope to be saved. She died several years ago, and I longed to do you justice then, but the memory of our parting was too much for my cowardly soul. If you will take me as I am, Louise, I will, as long as I live, remember the past, and try to atone for it."

She put her hand in his, and they left the gopher-hole together. As they disappeared in the outer darkness, there emerged from one of the compartments of the cave an individual whose features were indistinguishable in the darkness, but who was heard to emphatically exclaim:

"If I had the dust, I'd start a live daily here, just to tell the whole story; though the way he got out didn't do me any particular credit."

* * * * *

For days the residents of Happy Rest used all available mental stimulants to aid them in solving the mystery of the major and the wonderful lady; but, as the mental stimulants aforesaid were all spirituous, the results were more deplorable than satisfactory. But when, a few days later, the couple took the stage for Rum Valley, the enterprising Spidertracks took an outside passage, and at the end of the route had his persistency rewarded by seeing, in the Bangup House, a Sister of Charity tenderly embrace the major's fair charge, start at the sight of the major, and then, after some whispering by the happy mother, sullenly extend a hand, which the major grasped heartily, and over which there dropped something which, though a drop of water, was not a rain-drop. Then did Spidertracks return to the home of his adoption, and lavish the stores of his memory; and for days his name was famous, and his liquor was paid for by admiring auditors.



TWO POWERFUL ARGUMENTS.

"Got him?"

"You bet!"

The questioner looked pleased, yet not as if his pleasure engendered any mental excitement. The man who answered spoke in an ordinary, careless tone, and with unmoved countenance, as if he were merely signifying the employment of an additional workman, or the purchase of a desirable rooster.

Yet the subject of the brief conversation repeated above was no other than Bill Bowney, the most industrious and successful of the horse-thieves and "road-agents" that honored the southern portion of California with their presence.

Nor did Bowney restrict himself to the duty of redistributing the property of other people. Perhaps he belonged to that class of political economists which considers superfluous population an evil; perhaps he was a religious enthusiast, and ardently longed that all mankind should speedily see the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem.

Be his motives what they might, it is certain that when an unarmed man met Bowney, entered into a discussion with him, and lived verbally to report the same, he was looked upon with considerably more interest than a newly-made Congressman or a ten-thousand-acre farmer was able to inspire.

The two men whose conversation we have recorded studied the ears of their own horses for several minutes, after which the first speaker asked:

"How did you do it?"

"Well," replied the other man, "ther' wasn't anything p'tickler 'bout it. Me an' him wuzn't acquainted, so he didn't suspect me. But I know'd his face—he wuz p'inted out to me once, durin' the gold-rush to Kern River, an' I never forgot him. I wuz on a road I never traveled before—goin' to see an old greaser, ownin' a mighty pretty piece of ground I wanted—when all of a sudden I come on a cabin, an' thar stood Bill in front of it, a-smokin'. I axed him fur a light, an' when he came up to give it to me, I grabbed him by the shirt-collar an' dug the spur into the mare. 'Twus kind of a mean trick, imposin' on hospitality that-a-way; but 'twuz Bowney, you know. He hollered, an' I let him walk in front, but I kep' him covered with the revolver till I met some fellers, that tied him good an' tight. 'Twuzn't excitin' wurth a durn—that is, ixcep' when his wife—I s'pose 'twuz—hollered, then I a'most wished I'd let him go."

"Sheriff got him?" inquired the first speaker.

"Well, no," returned the captor. "Sheriff an' judge mean well, I s'pose; but they're slow—mighty slow. Besides, he's got friends, an' they might be too much fur the sheriff some night. We tuk him to the Broad Oak, an' we thought we'd ax the neighbors over thar to-night, to talk it over. Be thar?"

"You bet!" replied the first speaker. "And I'll bring my friends; nothing like having plenty of witnesses in important legal cases."

"Jus' so," responded the other. "Well, here's till then;" and the two men separated.

The Broad Oak was one of those magnificent trees which are found occasionally through Southern California, singly or dispersed in handsome natural parks.

The specimen which had so impressed people as to gain a special name for itself was not only noted for its size, but because it had occasionally been selected as the handiest place in which Judge Lynch could hold his court without fear of molestation by rival tribunals.

Bill Bowney, under favorable circumstances, appeared to be a very homely, lazy, sneaking sort of an individual; but Bill Bowney, covered with dust, his eyes bloodshot, his clothes torn, and his hands and feet tightly bound, had not a single attractive feature about him.

He stared earnestly up into the noble tree under whose shadow he lay; but his glances were not of admiration—they seemed, rather, to be resting on two or three fragments of rope which remained on one of the lower limbs, and to express sentiments of the most utter loathing and disgust.

The afternoon wore away, and the moon shone brilliantly down from the cloudless sky.

The tramp of a horse was heard at a distance, but rapidly growing more distinct, and soon Bowney's captor galloped up to the tree.

Then another horse was heard, then others, and soon ten or a dozen men were gathered together.

Each man, after dismounting, walked up to where the captive lay, and gave him a searching look, and then they joined those who had already preceded them, and who were quietly chatting about wheat, cattle, trees—everything but the prisoner.

Suddenly one of the party separated himself from the others, and exclaimed:

"Gentlemen, there don't seem to be anybody else a-comin'—we might as well 'tend to bizness. I move that Major Burkess takes the chair, if there's no objections."

No objections were made, and Major Burkess—a slight, peaceable, gentlemanly-looking man—stepped out of the crowd, and said:

"You all know the object of this meeting, gentlemen. The first thing in order is to prove the identity of the prisoner."

"Needn't trouble yourself 'bout that," growled the prisoner. "I'm Bill Bowney; an' yer too cowardly to untie me, though ther be a dozen uv yer."

"The prisoner admits he is Bill Bowney," continued the major, "but of course no gentleman will take offense at his remarks. Has any one any charge to make against him?"

"Charges?" cried an excitable farmer. "Didn't I catch him untying my horse, an' ridin' off on him from Budley's? Didn't I tell him to drop that anamile, an' didn't he purty near drop me instead? Charges?—here's the charge!" concluded the farmer, pointing significantly to a scar on his own temple.

