College professors generally are not much addicted to either the accumulation or the love of money, but Professor Macadam was rather an exception to the rule. Sixty years of age, noted as a great mathematician and astronomer, he had long had a good income from his teaching and his books, and had hoarded and made good investments, and was a rich man. Lee, being an only child, was in fair way some day of coming into a fortune, and her father was resolved that it should not go to any poor man. He had often expressed his opinion on this subject; it was well known to the lovers, but this did not prevent Professor Morgan, who was just beginning and had only a fair salary with no surplus, from asking the old man for his daughter.

The interview was not a long one, but there was a good deal of low barometer and high temperature to it, meteorologically speaking. Professor Macadam fumed, and flatly declined to consider the subject of such an alliance. "It is absurd!" he said. "What would you live on?"

Professor Morgan intimated that two people might sustain themselves in a modest way on the salary he was getting.

"Nonsense, sir! Nonsense!" was the retort. "My daughter has been accustomed to a better style of living than you could afford her, and I decline to consider the proposition for a moment. You're in no condition to support a wife, sir! Figures do not lie, sir! Figures do not lie!"

Professor Morgan suggested that figures sometimes did give a wrong impression.

"Then it is because they are used by an incompetent person. I am surprised that you, sir, assistant professor of astronomy in a great institution of learning, should assert that any mathematical fact is not an actual one. Prove to me that figures lie, and you can have my daughter! But this is only nonsense. You are presumptuous and something of an ass, sir. Good day, sir!"

When Professor Morgan imparted to his sweetheart the result of this interesting interview, they were both somewhat cast down. It was she who first recovered.

"And so papa said you could have me, did he, if you could prove to him that figures ever lied?"

"Yes, he said that, though I don't suppose he meant it. It was simply a sort of defiance he blurted out in his anger. But what difference does it make? How could I prove an impossibility in any event, even if such a grotesque challenge were accepted in earnest? When I said to him that figures might give wrong impressions, it was only to convey the idea that people who cared very much for each other might get along with very little money, and that the ordinary estimates for necessary income did not apply."

"You don't know papa! He'll keep his word, even one uttered in excitement. He has almost a superstition regarding the literal observance of any promise made, though it might be accidental and really meaning nothing. You are very clever—as great a mathematician as papa is. You must prove to him that figures sometimes really lie, even where computations are all correct. Surely, there must be some way of doing that."

"I'm afraid not, dear. The moon isn't made of green cheese."

"But there must be some way, and you must find it. You shall be like a knight of old, who is to gain a maiden's hand by the accomplishment of some great deed of derring-do. Am I not worth it, sir?" And she stood before him jauntily, with her pretty elbows out.

He looked down into a face so fair and so full of all fealty and promise of sweet wifehood that he resolved in an instant that if it lay in human power to meet the terms of the old man's challenge the thing should be accomplished. He said as much, and what he said was punctuated labially. Being a professor, it would never have done for him to neglect his punctuation.

It was not three months after the stormy Macadam-Morgan interview that Professor Morgan's great book on "Eclipses Past and to Come" made its appearance. And it was not three weeks after that great work's appearance when all the scientific world was in a turmoil.

Professor Macadam had, for a season after the interview between him and Professor Morgan, maintained a cold and formal air in all his intercourse with the latter gentleman, but after a time this wore away, and the old relations, never very familiar, were resumed. Indeed, it seemed at length that Professor Macadam had forgotten all about the affair, or if he remembered it at all, did so only as of an exhibition of foolishness which his own force and wisdom had checked forever. When therefore Professor Morgan's book appeared it was read at once with interest, as the work of a scientist, who, though not a veteran, was of undeniable ability and good repute.

But when the book had been considered there was a literary earthquake! Professor Macadam reviewed it, and sought to tear it, figuratively, limb from limb! He was ably supported by other pundits everywhere. The point upon which the debate hinged was a remarkable one.

As already indicated, Professor Morgan's standing as an astronomer was undisputed, and Professor Macadam did not question the accuracy of his reasoning, so far as mere computations went. It is known, even to the non-scientific, that eclipses of the moon can be foretold with the utmost accuracy; and not only this, but that astronomers can readily determine, by the same methods reversed, when eclipses of the moon have occurred at any time in the past. It was to one of Professor Morgan's past eclipses that Professor Macadam objected.

In a long-ago issue of a great foreign review, M. Camille Flammarion, the French astronomer, advanced the view that this globe has been inhabited twenty-two millions of years, which is accepted by other scientists as a fair estimate. It is also admitted that the moon was at one time part of the earth, and was hurled off into space before the crust upon this body had fairly cooled. Of course, there is no way of fixing the exact date of this interesting event, but for the sake of convenience it is put at about one hundred millions of years ago. It may have been a little earlier or a little later. But that does not matter.

In the table of dates of past eclipses in Professor Morgan's book he referred to a certain eclipse of the moon which occurred about two hundred millions of years before Christ, and not a flaw could be discovered in his figuring. But Professor Macadam did not hesitate to make a charge. He asserted with great vehemence that as there was no moon two hundred millions of years before Christ, there could have been no eclipse of the moon. Had there been an eclipse of the moon then, he admitted that the eclipse would have taken place at just the time Professor Morgan's table indicated; but as the case was, he referred to such an event contemptuously as "an Irish eclipse," and was extremely scathing in his language. His review closed with an expression of regret that an educator connected with the great Joplin University could have been guilty of such an error, not of figures, but of logic.

Professor Morgan replied to all his critics, Professor Macadam included, in a masterly article, in which he declared that he was responsible only for his mathematics, not for the degree of cohesion of the earth's mucky mass hundreds of millions of years ago, and that the eclipse he had calculated must stand.

Professor Macadam came to the charge once more, briefly but savagely. He again admitted the correctness of the computation, but ridiculed Professor Morgan's attitude on the subject. "His figures," he concluded, "simply lie."

The day following the appearance of Professor Macadam's final article, he was called upon in his study by Professor Morgan. The younger man did not present the appearance of a crushed controversialist. On the contrary, his air was pleasantly expectant. "I called," said he, "to learn how soon you expected my marriage with your daughter to take place?"

The older man started in his seat, "What do you mean, sir?" he demanded.

"Why, I called simply to discuss my marriage with your daughter. On the occasion when you refused my first proposition you said that if I proved that figures would lie your consent would be forthcoming. I have proved to you that figures sometimes lie. I have not only your own admission, but your assertion to that effect, made public in the columns of a great quarterly. I know you to be a man of your word. I have come to talk about my marriage."

Professor Macadam did not at once reply. His face became very red. "I must talk with my daughter," he said finally.

That afternoon Professor Macadam and his daughter had an interview. The young lady proved very firm. She would listen to no equivocation and no protest. She had thought her father to be a man of honor—that was all she had to say. She touched the old gentleman upon his weak point. He yielded, not gracefully, but that was of no moment. She and Professor Morgan, just then, had grace enough for an entire family—in their hearts.

