"One more dance, then we sleep," said the chief to the great circle of spectators. "This Tenas Tyee will do his best to amuse us."

Then Ta-la-pus felt the chief's hand unclasp, and he realized that he was standing absolutely alone before a great crowd of strangers, and that every eye was upon him.

"Oh, my brother," he whispered, smoothing the prairie wolf skin, "help me to be like you, help me to be worthy of your name." Then he pulled the wolf's head over his own, twisted the fore legs about his throat, and stepped into the great circle of sand between the crouching multitude and the fires.

Stealthily he began to pick his way in the full red flare from the flames. He heard many voices whispering, "Tenas," "Tenas," meaning "He is little, he is young," but his step only grew more stealthy, until he "padded" into a strange, silent trot in exact imitation of a prairie wolf. As he swung the second time round the fires, his young voice arose, in a thin, wild, wonderful barking tone, so weird and wolf-like that half the spectators leaped up to their knees, or feet, the better to watch and listen. Another moment, and he was putting his chant into words.

"They call me Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf, And wild and free am I. I cannot swim like Eh-ko-lie, the whale, Nor like the eagle, Chack-chack, can I fly.

"I cannot talk as does the great Ty-ee, Nor like the o-tel-agh* shine in the sky. I am but Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf, And wild and free am I."

[*Sun.]

With every word, every step, he became more like the wolf he was describing. Across his chanting and his "padding" in the sand came murmurs from the crowd. He could hear "Tenas, tenas," "To-ke-tie Tenas" (pretty boy), "Skookum-tanse," (good strong dance). Then at last, "Ow," "Ow," meaning "Our young brother." On and on went Ta-la-pus. The wolf feeling crept into his legs, his soft young feet, his clutching fingers, his wonderful dark eyes that now gleamed red and lustrous in the firelight. He was as one inspired, giving a beautiful and marvellous portrait of the wild vagabonds of the plains. For fully ten minutes he circled and sang, then suddenly crouched on his haunches, then, lifting his head, he turned to the east, his young throat voiced one long, strange note, wolf-like he howled to the rising sun, which at that moment looked over the crest of the mountains, its first golden shaft falling full upon his face.

His chant and his strange wolf-dance were ended. Then one loud clamor arose from the crowd. "Tenas Tyee," "Tenas Tyee," they shouted, and Ta-la-pus knew that he had not failed. But the great Squamish chief was beside him.

"Tillicums,"* he said, facing the crowd, "this boy has danced no tribal dance learned from his people or his parents. This is his own dance, which he has made to deserve his name. He shall get the first gifts of our great Potlatch. Go," he added, to one of the young men, "bring ten dollars of the white man's chicamin (money), and ten new blankets as white as that snow on the mountain top."

[*Friends, my people.]

The crowd was delighted. They approved the boy and rejoiced to see the real Potlatch was begun. When the blankets were piled up beside him they reached to the top of Ta-la-pus' head. Then the chief put ten dollars in the boy's hand with the simple words, "I am glad to give it. You won it well, my Tenas Tyee."

That was the beginning of a great week of games, feasting and tribal dances, but not a night passed but the participants called for the wild "wolf-dance" of the little boy from the island. When the Potlatch was over, old Chief Mowitch and Lapool and Ta-la-pus returned to Vancouver Island, but no more the boy sat alone on the isolated rock, watching the mainland through a mist of yearning. He had set foot in the wider world, he had won his name, and now honored it, instead of hating it, as in the old days when his brothers taunted him, for the great Squamish chief, in bidding good-bye to him, had said:

"Little Ta-la-pus, remember a name means much to a man. You despised your name, but you have made it great and honorable by your own act, your own courage. Keep that name honorable, little Ta-la-pus; it will be worth far more to you than many blankets or much of the white man's chicamin."



The Scarlet Eye

"I tell you that fellow is an Indian! You can't fool me! Look at the way he walks! He doesn't step; he pads like a panther!"

Billy ceased speaking, but still pointed an excited forefinger along the half-obliterated buffalo trail that swung up the prairie, out of the southern horizon. The two boys craned their necks, watching the coming figure, that advanced at a half-trot, half-stride. Billy was right. The man seemed to be moving on cushioned feet. Nothing could give that slow, springing swing except a moccasin.

"Any man is welcome," almost groaned little Jerry, "but, oh, how much more welcome an Indian man, eh, Billy?"

"You bet!" said Billy. "He'll show us a way out of this. Yes, he's Indian. I can see his long hair now. Look! I can see the fringe up the sleeves of his shirt; it is buckskin!"

"Do you think he sees us?" questioned Jerry.

Billy laughed contemptuously. "Sees us! Why, he saw us long before we saw him, you can bet on that!"

Then Billy raised his arm, and whirled about his head the big bandanna handkerchief which he had snatched from his neck. The man responded to the signal by lifting aloft for a single instant his open palm with fingers outstretched.

"Yes, he's Indian! A white man would have wiggled his wrist at us!" sighed Jerry contentedly. "He'll help us out, Billy. There's nothing he won't know how to do!" And the little boy's eyes grew moist with the relief of knowing help was at last at hand.

Ten minutes more and the man slowed up beside them. He was a tall, splendidly made Cree, with eyes like jewels and hands as slender and small as a woman's.

"You savvy English?" asked Billy.

"Little," answered the Indian, never looking at Billy, but keeping his wonderful eyes on the outstretched figure, the pallid face, of young Jerry, whose forehead was wrinkled with evident pain.

"We have met with an accident," explained Billy. "My little brother's horse loped into a badger hole and broke its leg. I had to shoot it." Here Billy's voice choked, and his fingers touched the big revolver at his belt. "My brother was thrown. He landed badly; something's wrong with his ankle, his leg; he can't walk; can't go on, even on my horse. It happened over there, about two miles." Here Billy pointed across the prairie to where a slight hump showed where the dead horse lay. "I got him over here," he continued, looking about at the scrub poplar and cottonwood trees, "where there was shelter and slough water, but he can't go on. Our father is Mr. MacIntyre, the Hudson's Bay Factor at Fort o' Farewell."

As Billy ceased speaking the Indian kneeled beside Jerry, feeling with tender fingers his hurts. As the dark hand touched his ankle, the boy screamed and cried out, "Oh, don't! Oh, don't!" The Indian arose, shaking his head solemnly, then said softly, "Hudson's Bay boys, eh? Good boys! You good boy to bring him here to trees. We make camp! Your brother's ankle is broken."

"But we must get him home," urged Billy. "We ought to have a doctor. He'll be lame all his life if we don't!" And poor big Billy's voice shook.

"No. No lame. I doctor him," said the Indian. "I good doctor. My name Five Feathers—me."

"Five Feathers!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, I've often heard father speak of you. Father loves you. He says you are the best Indian in the whole Hudson's Bay country."

Five Feathers smiled. "Your father and me good friends," he said simply. Then added, "How you come here?"

"Why, you see," said Billy, "we were returning from school at Winnipeg; it's holiday now, you know. Father sent the two ponies to 'the front' for us to ride home. Some Indians brought them over for us. It's a hundred and sixty miles. We started yesterday morning, and slept last night at Black Jack Pete's place. We must be a full hundred miles from home now." Billy stopped speaking. His voice simply would not go on.

"More miles than hundred," said the Indian. "You got something eat?"

Billy went over to where his horse was staked to a cottonwood, hauled off his saddlebags, and, returning, emptied them on the brown grass. They made a good showing. Six boxes of matches, a half side of bacon, two pounds of hardtack, a package of tea, four tins of sardines, a big roll of cooked smoked antelope, sugar, three loaves of bread, one can of tongue, one of salmon, a small tin teapot, two tin cups, one big knife, and one tin pie plate, to be used in lieu of a frying-pan. "I wish we had more," said the boy, surveying the outfit ruefully.

"Plenty," said the Indian; "we get prairie chicken and rabbit plenty." But his keen eyes scarcely glanced at the food. He was busy slitting one of the sleeves from his buckskin shirt, cutting it into bandages. His knife was already shaping splints from the scrub poplar. Little Jerry, his eyes full of pain, watched him, knowing of the agony to come, when even those gentle Indian fingers could not save his poor ankle from torture while they set the broken bone. Suddenly the misery of anticipation was arrested by a great and glad cry from the Indian, who had discovered and pounced upon a small scarlet blossom that was growing down near the slough. He caught up the flower, root and all, carrying it triumphantly to where the injured boy lay. Within ten minutes he had made a little fire, placed the scarlet flower, stem and root, in the teapot, half filled it up with water, and set it boiling. Then he turned to Billy.

"Sleeping medicine," he said, pointing to the teapot. "He not have pain. You stay until he awake, then you ride on to Fort o' Farewell. You take some food. You leave some for us. You send wagon, take him home. I stay with him. Maybe four, five days before you get there and send wagon back. You trust me? I give him sleeping medicine. I watch him. You trust me—Five Feathers?"

But Jerry's hand was already clasping the Indian's, and Billy was interrupting.

"Trust you? Trust Five Feathers, the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay country? I should think I will trust you!"

The Indian nodded quietly; and, taking the teapot from the fire, poured the liquid into one of the cups, cooling it by dripping from one cup to the other over and over again. Presently it began to thicken, almost like a jelly, and turned a dull red color, then brighter, clearer, redder. Suddenly the Indian snatched up the prostrate boy to a sitting posture. One hand was around the boy's shoulder, the other held the tin cup, brimming with reddening, glue-like stuff.

"Quick!" he said, looking at Billy. "You trust me?"

"Yes," said the boy, very quietly. "Give it to him."

"Yes," said Jerry; "give it to me."