"Pity I didn't draw a better bead!" growled the prisoner. "The hoss only fetched two ounces."

"Prisoner admits stealing Mr. Barke's horse, and firing on Mr. Barke. Any further evidence?"

"Rather," drawled an angular gentleman. "I was goin' up the valley by the stage, an' all of a sudden the driver stopped where there wasn't no station. There was fellers had hold of the leaders, an' there was pistols p'inted at the driver an' folks in general. Then our money an' watches was took, an' the feller that took mine had a cross-cut scar on the back of his hand—right hand; maybe somebody'll look at Bill's."

The prisoner was carried into the moonlight, and the back of his right hand was examined by the major. The prisoner was again placed under the tree.

"The cut's there, as described," said the major. "Anything else?"

"Ther's this much," said another. "I busted up flat, you all know, on account of the dry season, last year, an' I hadn't nothin' left but my hoss. Bill Bowney knowed it as well's anybody else, yet he come and stole that hoss. It pawed like thunder, an' woke me up—fur 'twas night, an' light as 'tis now—an' I seed Bowney a-ridin' him off. 'Twas a sneakin', mean, cowardly trick."

The prisoner hung his head; he would plead guilty to theft and attempt to kill, and defy his captors to do their worst; but when meanness and cowardice were proved against him, he seemed ashamed of himself.

"Prisoner virtually admits the charge," said the major, looking critically at Bowney.

"Gentlemen," said Caney, late of Texas, "what's the use of wastin' time this way? Everybody knows that Bowney's been at the bottom of all the deviltry that's been done in the county this three year. Highway robbery's a hangin' offense in Texas an' every other well-regilated State; so's hoss-stealin', an' so's shootin' a man in the back, an' yit Bowney's done ev'ry one of 'em over an' over agin. Ev'rybody knows what we come here fur, else what's the reason ev'ry man's got a nice little coil o' rope on his saddle fur? The longer the bizness is put off, the harder it'll be to do. I move we string him up instanter."

"Second the motion!" exclaimed some one.

"I move we give him a chance to save himself," said a quiet farmer from New England. "When he's in the road-agent business, he has a crowd to help him. Now, 'twould do us more good to clean them out than him alone, so let's give him a chance to leave the State if he'll tell who his confederates are. Somebody'll have to take care of him, of course, till we can catch them, and make sure of it."

"'Twon't cost the somebody much, then," said the prisoner, firmly; "an' I'd give a cool thousand for a shot at any low-lived coyote that 'ud ax me to do sich an ungentlemanly thing."

"Spoke like a man," said Caney, of Texas. "I hope ye'll die easy for that, Bill."

"The original motion prevails," said the major; "all in favor will say ay."

A decided "ay" broke from the party.

"Whoever has the tallest horse will please lead him up and unsaddle him," said the major, after a slight pause. "The witnesses will take the prisoner in charge."

A horse was brought under the limb, with the fragments of rope upon it, and the witnesses, one of them bearing a piece of rope, approached the prisoner.

The silence was terrible, and the feelings of all present were greatly relieved when Bill Bowney—placed on the horse, and seeing the rope hauled taught and fastened to a bough by a man in the tree—broke into a frenzy of cursing, and displayed the defiant courage peculiar to an animal at bay.

"Has the prisoner anything to say?" asked the major, as Bowney stopped for breath.

"Better own up, and save yourself and reform, and help rid the world of those other scoundrels," pleaded the New Englander.

"Don't yer do it, Bill—don't yer do it!" cried Caney, of Texas. "Stick to yer friends, an' die like a man!"

"That's me!" said the prisoner, directing a special volley of curses at the New Englander. "It's ben said here that I wuz sneakin' an' cowardly; ther's one way of givin' that feller the lie—hurry up an' do it!"

"When I raise my hand," said the major, "lead the horse away; and may the Lord have mercy on your soul, Bowney!"

"Amen!" fervently exclaimed the New Englander.

Again there was a moment of terrible silence, and when a gentle wind swept over the wild oats and through the tree, there seemed to sound on the air a sigh and a shudder.

Suddenly all the horses started and pricked up their ears.

"Somebody's comin'!" whispered one of the party. "Sheriff's got wind of the arrangements, maybe!"

"Comes from the wrong direction," cried Caney, of Texas, quickly. "It's somebody on foot—an' tired—an' light-footed—ther's two or three—dunno what kind o' bein's they ken be. Thunder an' lightnin'!"

Caney's concluding remark was inspired by the sudden appearance of a woman, who rushed into the shadow of the tree, stopped, looked wildly about for a moment, and then threw herself against the prisoner's feet, and uttered a low, pitiful cry.

There was a low murmur from the crowd, and the major cried:

"Take him down; give him fifteen minutes with his wife, and see she doesn't untie him."



The man in the tree loosened the rope, Bowney was lifted off and placed on the ground again, and the woman threw herself on the ground beside him, caressed his ugly face, and wailed pitifully. The judge and jury fidgeted about restlessly. Still the horses stood on the alert, and soon three came through the oats—three children, all crying.

As they saw the men they became dumb, and stood mute and frightened, staring at their parents.

They were not pretty—they were not even interesting. Mother and children were alike—unwashed, uncombed, shoeless, and clothed in dirty, faded calico. The children were all girls—the oldest not more than ten years old, and the youngest scarce five. None of them pleaded for the prisoner, but still the woman wailed and moaned, and the children stood staring in dumb piteousness.

The major stood quietly gazing at the face of his watch. There was not in Southern California a more honest man than Major Burkess; yet the minute-hand of his watch had not indicated more than one-half of fifteen minutes, when he exclaimed:

"Time's up!"

The men approached the prisoner—the woman threw her arms around him, and cried:

"My husband! Oh, God!"

"Madam," said the major, "your husband's life is in his own hands. He can save himself by giving the names of his confederates and leaving the State."

"I'll tell you who they are?" cried the woman.

"God curse yer if yer do!" hissed Bowney from between his teeth.

"Better let him be, madam," argued Caney, of Texas. He'd better die like a man than go back on his friends. Might tell us which of 'em was man enough to fetch you and the young uns here? We'll try to be easy on him when we ketch him."