And so they were married. And so, too, you know the origin of one of the most exciting scientific discussions of the period.



RED DOG'S SHOW WINDOW

The snow lay deep beside the Black River of the Northwest Territory, and upon its surface, where the ice was yet thick, for it was February and weeks must pass before in the semi-arctic climate there would be signs of spring. In the forests, which at intervals approach the river, the snow was as deep as elsewhere, but there was not the desolation of the plains, for in the wood were many wild creatures, and man was there as well; not man of a very advanced type, it is true, but man rugged and dirty, and philosophic. In the shadow of the evergreens, upon a point extending far into the water, stood the tepees of a group of Indians, hardy hunters and dependents in a vague sort of way of the great fur company which took its name from Hudson's Bay.

Squatted beside the fire of pine knots and smoking silently in one of the tepees was Red Dog, a man of no mean quality among the little tribe. He had faculties. He had also various idiosyncrasies. He was undeniably the best hunter and trapper and trainer of dogs to sledge, as well as the most expert upon snowshoes of all the Indians living upon the point, and he was, furthermore, one of the dirtiest of them and the biggest drunkard whenever opportunity afforded. Fortunately for him and for his squaw, Bigbeam, as she had been facetiously named by an agent of the company, the opportunities for getting drunk were rare, for the company is conservative in the distribution of that which makes bad hunters. Given an abundance of firewater and tobacco, Red Dog was the happiest Indian between the northern boundary of the United States and Lake Gary; deprived of them both he hunted vigorously, thinking all the while of the coming hour when, after a long journey and much travail, he should be in what was his idea of heaven again. To-day, though, the rifle bought from the company stood idle beside the ridge-pole, the sledge dogs snarled and fought upon the snow outside, and Bigbeam, squat and broad as became her name, looked askance at her lord as she prepared the moose meat, uncertain of his temper, for his face was cloudy. Red Dog was, in fact, perplexed, and was planning deeply.

Good reason was there for Red Dog's thought. Events of the immediate future were of moment to him and all his fellows, among whom, though no chief was formally acknowledged, he was recognized as leader; for had he not at one time been with the company as a hired hunter? Had he not once gone with a fur-carrying party even to Hudson's Bay, and thence to the far south and even to Quebec? And did he not know the ways of the company, and could not he talk a French patois which enabled him to be understood at the stations? Now, as fitting representative of himself and of his clan, a great responsibility had come upon him, and he was lost in as anxious thought as could come to a biped of his quality.

Like a more or less benevolent devil-fish, the Hudson Bay Company has ever reached out its tentacles for new territory where furs abound. Such a region once discovered, a great log house is built there, and furs are bought from the Indians who hunt within the adjacent region. This is, of course, a vast convenience for the Indians, who are thus enabled to exchange their winter catch of peltries for what they need, without a journey of sometimes hundreds of miles to the nearest trading post. Hence, under the wise treatment of Indians by the British, there has long been competition between separate Indian bands to secure the location of a new post within their own territory. Thus came the strait of Red Dog. A new post had been decided upon, but there was doubt at company headquarters as to whether it should be at Red Dog's point or a hundred miles to the westward, where, it was asserted by Little Peter, head man of a tribe there, the creeks were fairly clogged with otter, the woods were swarming with silver foxes and sable, and as for moose, they were thick as were once the buffalo to the south. Red Dog had told his own story as well, but the factor at the post toward Fort Defiance was still undecided. He had told Red Dog and his rival that he would decide the matter the coming spring when they came down the river with their furs for the spring trading. The best fur region was what he sought. He would decide the matter from the relative quality of the catch.

So Red Dog had hunted and trapped vigorously, and would ordinarily have been satisfied with the outcome, for his band had found one of the best fur-bearing regions of the river valley, and the new post was deserved there upon its merits. This, however, the factor did not know. The issue depended upon the relatively good showing made by Red Dog and Little Peter. Despite his name, Little Peter was a full-blooded Indian and like Red Dog, he was shrewd.

Red Dog smoked long, and the lines upon his forehead grew deeper as he thought and schemed. At times his glance, bent most of the time upon the fire before him, would be raised to seek the great bale of furs, the product of his winter's catch. The meal was eaten, the hours passed, and then, with a grunt, he ordered Bigbeam to open the package, which work she performed with great deftness, for who but she had cleaned the skins and bound them most compactly? They were spread upon the dirt floor, a rich and luxurious display. No Russian princess, no Tartar king, no monarch of the south, ever saw anything finer for consideration. There were the smooth, silken skins of the cross fox, of the blue fox, that strange, deeply silken-furred creature, the blend of which is a puzzle to the naturalists; of the silver fox, which ranges so far southward that the farmers and the farmers' sons of the northern tier of the United States follow him fiercely with dog and gun because of the value of his coating; of the otter, most graceful of all creatures of land or water, and in the far north with fur which is a poem; of the sable, which creeps farther south than many people know of; of the grim wolverine, black and yellow-white and thickly and densely furred, and of the great gray wolf of nearly the Arctic circle, a wolf so grizzly and so long and high and gaunt and strong of limb that he tears sometimes from the sledge ranges the best dog of all their pack and leaps easily away into the forest with him; a beast who transcends in real being even the old looming gray wolf of mediaeval story who once haunted northern Germany and the British Isles and the Scandinavian forests, and who made such impress upon men's minds that the legend of the werewolf had its birth. There were thick skins of the moose and there was much dried meat. All these, save the meat, contributed to make expansive the display which Bigbeam, utilizing all the floor space, laid before the eyes of Red Dog.

The showing made Red Dog even more anxiously contemplative. He thought of the long, weary way to the present trading post, and of how it would be equally long and weary were a new post to be located in the hunting grounds of Little Peter. He knew how soft was the snow when it began to melt in early spring, how the snow shoes sank deeply and became a burden to lift, how the sledge runners no longer slid along the surface, and the floundering dogs tired after half a day's journey; he thought how full the river was of jagged ice cakes in the spring, and how perilous was the passage of a deeply-laden canoe. Surely the new post must not go to Little Peter. And Red Dog was most crafty.

There must have been, however attenuated, a fiber of French blood throughout the being of Red Dog. It would have been odd, indeed, had the case been otherwise, for the half-breeds penetrated long ago through the far northwest, and the blood underneath does not always show itself through the copper skin. Anyhow, Red Dog gazed interestedly and fixedly upon the gloriously soft carpet before him, and there came to his brain a sense of the wonderfully contrasting coloring. He rose to his feet and arranged and rearranged the pelts to please his fancy. At last he secured a combination which made him pause. He returned to his seat and gazed long and earnestly upon the picture before him; then he turned his eyes downward and thought as long again. Bigbeam came to him and muttered words regarding some affair of the teepee. He did not answer her, but, as she passed silently toward the doorway, he raised his eyes and noted her broad expanse of back in the doorway to which the far distant blue sky gave a distinct and striking outline. He shouted to her gutturally and hoarsely to stand there as she was, and the woman stopped herself in the doorway; then Red Dog bent his head and thought again. He thought of a window he had seen in far Quebec, where soft and brilliant furs were shown upon a flat surface to the most advantage. Why could he not with such display most impress McGlenn, the Scotch factor, with the importance of his hunting ground, and where could better display be made than upon the broad back of his squat squaw Bigbeam? He would make her sew the furs together in a mighty cloak, and she should ride the river with him when the ice broke and the spring tides bore them down in their great canoe to the factor's place toward Fort Reliance.