The Indian held the cup to the little chap's lips. One, two, three minutes passed. The boy had swallowed every drop. Then the Indian laid him flat on the grass. For a moment his suffering eyes looked into those of his brother, then he glanced at the sky, the trees, the far horizon, the half-obliterated buffalo trail. Then his lids drooped, his hands twitched, he lay utterly unconscious.

With a rapidity hardly believable in an Indian, Five Feathers skinned off the boy's sock, ran his lithe fingers about the ankle, clicked the bone into place, splinted and bandaged it like an expert surgeon; but, with all his haste, it was completed none too soon. Jerry's eyes slowly opened, to see Billy smiling down at him, and Five Feathers standing calmly by his side.

"Bully, Jerry! Your ankle is all set and bandaged. How do you feel?" asked his brother, a little shakily.

"Just tired," said the boy. "Tired, but no pain. Oh, I wish I could have stayed!"

"Stayed where?" demanded Billy.

"With the scarlet flowers!" whispered Jerry. "I've been dreaming, I think," he continued. "I thought I was walking among fields and fields of scarlet flowers. They were so pretty."

Five Feathers sprang to his feet. "Good! Good!" he exclaimed. "I scared he would not see them. If he see red flowers, he all right. Sometimes, when they don't see it, they not get well soon." Then, under his breath, "The Scarlet Eye!"

"I saw them all right!" almost laughed the boy. "Miles of them. I could see and smell them. They smelled like smoke—like prairie fires."

"Get well right away!" chuckled the Indian. "Very good to smell them." Then to Billy: "You eat. You get ready. You ride now to Fort o' Farewell."

So they built up the dying fire, made tea, cooked a little bacon, and all three ate heartily.

"I'll leave you the teapot, of course," said Billy, taking a dozen hardtack and one tin of sardines. "Slough water's good enough for me."

But Five Feathers gripped him by the arm—an iron grip—not at all with the gentle fingers that had so recently dressed the other boy's wounded ankle. "You not go that way!" he glared, his fine eyes dark and scowling. "Yes, we keep teapot, but you take bread, and antelope, and more fat fish," pointing to the sardines. "Fat fish very good for long ride. You take, or I not let you go!"

There was such a strange severity in his dark face that Billy did not argue the matter, but quietly obeyed, taking one loaf of bread, half the antelope, and three tins of the "fat fish."

"Plenty prairie chicken here," explained the Indian. "I make good soup for Little Brave."

"What a nice name to call me, Five Feathers!" smiled Jerry.

"Yes, you Little Brave," replied the Indian. "Little boy, but very big brave."

At the last moment Jerry and his brother clasped hands. "I hate to leave you, old man," said Billy, a little unsteadily.

"Why, I'm not afraid," answered the boy. "You and father and I all know that I am with the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay country—we do know it, don't we, Billy?"

"I'll stake my life on that," replied Billy, swinging into his saddle. "Remember, Jerry, it's only a hundred miles. I'll be there in two days, and the wagon will be here in another two."

"Yes, I'll remember," replied the sick boy.

Then Billy struck rather abruptly up the half-obliterated buffalo trail. Several times he turned in his saddle, looking back and waving his bandanna, and each time the Indian stood erect and lifted his open palm. The receding horse and rider grew smaller, less, fainter, then they blurred into the horizon. The sick boy closed his eyes, that ached from watching the fading figure. He was utterly alone, with leagues of untracked prairie about him, alone with Five Feathers, a strange Indian, who sat silently nearby.

When Jerry awoke, the sun was almost setting, and Five Feathers was in precisely the same place and in precisely the same attitude. Once, in his dreams, wherein he still wandered through fields of scarlet flowers, he watched a bud unfolding. It opened with a sound like a revolver shot, or was it really a revolver? The boy turned over on his side, for a savory odor greeted his nostrils, and he looked wonderingly around. Five Feathers had evidently not been sitting there throughout that long June afternoon, for, within an arm's length was the jolliest little tepee made of many branches of poplar and cottonwood, sides and roof all one thick mass of green leaves and branches woven together like basketwork, a bed of short, dry prairie grass, fragrant and brown, his own saddlebags and single blanket for pillow and mattress. And on the fire the teapot, steaming with that delicious savory odor.

"What is it?" asked the boy, indicating the cooking.

"Prairie chicken," smiled the Indian. "I shoot while you sleep."

So that was the bursting of the scarlet bud!

"Very good chicken," continued the Indian. "Very fat—good for eat, good soup, both."

So they made their supper off the tender stew, and soaked some hardtack in the soup. It seemed to Jerry a royal meal, and he made up his mind that, when he arrived home, he would get his mother to stew a prairie hen in the teapot some day; it tasted so much better than anything he had ever eaten before.

The sun had set, and the long, long twilight of the north was gathering. Five Feathers built up the fire, for the prairie night brings a chill, even in June.

"Did you see them again, the red flowers, while you slept?" he asked the boy.

"Yes; fields of them," replied Jerry. Then added, "Why?"

"It is good," said the Indian. "Very good. You will now have what we call 'The Scarlet Eye.'"

"What's that?" asked Jerry, half frightened.

"It's very good. You will yourself be a great medicine man—what you white men call 'doctor.' You like to be that?"

"I never thought of studying medicine until to-day," said the boy, excitedly; "but, just as Billy rode away, something seemed to grip me. I made up my mind then and there to be a doctor."

"That is because you have seen 'The Scarlet Eye,'" said the Indian, quietly.

"Tell me of it, will you, Five Feathers?" asked the boy, gently.

"Yes, but first I lift you on to bed." And, gathering Jerry in his strong, lean arms, he laid him on the grass couch in the green tepee, looked at his foot, loosened all his clothing, spread the one blanket over him, stirred up the fire, and, sitting at the tepee door, began the story.

THE SCARLET EYE

"Only the great, the good, the kindly people ever see it. One must live well, must be manly and brave, and talk straight without lies, without meanness, or 'The Scarlet Eye' will never come to them. They tell me that, over the great salt water, in your white man's big camping-ground named London, in far-off England, the medicine man hangs before his tepee door a scarlet lamp, so that all who are sick may see it, even in the darkness.* It is the sign that a good man lives within that tepee, a man whose life is given to help and heal sick bodies. We redskins of the North-West have heard this story, so we, too, want a sign of a scarlet lamp, to show where lives a great, good man. The blood of the red flower shows us this. If you drink it and see no red flowers, you are selfish, unkind; your talk is not true; your life is not clear; but, if you see the flowers, as you did to-day, you are good, kind, noble. You will be a great and humane medicine man. You have seen the Scarlet Eye. It is the sign of kindness to your fellowmen."

[*Some of the Indian tribes of the Canadian North-West are familiar with the fact that in London, England, the sign of a physician's office is a scarlet lamp suspended outside the street door.]

The voice of Five Feathers ceased, but his fingers were clasping the small hand of the white boy, clasping it very gently.

"Thank you, Five Feathers," Jerry said, softly. "Yes, I shall study medicine. Father always said it was the noblest of all the professions, and I know to-night that it is."

A moment later, Jerry lay sleeping like a very little child. For a while the Indian watched him silently. Then, arising, he took off his buckskin shirt, folded it neatly, and, lifting the sleeping boy's head, arranged it as a pillow. Then, naked to the waist, he laid himself down outside near the fire—and he, too, slept.

The third day a tiny speck loomed across the rim of sky and prairie. It grew larger with the hours—nearer, clearer. The Indian, shading his keen eyes with his palm, peered over the miles.

"Little brave," he said, after some silent moments, "they are coming, one day sooner than we hoped. Your brother, he must have ride like the prairie wind. Yes, one, no, two buckboards—Hudson's Bay horses. I know them, those horses."

The boy sat up, staring into the distance. "I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry," he said. "Father will be driving one buckboard, I know, and I'd like to see him, but, oh, I don't want to leave you, Five Feathers!"

"You not leave me, not for long," said the Indian. "You come back some day, when you great doctor. Maybe you doctor my own people. I wait for that time."

But the buckboards were spinning rapidly nearer, and nearer. Yes, there was his father, Factor MacIntyre, of the Hudson's Bay, driving the first rig, but who was that beside him?—Billy? No, not Billy. "Oh, it's mother!" fairly yelled Jerry. And the next moment he was in her arms.

"Couldn't keep her away, simply couldn't!" stormed Mr. MacIntyre. "No, sir, she had to come—one hundred and seventeen miles by the clock! Couldn't trust me! Couldn't trust Billy! Just had to come herself!" And the genial Factor stamped around the little camp, wringing Five Feathers' hand, and watching with anxious look the pale face and thin fingers of his smallest son.

"Oh, father, mother, he's been so good!" said Jerry, excitedly, nodding towards the Indian.

"Good? I should think so!" asserted Mr. MacIntyre. "Why, boy, do you know you would have been lame all your life if it hadn't been for Five Feathers here? Best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country!"

"Yes, dearie; the best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country," echoed Mrs. MacIntyre, with something like a tear in her voice.

"Bet your boots! Best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country!" re-echoed Billy, who had arrived, driving the other buckboard. But Five Feathers only sat silent. Then, looking directly at Billy, he said, "You ride day and night, too. You nearly kill that horse?"

"Yes, I nearly did," admitted Billy.

"Good brother you. You my brother, too," said the Indian, holding out his hand; and Billy fairly wrung that slender, brown hand—that hand, small and kind as a woman's.

* * * * * * * *

This all happened long ago, and last year Jerry MacIntyre graduated from McGill University in Montreal with full honors in medicine. He had three or four splendid offers to begin his medical career, but he refused them all, smilingly, genially, and to-day he is back there, devoting his life and skill to the tribe of Five Feathers, "best Indian in all the Hudson's Bay country."