"None of 'em," sobbed the woman. "We walked, an' I took turns totin' the young uns. My husband! Oh, God! my husband!"

"Beg yer pardon, ma'am," said Bowney's captor, "but nobody can't b'leeve that; it's nigh onto twenty mile."

"I'd ha' done it ef it had been fifty," cried the woman, angrily, "when he wuz in trouble. Oh, God! Oh, God! Don't yer b'leeve it? Then look here!" She picked up the smallest child as she spoke, and in the dim light the men saw that its little feet were torn and bleeding. "'Twas their blood or his'n," cried the woman, rapidly, "an' I didn't know how to choose between 'em. God hev mercy on me! I'm nigh crazy!"

Caney, of Texas, took the child from its mother and carried it to where the moonlight was unobstructed. He looked carefully at its feet, and then shouted:

"Bring the prisoner out here."

Two men carried Bowney to where Caney was standing, and the whole party, with the woman and remaining children, followed.

"Bill," said Caney, "I ain't a askin' yer to go back on yer friends, but them is—look at 'em."

And Caney held the child's feet before the father's eyes, while the woman threw her arms around his neck, and the two older children crept up to the prisoner, and laid their faces against his legs.

"They're a-talkin' to yer, Bill," resumed Caney, of Texas, "an' they're the convincenist talkers I ever seed."

The desperado turned his eyes away; but Caney moved the child so its bleeding feet were still before its father's eyes.

The remaining men all retired beneath the shadow of the tree, for the tender little feet were talking to them, too, and they were ashamed of the results.

Suddenly Bowney uttered a deep groan.

"'Tain't no use a-tryin'," said he, in a resigned tone. "Everybody'll be down on me, an' after all I've done, too! But yer ken hev their names, curse yer!"

The woman went into hysterics; the children cried; Caney, of Texas, ejaculated, "Bully!" and then kissed the poor little bruised feet.

The New Englander fervently exclaimed, "Thank God!"

"I'll answer fur him till we get 'em," said Caney, after the major had written down the names Bowney gave him; "an'," continued Caney, "somebody git the rest of these young uns an' ther mother to my cabin powerful quick. Good Lord, don't I jist wish they wuz boys! I'd adopt the hull family."

The court informally adjourned sine die, but had so many meetings afterward at the same place to dispose of Bowney's accomplices, that his freedom was considered fairly purchased, and he and his family were located a good way from the scenes of his most noted exploits.



MR. PUTCHETT'S LOVE.

Just after two o'clock, on a July afternoon, Mr. Putchett mounted several steps of the Sub-Treasury in Wall Street, and gazed inquiringly up and down the street.

To the sentimental observer Mr. Putchett's action, in taking the position we have indicated, may have seemed to signify that Mr. Putchett was of an aspiring disposition, and that in ascending the steps he exemplified his desire to get above the curbstone whose name was used as a qualifying adjective whenever Mr. Putchett was mentioned as a broker. Those persons, however, who enjoyed the honor of Mr. Putchett's acquaintance immediately understood that the operator in question was in funds that day, and that he had taken the position from which he could most easily announce his moneyed condition to all who might desire assistance from him.

It was rather late in the day for business, and certain persons who had until that hour been unsuccessful in obtaining the accommodations desired were not at all particular whether their demands were satisfied in a handsome office, or under the only roof that can be enjoyed free of rent.

There came to Mr. Putchett oddly-clothed members of his own profession, and offered for sale securities whose numbers Mr. Putchett compared with those on a list of bonds stolen; men who deposited with him small articles of personal property—principally jewelry—as collaterals on small loans at short time and usurious rates; men who stood before him on the sidewalk, caught his eye, summoned him by a slight motion of the head, and disappeared around the corner, whither Mr. Putchett followed them only to promptly transact business and hurry back to his business-stand.

In fact, Mr. Putchett was very busy, and as in his case business invariably indicated profit, it was not wonderful that his rather unattractive face lightened and expressed its owner's satisfaction at the amount of business he was doing. Suddenly, however, there attacked Mr. Putchett the fate which, in its peculiarity of visiting people in their happiest hours, has been bemoaned by poets of genuine and doubtful inspiration, from the days of the sweet singer of Israel unto those of that sweet singer of Erin, whose recital of experience with young gazelles illustrates the remorselessness of the fate alluded to.

Plainly speaking, Mr. Putchett went suddenly under a cloud, for during one of his dashes around the corner after a man who had signaled him, and at the same time commenced to remove a ring from his finger, a small, dirty boy handed Mr. Putchett a soiled card, on which was penciled:

"Bayle is after you, about that diamond."

Despite the fact that Mr. Putchett had not been shaved for some days, and had apparently neglected the duty of facial ablution for quite as long a time, he turned pale and looked quickly behind him and across the street; then muttering "Just my luck!" and a few other words more desponding than polite in nature, he hurried to the Post-Office, where he penciled and dispatched a few postal-cards, signed in initials only, announcing an unexpected and temporary absence. Then, still looking carefully and often at the faces in sight, he entered a newspaper office and consulted a railway directory. He seemed in doubt, as he rapidly turned the leaves; and when he reached the timetable of a certain road running near and parallel to the seaside, the change in his countenance indicated that he had learned the whereabouts of a city of refuge.

An hour later Mr. Putchett, having to bid no family good-by, to care for no securities save those stowed away in his capacious pockets, and freed from the annoyance of baggage by reason of the fact that he had on his back the only outer garments that he owned, was rapidly leaving New York on a train, which he had carefully assured himself did not carry the dreaded Bayle.

Once fairly started, Mr. Putchett in some measure recovered his spirits. He introduced himself to a brakeman by means of a cigar, and questioned him until he satisfied himself that the place to which he had purchased a ticket was indeed unknown to the world, being far from the city, several miles from the railroad, and on a beach where boats could not safely land. He also learned that it was not a fashionable Summer resort, and that a few farmhouses (whose occupants took Summer boarders) and an unsuccessful hotel were the only buildings in the place.

Arrived at his destination, Mr. Putchett registered at the hotel and paid the week's board which the landlord, after a critical survey of his new patron, demanded in advance.