And the cloak was made. Talk of the wrappings of your princesses, of the shallow-ermine-girded trappings of your queens—they were but yearning things, but imitations, as compared with this great cloak of the bounteous Bigbeam.

In the center of the field of this wondrous cloak lay white as snow the skin of an ermine of the far north, and about it were arranged sables so deep in color that the contrast was almost blackness, but for the play of light and shade upon the shining fur. About the sables came contrast again of the skins of silver fox, alternating with those of the otter, and about all this glorious center piece, set at right angles, were arranged the skins of the marten, the blue fox, the mink, the otter and the beaver. It was a magnificent combination, bizarre in its contrasts but wonderfully striking, and with a richness which can scarcely be described, for the knowing Red Dog selected only the thickest and glossiest and most valuable of his furs. He gazed upon the display with a grunt of satisfaction.

Red Dog rose to his feet and called sharply to his squaw, who entered the tent again with a celerity remarkable in one of her construction. The Indian glanced meaningly at the dog whip which hung upon the center pole, and there was rapid conversation. For days afterward Bigbeam was busy sewing together the furs, as Red Dog had arranged them, and attaching thongs of buckskin so that the wonderful garment could be tied at her neck and waist.

Spring came at last, and Red Dog and Bigbeam set off upon their journey to the factor's, as did other Indians from other localities for five hundred miles about. It was a dreadful journey, the hardships of which were undergone with characteristic Indian stoicism. There were break-downs of the sledges, there were blizzards in which the travelers almost perished, there was sickness among the dogs; and when finally the point was reached where the river was fairly open, and where the big canoe, cached from the preceding season, could be launched and the load bestowed within it, there followed miserable adventures and misadventures, until, limping and pinched of face, the Indian and his squaw drew their boat to land upon the shore beside the trading post.

The trading posts of the Northwest Territory vary little in their manner of construction. They are built of logs as long as can be conveniently obtained, and consist of three divisions, the front a store with a rude counter, behind this the living-rooms of the factor and his assistants, and in the rear the great storeroom for the year's supplies. The front or trading room is usually well lighted by windows set in the side, for it is well to have good light when fine furs are to be passed upon. The trading room of McGlenn offered no exception to the rule, and his window seats were good resting places for the casual barterer.

Indians were thronging about and in the post as Red Dog and Bigbeam lugged their bale of furs up the bank and into the big room. There was jabbering among the bucks, while the squaws stood silently about, and among the most violent of the jabberers was Little Peter, who had already talked with the factor and by magnificent lying had almost convinced him that his own territory was the best for a new post. Unfortunately, though, for Little Peter, his efforts and those of his band had been somewhat lax during the winter, and the catch they brought did not in all respects sustain his story. Red Dog and Bigbeam mingled with the other Indians, and Red Dog was soon engaged in a violent controversy with his rival, while Bigbeam stood silent among the squaws. But Bigbeam was very tired; she had wielded the paddle for many days, she had lost sleep and her eyelids were heavy; nature was too strong; she edged away from the line of squaws, settled down into one of the window seats, her broad back filling completely its lower half, and drifted away into such dreamland as comes to the burdened and uncomplaining Indian women of the Northwest.

Down a pathway leading beside the storehouse came McGlenn, the factor, and his assistant, Johnson. They reached the window wherein Bigbeam was reposing and stopped in their tracks! They could not believe their eyes! Were they in Bond or Regent Street again! Never had they seen such magnificent display of costly furs before, never one so barbaric, unique and striking, and, withal, so honest in its richness! They did not hesitate a moment. They rushed around to the main entrance, tore their way profanely through the dense groups of Indians, and reached the window wherein they had seen displayed the marvel. Then they started back appalled! The interior appearance of that window afforded, perhaps, as vivid and complaining contrast to its exterior as had ever been presented since views had rivalry. The thongs about the neck of the swart Bigbeam had become undone, and her normal front filled all the window's broad interior. That front, to put it mildly, though picturesque, was not attractive. It afforded an area of greasy and dirty brown cuticle and of moose skin, if possible dirtier and greasier still. The two white men could not understand themselves. Was there witchcraft about; had they been drinking too much of the Scotch whisky in the stores? They forced their way outside and looked at the window again, and discovered that they were sane. There, pressed closely against the window by the weight of the sleeping Bigbeam, still extended in all its glory the wonderful robe of furs. Again they entered the post and unceremoniously pulled from her pleasant resting place the helpmate of Red Dog, the hunter. The cloak was seized upon and the two men hurried with it to the inner apartments, where it was studied carefully and with vigorous expressions of admiration.

"He's got it!" exclaimed McGlenn. "He's got it, the foxy rascal! It's only a trick of Red Dog's; but the buck who knows furs as well as that and who lives in a region where such furs can be found, and who's been sharp enough to utilize his squaw for a scheme like this, deserves the new post anyhow. You'll have to go up there, Johnson, and take some of the voyageurs with you, as soon as the river is open to the head, and establish a new post there. There'll be profit in it." Then Red Dog was ordered to come in.

How, recognizing the effect already produced upon the factor by Bigbeam's cloak, Red Dog waxed eloquent in description of the fur producing facilities of his region cannot here be described at length. From the picture he drew vehemently in bad French-Canadian language it would appear that the otter and the beaver fought together for mere breathing places in the streams, that the sable and the marten and the ermine were household pets, and that as for the foxes, blue and silver gray, they were so numerous that the spruce grouse had learned to build their nests in trees! Turning his regard from his own country, he referred to that of Little Peter. He described Little Peter as a desperate character with a black heart and with no skill at all in the capture of wild things. As to Little Peter's country, it was absurd to talk about it! It was a desolate waste of rocks and shrub, whereon even the little snowbirds could not live, and where the few bad Indians who found a home there subsisted upon roots alone. It was a great oration.

The factor and his assistant listened and laughed and made allowances, but did not alter the decision reached. Red Dog was told that the new post would be established in his own hunting grounds. As a special favor, he was given a quart bottle of whisky and ordered sternly to conduct himself as well as he could under the circumstances. Never was prouder Indian than Red Dog when he emerged from the storeroom. Before the day had ended, his furs were all disposed of, including the marvelous cloak, and in his big canoe were stored away quantities of powder and bullets and tobacco, and other things appertaining to the comfort of the North-western Indian. In place of her cloak of furs Bigbeam wore a blanket so gorgeous of coloring that even the brilliantly hued wood ducks envied her as they swept by overhead. In the bottom of the canoe lay Red Dog. He had secured more whisky, and was as the dead who know not. He would awake on the morrow with a headache, perhaps, but with a proud consciousness that he had accomplished the feat of a statesman for himself and for his band. Bigbeam rowed steadily toward home, crooning some barbarous old half-song of her race. She was very happy.