Sons of Savages

Life-Training of the Redskin Boy-child

The redskin boy-child who looks out from his little cradle-board on a world of forest through whose trails his baby feet are already being fitted to follow is not many hours old before careful hands wrap him about with gay-beaded bands that are strapped to the carven and colored back-board that will cause him to stand erect and upright when he is a grown warrior. His small feet are bound against a foot support so that they are exactly straight; that is to start his walk in life aright.

He is but an atom in the most renowned of the savage races known to history, a people that, according to the white man's standard, is uncivilized, uneducated, illiterate, and barbarous. Yet the upbringing of every Red Indian male child begins at his birth, and ends only when he has acquired the learning considered essential for the successful man to possess, and which has been predetermined through many ages by many wise ancestors.

His education is twofold, and always is imparted in "pairs" of subjects—that is, while he is being instructed in the requisites of fighting, hunting, food getting, and his national sports, he takes with each "subject" a very rigid training in etiquette, for it would be as great a disgrace for him to fail in manners of good breeding as to fail to take the war-path when he reaches the age of seventeen.

FIRST, COURAGE

The education of an Iroquois boy is begun before he can even speak. The first thing he is taught is courage—the primitive courage that must absolutely despise fear—and at the same time he is thoroughly grounded in the first immutable law of Indian etiquette, which is that under no conceivable conditions must one ever stare, as the Redskin races hold that staring marks the lowest level of ill-breeding.

SECOND, RELIGIOUS TRAINING

His second subject is religious training. While he is yet a baby in arms he is carried "pick-a-back" in his mother's blanket to the ancient dances and festivals, where he sees for the first time, and in his infant way participates in, the rites and rituals of the pagan faith, learning to revere the "Great Spirit," and to anticipate the happy hunting grounds that await him after death.

At the end of a long line of picturesque braves and warriors who circle gracefully in the worshipping dance, his mother carries him, her smooth, soft-footed, twisting step lulling him to sleep, for his tiny, copper-colored person, swinging to every curve of the dance, soon becomes an unconscious bit of babyhood. But the instant he learns to walk, he learns, too, the religious dance-steps, Then he rises to the dignity of being allowed to slip his hand in that of his father and take his first important steps in the company of men.

Accompanying his religious training is the all-important etiquette of accepting food without comment. No Indian talks of food, or discusses it while taking it. He must neither commend nor condemn it, and a child who remarks upon the meals set before him, however simple the remark may be, instantly feels his disgrace in the sharpest reproof from his parents. It is one of the unforgivable crimes.

TRICKS OF FOOD-GETTING

His third subject is to master the tricks of food-getting. His father, or more often his grandfather, takes him in hand at an early age, and minutely trains him in all the art and artifice of the great life-fight for food both for himself and for those who may in later years be dependent on him. He is drilled assiduously in hunting, fishing, trapping, in game calls, in wood and water lore; he learns to paddle with stealth, to step in silence, to conceal himself from the scent and sight of bird and beast, to be swift as a deer, keen as an eagle, alert as a fox.

He is admonished under no conditions, save in that of extreme hunger or in self-defence, to kill mating game, or, in fact, to kill at all save for food or to obtain furs for couch purposes. Wanton slaying of wild things is unknown among the uncivilized Red Indians. When they want occupation in sport or renown, they take the warpath against their fellow-kind, where killing will flaunt another eagle-feather in their crest, not simply another pair of antlers to decorate their tepee.

With this indispensable lesson in the essentials of living always comes the scarcely less momentous one of the utter unimportance of youth. He is untiringly disciplined in the veneration of age, whether it be in man or woman. He must listen with rapt attention to the opinions and advice of the older men. He mast keep an absolute silence while they speak, must ever watch for opportunities to pay them deference.

AGE BEFORE LINEAGE

If he happen, fortunately, to be the son of a chief of ancient lineage, the fact that he is of blood royal will not excuse him entering a door before some aged "commoner." Age has more honor than all his patrician line of descent can give him. Those lowly born but richly endowed with years must walk before him; he is not permitted to remain seated if some old employee is standing even at work; his privilege of birth is as nothing compared with the honor of age, even in his father's hireling.

The fourth thing he must master is the thorough knowledge of medicinal roots and herbs—antidotes for snake-bite and poison—also the various charms and the elementary "science" of the medicine man, though the occupation of the latter must be inherited, and made in itself a life study. With this branch of drilling also is inculcated the precept of etiquette never to speak of or act slightingly of another's opinion, and never to say the word "No," which he is taught to regard as a rude refusal. He may convey it by manner or action, but speak it—never.

And during the years he is absorbing this education he is unceasingly instructed in every branch of warfare, of canoe-making, of fashioning arrows, paddles and snow-shoes. He studies the sign language, the history and legends of his nation; he familiarizes himself with the "archives" of wampum belts, learning to read them and to value the great treaties they sealed. He excels in the national sports of "lacrosse," "bowl and beans," and "snow snake," and when, finally, he goes forth to face his forest world he is equipped to obtain his own living with wisdom and skill, and starts life a brave, capable, well-educated gentleman, though some yet call him an uncivilized savage.



Jack o' Lantern

I

Everybody along the river knew old "Andy" Lavergne; for years he had been "the lamplighter," if such an office could exist in the rough backwoods settlement that bordered that treacherous stream in the timber country of northern Ontario. He had been a great, husky man in his time, who could swing an axe with the best of the lumbermen, but an accident in a log jam had twisted his sturdy legs and hips for life, and laid him off active service, and now he must cease to accompany the great gangs of choppers in the lumber camps, and do his best to earn a few honest dollars about the settlement and the sawmill. So the big-hearted mill hands paid him good money for doing many odd jobs, the most important of which was to keep a lantern lighted every dark night, both summer and winter, to warn them of the danger spot in the Wildcat river, that raced in its treacherous course between the mill and their shanty homes on the opposite shore.

This danger spot was a perfect snarl of jagged rocks, just below the surface of the black waters that eddied about in tiny whirlpools, deadly to any canoe in summer, and still more deadly in winter, for the ice never formed here as in the rest of the river. Only a thin, deceptive coating ever bridged that death hole, and the man who mistook it for solid ice would never live to cross that river again. So, on the high bank above this death trap old Andy lighted his lantern, year in and year out. Sometimes he was accompanied by his old grey horse, who followed him about like a dog. Sometimes little Jacky Moran, his young neighbor, went to help him on very stormy or windy nights. Sometimes both Jacky and the horse would go, and as a reward for his assistance old Andy would always lift the boy to the grey's back and let him ride home. Then one wet spring old Andy got rheumatism in his poor, twisted legs, and the first night he was unable to leave his shanty Jacky came whistling in at nightfall and offered to take the lantern up stream alone. Andy consented gratefully, and, with the horse at his heels, Jacky set out for the bank above the dangerous spot.

"I believe, old Grey, it's the lantern you love as much as you love Andy," laughed the boy as he struck a match and sheltered its flame from the wind. "Here you are following me and the lantern just as if you belonged to us, or as if Andy were here. How's that?" But the old grey only stood watching the lamp-lighting. His long, pathetic face was very expressive, but, try as he would, he could not speak and tell the boy that he had learned to love him as well as Andy. So he only put his soft nose down to Jacky's shoulder, and in his own silent way coaxed the boy to mount and ride home, which Jacky promptly did, bursting into the old Frenchman's shanty with the news that the grey had followed the lantern.

"Don't you believe it, Jacky," chuckled Andy. "The grey loves the lantern, I know, but it's you he's followed. You see that horse knows a lot, and he knows that his old master is never likely to light that lantern again, and he wants you for his master now."

"Well, he may have me," smiled the boy. "We'll just light up together after this." Which they certainly did, for that was the beginning of the end. Andy could never hobble much further than his own door, and Jacky took upon his young shoulders the duties of both lamp-lighting and feeding and caring for his now constant companion, the grey.

"I see your Jacky is helping old Andy since he's been laid up," said Alick Duncan, the big foreman, some weeks later, as he paddled across the river with the boy's father.

"Oh, he likes Andy," replied Mr. Moran, "and he likes the old horse, and he likes the work, too. He feels important every time he lights that lantern to steer the mill hands off danger.

"Speaking of the horse," went on the big foreman, "they're short one up at the lumber camp. The boss sent down yesterday that we had to get him an extra horse by hook or crook. They've started hauling logs. It would be a great thing if Andy could sell that nag at a good figure. It would help him out. He's hard up for cash, I bet. I'll speak to him to-night about it."

At supper Tom Moran mentioned what a fine thing it was for Andy that there was an urgent demand for a horse at the lumber camp; that he could get twice the money for old Grey that the animal was worth. Mrs. Moran agreed that it would be a great help to old Andy, but Jacky's small face went white, he ceased his boyish chatter, and his little throat refused to swallow a mouthful of food.

As soon as he could, he escaped, slipped outside, and made for Andy's shanty as fast as his young legs could carry him. With small ceremony he flung open the door, to find the old Frenchman sitting in his barrel chair, a single tallow candle on the shelf above his head, his ever present pipe between his lips, and his lame leg stuck up on a bench before the tumbledown stove, where a good spruce fire crackled and burned. For the first time the extreme poverty of the place struck Jacky's senses. He realized instantly, but for the first time, how much in need of money the poor old cripple must be, but, nevertheless, his voice shook as he exclaimed, "Oh, Andy, you won't sell old Grey? Oh, you won't, will you?"

"Why not, youngster?" asked a deep voice from the gloom beyond the stove, and Jacky saw with a start that Alick Duncan was already there with his offer to buy.

"Because," began the boy, "because—well, because he helps us, Andy and me; he helps us light up at night." It was a lame excuse, and poor Jacky knew it.