Then the exiled operator tilted a chair in the barroom, lit an execrable cigar, and, instead of expressing sentiments of gratitude appropriate to the occasion, gave way to profane condemnations of the bad fortune which had compelled him to abandon his business.

He hungrily examined the faces of the few fishermen of the neighboring bay who came in to drink and smoke, but no one of them seemed likely to need money—certainly no one of them seemed to have acceptable collaterals about his person or clothing. On the contrary, these men, while each one threw Mr. Putchett a stare of greater or less magnitude, let the financier alone so completely that he was conscious of a severe wound in his self-esteem.

It was a strange experience, and at first it angered him so that he strode up to the bar, ordered a glass of best brandy, and defiantly drank alone; but neither the strength of the liquor nor the intensity of his anger prevented him from soon feeling decidedly lonely.

At the cheap hotel at which he lodged when in New York there was no one who loved him or even feared him, but there were a few men of his own kind who had, for purposes of mutual recreation, tabooed business transactions with each other, and among these he found a grim sort of enjoyment—of companionship, at least. Here, however, he was so utterly alone as to be almost frightened, and the murmuring and moaning of the surf on the beach near the hotel added to his loneliness a sense of terror.

Almost overcome by dismal forebodings, Mr. Putchett hurried out of the hotel and toward the beach. Once upon the sands, he felt better; the few people who were there were strangers, of course, but they were women and children; and if the expression of those who noticed him was wondering, it was inoffensive—at times even pitying, and Mr. Putchett was in a humor to gratefully accept even pity.

Soon the sun fell, and the people straggled toward their respective boarding-houses, and Mr. Putchett, to fight off loneliness as long as possible, rose from the bench on which he had been sitting and followed the party up the beach.

He had supposed himself the last person that left the beach, but in a moment or two he heard a childish voice shouting:

"Mister, mister! I guess you've lost something!"

Mr. Putchett turned quickly, and saw a little girl, six or seven years of age, running toward him. In one hand she held a small pail and wooden shovel, and in the other something bright, which was too large for her little hand to cover.

She reached the broker's side, turned up a bright, healthy face, opened her hand and displayed a watch, and said:

"It was right there on the bench where you were sitting. I couldn't think what it was, it shone so."

Mr. Putchett at first looked suspiciously at the child, for he had at one period of his life labored industriously in the business of dropping bogus pocketbooks and watches, and obtaining rewards from persons claiming to be their owners.



Examining the watch which the child handed him, however, he recognized it as one upon which he had lent twenty dollars earlier in the day.

First prudently replacing the watch in the pocket of his pantaloons, so as to avoid any complication while settling with the finder, he handed the child a quarter.

"Oh, no, thank you," said she, hastily; "mamma gives me money whenever I need it."

The experienced operator immediately placed the fractional currency where it might not tempt the child to change her mind. Then he studied her face with considerable curiosity, and asked:

"Do you live here?"

"Oh, no," she replied; "we're only spending the Summer here. We live in New York."

Mr. Putchett opened his eyes, whistled, and remarked:

"It's very funny."

"Why, I don't think so," said the child, very innocently. "Lots of people that board here come from New York. Don't you want to see my well? I dug the deepest well of anybody to-day. Just come and see—it's only a few steps from here."

Mechanically, as one straggling with a problem above his comprehension, the financier followed the child, and gazed into a hole, perhaps a foot and a half deep, on the beach.

"That's my well," said she, "and that one next it is Frank's. Nellie's is way up there. I guess hers would have been the biggest, but a wave came up and spoiled it."

Mr. Putchett looked from the well into the face of its little digger, and was suddenly conscious of an insane desire to drink some of the water. He took the child's pail, dipped some water, and was carrying it to his lips, when the child spoiled what was probably the first sentimental feeling of Mr. Putchett's life by hastily exclaiming:

"You mustn't drink that—it's salty!"

The sentimentalist sorrowfully put the bitter draught away, and the child rattled on:

"If you're down here to-morrow, I'll show you where we find scallop-shells; maybe you can find some with pink and yellow spots on them. I've got some. If you don't find any, I'll give you one."

"Thank you," said her companion.

Just then some one shouted "Alice!" and the child exclaiming, "Mamma's calling me; good-by," hurried away, while the broker walked slowly toward the hotel with an expression of countenance which would have hidden him from his oldest acquaintance.

Mr. Putchett spent the evening on the piazza instead of in the barroom, and he neither smoked nor drank. Before retiring he contracted with the colored cook to shave him in the morning, and to black his boots; and he visited the single store of the neighborhood and purchased a shirt, some collars, and a cravat.

When in the morning he was duly shaved, dressed and brushed, he critically surveyed himself in the glass, and seemed quite dissatisfied. He moved from the glass, spread a newspaper on the table, and put into it the contents of his capacious pockets. A second examination before the glass seemed more satisfactory in result, thus indicating that to the eye of Mr. Putchett his well-stuffed pockets had been unsightly in effect.

The paper and its contents he gave the landlord to deposit in the hotel safe; then he ate a hurried, scanty breakfast, and again sought the bench on the beach.

No one was in sight, for it was scarcely breakfast-time at the boarding-houses; so he looked for little Alice's well, and mourned to find that the tide had not even left any sign of its location.

Then he seated himself on the bench again, contemplating his boots, looked up the road, stared out to sea, and then looked up the road again, tried to decipher some of the names carved on the bench, walked backward and forward, looking up the road at each turn he made, and in every way indicated the unpleasant effect of hope deferred.

Finally, however, after two hours of fruitless search, Mr. Putchett's eyes were rewarded by the sight of little Alice approaching the beach with a bathing-party. He at first hurried forward to meet her, but he was restrained by a sentiment found alike in curbstone-brokers and in charming young ladies—a feeling that it is not well to give one's self away without first being sufficiently solicited to do so.

He noticed, with a mingled pleasure and uneasiness, that little Alice did not at first recognize him, so greatly had his toilet altered his general appearance.

Even after he made himself known, he was compelled to submit to further delay, for the party had come to the beach to bathe, and little Alice must bathe, too.