MARKHAM'S EXPERIENCE

Markham awoke late for the simple reason that it had been nearly morning when he went to bed. He awoke lying flat upon his back, and looked up dreamily at the pattern on the ceiling It was unfamiliar and that set his mind at work, and gradually he recognized where he was and why he was there. He reasoned idly that it must be as late as ten o'clock in the forenoon, and knew that by reaching out his arm he could open the shutter of the hotel window, admitting the sunlight and affording a view over the park and the blue lake, but he was laggard about it. There was a pleasure in debating the matter with himself. He could hear bells, the whistling of steamers and locomotives, the rumble of carriages and the murmur which comes from many distant voices. He recognized that another day in a great city was fairly on, and that the thousands were in motion while he lay listless.

He forgot the sounds and thought about himself. He acknowledged, though with a certain lenience of judgment, the absurdity of being where he was. He should have shown more resolve, he admitted, at 2 A.M., and have gone to his lodgings, a mile or so away. But he had been doing good work the night before; that, at least, should, he felt, be counted to his credit. Payne had come on from Washington with a duty of moment to perform, and had called upon Markham to assist him. Years had passed since they had worked together and it was a pleasure to renew the combination. How well they understood each other's methods, and how easily confident they felt united! They had been dilatory with what they had to accomplish, so self-conscious of their force were they, and had justified themselves gracefully in the event. They had strolled forth after their labor, the last dispatch sent, had smoked and become reminiscent, and had been soaked by a summer rain. They had been boys again. Of the two, Markham had been the more buoyant and more reckless. He had been a sick man, though still upon his legs and among his fellows, when Payne had found him. Things had been going wrong with Markham. His equation with Her had been disturbed.

It had been a test, there was no doubt of that, especially of the woman, the relations between Markham and her who had come to be more to him than he had ever before known or imagined one human being could be to another. She loved him; she had confessed that in a sweet, womanly way, but there was an obstacle between them. Before she could become his, there was something for him to accomplish; something hard, perplexing, and difficult in every way. He had not been idle. He had laid the foundations for his structure of happiness, but foundations do not reveal themselves as do upper stories, and she could not see the careful stonework. The domes and minarets of the castle for which she may have longed were not in sight. He alone knew what had been his work, but she was hardly satisfied. And, then, suddenly, because of a disturbing fancy, founded on a fact which was yet not a fact in its relations, she had become another being. One thing, meaning much, she had done, which took from the man his strength. It was as if his heart had been drained of its blood. He was not himself. He groped mentally. Was there no faithful love in woman; no love like his, which could not help itself and was without alternative? Were women less than men, and was calculation or instability a possibility with the sweetest and the noblest of them? No boy was this; he had known very many women very well, but he was helpless as a babe in the new world he had found when he met this one who had become so much. She had changed him mentally and morally, and even physically, for he had been a careless liver, and she had turned him from his drifting into a better course. She had made him, and now, had he been a weaker man, she would have unmade him. And he had become ill because of it, and almost desperate. Then came the evidence that she was a woman, as good women are dreamed of, after all; and they understood, and had come close together to hope again. It gave him life once more. There was, and would be, the memory of the lapse, but scars do not cripple. He was himself again. He was thinking of it all, as he lay late in bed this summer morning. He was a sluggard, he said to himself. He must go forth and do things—for Her. He raised his arm to throw open the shutter.

Ah! The arm would not rise! At least the man could not extend it far enough to open the shutter. There was a twinge of pain and a strange stiffness of the elbow. The other arm was raised—nothing the matter with that. The man tried to move his legs. The left responded, but the right was as useless as the arm. There was a pain, too, across the loins as Markham sought to turn himself in bed. He was astonished. There had been no pain until he moved. "What's the matter with me?" he muttered. "I'm crippled; but how, and why?"

There was quietude for a few moments and then more deliberate effort. With his unaffected leg and arm, the victim of physical circumstances he could not explain worked himself around as if upon a pivot until the preponderance of his weight was outside the bed. Then, with vast caution, he tilted himself upward gently until he found himself sitting upon the bed's edge, his feet just touching the floor, and the crippled member refusing to bear weight. Markham bore down upon the right foot. It was stiff and seemed as if it would break before it bent, while the pain was exquisite, but the man could not stay where he was. He got down upon the floor and crawled toward his clothing. He contrived, somehow, to dress himself, but the task accomplished, his face was pallid and he was wet with perspiration. He tilted himself to his feet and creeping along by the wall, reached the elevator and so finally the office floor.

There was a tinkle of glasses in the hotel saloon, and through the open door came the fragrance of mint and pineapple. There was a white-clad, wax-mustached man behind the bar in there, who, as Markham knew, could make a morning cocktail "to raise the dead," and not to raise them stark and rigid, like the bodies in Dora's "Judgment Day," but flexile and full of life. "Jack could mix me something that would help," he thought, and turned instinctively, but checked himself. More than a year had passed since he had tasted a morning cocktail. There had been a promise in the way. He looked down at his knee and foot. "Let them twist," he said, and then called for a cab.

He did not like to do it; it was a confession of weakness, but in his own apartments again, and in bed as the only restful place, Markham sent for a doctor. The doctor came, not the ponderous old practitioner of the conventional type called for by a knowing man, but one of the better modern type, educated, a man of the world, canny with Scotch blood, but progressive and with the experimental tendency progressive men exhibit. Markham told what manner of cup had been put to his lips. "What's the matter with me!" he demanded.

"Muscular rheumatism."

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"Oh, I'll follow the custom of the profession and make you a prescription."

"And about the effect?"

"Possibly it will help you."

"Just at a casual estimate, how long am I to be crippled?"

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

The doctor laughed. "There's a difference in rheumatism—and in men. If you don't mind, I'll reserve my answer for a day or two."

Markham growled. The doctor went away after writing upon a bit of paper these hieroglyphics:

[Handwriting: illegible prescription]

The prescription came, a powder of about the color of a pulverized Rameses II, and with what Markham thought might be very nearly the flavor of that defunct but estimable monarch. Night came also at length, and with it came an experience, new even to this man who had been knocked about somewhat, and who thought he knew his world. A man with a pain and isolation can make a great study of the former, and Markham had certainly all facilities in such uncanny direction. The day passed drearily, but without much suffering to the man in the bed. He could read, holding his book in his left hand, and he read far into the night. Then he was formally introduced—he couldn't help it—to Our Lady of Rheumatism. He was destined to become as well acquainted with her as was Antony with Cleopatra, or Pericles with Aspasia. Not extended, but violent, was to be the flirtation between these two.