"It appears to me Andy ain't doing much lighting up these days," went on the foreman. "And you know, kid, Andy's old and sick, and money don't come easy to him. If he gets one square meal of pork and beans a day, he's getting more than I think he does. The horse is no use to him now. He can't even pay for its keep when next winter comes. He can't use it, anyhow, and Andy needs the money."

But the boy had now recovered his balance.

"But timber hauling would kill old Grey. He wouldn't last any time at it; he's too old," he argued.

"That's so, sunny," said the foreman; "he sure can't last long at that work, but don't you see Andy will have his money, even if the horse does peg out?"

"But—but Grey will die," said the boy tremulously.

"Maybe," answered the foreman, "but Andy will have something to live on, and that is more important."

"But I'll help Andy," cried the boy enthusiastically. "I'm used to the lighting up now. I can do all the work. Can't the mill hands go on paying him just the same as ever? Can't they, Andy? I'll do the lamp-lighting for you, and we'll just keep old Grey. Won't you, Andy? Won't you?"

The boy was at Andy's shoulder, his thin young fingers clutched the old shirt-sleeve excitedly, his voice arose, high and shrill and earnest.

"Why, boy," said the old Frenchman, "I didn't know you cared so much. I don't want to sell Grey, and I won't sell him if you help me with my work for the mill hands."

Alick Duncan rose to his feet, his big, hearty laugh ringing out as Jacky seized his hand with the words, "There, Mr. Duncan, Andy won't sell Grey. He says so. You heard him."

The big foreman stooped, picked up the boy, and swung him on his shoulder as if he had been a kitten.

"All right, little Jack o' Lantern, do as you like. We mill hands will go on with Andy's pay, only you help him all you can—and maybe he'll keep the old grey—just for luck."

"I know it's for luck," laughed Jacky. "The grey knows so much. Why, Mr. Duncan, he knows everything; he knows as much as the mill hands."

"I dare say," said the big foreman, dryly. "If he didn't he wouldn't have even horse sense."

"But why do you call me that—'Jack o' Lantern'?" asked the boy from his perch on the big man's shoulder.

"Because I thought the name suited you," smiled the foreman. "I've often seen the little Jack o' Lantern hovering above the marshes and swales, a dancing, pretty light, moving about to warn woodsmen of danger spots, just as your lantern, Jacky, warns the rivermen of that nasty 'wildcat' place in the river."

"But," said the boy, "dad has always told me that the Jack o' Lantern is a foolish light, that it deceives people, that it misleads them, that sometimes they follow it and then get swamped in the marshes."

"Yes, but folks know enough to not follow your lantern, boy," answered the foreman seriously. "Your light is a warning, not an invitation."

"Well, the warning light will always be there, as long as I have legs to carry it," assured Jacky, as the big foreman set him down on the floor. Then—"And when I fail, I'll just send the grey."

They all laughed then, but none of them knew that, weeks later, the boy's words would come true.

II

It was late in January, and the blackest night that the river had ever known. A furious gale drove down from the west and the very stars were shut in behind a gloomy sky. Little Jacky Moran trimmed his lantern, filled it with oil, whistled for Grey, and set forth as the black night was falling. The oncoming darkness seemed to outdo itself. Before he was half way up the river, night fell, and he found that he could see but a very few feet before him, although it was not yet half-past five o'clock. At six the men would leave the mill over the river, and, journeying afoot across the ice, would reach home in safety if the lantern were lighted, and if not, any or all of them might be plunged into the treacherous "Wild Cat," with no hope of ever reaching shore alive.

"He called me Jack o' Lantern," the boy said to himself. "It's a dancing, deceiving light, but he'll find to-night that I'll deceive nobody." And through the darkness the child plodded on. Behind him walked the stiff-kneed old horse, solemn-faced and faithful, following the lantern with stumbling gait, his soft nose, as ever, very near the boy's shoulder. The way seemed endless, and Jacky, with stooped and huddled shoulders, bent his head to the wind and forged on. Then, just as he was within fifty yards of the turn that led up to the danger spot, an unusually wild gust swept his cap from his head and sent it bounding off the narrow footpath. Boylike, he reached for it, and failing to recapture it, started in pursuit. In the darkness he did not see the little ledge of earth and rock that hung a few feet above a "dip" on the left side, and in his hurried chase he suddenly plunged forward, and was hurled abruptly to a level far below the footpath. He fell heavily, badly. One foot got twisted somehow, and as he landed he heard a faint sharp "crack" in the region of his shoe. Something seemed to grow numb right up to his knee. He tried to struggle to his feet, but dropped down into a wilted little heap. Then he realized with horror that he was unable to stand. For a moment he was bewildered with pain and the utter darkness, for in his fall the lantern had rolled with him, then gone out. The boy struck a match, and with but little difficulty lighted the lantern. It seemed strange that the gale had ceased so suddenly, until, in looking about, he saw that he was in a hollow, and the wind was roaring above his head. He was quite sheltered where he lay, but his brief gratitude for this gave way to horrified dismay when he discovered that the light, too, was sheltered—that the ledge of earth and rock arose between him and the river bank, that he could never reach the dreaded danger spot with his warning light, and, near to it though he was, the flame was completely obscured from the sight of anyone crossing the ice.

For a moment the situation overwhelmed him. He sat and shivered. The agony of his injured foot was now asserting itself above the first numbness, and the realization that he was failing to warn the mill hands, that he was only a Jack o' Lantern after all, seized on his young heart and brain like a torturing claw. Despair settled down on him, blacker, more terrible than the coming night. He fancied he could hear the mill hands crash through the death hole, and he called wildly, "Help! Oh, somebody help me!" all the time knowing that the shanties were too far away for anyone there to hear, and that the footpath above him was too lonely for any chance lumberman to be taking at this hour. No one ever passed that way but himself, and in the old days Andy and the grey—oh, he had not thought of the grey—where had the animal gone? Instantly he whistled, called, whistled again, and over the ledge above his head looked a long, serious face, with great solemn eyes, and a soft, warm nose. The very sight gave the boy courage, and at his next whistle the old horse carefully picked his way down the bank, and reaching down his long neck, felt Jacky's shoulder with his velvety muzzle.

"Oh, Grey," cried the boy, "you must help me. You must do something, oh, something, to help!" Then he made an attempt to stand, to get on the animal's back, but his poor foot gave out, and he huddled down to the ground again in pitiful, hopeless pain. The horse's nose touched his ear, starting him from a fast oncoming stupor. At the same instant the six o'clock whistle blew at the mill across the frozen river. In a few moments the men would be coming home, crossing the ice, perhaps to their death instead of to the warm supper awaiting them at their shanty homes. The thought of it all gripped Jacky's young heart with fear, but he was powerless to warn them. He could not take a single step, and he was rapidly becoming paralyzed with cold and pain. Once more the soft nose of the old horse touched his ear. With the nearness of the warm, friendly nose, his quick wit returned.

"Grey!" he almost shouted, "Grey-Boy, do you think you could take the lantern? Oh, Grey-Boy, help me think! I'm getting so numb and sleepy. Oh, couldn't you carry it for me?" With an effort the boy struggled to his knees, and slipping his arms about the neck of his old chum, he cried, "Oh, Grey, I saved you once from dying at the logging camp. They'd have killed you there. Save the mill hands now just for me, Grey, just for Jack o' Lantern, because I'm deceiving them at last."

The warm, soft nose still snuggled against his ear. The horse seemed actually to understand. In a flash the boy determined to tie the lantern to the animal's neck. Then, in another flash, he realized that he had nothing with which to secure it there. The horse had not an inch of halter or tie line on him. An inspiration came to him like an answer to prayer, and within two seconds he acted upon it. Ripping off his coat, he flung it over the horse's neck, the sleeves hanging down beneath the animal's throat. Slipping one through the ring handle of the lantern, he knotted them together. The horse lifted his head, and the lantern swung clear and brilliant almost under the soft, warm nostrils.

"Get up there, old Grey! Get up!" shouted the boy desperately, "clicking" with his tongue the well-known sound to start a horse on the go. "Get up! And oh, Grey, go to the danger spot, nowhere else. The danger spot, quick! Get up!"

The animal turned, and slowly mounted the broken ledge of earth and rock. Jacky watched with strained, aching eyes until the light disappeared over the bluff. Then his agonized knees collapsed. His shoulders, with no warmth except the thin shirt-sleeves to cover them, began to sting, then ache, then grow numb. Once more he huddled into a limp little heap, and this time his eyes closed.

* * * * * * * *

"Do you know, father, I'm anxious about Jacky," said Mrs. Moran, as they sat down to supper without the boy. "He's never come back since he started with the lantern, and it's such an awful night. I'm afraid something has happened to him."

"Why, nothing could have happened," answered Mr. Moran. "The lantern was burning at the 'death-hole' all right as we crossed the ice."

"Then why isn't Jacky home long ago?" asked Mrs. Moran. "He never goes to Andy's at this hour. He is always on time for supper. I don't like it, Tom, one bit. The night is too bad for him not to have come directly home. There, hear that wind." As she spoke the gale swept around the bend of the river, and the house rocked with the full force of the storm.

Tom Moran shoved back his chair, leaving his meal half finished. "That's so," said he, a little anxiously, as he got into his heavy coat. "I'll go up shore and see. Oh, there's Alick now, and 'Old Mack,'" as a thundering knock fell on the door. "They said they were coming over after supper for a talk with me." Then, as the door burst open, and the big foreman, accompanied by "Old Mack," shouldered their way into the room, Tom Moran added: "Say, boys, the kid ain't home, and his mother is getting nervous about him. Will you two fellows take a turn around the bend with me to hunt him up?"

"What!" yelled the big foreman. "Our little Jack o' Lantern out in this blizzard? You better believe we'll go with you, Tom. And what's more, we'll go right now. Hustle up, boys." And Alick Duncan strode out again, with a frown of anxiety knitting his usually jovial face.