She emerged from a bathing-house in a garb very odd to the eyes of Mr. Putchett, but one which did not at all change that gentleman's opinion of the wearer. She ran into the water, was thrown down by the surf, she was swallowed by some big waves and dived through others, and all the while the veteran operator watched her with a solicitude, which, despite his anxiety for her safety, gave him a sensation as delightful as it was strange.

The bath ended, Alice rejoined Mr. Putchett and conducted him to the spot where the wonderful shells with pink and yellow spots were found. The new shell-seeker was disgusted when the child shouted "Come along!" to several other children, and was correspondingly delighted when they said, in substance, that shells were not so attractive as once they were.

Mr. Putchett's researches in conchology were not particularly successful, for while he manfully moved about in the uncomfortable and ungraceful position peculiar to shell-seekers, he looked rather at the healthy, honest, eager little face near him than at the beach itself.

Suddenly, however, Mr. Putchett's opinion of shells underwent a radical change, for the child, straightening herself and taking something from her pocket, exclaimed:

"Oh, dear, somebody's picked up all the pretty ones. I thought, may be, there mightn't be any here, so I brought you one; just see what pretty pink and yellow spots there are on it."

Mr. Putchett looked, and there came into his face the first flush of color that had been there—except in anger—for years. He had occasionally received presents from business acquaintances, but he had correctly looked at them as having been forwarded as investments, so they awakened feelings of suspicion rather than of pleasure.

But at little Alice's shell he looked long and earnestly, and when he put it into his pocket he looked for two or three moments far away, and yet at nothing in particular.

"Do you have a nice boarding-house?" asked Alice, as they sauntered along the beach, stopping occasionally to pick up pebbles and to dig wells.

"Not very," said Mr. Putchett, the sanded barroom and his own rather dismal chamber coming to his mind.

"You ought to board where we do," said Alice, enthusiastically. "We have heaps of fun. Have you got a barn?"

Mr. Putchett confessed that he did not know.

"Oh, we've got a splendid one!" exclaimed the child. "There's stalls, and a granary, and a carriage-house and two lofts in it. We put out hay to the horses, and they eat it right out of our hands—aren't afraid a bit. Then we get into the granary, and bury ourselves all up in the oats, so only our heads stick out. The lofts are just lovely: one's full of hay and the other's full of wheat, and we chew the wheat, and make gum of it. The hay-stalks are real nice and sweet to chew, too. They only cut the hay last week, and we all rode in on the wagon—one, two, three, four—seven of us. Then we've got two croquet sets, and the boys make us whistles and squalks."

"Squalks?" interrogated the broker.

"Yes; they're split quills, and you blow in them. They don't make very pretty music, but it's ever so funny. We've got two big swings and a hammock, too."

"Is the house very full?" asked Mr. Putchett.

"Not so very," replied the child. "If you come there to board, I'll make Frank teach you how to make whistles."

That afternoon Mr. Putchett took the train for New York, from which city he returned the next morning with quite a well-filled trunk. It was afterward stated by a person who had closely observed the capitalist's movements during his trip, that he had gone into a first-class clothier's and demanded suits of the best material and latest cut, regardless of cost, and that he had pursued the same singular coarse at a gent's furnishing store, and a fashionable jeweler's.

Certain it is that on the morning of Mr. Putchett's return a gentleman very well dressed, though seemingly ill at ease in his clothing, called at Mrs. Brown's boarding-house, and engaged a room, and that the younger ladies pronounced him very stylish and the older ones thought him very odd. But as he never intruded, spoke only when spoken to, and devoted himself earnestly and entirely to the task of amusing the children, the boarders all admitted that he was very good-hearted.

Among Alice's numerous confidences, during her second stroll with Mr. Putchett, was information as to the date of her seventh birthday, now very near at hand. When the day arrived, her adorer arose unusually early, and spent an impatient hour or two awaiting Alice's appearance. As she bade him good-morning, he threw about her neck a chain, to which was attached an exquisite little watch; then, while the delighted child was astonishing her parents and the other boarders, Mr. Putchett betook himself to the barn in a state of abject sheepishness. He did not appear again until summoned by the breakfast-bell, and even then he sat with a very red face, and with eyes directed at his plate only. The child's mother remonstrated against so much money being squandered on a child, and attempted to return the watch, but he seemed so distressed at the idea that the lady dropped the subject.

For a fortnight, Mr. Putchett remained at the boarding-house, and grew daily in the estimation of every one. From being thought queer and strange, he gradually gained the reputation of being the best-hearted, most guileless, most considerate man alive. He was the faithful squire of all the ladies, both young and old, and was adored by all the children. His conversational powers—except on matters of business—were not great, but his very ignorance on all general topics, and the humility born of that ignorance, gave to his manners a deference which was more gratifying to most ladies than brilliant loquacity would have been. He even helped little Alice to study a Sunday-school lesson, and the experience was so entirely new to him, that he became more deeply interested than the little learner herself. He went to church on Sunday, and was probably the most attentive listener the rather prosy old pastor had.

Of course he bathed—everybody did. A stout rope was stretched from a post on the shore to a buoy in deep water where it was anchored, and back and forth on this rope capered every day twenty or thirty hideously dressed but very happy people, among whom might always be seen Mr. Putchett with a child on his shoulder.

One day the waves seemed to viciously break near the shore, and the bathers all followed the rope out to where there were swells instead of breakers. Mr. Putchett was there, of course, with little Alice. He seemed perfectly enamored of the water, and delighted in venturing as far to the sea as the rope would allow, and there ride on the swells, and go through all other ridiculously happy antics peculiar to ocean-lovers who cannot swim.

Suddenly Mr. Putchett's hand seemed to receive a shock, and he felt himself sinking lower than usual, while above the noise of the surf and the confusion of voices he heard some one roar:

"The rope has broken—scramble ashore!"



The startled man pulled frantically at the piece of rope in his hand, but found to his horror that it offered no assistance; it was evident that the break was between him and the shore. He kicked and paddled rapidly, but seemed to make no headway, and while Alice, realizing the danger, commenced to cry piteously, Mr. Putchett plainly saw on the shore the child's mother in an apparent frenzy of excitement and terror.

The few men present—mostly boarding-house keepers and also ex-sailors and fishermen—hastened with a piece of the broken rope to drag down a fishing-boat which lay on the sand beyond reach of the tide. Meanwhile a boy found a fishing-line, to the end of which a stone was fastened and thrown toward the imperiled couple.