Markham was tired and inclined to sleep, despite the obstacle intervening with each movement. Exhaustion forces a man to sleep sometimes when the pain which racks him is such that sleep would, under other circumstances, be impossible. When sleeping, come dreams of whatever object is nearest the heart, but the dreams are ever fantastic and distorted. There may be pleasant phases to the imagined happenings—this must be when the pain has for the moment ceased—but the dream is usually most perplexing, and its culmination most grotesque. At first Markham could not sleep at all. He was experiencing new sensations. From the affected leg and arm the nerves telegraphed to the brain certain interesting information. It was to the effect that a little pot was boiling on—or under—one leg and one arm. It was in the hollow underneath the knee, and that opposite the elbow joint that the boiling was—hardly a boil at first. The pain was not a twinge, it was not an ache, it was just a faintly simmering, vaguely hurting thing, enough to keep a man awake. Move but a trifle and the simmer became a boil. So the man lay still and suffered, not intensely, but irritatingly. And at last, despite the simmering, he slept.

"What dreams may come!" Markham slept, and, sleeping, he was with his love again, or at least trying to be. And what a season of it he had! It appeared late evening to him—it might be nine o'clock—but there was moonlight, while close to the ground was a white fog. He knew that She was waiting on a street only a block away from him, but he must pass through a park, a square rather densely wooded, with an iron fence about it and gates at the center on each side. From one gate to another a path led straight across through the thick shrubbery. In the queer combination of moon and fog all seemed uncanny, but he was going to meet Her and nothing mattered. He entered the little park jauntily, and went a few yards up the graveled walk between the trees and bushes, when there arose before him a startling figure. It was that of a man, or rather monster, with a huge chest, but narrow loins and oddly spindle legs, and with a white, dead face malignant of expression. The monster barred the passage and gestured menacingly, but uttered not a word. Markham did not care much. He was simply on his way to meet Her, and as for monsters and outre things in general, what did they amount to! He was going to meet Her! He advanced a little and studied the creature. "I can lick him," he soliloquized. "He's a whale about the chest but he's weak about the small of the back, and his legs are nothing, and I'll break him in two—him! I've got to meet Her!"

He plunged ahead, and suddenly the monster drifted aside into the bushes and out of sight. Markham went on to the gate opening upon the opposite street. He emerged upon the sidewalk and looked about for the woman he loved. She was not there. A most matter-of-fact looking man came along, and Markham asked him who or what it was that barred the passage in the park. "That?" said the wayfarer, "Oh, he's nothing! He's only The Mechanical Arbor Man!"

The explanation was enough for Markham. Any explanation is enough for any one in a dream. He went down the sidewalk fully satisfied with what was said, and intent only upon his errand. He must find his love. Maybe she had walked along to the next block. A group of bicyclists were careering by as he crossed the street. One of them passed so close that he ran over Markham's foot. Talk of sudden agony! It came then. The man awoke. It was three o'clock in the morning, and his rheumatism had developed suddenly into an agony. He said he would be practical. Surely, medical science, if it could not do away with a disease all at once, could alleviate extraordinary pain. Why should a man suffer needlessly? He sent for the doctor, and there was another brush of words between them. A degree of fun as well, for the doctor was not enduring anything, and was making a study of the case, and Markham was, between the ebullitions of agony, amused to an extent with his own strange physical condition. It seemed like prestidigitation to him. Here is what the doctor gave for his relief:

[Handwriting: illegible prescription]

The dose was taken as directed, and the man, suffering, set his teeth and awaited results. They did not come. The dose was repeated, duplicated and triplicated recklessly, but without result. The pain had grown to such proportions that the nerves had become hysterical, and would be stilled by no physician's potion. They were beyond all reason. This is but a simple, brief account of a man and a woman and some rheumatism. It has no plot, and is but the record of events. The immediate sequence just at this stage of happenings was an analysis by Markham of what it was he was enduring—that is, an attempt at analysis. He was, necessarily, not at his best in a discriminating way. The account may aid the doctors, though. Those of them who have not had rheumatism must labor under disadvantages in a diagnosis.

There are certain great holes in great rocks by the sea into which the water enters through submarine channels and creeps up and up, increasing its bubbling and its seething, as the flood fills the natural well until when the top is reached there is a boiling caldron. This is flood tide. So it seemed to him, came the pain to Markham. There would be no suffering, and then would come the faint perception that something unpleasant was about to happen in a certain locality, it might be almost anywhere, for the rheumatism was no longer confining itself to the right leg and the right arm, but rioted through all the man's limbs and about his back and shoulders. It went about like a vulture after food, alighting where it found prey to suit its fancy.

There would be the bubble and trickle beneath the knee and in the calf of the leg, and then would come the increase of turbulence as the flood rose, and then the boiling and the torture culminating throughout a long hour and a half. Then the new murmur somewhere else and the same event. Even in a finger or a toe definitely would the thing at times occur, the pain being, if possible, more intense in such event, because, seemingly, more contracted.

Pains may be said to have colors; in fact, this can be recognized even by the less imaginative. A burn, a cut, you have a scarlet pain. A slap might produce a pink pain, something less intense. But the pain of rheumatism is of another sort; there is no glitter to it. It is always blue, light at first, and gradually deepening until it becomes the very blue-blackness of all misery. This is the muscular stage; when it reaches the inflammatory there is a new sensation, something almost grinding. This latter feature Markham had to learn, for when morning broke, a single toe and all of one hand were swollen and unbendable. He was becoming an expert on sensations. He had formed his own idea of the Spanish Inquisition. It had never invented anything worth while, after all!

At 11 A.M. all pain suddenly ceased—even Our Lady of Rheumatism tires temporarily of caressing—and the exhausted man slept. What a sleep it was—glorious, but not dreamless. He was wandering through the halls of the greatest fair the world has ever seen, and he had a purse! The exhibitors were selling things, and what marvels he bought for Her! There were Russian sables fit for her slender shoulders, and he took them. Robes of the silver fox as soft as eider-down, and a cloak of royal ermine; he secured them, too. She was fond of rubies, and he purchased the most glorious of them all. For himself he bought but a single thing, a picture of a woman with a neck like hers. And then, wandering about seeking more gifts, he came to where they were melting a silver statue of an actress and stepped into a pan of the molten metal! He awoke then. Our Lady was caressing him again.

The doctor came and heard the story, and to say that Markham exhibited a great command of language in the telling, would be to do him but mild justice. The doctor, accustomed to his kind changed into wild animals by pain, only laughed. And then that Hagenback of his profession wrote upon a piece of paper this:

[Handwriting: illegible prescription]

There is no definiteness to this account. There is no relevance between time and occurrences, save in a vague, general way. A month would cover all the tale, but there are lapses. Markham suffered steadily, but not so patiently as would have done another man. The doctor visited him regularly, and they had difficulties such as will occur between men learning to understand each other pretty well, and so risking all debate. Two other prescriptions the doctor made, and these were all, not counting repetitions at the druggists. These two prescriptions, one, another ineffectual sedative, so great was the man's suffering, and the other but a segment of the medical program looking toward a cure, may be dropped into the matter casually.