"Lantern's there all right," he shouted, as they neared the bank above the danger spot. He was a few yards in advance of Jack's father and "Old Mack." Then suddenly he stood stock still, gave vent to a long, explosive whistle, and yelled, "Well, I'll be gin-busted! Look a' there, boys!" And following his astounded gaze, they saw, on the brink of the river, an old grey horse, with down-hanging head, his back to the gale, and about his neck a boy's coat, from the knotted sleeves of which was suspended a lighted lantern.

Tom Moran was at the animal's side instantly. "His mother was right," he cried. "Something has happened to Jacky." And he began searching about wildly.

"Now look here, Tom," said the big foreman, "keep your boots on, and take this thing easy. If that horse knows enough to stand there a-waiting for the boy, he knows enough to help us find him. We'll just pretend to lead him home, and see what he'll do." And relieving the horse of the lantern, he tied the little coat closer about the long throat, and, using it as a halter, induced the grey to follow him. Down the bank from the danger spot they went, round the bend to the footpath, along the trail for fifty yards. Then the horse stopped. "Come on here! Get up!" urged the big foreman, as he strained at the coat sleeve. But the horse stood perfectly still, and refused to be coaxed further. "I'll bet Jack o' Lantern is around here somewhere. Jack o'—oh, Jack o'!" he shouted, for Tom Moran's throat was choked. He could not call the boy's name.

"Jack o' Lantern—where are you?" reiterated Alick Duncan. But there was no reply.

Meanwhile "Old Mack" had been snooping around the hollows at one side of the trail, and Jacky's father was peering about the ledges opposite. Presently he stopped, leaned over, and with love-sharpened eyesight, saw a little, dark heap far below lying in the snow. "There's something here, boys," he called brokenly.

Alick Duncan sprang to the ledge, looked over, made a strange sound with his throat, and with an icy fear in his great heart, that never had known fear before, he laid his big hand on Tom Moran's shoulder and said, "Stay here, Tom. I'll go. It will be better for me to go." And slipping over the ledge, he dropped down beside the unconscious boy. In another minute he was rubbing the cold hands, rousing the dormant senses. Presently Jacky spoke, and with a shout of delight the big foreman lifted the boy in his huge arms, and, struggling up the uneven ledge, he shouted, "He's all O.K., Tom—just kind of laid out, but still in the fight."

With the familiar voice in his ears, Jacky's senses returned, for, lifting his head, he cried, "Oh, Mr. Duncan, did Grey-Boy take the lantern to the danger-spot?"

"Bet your boots he did, son," said Tom Moran, stretching down his arms to help the big foreman lift his burden. "We found him standing still and firm as a flag pole, with that light hoisted under his chin."

"Thank goodness!" sighed the boy. "Oh, I was so afraid he'd go home with it, instead of to the river." Then, with a little gasp, "Mr. Duncan, I told you once Grey had as much sense as a man. He saved you."

"No, Jack o' Lantern," said the big foreman gently, as he wrapped his great coat around the half-frozen boy, "no, siree, it was you, and your quick wits, that did it. Old Grey got the lantern habit, but it would have done no good had you not had sense enough to sling the light around his neck; and you leaving yourself to freeze here without a coat—bless you, youngster! The mill hands and this big Scotchman won't forget that in a hurry."

And it was on faithful old Grey's back that the injured boy rode home—home to warm blankets, warm supper, and the warm love of his mother, but also to the knowledge that one of the smaller bones in his ankle had broken when he heard that snapping sound. But it did not take so long to mend, after all, and one day in the early spring the big foreman appeared, his shrewd eyes twinkling with fun, although he made the grave statement that Andy had at last consented to sell old Grey.

"It isn't true! It can't be true!" gasped Jacky. "Sell Grey-Boy after what he did to save the mill hands? Oh! I can't believe Andy would do such a thing." And his thin little face went white, and his poor foot dragged as he stood erect, as if to fight for the horse's rights.

"But Andy has sold him, nevertheless," grinned Alick Duncan, "sold him to me and the other mill hands, and we're going to give him away."

"Away?" cried the boy, with startled, agonized eyes.

"Yes, lad," answered the big foreman seriously; and placing his strong hand on Jacky's head, he added, "Give him away to the bravest little chap in the world—a chap we all call Jack o' Lantern."

For a moment the boy stood speechless, then held out his arms—for the old grey horse had come slowly up to the shanty, and with downbent head was laying his soft, warm muzzle against Jacky's ear.



The Barnardo Boy

The only thing that young Buckney could say to express his surprise at the wonderful stone buildings was "Blow me!" He had expected to find that the great Canadian city of Montreal would be just a few slab shacks, with forests on all sides, and painted Indians prowling, tomahawk in hand, in search of scalps. When he left the big Atlantic liner with twenty other raw English lads of his own street-bred sort, he thought he was saying good-bye to civilization forever. And here, all around him, arose the massive stone-built city, teeming with life, with gayety, wealth, and poverty, carriages, horses, motor cars—why, it was just like London, after all! And once more "Buck" said, "Blow me!"

"What's that he says, father?" asked a slender young lady who had accompanied her father, the great surgeon, to help him select a Barnardo boy to assist the stableman.

"Oh, it's an English street expression," smiled the surgeon. "I expect he'll have dozens of queer sayings."

"Never mind," said the young lady; "he has a nice face, and his eyes lock terribly straight at one. I think we'll take him, father?"

Her voice rose in a question, but it took Buck just two seconds to know she need not have asked it. The great surgeon would have taken an elephant if she had expressed a liking for it.

"Keep on the right side of her and you'll stand in wid de old man," whispered the boy next to him.

"Don't yer t'ink I sees dat?" sneered Buck. "Yer must t'ink I lef' my h'yes in Lunnon." And the shrewd young street arab arose to his feet, touched his cap with his forefinger, and said:

"H'all right, sir; I 'opes I'll suit."

That was the beginning of it, yet, notwithstanding Buck had made up his mind that whatever happened he would make himself "suit," still he met with a serious discouragement the very next morning, when his unwilling ears overheard a conversation between the surgeon and the stableman. The latter was saying:

"I hope you will excuse me speaking, Doctor, but I think you've made a mistake getting this here green Barnardo boy to help with the horses. They never do know nothin', those English boys, and you can't teach 'em."

"Well," hesitated the doctor, "we'll have to give him a trial, I suppose. Miss Connie took a fancy to him."

"Oh, Miss Connie, was it?" repeated the stableman, in quite another tone. "Then that settles it, sir." And it did.

"So I owes dis 'ere 'ome to 'Miss Connie,' does I?" remarked Buck to himself. "Den if dis is so, I's good for payin' of her fer it." Only he pronounced "pay" "py."

But it was a long two years before the boy got any chance to "py" her for her kindness, and when the chance did come, he would have given his sturdy young life to avert it. By this time, much mixing with Canadians had blunted his London street-bred accent. To be sure he occasionally slipped an "h," or inserted one where it should not be, but he was fast swinging into line with the great young country he now called "home." He could eat Indian corn and maple syrup, he could skate, toboggan, and ply a paddle, he could handle a horse as well as Watkins, the stableman, who was heard on several occasions to remark that he could not get along without the boy.

In the holidays, when Miss Connie was home from school, Buck was frequently allowed to drive her, or sit in his cream and brown livery beside her while she drove herself. These were always great occasions, for no refined feminine being had ever come into his life before. If he ever had a mother—which he often doubted—he certainly had no recollection of her or her surroundings. To be sure the women about the "Home" in far-off England were kind and good, but this slim Canadian girl was so different. She looked like a flower, and he had never heard her speak a harsh, unlovely word in all those two years. Once as he stood at the carriage door, the rug over his arm, waiting for Miss Connie to descend the steps for her afternoon drive, an impudent little "Canuck" jeered at him in passing.

"Hello, Hinglish!" he yelled. "We're a Barnardo boy, we h'is, fer all our swell brass buttons."

Buck winced. How he hated Watkins on the box to hear this everlasting taunt cast at him. But a sweet voice from the steps called:

"You are quite right, my boy. He is a Barnardo boy. I wish we were all as great and good as Dr. Barnardo. I am proud to have one of his boys in my household."

The young urchin shrank away, abashed, for it was Miss Connie's voice. Buck pulled himself together, touched his hat, and opened the carriage door. But the girl paused on the steps, and her voice was very sincere as she said: "I mean it, Buckney" (she always called him "Buckney"). "I am very proud to have you here."

Buck touched his hat. "Thank you, madam," was all he said, but his young heart sang with gratitude. Would he ever get the chance to show her how he valued her kindness, he wondered. And then—the chance came.