Mr. Putchett snatched at the line and caught it, and in an instant half a dozen women pulled upon it, only to have it break almost inside Mr. Putchett's hands. Again it was thrown, and again the frightened broker caught it. This time he wound it about Alice's arm, put the end into her hand, kissed her forehead, said, "Good-by, little angel, God bless you," and threw up his hand as a signal that the line should be drawn in. In less than a minute little Alice was in her mother's arms, but when the line was ready to be thrown again, Mr. Putchett was not visible.

By this time the boat was at the water's edge, and four men—two of whom were familiar with rowing—sat at the oars, while two of the old fishermen stood by to launch the boat at the proper instant. Suddenly they shot it into the water, but the clumsy dip of an oar turned it broadside to the wave, and in an instant it was thrown, waterlogged, upon the beach. Several precious moments were spent in righting the boat and bailing out the water, after which the boat was safely launched, the fishermen sprang to the oars, and in a moment or two were abreast the buoy.

Mr. Putchett was not to be seen—even had he reached the buoy it could not have supported him, for it was but a small stick of wood. One of the boarders—he who had swamped the boat—dived several times, and finally there came to the surface a confused mass of humanity which separated into the forms of the diver and the broker.

A few strokes of the oars beached the boat, and old "Captain" Redding, who had spent his Winters at a government life-saving station, picked up Mr. Putchett, carried him up to the dry sand, laid him face downward, raised his head a little, and shouted:

"Somebody stand between him and the sun so's to shade his head! Slap his hands, one man to each hand. Scrape up some of that hot, dry sand, and pile it on his feet and legs. Everybody else stand off and give him air."

The captain's orders were promptly obeyed, and there the women and children, some of them weeping, and all of them pale and silent, stood in a group in front of the bathing-house and looked up.

"Somebody run to the hotel for brandy," shouted the captain.

"Here's brandy," said a strange voice, "and I've got a hundred dollars for you if you bring him to life."

Every one looked at the speaker, and seemed rather to dislike what they saw. He was a smart-looking man, but his face seemed very cold and forbidding; he stood apart, with arms folded, and seemed regardless of the looks fastened upon him. Finally Mrs. Blough, one of the most successful and irrepressible gossips in the neighborhood, approached him and asked him if he was a relative of Mr. Putchett's.

"No, ma'am," replied the man, with unmoved countenance. "I'm an officer with a warrant for his arrest, on suspicion of receiving stolen goods. I've searched his traps at the hotel and boarding-house this morning, but can't find what I'm looking for. It's been traced to him, though—has he shown any of you ladies a large diamond?"

"No," said Mrs. Blough, quite tartly, "and none of us would have believed it of him, either."

"I suppose not," said the officer, his face softening a little. "I've seen plenty of such cases before, though. Besides, it isn't my first call on Putchett—not by several."

Mrs. Blough walked indignantly away, but, true to her nature, she quickly repeated her news to her neighbors.

"He's coming to!" shouted the captain, turning Mr. Putchett on his back and attempting to provoke respiration. The officer was by his side in a moment. Mr. Putchett's eyes had closed naturally, the captain said, and his lips had moved. Suddenly the stranger laid a hand on the collar of the insensible man, and disclosed a cord about his neck.

"Captain," said the officer, in a voice very low, but hurried and trembling with excitement, "Putchett's had a very narrow escape, and I hate to trouble him, but I must do my duty. There's been a five thousand dollar diamond traced to him. He advanced money on it, knowing it was stolen. I've searched his property and can't find it, but I'll bet a thousand it's on that string around his neck—that's Putchett all over. Now, you let me take it, and I'll let him alone; nobody else need know what's happened. He seems to have behaved himself here, judging by the good opinion folks have of him, and he deserves to have a chance which he won't get if I take him to jail."

The women had comprehended, from the look of the stranger and the captain, that something unusual was going on, and they had crowded nearer and nearer, until they heard the officer's last words.

"You're a dreadful, hateful man!" exclaimed little Alice.

The officer winced.

"Hush, daughter," said Alice's mother; then she said: "Let him take it, captain; it's too awful to think of a man's going right to prison from the gates of death."

The officer did not wait for further permission, but hastily opened the bathing-dress of the still insensible figure.

Suddenly the officer started back with an oath, and the people saw, fastened to a string and lying over Mr. Putchett's heart, a small scallop-shell, variegated with pink and yellow spots.

"It's one I gave him when I first came here, because he couldn't find any," sobbed little Alice.

The officer, seeming suddenly to imagine that the gem might be secreted in the hollow of the shell, snatched at it and turned it over. Mr. Putchett's arm suddenly moved; his hand grasped the shell and carried it toward his lips; his eyes opened for a moment and fell upon the officer, at the sight of whom Mr. Putchett shivered and closed his eyes again.

"That chill's a bad sign," muttered the captain.

Mr. Putchett's eyes opened once more, and sought little Alice; his face broke into a faint smile, and she stooped and kissed him. The smile on his face grew brighter for an instant, then he closed his eyes and quietly carried the case up to a Court of Final Appeals, before which the officer showed no desire to give evidence.

Mr. Putchett was buried the next day, and most of the people in the neighborhood were invited to the funeral. The story went rapidly about the neighborhood, and in consequence there were present at the funeral a number of uninvited persons: among these were the cook, bar-keeper and hostler of the hotel, who stood uncomfortably a little way from the house until the procession started, when they followed at a respectful distance in the rear.

When the grave was reached, those who dug it—who were also of those who carried the bier—were surprised to find the bottom of the coffin-box strewn and hidden with wild flowers and scraps of evergreen.

The service of the Church of England was read, and as the words, "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust," were repeated, a bouquet of wild flowers was tossed over the heads of the mourners and into the grave. Mrs. Blough, though deeply affected by the services, looked quickly back to see who was the giver, and saw the officer (who had not been seen before that day) with such an embarrassed countenance as to leave no room for doubt. He left before daylight next morning, to catch a very early train: but persons passing the old graveyard that day beheld on Putchett's grave a handsome bush of white roses, which bush old Mrs. Gale, living near the hotel, declared was a darling pot-plant which had been purchased of her on the previous evening by an ill-favored man who declared he must have it, no matter how much he paid for it.