So the man sick with what makes strong men yield, struggled and suffered, until there came to him one day a man of color. Black as the conventional ace of spades was this man, and most impudent of expression, but he bore a note from Her. She had known him formerly but as a serving man in a boarding-house, but he had told to another servant, in her hearing, of how he had been engaged for years in a Turkish bath, and how he had cured a certain great man of rheumatism. She had remembered it, and had summoned this person of deep color that she might send him to the man she loved. There are a number of men in the world who can imagine what this messenger was to Markham under such circumstances! What to any healthy and healthful man is evidence of thinking about and for him from the one woman!

He questioned the visitor. He learned that he was at present a professional prize-fighter, most of the time out of an engagement. His appearance tended to establish his veracity in this particular instance. He looked like a thug and looked like a person out of employment for a long time.

What could he do? was demanded of the messenger. Well, he could "cure de rheumatism, shuah." How would he do it? He would "take de gemman to a Turkish bath and rub him and put some stuff on him."

Of course Markham was going to try the remedy. He would have tried a prescription of sleeping all night on wet grass under a upas tree, if such a remedy for rheumatism had come from Her. But he was fair about it all. He sent for the doctor. It was on this occasion that occurred their first controversy.

The doctor did not object to the Turkish bath nor the manipulation by the prize-fighter. "Be careful," he said, "when you come out—don't get a chill—and it may help you. What he rubs you with won't hurt you, and the rubbing is good in itself."

[Handwriting: illegible prescription]

"But why haven't your prescriptions made me well?" demanded Markham.

The doctor was placid. "Because we don't know enough about rheumatism yet," he answered.

"Well, what excuse has your profession? You've been fooling about for thousands of years and don't know yet the real cause of a common ailment. What is rheumatism, anyhow?"

The doctor was conservative in his expression.

"It's a microbe," blurted out Markham. "I tell you it's a microbe! They are holding congresses and town meetings and pink teas all over me! There's a Browning Society meeting in my left knee just now, and that's what makes the agony. How could there be such a skipping about from one place to another, neither place diseased in itself, if there were not an active, living agency at work? Tell me that!"

The doctor admitted that microbes might cause the trouble. But he had a word or two to say about this individual case. There had been but a little over three weeks of the agony. The case was a particularly bad one, and he didn't mind admitting that the patient was particularly intractable and doubting. Optimism had much to do with a recovery in most cases of illness, and optimism was here lacking. But he would wager a box of cigars that the patient was on his feet again within two weeks. The wager was taken with great promptness, and then the patient was loaded into a cab and sent off with the black prize-fighter.

What happened in that Turkish bath will never be told with all its proper lurid coloring. The prize-fighter stopped at a drug store and bought a mixture of cocoanut oil and alcohol. Markham took a bath in the usual way, and then was taken by the demon controlling him into the apartment for soaping and all cleansing and manipulation. Here occurred the tragedy. One leg had become stiffened, and the prize-fighter suddenly jumped upon it and broke it down, and Markham rolled off the marble slab, almost fainting from the pain. Then he recovered and tried to fight, but could do nothing, being a weak cripple, and was literally beaten into limberness. Then, using awful language, but helpless, he was carried to the cooling room and there rubbed with the alcohol and oil. He was taken to the cab more dead than alive. That night he had a little rest, and dreamed of Her, and how she had sent him a black angel with white wings. The next day he went with the prize-fighter again, but informed him that when well he should kill him. For three days this continued. The fourth day the prize-fighter got drunk and was arrested, and was sent to jail for thirty days. Meanwhile Markham had continued the physician's prescriptions faithfully. A week later he was practically well.

The man, walking again, went to Her. He said, "You have been my salvation, as usual."

"I don't know," she answered, thoughtfully. "I do know this, though, dear, that with you away from me and ill, I realized somehow more fully what you are to me. I wanted to do things. I have read often about a mother and a child. I think I had something of that feeling. I know now about us; we must never misunderstand again. I don't think the colored man helped you much, and I understand he is a most disreputable person."

He looked into her eyes, but uttered only a sentence of two words, "Little Mother."

Markham visited the doctor, proud on his way of the swing of his legs again. "It was a pretty swift cure," he said, "and I suppose you ought to have some of the credit for it."

[Handwriting: illegible prescription]

The doctor advanced the proposition that he ought to have, with nature, not some, but all of the credit.

"There's a difference in patients," he remarked, "and when you began to improve you 'hustled.' But my treatment, those prescriptions, offset the poison—call it microbes, if you wish—in your blood and gave your physique and constitution and general health a chance. The darky does not figure."

There was a good-natured debate, Markham being now reasonable, but no conclusion. What did cure Markham? Was it the physician's treatment, the course with the prize-fighter, or the effect upon Markham's mind of the fact that the latter was all from Her? Will some one say?

A week or two after his complete recovery, Markham asked the doctor what course to follow to avoid a possible recurrence at any time of what he had endured. The physician was very much in earnest in his answer. "Be careful of what you eat and drink," he said, "and careful of yourself in a general way aside from that. Do not take risks of colds. Be, in short, a man of sense regarding your physical welfare."

"But I'm going into the woods of Northern Michigan on a shooting and fishing trip," was the answer, "and we've got to sleep on the ground, and to a certainty, we'll fall into some creek or lake on an average of once a day; and, old man, we've room for another in the party."

"I'll come!" said the doctor.

But what cured Markham?



THE RED REVENGER

To build a really good jumper you must first find a couple of young iron-wood trees, say three inches in thickness and with a clean length of about twelve feet, clear of knots or limbs. If you chance to stumble upon a couple with a natural bend, so that each curls up properly like a sled runner, so much the better. But it isn't likely you'll find a pair of just that sort. Young iron-wood trees do not ordinarily grow that way, and the chances are you'll have to bend them artificially, cutting notches with an ax on the upper side of each to allow the curvature. With strong cross-pieces, stout oak reams, and the general construction of a rude sled rudely imitated, you will have made what will carry a ponderous load. The bottom of the iron-woods must, of course, be shaved off evenly with a draw-shave and some people would nail on each a shoe of strap-iron, but that is really needless. Iron-wood wears smooth against the snow and ice and makes a noble runner anyhow. Only an auger and sense and hickory pegs and an eye for business need be utilized in the making, and in fact this economical construction is the best. That "the dearest is the cheapest" is a tolerably good maxim, but does not apply forever in regions where nature's heart and man's heart and the man's hands are all tangled up together. The hickory creaks and yields, but it is tough and does not break. Such means of conveyance as that outlined, in angles chiefly, is equal to a sled for many things, and better for many others.