Buck was never a heavy sleeper; his boyhood had been too bedless for him to attach much importance to sleep now. Too often had the tip of a policeman's boot stirred him gently, as he lay curled up near an alley-way in London. Too often had rude kicks awakened him, when down in the "slums" he huddled, numb with cold and hunger. His ears had grown acute, his legs nimble in that dreadful, faraway life, and listening while he slept became second nature. Thus he sat bolt upright in his comfortable little bed above the carriage house when a soft creeping footstep stole up the gravel walk from the stables to the kitchen. The night was very warm, and the open window at his elbow was shutterless. In the dark he could see nothing at first, then he made out the figure of a man, crouching low, and creeping around the kitchen porch to the doctor's surgery window. Immediately afterwards a low, gentle, rasping sound fell on his ears. He had seen enough of crime in the old days to know the man was filing something. Should he awaken Watkins? What was the use? Watkins would probably jump up, exclaiming aloud. He always did when awakened suddenly. Perhaps, after all, he could alarm the family before the man got in. Then, to his amazement, someone opened the window from the inside. By this time Buck had got his "night-sight." The man inside was exactly like the man outside, and he had evidently effected an entrance into the house some time during the day when the maids were upstairs, and had probably concealed himself in the cellar. Both wore masks. Instantly Buck was out of bed, dragging on his trousers. Then, barefooted and shirtless, he slipped downstairs, slid the side door open enough to squeeze through, and peered out. All he could see was the last leg of a man disappearing through the window. They were both inside now. Buck knew every room, hall and door in that house, for every spring and fall he had helped the maids "clean house," taking up and laying carpets. The knowledge stood him in good stead now. What window upstairs would be open, he wondered. The bath-room, of course; it was small, but he could wriggle through it, he told himself, or he would break every bone in his body, at least, trying. All this time he was running and crouching along the shadow of the high stone wall, that, bordered with shrubs, made splendid "cover." He reached the kitchen, and, without waiting to think whether it would bear him or not, seized hold of the twisted vine trunks of the old Virginia creeper that partly covered the house from ground to roof. Fortunately they held, and up he went like a young squirrel, his bare toes clutching like claws in the tangle of the stems and twigs. He gained the roof, crawled rapidly along, and reached the bath-room window, only to find he could barely clutch the sill with the tips of his fingers. Standing on tiptoe, he got a little grip, then his bare toes and knees started to work; inch by inch up they went over the rough stone wall, while his hands slipped further and further over the sill, until they could seize the ledge on the inside. Twice his knees slid back, then his toes refused to clutch. They grew wet, and warm, and he knew the sickening slipping back was because of blood oozing from his skin. But he was in the bath-room now, and didn't care. Then, as he flung the door open, the whole downstairs hall was flooded with light, and a strange choking sound came from below. Then the doctor's voice, smothered but audible, begging, "Go back! Go back, Connie! Lock your door!"

"You say one word aloud and I'll fire!" said a low voice, and Buck reached the head of the stairs only to see Doctor Raymond lying half dressed on the floor, his hands tied behind him, and a grasp of strong, dirty fingers on his throat.

"Oh, you're killing him! You're killing my father!" cried Miss Connie, in a half scream, as, too frightened to move, she stood huddled back in a corner, gripping a large cloak about her.

Buck stared at the scene a fraction of a second. He could understand it all. The doctor had been alarmed and had gone downstairs to investigate. Miss Connie had been awakened and had followed her father, thinking probably that he was ill. All this flashed through the boy's mind as he flung out his weaponless hands in despair, but the gesture was the salvation of the household. His fingers touched something cold, hard, polished. It was a huge, heavy, brass bowl that held a fern. How often his strong young fingers had cleaned that bowl with powder and chamois skin, with never a thought that it would serve him well some time! Now he grasped it, and creeping noiselessly around the large, square "balcony" of the upstairs hall, he stood directly above the ruffian whose fingers yet clutched the doctor's throat.

"Catch that girl!" the other man was saying. "She'll scream! Catch her, I say, and gag her!"

"Oh, my girl, my little girl! Leave her alone, you demons!" gasped the helpless doctor. But just as the fingers loosed their brutal grasp on the father's throat to reach for the frail, delicate flesh of the daughter's, straight as a carpenter's leaden plumb there crashed on to the top of the assailant's head a huge, polished brass bowl. The man fell, limp, senseless as a corpse. His confederate whirled on his heel, and fired his revolver twice rapidly above his head, just missing Buck.

Connie shrieked, and the next moment the big, unclean fingers had locked themselves about her throat, and she was forced to her knees, while a guttural voice said: "Scream, will you! Well, try it! This is what you get!"

For weeks Buck's ears rang with that awful, smothered cry of his young mistress, of the tortured voice of the doctor, helplessly choking, "Oh, my girl! My daughter!" But by this time Buck was three steps from the bottom, and the back of the burglar was toward him as he crouched over the struggling girl, choking the screams in her delicate throat. Like a vampire, Buck sprang from the third stair, landing on the man's back, his legs worked inside the man's elbows, pinioning the scoundrel's arms back like a trussed turkey, his arms went round the bull-like neck, and his tough young fingers closed on a sinewy throat. He clung to the creature's back like an octopus, while they rolled over and over, and the terrified girl struggled up, regaining her breath.

"Quick! quick! Miss Connie! The telephone! The police! Ring! Ring!" Buck managed to shout. Then, "Untie the doctor's hands and feet!"

But the burglar's arms were now gripping behind him, and digging, cruel fingers pierced Buck's flesh. But the boy never relaxed his octopus hold. The tighter the big nails clutched, the tighter his own boyish fingers stiffened on the man's throat.

An eternity seemed to elapse. He saw Miss Connie fly to the telephone, then her weak little hands struggled with the ropes on her father's wrists. But before she could begin to loose them, four gigantic men in blue uniforms were climbing in the open surgery window to encounter a sight not soon to be forgotten. The doctor, bound and bruised, lay on the floor; beside him, a man rapidly regaining consciousness and sitting up in a dazed condition; a young girl, with brutal red marks about her throat; and on the floor at her feet a man with a boy clinging to his back like a barnacle to a boat, his young arms and bare legs binding the fellow like ropes. It took those police officers but the twinkling of an eye to have the two burglars handcuffed and cowed at the point of their revolvers, and to hear the whole story of the rescued doctor.

"But who's this little duffer?" asked the inspector, gazing at Buck. "Why, look at his knees and feet! They're dripping blood!"

"Got that shinning up the creeper and the stone-wall into the bathroom," said Buck, feeling terribly awkward to be seen in such a plight before Miss Connie. So he stammered out his explanation, from the moment he had awakened to this very instant.

"Dropped the Damascus bowl on his head, did you?" gasped the doctor. Then, as he looked at Buck as if he saw him for the first time, he beheld his bleeding feet and torn knees. "Officers," said the great: surgeon, "you asked who he is. He's our boy! He's my boy! I never had a son of my own, but—but—Buckney goes to college next year, and he goes as my adopted son. This night has shown me what he's made of."

Then, for the first time in all that dreadful night, Miss Connie gave out. She sat weakly down, crying like a very little child. "Oh, Buckney!" she sobbed, "they told us not to take a Barnardo boy; that they were, half of them, just street arabs; that we—we couldn't trust them. So, sometimes I've been afraid to hope you were all right; and now you have probably saved my life."

"No 'probably' about it, Miss Connie," said the officer; "he undoubtedly has saved your life, and the doctor's too. But, come, child, don't cry; get to bed—there's a good little girl. You've had a bad night of it." Then, turning to his men, he commanded: "March those two choice specimens to the police station at once. Well, good-night, doctor! Good-night, Miss Connie." And looking at Buck he said, curiously, "Good-night, youngster! So you're a Barnardo boy, eh?"

"Yes, sir," said Buck, lifting his chin a little. "I used to be ashamed of it, but—"

"You needn't be," said the officer. "It's not what a boy was, but what he is, that counts nowadays. Goodnight! I wish we had more Britishers like you."

Then the door closed and the tramp of the policemen and their prisoners died slowly away in the night.



The Broken String

Archie Anderson was lying on the lounge that was just hidden from the front room by a bend of the folding doors. He was utterly tired out, with that unreasonable weariness that comes from what most of his boy chums called "doing nothing." He had been standing still, practising for two hours steadily, and his throbbing head and weakening knees finally conquered his energy. He flung himself down among the pillows, his violin and bow on a nearby chair. Then a voice jarred on every nerve of his sensitive body; it was a lady's voice in the next room, and she was saying to his mother:

"And how is poor Archie to-day?"

"Poor Archie!" How he hated to be called "poor" Archie!

His mother's voice softened as she replied: "Oh, he's pretty well to-day; his head aches and he seems to be weak, but he has been practising all the morning."

"He must be a great care and anxiety to you," said the caller.

Archie shuddered at the words.

"Only a sweet care," said his mother. "I am always hoping he will outgrow his delicate health."

Archie groaned. How horribly like a girl it was to be "delicate."

"I think," went on the caller, raspingly, "that a frail boy is a care. One depends so on one's sons to be a strength to one in old age; to help in their father's business, and things like that—unless, of course, one has money."

The harsh voice ceased, and Archie felt in his soul that the speaker was glancing meaningly about the bare little parlor of his father's house. He could have hugged his mother as he heard her say: "Oh, well, Trig and Dudley will help their father; and none of us grudge Archie his inability to help, or his music lessons either."

"I should think his violin and his books and lessons would be a great expense to you," proceeded the caller.

"Nothing is an expense that fills his life and helps him to forget he is shut away from the other boys and their jolly sports, just because he is not strong enough to participate in them," replied his mother, with a slight chill in her voice at her visitor's impertinence.

Presently the caller left, and Mrs. Anderson, slipping through the folding doors, saw Archie outstretched on the pillows. She bent over him with great concern; her eyes read every expression of his face, every attitude of his languid body.

"Archie, you didn't hear?" she asked, pleadingly.

"I'm afraid I did, motherette," he said, springing up with unusual spirit.

He stood before her, a head taller than herself, his thin form frail as a flower, his long, slim fingers twitching, his wonderful, wistful eyes and sensitive mouth revealing all the artist nature of a man of thirty, instead of a boy of fourteen. He was on the point of flaring out with indignation against the visitor, but his lack of physical strength seemed to crowd upon him just at that moment. He sank upon the lounge again, and with his face against Mrs. Anderson's arm, said: "Thank you, motherette, for fighting for me. Perhaps even with all this miserable ill-health of mine I can fight for you some day."

"Of course you will, dear," she replied cheerily. "Don't you mind what they say; you know 'Hock' always stands by you, and he's as good as your mother to fight for you."

"Dear old 'Hock!' Decent old 'Hock!'" he said admiringly. "He's the best boy in the world, but he is not you, motherette."