THE MEANEST MAN AT BLUGSEY'S.

To miners, whose gold-fever had not reached a ridiculous degree of heat, Blugsey's was certainly a very satisfactory location. The dirt was rich, the river ran dry, there was plenty of standing-room on the banks, which were devoid of rocks, the storekeeper dealt strictly on the square, and the saloon contained a pleasing variety of consolatory fluids, which were dispensed by Stumpy Flukes, ex-sailor, and as hearty a fellow as any one would ask to see.

All thieves and claim-jumpers had been shot as fast as discovered, and the men who remained had taken each other's measures with such accuracy, that genuine fights were about as unfrequent as prayer-meetings.

The miners dug and washed, ate, drank, swore and gambled with that delightful freedom which exists only in localities where society is established on a firm and well-settled basis.

Such being the condition of affairs at Blugsey's, it seemed rather strange one morning, hours after breakfast, to see, sprinkled in every direction, a great number of idle picks, shovels and pans; in fact, the only mining implements in use that morning were those handled by a single miner, who was digging and carrying and washing dirt with an industry which seemed to indicate that he was working as a substitute for each and every man in the camp.

He was anything but a type of gold-hunters in general; he was short and thin, and slight and stooping, and greatly round-shouldered; his eyes were of a painfully uncertain gray, and one of them displayed a cast which was his only striking feature; his nose had started as a very retiring nose, but had changed its mind half-way down; his lips were thin, and seemed to yearn for a close acquaintance with his large ears; his face was sallow and thin, and thickly seamed, and his chin appeared to be only one of Nature's hasty afterthoughts. Long, thin gray hair hung about his face, and imparted the only relief to the monotonous dinginess of his features and clothing.

Such being the appearance of the man, it was scarcely natural to expect that miners in general would regard him as a special ornament to the profession.

In fact, he had been dubbed "Old Scrabblegrab" on the second day of his occupancy of Claim No. 32, and such of his neighbors as possessed the gift of tongues had, after more intimate acquaintance with him, expressed themselves doubtful of the ability of language to properly embody Scrabblegrab's character in a single name.

The principal trouble was, that they were unable to make anything at all of his character; there was nothing about him which they could understand, so they first suspected him, and then hated him violently, after the usual manner of society toward the incomprehensible.

And on the particular morning which saw Scrabblegrab the only worker at Blugsey's, the remaining miners were assembled in solemn conclave at Stumpy Fluke's saloon, to determine what was to be done with the detested man.

The scene was certainly an impressive one; for such quiet had not been known at the saloon since the few moments which intervened between the time, weeks before, when Broadhorn Jerry gave the lie to Captain Greed, and the captain, whose pistol happened to be unloaded, was ready to proceed to business.

The average miner, when sober, possesses a degree of composure and gravity which would be admirable even in a judge of ripe experience, and miners, assembled as a deliberative body, can display a dignity which would drive a venerable Senator or a British M.P. to the uttermost extreme of envy.

On the occasion mentioned above, the miners ranged themselves near the unoccupied walls, and leaned at various graceful and awkward angles. Boston Ben, who was by natural right the ruler of the camp, took the chair—that is, he leaned against the centre of the bar. On the other side of the bar leaned Stumpy Flukes, displaying that degree of conscious importance which was only becoming to a man who, by virtue of his position, was sole and perpetual secretary and recorder to all stated meetings at Blugsey's.

Boston Ben glanced around the room, and then collectively announced the presence of a quorum, the formal organization of the meeting, and its readiness for deliberation, by quietly remarking:

"Blaze away!"

Immediately one of the leaners regained the perpendicular, departed a pace from the wall, rolled his tobacco neatly into one cheek, and remarked:

"We've stood it long enough—the bottom's clean out of the pan, Mr. Chairman. Scrabblegrab's declined bitters from half the fellers in camp, an' though his gray old topknot's kept 'em from takin' satisfaction in the usual manner, they don't feel no better 'bout it than they did."

The speaker subsided into his section of wall, composed himself into his own especial angles, and looked like a man who had fully discharged a conscientious duty.

From the opposite wall there appeared another speaker, who indignantly remarked:

"Goin' back on bitters ain't a toothful to what he's done. There's young Curly, that went last week. That boy played his hand in a style that would take the conceit clean out uv an angel. But all to onct Curly took to lookin' flaxed, an' the judge here overheard Scrabblegrab askin' Curly what he thort his mother'd say ef she knew he was makin' his money that way? The boy took on wuss an' wuss, an' now he's vamosed. Don't b'lieve me ef yer don't want ter, fellers—here's the judge hisself."

The judge briskly advanced his spectacles, which had gained him his title, and said:

"True ez gospel; and when I asked him ef he wasn't ashamed of himself fur takin' away the boy's comfort, he said No, an' that I'd be a more decent man ef I'd give up keards myself."

"He's alive yit!" said the first speaker, in a tone half of inquiry and half of reproof.

"I know it," said the judge, hastening to explain. "I'd lent my pepperbox to Mose when he went to 'Frisco, an' the old man's too little fur a man uv my size to hit."

The judge looked anxiously about until he felt assured his explanation had been generally accepted. Then he continued:

"What's he good fur, anyhow? He can't sing a song, except somethin' about 'Tejus an' tasteless hours,' that nobody ever heard before, an' don't want to agin; he don't drink, he don't play keards, he don't even cuss when he tumbles into the river. Ev'ry man's got his p'ints, an' ef he hain't got no good uns, he's sure to have bad uns. Ef he'd only show 'em out, there might be somethin' honest about it; but when a feller jist eats an' sleeps an' works, an' never shows any uv the tastes uv a gentleman, ther's somethin' wrong."

"I don't wish him any harm," said a tall, good-natured fellow, who succeeded the judge; "but the feller's looks is agin the reputation uv the place. In a camp like this here one, whar society's first-class—no greasers nur pigtails nur loafers—it ain't the thing to hev anybody around that looks like a corkscrew that's been fed on green apples and watered with vinegar—it's discouragin' to gentlemen that might hev a notion of stakin' a claim, fur the sake uv enjoyin' our social advantages."