There may be people of the ignorant sort who have always lived in towns, who do not know what a jumper is. A jumper is a sort of sled, a part of the twist and wrench of a new world and new devices of living, and is used in newly-settled regions. It doesn't cost much, and you can drive with it over anything that fails to offer a stern check to horses or a yoke of oxen. It is great for "coasting," as they call it in some part of the country; "sliding down hill" in others. It was a big jumper of the sort described which was the pride of the boys in the Leavitt district school. They had nailed boards across it to make a floor, and the load that jumper carried on occasions was something wonderful. It would sustain as many boys and girls as could be packed upon it. Sometimes there came a need for strange devices as to getting on, and then the mass of boys would make the journey with its perils, laid criss-cross in layers, like cord-wood, four deep and very much alive and apprehensive.

The Leavitt school was situated in the country, ten miles from the nearest town, and those who attended it were the farmers' sons and daughters. In winter the well-grown ones, those who had work to do in summer, would appear among the pupils, and this winter Jack Burrows, aged eighteen, was among the older boys. He was there, strong, hard working at his books, a fine young animal, and it may be added of him that he was there, in love, deeply and almost hopelessly. Among the girls in attendance was one who was different from the rest, just as an Alderney is different from a group of Devon heifers. She was no better, but she was different, that was all. She had come from a town, Miss Jennie Orton, aged seventeen, and she was spending the winter with the family of her uncle. Her own people were neither better off nor counted superior in any way to those she was now among, but she had a town way with her, a certain something, and was to the boys a most attractive creature. There was nothing wonderful about her—that is, there wouldn't be to you or me—but she was a bright girl and a good one, and she awed Jack Burrows. A girl of seventeen is ten years older than a boy of eighteen, and in this case the added fact that the girl had lived in town and the boy had not, but added to the natural disparity. Jack had made some sturdy but shy advances which had been well enough received—in her heart Jennie thought him an excessively fine fellow—but being a male, and young, and lacking the sight which sees, he failed to take this graciousness at its full value. He had ventured to become her escort on the occasion of this sleigh ride or of that, but when all were crowded together by twos in the big straw-carpeted box, on the red bob-sleds, and the bells were jangling and the woods were slipping by and the bright stars overhead seemed laughing at something going on beneath them, his arm—to its shame be it said—had failed to steal about her waist, nor had he dared to touch his lips to hers, beneath the hooded shelter of the great buffalo robe which curled protectingly around them. He would as soon have dared such familiarity with the minister's maiden sister, aged forty-two and prim as a Bible book-mark. Yet Jennie was just the sort of girl whom a cold-blooded expert must have declared as really meriting a kiss, when prudent and fairly practicable for the kisser and kissee, and as possessing just the sort of waist to be fitted handsomely by a good, strong arm. Jack, full of fun and ordinarily plucky enough—he had kissed other girls and had licked Jim Bigelow for saying Jennie Orton put on town airs—was simply in a funk. He could not bring himself to a manly wooing point. He was not without a resolve in the matter, for he was a determined youth, but in this callow strait of his, he was weakling enough to resort to devious methods. He wore no willow; he lost no weight. But the spell of love which warps us was upon him, and he swerved from the straight line, though bent upon his conquest. He was resolved to have that arm of his about sweet Jennie's waist somehow, if he died for it, but with discretion. He would not offend her for the world. So he fell to plotting.

There had come a deep snow, and then the heavens had opened and there had followed a great rain. The schoolhouse stood on the crest of a hill and by it the highway ran down a steep slope and right across the flats, and the road, raised three feet higher than the low lands which it crossed, showed darkly just above the water. Then came snow again, and the road showed next a straight white band across the water. And now had come some colder weather, and ice had formed above the waiting waters which spread out so in all directions. What skating there would be! The boys had tried the ice, but it was coy and threatening, not yet quite safe to venture forth upon. It was what the boys called "India-rubber ice"; ice which would bend beneath their tread, but would not quite support them when they stopped. It would be all right, they said, in just a day or two. To venture recklessly upon its surface now was but to drop through two feet deep of water. And water beneath the ice in early March is cold upon the flats. In the interval there would be, at recess and at noontime, great sport in sliding down the hill.

The jumper, which, as already said, was a marvel of stoutness and dimensions, was the work chiefly of Jack, but he had been assisted in the labor by Billy Coburg, his chosen friend and ally in all emergencies. Billy was as good as gold, a fat fellow with yellow hair and a red face, full of ingenious devices, stanch in his friendship, and as fond of fun as of eating, in which last field he was eminently great. In the possession of some one of the boys was a thick, old-fashioned novel of the yellow-covered type, entitled, "Rinard, the Red Revenger," and Billy had followed the record of the murderous pirate chieftain with the greatest gusto, and had insisted upon bestowing his title upon the jumper. So it came that the Red Revenger was the pride and comfort of the school, and Jack Burrows, as he looked up from his algebra and out the window at it in the frost-fringed morning hour, rather congratulated himself upon its general style. They'd had a lot of fun with it. His eyes wandered to the ice-covered flats and the narrow roadway stretching white across them. What a time they had yesterday keeping the jumper on the track, and what a shrewd device they had for steering! A hole had been bored down through the heel of each thick runner, and on each aft corner of the jumper had a boy been stationed armed with a sharpened hickory stick. To swerve the jumper to the left, the boy on the right but pressed his stick down through the hole beneath him, and the sharp point scraping along the ice-covered ground, must slow the jumper as desired. And so, on the other side, when the jumper threatened to go off the roadway to the left, the boy on that side acted. It was a great invention and a necessary one. What would happen if that jumper, loaded with boys and girls, should leave the track just now? Jack chuckled as he thought of it. With its broad, sustaining runners, and with impetus once gained by its sheer descent, for what a distance must it speed upon that India-rubber ice before it finally broke through! What a happening then! The moderately bad boy's countenance was radiant as the contemplation of this catastrophe came upon him with its rounded force. He turned his face, and his gaze fell upon the trim figure of Jennie Orton on the other side of the room. How things go. There was an instant association of ideas between girl and jumper. The young fellow's face became first bright, and then most shrewdly thoughtful. School was dismissed for the noon hour. And then, after the lunches had been eaten, Jack Burrows went outside with Billy Coburg.

"Hi-yah! Jack and Billy are just going to start down hill on the jumper! Look at 'em show off their steering!" yelled a small boy, and the pupils rushed to the windows and out at the door. The jumper had just started.

One at each rear corner of the big sled sat Jack and Billy, each with a sharpened stick in hand, and thrust down strongly through the bored hole in the runner. The jumper started slowly, then, gaining speed, rushed down the hill like a thunderbolt, the hardened snow screaming beneath in its grating passage. The road below was entered fairly, and deftly steered, the Red Revenger skimmed away and away into the far distance. It was an exhilarating sight. Then, a little later, pulling the jumper easily behind them and up the hill again, came Jack and Billy, and shouted out loudly and enthusiastically the proposition that everybody should come out and go down the hill with the biggest load the jumper had ever carried.