"There he is now!" said Mrs. Anderson, as a piercing whistle assailed the window, followed by a round, red face, a skinning sunburnt nose, and an assertive voice, saying, "I'll just come in this way, Arch." And a leg was flung over the window sill. "It's easier than goin' 'round by the door."

"Hock" prided himself on being a "sport," and he certainly looked one: thick-knit legs, sturdy ankles, a short, chunky neck, hands with a grip like a vise, a big, good-natured dimpling mouth, eyes that were narrow and twinkling, muscles as hard as nails, and thirteen years old, but imagining himself eighteen. He had been christened "Albert Edward," but fortune smiled upon him, making him the champion junior hockey player of the county, so the royal name was discarded with glee, and henceforth he was known far and wide as "Hock" McHenry.

The friendship between Hock and Archie was the wonder of the town. Some people said, "Hock is so coarse and loud and slangy, I don't see how Archie Anderson can have anything to do with him." Others said: "Archie is so frail and sensitive, and so wrapped up in his music, how can Hock find anything in him that is jolly, and boyish, and congenial?" But Hock's people and Archie's people knew that one supplied what the other lacked. For so often this conversation between the two boys would be overheard. Archie's plaintive voice would say: "Oh, Hock, it is so good to have you around; you make me forget that I can't play hockey and football with the rest of the kids! You play it for me as well as for yourself. I'm such a dub; laid up sick half the time."

And Hock would frequently be heard to remark: "Say, Arch, do you know if it weren't for you I'd grow into a regular tough. You kind of keep me straight, and—oh, well, straight and all that!"

And so the odd friendship went on, Hock attending his school daily—the acknowledged leader of all the sports and mischief that existed; Archie getting to school about two days out of every five, yet managing through his hours of illness to mount week by week, month by month, up, up, up in his music.

"I won't always be an expense at home, and have dad keep me as if I were a girl," Archie would tell himself on his good strong days when he felt he had accomplished something with his violin. "I can feel the music growing right in my fingers. I feel I'll play to thousands yet—thousands of people and thousands of dollars." Then perhaps a fit of coughing would come on, and the boy would grow discouraged again, but only until Hock appeared on his daily round, and plumping his sturdy person into a chair would tell all the news, and finish with, "Say, Arch, fiddle for a fellow, won't you?"

And while Archie played, Hock would sit quietly looking out of the window, vowing to himself he would give up slang, and go to Sunday-school regularly, and not shoot craps any more behind the barn with boys his father had expressed a wish not to have around the place. In after years Hock knew what made him have these good impulses while he listened to Archie's playing. He knew that a great and beautiful art—the art of music—was inborn in his chum; that the wild, melancholy voice of the violin was bringing out the best in them both.

* * * * * * * *

It was summer time. The little Canadian city where they lived, which stretched its length along the borders of the great lake, became a very popular resort for holiday makers, and many Southerners flocked to the two large hotels, seeking the cooler air of the North. Ball and tennis matches and regattas made the little city very gay, and the season was swinging at its height when one night Hock's burly voice heralded his legs through the window of the Anderson parlor. Evidently he was greatly excited, for he shouted at the top of his lungs that the east end factory was on fire, with a dozen operators cut off from the stairs and elevators, and that his father, who was foreman, was begging on all sides for volunteers to rescue the people from the top story. In the twinkling of an eye Hock was off again with crowds of running men and boys; the fire engines went clanging past with the rattle and roar of galloping horses and shouting men. Never had Archie Anderson felt his frailty as he felt it at this moment. The very news made him almost faint, but he started to run with the crowd until his shortening breath and incessant coughing compelled him to return home, where he flung himself down on the doorstep, burying his throbbing forehead in his hands and saying: "Oh! I'm no good! I can never hope to be a man! I'm not even a boy! I seem to myself like a baby!"

Late at night his father and brothers returned, all begrimed with soot and ashes. They had worked valiantly with the firemen and rescuers, saving life after life. But with all their courage and pluck they could not save big Tom Morris, who perished in the flames just because he insisted upon others and weaker ones being saved first.

For days the town was plunged in gloom. Everyone liked Tom Morris, and everyone's heart ached for his little widow and her three small children, left penniless. Then the only pleasant thing in connection with the disaster occurred. The kindly visitors at the summer hotels began getting up a huge benefit concert, the proceeds of which were to be presented to Mrs. Tom and her babies. Hock heard of it first—nothing ever escaped his lynx-like ears. Astride the window-sill he communicated his gossip to Archie something in this fashion:

"Say, Arch, they're going to have the best performance. Miss Van Alstine from New York is going to sing, and some long-haired fellow at one of the hotels is going to play the piano—they say he's great; and, oh! say, Arch, did you ever hear of a great fiddler named Ventnor?"

"Only the world-renowned Ventnor," said Archie. "Why do you ask, Hock?"

"Well, he's the one! 'Greatest on earth,' they say. Gets thousands of dollars every night he fiddles. He's staying at the Lake View Hotel, and—"

"Ventnor here!" fairly screamed Archie. "The great Ventnor! Oh, Hock, is he going to play?"

"Yes, he is!" said Hock, smacking his lips together with glee that something had at last taken Archie out of himself and made him forget his frailty, if only for a moment, "Yes, siree," continued Hock. "He's going to play three times. Heard him say so myself when they asked him on the beach this morning. He speaks the tanglest-legged English you ever heard. He said, 'Me, I holiday; me, I not blay when I holiday.' Then a batch of ladies tried to explain things to him, and when his Russian-Italian-French brain got around things, he up with his hands and ran them through his long grey hair and wagged his head, and said, 'Me, I understand! Me, I don't blay money when I holiday, but me, I blay for unfortunate beeples. I blay dree times.' Oh, it was funny, Arch!"

"Funny!" said Archie. "Funny! Hock, I'll knock you down if you call Ventnor 'funny.' Why, it's the most beautiful thing in the world for him to do. Oh, Hock! and to think that at last I will hear him!"

"I never heard tell of him before," observed Hock, with evident pride in his ignorance.

"There's no greater violinist in the world, Hock," replied Archie with enthusiasm. His cheeks were scarlet, his eyes sparkling, his thin hands trembling with excitement.

"Well, I'm not keen on hearing anyone fiddle any better than you do," Hock answered soberly. "Whenever you fiddle you just give me the jim-jams, with the creeps going up and down my back; and what's worse, I always have to blow my nose when you get through."

"What a good chap you are, Hock! You make me believe in myself. Perhaps I really will amount to something some day," replied Archie, warmly.

"Betcherlife!" said the sturdy one. "Well, so-long! I'm glad you'll hear the big violin player, Arch, if you really have been wanting to."

Wanting to! Archie Anderson had longed to hear Ventnor ever since he first drew a bow across the strings. He could hardly wait until the night of the great concert. Owing to the extreme heat of the summer he had been taking his lessons late in the evening, but on this eventful night his teacher, himself anxious to go, told Archie to come at seven o'clock; he could then give him a full hour, and the lesson would be over in plenty of time for them both to attend the concert at half-past eight. The lesson was trying and the excitement was beginning to tell on the boy, so, without returning home, he went straight to the hall, his violin case tucked under his arm. Purposely he had engaged a seat in the very first row; he wanted to watch the great master's marvellous fingers, as well as drink in the music they made. Even at eight o'clock the hall was so packed that he could hardly get through the aisles. The excellence of the programme, as well as the charitable object, had drawn out the entire town, and Archie took his seat fearful that the overpowering summer heat and crowded hall would be his undoing. He did not even hear the opening piano solo by the "long-haired fellow," as Hock had called him, nor did he rhapsodize over handsome Miss Van Alstine, whose wonderful gown and thrilling voice captured the audience. It was only when a slender, dark, elderly man stepped down to the footlights with a violin in his long, thin hands that Archie sat bolt upright, his eyes blazing with excitement, his breath catching in his throat.

The great man's face was fine as an engraving, with a melancholy mouth, and eyes that burned like black fires. He stood a brief second, gave his head, crowned with long, grey hair, a quick, nervous toss, and drew his bow across the strings softly, sweetly, with a heart-breaking sound that fell on his listeners like the sob of a thousand winds. For five minutes he held them spellbound. It was only when he half smiled and stepped into the stage wings that they realized that it was over. Then with one accord the entire audience broke into a storm of applause—all but Archie, who sat with locked fingers and tense face; for the life of him he could not move a single muscle—he was simply paralyzed with pleasure; at last he had listened to music!

It was nearing the end of the programme, and Ventnor had stepped forth to play his last number. It was a wild, eerie Hungarian air, that wailed and whispered like a lost child, then mounted up, up, louder, louder, a perfect hurricane of melody, when—suddenly a sharp crack like a pistol shot cut the air. The music ceased—one of the violin strings had snapped. At another time the great man would have finished the number on the three remaining strings, but the heat, the lax practice of a holiday season—something, or perhaps everything combined, for the instant overcame him. He stood like an awkward child, gazing down at the trailing, useless string.

Instantly, Archie's sensitive brain grasped the whole situation. Ventnor's business manager was not with him; he had not brought a second violin. Like a flash Archie whipped his own out of its case. He had just come from his lesson; it was in perfect tune. Before the shy, frail boy knew what he was actually doing he was beside the footlights, handing his own violin up to the great master, whose wonderful eyes gazed down into the small, pale face, and whose hand immediately reached out, grasping the poor, cheap little fiddle that Archie had learned his scales on. The audience broke into applause, but with a single glance Ventnor stilled them, and dashed straight into the melody precisely where he had left off.

Archie could hardly believe his ears. Was that his old thirty-dollar fiddle? That marvellous thing that murmured, and wept, and laughed under the master hand! Oh! the voice of it! The voice of it!