"N-none uv yer hev got to the wust uv it yit," remarked another. "The old cuss is too fond uv his dust. Billy Banks seen him a-buyin' pork up to the store, an' he handled his pouch ez ef 'twas eggs instid of gold dust—poured it out as keerful ez yer please, an' even scraped up a little bit he spilt. Now, when I wuz a little rat, an' went to Sunday-school, they used to keep a-waggin' at me 'bout evil communication a-corruptin' o' good manners. That's what he'll do—fust thing yer know, other fellers'll begin to be stingy, an' think gold dust wuz made to save instid uv to buy drinks an' play keards fur. That's what it'll come to."

"Beggin' ev'rybody's pardon," interposed a deserter from the army, "but these here perceedin's is irreg'lar. 'Tain't the square thing to take evidence till the pris'ner's in court."

Boston Ben immediately detailed a special officer to summon Old Scrabblegrab, declared a recess of five minutes, and invited the boys to drink with him.

Those who took sugar in theirs had the cup dashed from their lips just as they were draining the delicious dregs, for the officer and culprit appeared, and the chairman rapped the assembly to order.

Boston Ben had been an interested attendant at certain law-courts in the States, so in the calm consciousness of his acquaintance with legal procedure he rapidly arraigned Scrabblegrab.

"Scrabblegrab, you're complained uv for goin' back on bitters, coaxin' Curly to give up keards, thus spoilin' his fun, an' knockin' appreciatin' observers out of their amusement; uv insultin' the judge, uv not cussin' when you stumble into the river, uv not havin' any good p'ints, an' not showin' yer bad ones; uv bein' a set-back on the tone uv the place—lookin' like a green-apple-fed, vinegar-watered corkscrew, or words to that effect; an', finally, in savin' yer money. What hev you got to say agin' sentence bein' passed on yer?"

The old man flushed as the chairman proceeded, and when the indictment reached its end, he replied, in a tone which indicated anything but respect for the court:

"I've got just this to say, that I paid my way here, I've asked no odds of any man sence I've ben here, an' that anybody that takes pains to meddle with my affairs is an impudent scoundrel!"

Saying which, the old man turned to go, while the court was paralyzed into silence.

But Tom Dosser, a new arrival, and a famous shot, now stepped in front of the old man.

"I ax yer parding," said Tom, in the blandest of tones, "but, uv course, yer didn't mean me when yer mentioned impudent scoundrels?"

"Yes, I did—I meant you, and ev'rybody like yer," replied the old man.

Tom's hand moved toward his pistol. The chairman expeditiously got out of range. Stumpy Flukes promptly retired to the extreme end of the bar, and groaned audibly.

The old man was in the wrong; but, then, wasn't it too mean, when blood was so hard to get out, that these difficulties always took place just after he'd got the floor clean?



"I don't generally shoot till the other feller draws," explained Tom Dosser, while each man in the room wept with emotion as they realized they had lived to see Tom's skill displayed before their very eyes—"I don't generally shoot till the other feller draws; but you'd better be spry. I usually make a little allowance for age, but—"

Tom's further explanations were indefinitely delayed by an abnormal contraction of his trachea, the same being induced by the old man's right hand, while his left seized the unhappy Thomas by his waist-belt, and a second later the dead shot of Blugsey's was tossed into the middle of the floor, somewhat as a sheaf of oats is tossed by a practiced hand.

"Anybody else?" inquired the old man. "I'll back Vermont bone an' muscle agin' the hull passel of ye, even if I be a deacon.' The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.'"

"The angel needn't hurry hisself," said Tom Dosser, picking himself up, one joint at a time. "Ef that's the crowd yer travelin' with, and they've got a grip anything like yourn, I don't want nothin' to do with 'em."

Boston Ben looked excited, and roared:

"This court's adjourned sine die."

Then he rushed up to the newly announced deacon, caught him firmly by the right hand, slapped him heartily between the shoulders, and inquired, rather indignantly:

"Say, old Angelchum, why didn't you ever let folks know yer style, instead uv trottin' 'round like a melancholy clam with his shells shut up tight? That's what this crowd wants to know! Now yev opened down to bed-rock, we'll git English Sam from Sonora, an' git up the tallest kind uv a rasslin' match."

"Not unless English Sam meddles with my business, you won't," replied the deacon, quickly. "I've got enough to do fightin' speretual foes."

"Oh," said Boston Ben, "we'll manage it so the church folks needn't think 'twas a set-up job. We'll put Sam up to botherin' yer, and yer can tackle him at sight. Then—"

"Excuse me, Boston," interrupted Tom Dosser, "but yer don't hit the mark. I'm from Vermont myself, an' deacons there don't fight for the fun of it, whatever they may do in the village you hail from." Then, turning to the old man, Tom asked: "What part uv the old State be ye from, deacon, an' what fetched ye out?"

"From nigh Rutland," replied the deacon, "I hed a nice little place thar, an' wuz doin' well. But the young one's eyes is bad. None uv the doctors thereabouts could do anythin' fur 'em. Took her to Boston; nobody thar could do anythin'—said some of the European doctors were the only ones that could do the job safely. Costs money goin' to Europe an' payin' doctors—I couldn't make it to hum in twenty year; so I come here."

"Only child?" inquired Tom Dosser, while the boys crowded about the two Vermonters, and got up a low buzz of sympathetic conversation.

The old man heard it all, and to his lonesome and homesick soul it was so sweet and comforting, that it melted his natural reserve, and made him anxious to unbosom himself to some one. So he answered Tom:

"Only child of my only darter."

"Father dead?" inquired Tom Dosser.

"Better be," replied the deacon, bitterly. "He left her soon after they were married."

"Mean skunk!" said Tom, sympathetically.

"I want to judge as I'd be judged," replied the deacon; "but I feel ez ef I couldn't call that man bad enough names. Hesby was ez good a gal ez ever lived, but she went to visit some uv our folks at Burlington, an' fust thing I know'd she writ me she'd met this chap, and they'd been married, an' wanted us to forgive her; but he was so good, an' she loved him so dearly."