They would not let Ventnor go when he smiled himself off the stage. They called and shouted, "Encore!" "Encore!" until he returned to respond—respond, not with his own priceless instrument, but with Archie's, and with a grace and kindliness that only a great man possesses. He played a good-night lullaby on the boy's cheap little violin, and, moreover, played it as he never had before. Archie remembered afterwards that he had presence of mind enough to get on his feet when they all sang "God Save the King," but it really seemed a dream that Ventnor was shaking hands with him and saying, "I t'ank you, me; I t'ank you. You save me great awkwardness." And then, before he knew it, he had promised to go to the hotel the next day and play for Ventnor.

All the way home he was thinking, "Fancy it!—I, Archie Anderson, asked to play before Ventnor!" Then came the fuss and the delight of the people at home over his good fortune, but he soon slipped away to bed, exhausted with the evening's events. His mother, coming into the room later to say good-night, saw that close to his bed, on a table where he could reach out and touch it during the night, lay his violin.

"Motherette," he smiled happily, "I feel that it is consecrated."

"Keep it so, little lad of mine. Keep both your music and your violin consecrated."

* * * * * * * *

Never had Archie played so well, for all his shyness and nervousness. He seemed to gather something of the great man's soul as he played before him at the hotel the following day.

Ventnor became greatly excited. "Boy, boy!" he cried, "you have a great music in you! You must have study and work, like what is it you Canadians say?—like Sam Hill!"

"Yes," said Archie, quietly; "rainy days and east wind days, when I coughed and could not go to school, I worked, and—well, I just worked."

"Me, I should t'ink you did! Why, boy, I will make you great. I will teach you all this summer."

"I'm afraid father can't afford that," faltered Archie.

"Me, I tell you I holiday now. I take no money in my holiday. I teach you because I like you, me," replied the master, irritably.

"But I can never repay you," answered Archie.

"Me, I will give to the world a great musician; it is you! That's repay enough for me—the satisfaction of making one great violinist. That's repay."

And so it all came about. Day after day Ventnor taught, trained and encouraged Archie Anderson. Day after day the boy drew greater music from the heart of his fiddle. He seemed to stride ahead under the power of the master; and as for Ventnor, he seemed beside himself with joy at what he called his "find." They grew to be friends. Archie confided his great discouragement of ill-health, his inability to attend school.

"Me, I fix all that," answered Ventnor. "Me, I go see to-night your parents. I talk to them." And he did, but his "talk" amazed even the boy. He wanted Archie to go with him to California, where his autumn season began. He wanted to adopt him, to take him away for two years. He gesticulated, and raised his eyebrows, and talked down every objection they had.

"I tell you I want him. I make a virtuoso of him. He is my boy. I discover him. He's good boy; he work, work, work. Never do I see a boy work like dat. He is in earnest. Dat is de greatest t'ing a boy can have, to be earnest. It make him a great, good man. He's not selfish either. He not t'ink of himself, only other beeple. I meet with misfortune. I break my string. He lend me his violin. Me, I'm selfish. I don't lend my violin to not a person. No, not even the King of England. Den, too, Archie, his throat and lungs, and his physique, it is not strong, not robust. I take him hot country, warm California. He get strong."

This last argument was too much for Archie's family. They yielded, and when Ventnor left for the West the boy went with him. He never missed a week writing home or to "Hock," and at the end of two years he returned. In his pocket was a signed contract as "first violin" in the finest orchestra of a great Southern city. He had left his cough with his short trousers in California, and had outgrown as much of his frailness as a boy of his temperament ever can. The day he left to fill his engagements the lady called who used to speak of him as "poor Archie, he's such an expense to his parents," and sat talking to Mrs. Anderson in the little parlor. Trig had just secured a "situation," and the caller was asking about it.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Anderson, "Trig has done very well. He gets six dollars a week now, and Dudley, you know, gets ten." Then with pardonable asperity she added:

"Archie is doing a little better, however; he's getting seventy-five dollars a week to start on. He has already paid his father back every copper spent on his tuition."

"Archie! Seventy-five dollars a week! Why, he is hardly seventeen! How ever did he do it?" exclaimed the visitor.

"Hock, dear loyal old Hock, says it's because Archie is the very best boy in the world," replied Mrs. Anderson, laughingly, "but I say it was the result of a broken string."



Maurice of His Majesty's Mails

Old Maurice Delorme boasted the blood of many nations; his "bulldog" grit came to him from an English sea-captain, a bluff, genial old tar whom he could recall as being his "grand-daddy" sixty years ago; his gay, rollicking love of laughter and song came to him through his half French father; his love of wood and water lore, his endurance, his gift of strategy, were his birthright directly from his Red Indian mother; consequently there was but one place in the world where such a trinity of nationalities could be fostered in one man, but one place where that man could breathe and be happy, and that place was amid the struggling heights and the yawning canyons of the Rocky Mountains.

Years before Canada had constructed her world-famous transcontinental railroad, which now stretches its belt of steel from Atlantic to Pacific, Maurice Delorme set out for the golden West, working his way across the vast Canadian half of the American continent. He had done everything for a living—that is, everything that was honorable, for his British-French-Indian blood was the blood of honest forefathers, and he prided himself that he could directly and bravely look into the eyes of any man living; for, after all, does not dishonesty make the eyes shift and the heart cowardly?

He had trapped for fur-bearing animals on the North Shores; he had twice fought the rebels at the Red River; he had freighted many and many a "prairie schooner" from the Assiniboine to the Saskatchewan; and then, one glorious morning in July, when the hot yellow sun poured its wealth of heat and light into the velvety plains of Alberta, Maurice descried at the very edge of the western horizon a far-off speck of shining white, apparently not larger than a single lump of sugar. As day followed day, and he traversed mile upon mile, more sugar lumps were visible; and, below their whiteness, the grayish distances grew into mountain shapes. Then he realized that at last he beheld the inimitable glory of the Rockies that swept in snow-tipped grandeur from south to north.

Then followed the years when he, his wife and a little Maurice lived in the fastnesses of those mighty ranges; when he learned to know and follow the trail of the mountain goat; when the rugged passes grew familiar to him as the little village where he had been born in Quebec; when the countless forests of Douglas fir held no mysteries and no fears for him; and, because he had learned these things, because he was brave and courageous, because his life had been clean and honest, he was selected to carry His Majesty's mails from a primitive "landing" on one of the Kootenay Lakes to the great gold mines, forty miles into the interior, and over one of the wildest, loneliest mountain trails in all British Columbia.

Then it was that, once a month, when the mail came in by the tiny steamer, Maurice Delorme would harness up his six tough little mountain-climbing horses, put on his cartridge belt, tuck a formidable revolver into his hip pocket and a good gun beneath the seat of the wagon, toss in the bags of mail and the express packages, say a laughing good-bye to Mrs. Delorme and little Maurice, and "hit the trail" for the gold mines. How he hated to leave those two helpless ones alone in the vast, uninhabited surroundings! But Mrs. Delorme had the fearless courage and self-reliance of the women of the North, and little Maurice was yearly growing, growing, growing. Now he was ten, now twelve, now fourteen—a sturdy young mountaineer, with the sinews of an athlete, and a store of learning, not from books, for he had never known a school, but from the simple teaching of his parents and the unlimited knowledge of woodcraft, of the habits of wild things, of mountain peaks, of plants, of animals, insects and birds, and of the incessant hunt for food that must always be when one lives beyond the pale of civilized markets.

* * * * * * * *

And then one day, when little Maurice was about fifteen years old, his father staggered into their pretty log home, bleeding, crushed and dazed. The fate of the mountaineer had met him, for, during one of those sudden tempests that sweep through the canyons, a wind-riven tree had hurled its length down across the trail, its rotting heart and decaying branches falling—providentially with broken force—sparing the galloping horses and only injuring the driver—for how he escaped death was beyond human explanation.

Little Maurice was then the man of the house. He helped his brave mother dress the sufferer's wounds, he cared for the horses, he provided wood and water, going about whistling softly to himself and trying to shut his eyes to the fact that the food was growing less and less daily, and that the mail day was drawing nearer and nearer. Of course the steamer would bring flour and bacon and tea but it would also bring the mail and express to be transported to the gold mines. His father would never be well enough to drive the mails up that jagged mountain trail; and, worse than that, his father must have fresh meat broth at once. Little Maurice went into the sick-room, and standing beside the bed looked carefully into the face of old Maurice. The eyes were feverish, the forehead puckered with pain, the hands hot and growing thin. Then he turned away, followed his mother outside, and, after a brief talk with her, he reached up for his father's gun, took the stock of ammunition and dry biscuits, whistled for his dog, and, a moment later, was swallowed up in the forest.

The long day slipped by; hour after hour Mrs. Delorme would go to the door, shade her eyes with her hand, and look keenly up the mountain slopes, with their wilderness of pines. Once she saw a faint, blue puff of smoke, and her quick ear caught the sharp crack of a far-off rifle. Then all was silent for hours. The warm September sun had dropped behind the western peaks, and the canyons were purpling with oncoming twilight, when two quick successive shots broke the evening stillness, and echoed like a salute of twenty-one guns far down the valley. Mrs. Delorme ran once again to the door. The shots could not have been five hundred yards distant, for down through the firs came Royal, the magnificent hound, whining and grinning and licking his mouth with delight, and, behind him, Maurice, shouting that he had killed a deer, and was hungry enough to eat half of it himself.

"And, mother," he cried, "I could have got the game at noon to-day, but Royal and I have been hours and hours closing in on him, getting him into the runway, so that, when I did drop him, it would be near home, for I could never pack his carcass all that way. He must weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. Oh, but he's a fat one. And here are some mountain grouse Roy and I got. Daddy will have all the broth he can drink, and you and old Roy here and I will have some venison steaks for supper!"