The pupils, big and little, swarmed out in a crowd, all inclined, if not to ride, at least to see the sweeping descent under circumstances so favorable. Some of the larger girls hesitated, but Billy especially was earnest in his pleading that the trip should be the big one of the winter, and that they must see how many the Red Revenger could carry at one swoop. And finally all consented. A look of relief and satisfaction flashed across the face of Jack as Jennie got on with the rest, though there was nothing strange in that, joining as she always did with the other pupils in their various sports. The laden jumper was a sight for a mountain packer or a steerage passenger agent or a street car magnate to see and enjoy most mightily. It was loaded and overloaded. The larger girls, as became their dignity, were seated in the middle, and close behind them were the smaller children. In front was a mass of boys of varying ages. "On account of there isn't much room," said Billy, "you'll have to cord up," and so three boys lay down on the huge sled crosswise, three lay in the other direction across them, and three again across these latter. It was a little hard on those underneath, but they didn't mind it. Behind were Jack and Billy as steerers, and three or four more stood up on the sides and hung on to the others. There were twenty-three in all, every pupil attending the school that day.

All was ready. "On account of the road's so smooth, she'll be a hummer," said Billy.

"Let her go," ordered Jack. A kick and the jumper was off.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, moved the big sled, borne hard to the ground by such a burden. No one was alarmed. But as it slid downward, the jumper gathered way, and faster and faster it went, and the sound from beneath changed from a shrill grating to a menacing roar, and the thing seemed like a big something launched downward from a huge catapult at the narrow strip of road across the ice. With set teeth sat Jack and Billy at their stakes, each steering carefully and well. There was no swerve. The road was entered upon deftly with a rush, and out upon it sped the monster. Then Jack said quietly, "Look out, Billy!" Billy looked across at him and grinned, but uttered never a word nor made a move as they tore along. But there was a sudden movement on Jack's part, and his stake bore down hardly through the hole in the runner. The flying jumper trembled and swayed, and then like a flash left the roadway and darted down upon and away across the ice.

There was one shriek from the girls, and then all was quiet. "Whish!" That was all as the jumper shot out over the glass-like surface. The ice bent into a valley, but the Red Revenger was away before the break came. It seemed as if the wild, fierce flight would never cease. But there is an end to all things, and at last came a diminution of the jumper's speed. Slower and slower moved the thing, then came a pause and sudden quivering, and then a crash beneath and all about, and the jumper, with its living load, dropped to the bottom! There was no tragedy complete. The water came up just to the side rails and no further.

For fifteen or twenty feet on every side the ice bobbed up and down in floating fragments, and beyond that, where it still remained intact, it would support no one stepping out upon it from the water. It was "India-rubber ice" no longer; it was cracked and brittle to the very shore. That the jumper had careered out so far into the flats was because of its velocity alone. There it stood, an island in a sea of ice water; not a desert island, exactly, either. It was populated—very densely populated. It was populated several deep, and now from its inhabitants went up a dreadful howl.

There was no visible means of escape from the surface of the Red Revenger. The boys who had been "corded" managed to change their positions somehow, and stood where they had got upon their feet, holding themselves together, and the girls and younger children sat stupefied in the positions they had held when coming down the hill, from the throats of the latter going up the lively wail referred to. Billy looked across at Jack and grinned again, this time with great solemnity, and Jack himself looked just a trifle grave.

"Bang! rat-tat-tat! whack!" sounded from the schoolhouse, and the faces of the younger children paled. The noon hour had reached its end, and the schoolmaster was sounding his usual call. No bells summoned the pupils at this rural place of learning, but instead, at recess and at noon time the pedagogue came to the door and hammered loudly with his ruler upon the clapboards there beside him. Very grim was this same schoolmaster, and unfortunate was the pupil who came into the room a laggard after that harsh summons had rung out across the fields and flats. There stood the schoolmaster—he could be seen from the Red Revenger—and it was not difficult even at that distance to imagine the ominous look upon his face. Again and again came forth the wooden call, and then the schoolmaster stepped out into the roadway. He looked about inquiringly. He came to the top of the hill, from whence, off in the flats, the jumper and its load were plainly seen, and then he paused. It was clear that he was puzzled and was meditating. He called out hoarsely:

"What do you mean? What are you doing? Come in, and come now!"

There was no mistaking the quality of that sharp summons. It meant business, and in all probability it meant trouble, too, for somebody; trouble of strictly personal, as well as of a physical character. There was no reply for a moment, and then Billy, the reprobate, grinning again at Jack, and giving to his voice a tone intended to be a compound of profound respect and something like unlimited despair, bawled out:

"We can't!"

The teacher descended the hill with all firmness and sedateness; he looked like a ramrod, or a poker, or anything stiff and straight, and suggestive of unpleasantness. He followed the roadway until just opposite the jumper, and then surveying the scene with an angry eye, commanded all to return to the schoolhouse on the moment. Here the situation became acute. It was Jack's turn now to make things clear. That villain rose to the occasion gallantly. He shouted out an explanation of how the jumper had happened, by the merest accident in the world, to leave the roadway, and had gone out so far upon the India-rubber ice; how the final catastrophe had taken place, and how helpless they all were in their present condition. The road could be reached only by a wade of a hundred yards through two feet deep of ice water—more in places—breaking the ice as an advance was made. It would be an awful undertaking, the death almost of the little children, and dangerous to all. What should they do? And the rascal's voice grew full of trouble and apprehension. Fortunately for him, the teacher was too far off to note the expression on his face.

The czar of winter did not wait long. He started off, and was over the hill again and out of sight within the next three minutes, and it was clear that he was going somewhere for assistance. Then some of the other boys wanted to know what was to be done, and Billy looked at Jack inquiringly.

"Well, on account of the fix we're in, what's going to happen next!"

Jack, somehow, did not seem undetermined. He answered promptly: "What is going to happen is this: The teacher has gone over to Mapleson's for help. He might as well have stayed in the schoolhouse. They can't drive a wagon in here, and the ice is so thin, and is cracked so, they can't even put planks out upon it. They can't help us in any way. What shall we do? Why, we can't stay here all night and freeze. Somebody's got to break a path to the shore, that's all, and then we've got to wade out, and the sooner we do it the better."

The smaller children began to cry; the older boys growled; the big girls shuddered; Billy grinned.

"There's no reason why everybody should get wet," broke out Jack, suddenly. "Here! I'll break a way to the road myself, and carry one of the youngsters. We'll see how it goes."

He caught up one of the little children and stepped off into the ice-packed water. Ugh! but it was cold, and he set his teeth hard. He floundered over to where the unbroken ice began, and then raising his feet alternately above its edge, he crushed it downward. It was not physically a great task for this strong fellow, but it was not a swift one, and the water was deadly cold. His blood was chilling, but the roadway was reached at last. He set the child down quickly, told it to run to the schoolhouse and stand beside the stove, and then himself began running up and down the road to get his blood in fuller circulation. Into the water he plunged again and reached the Red Revenger. "Here," he said, "each one of you big fellows carry some one ashore. Jump in, quick!"

The boys hesitated, and went into the water in a gingerly way, but did very well, the plunge once taken, and Jack apportioned to each of them his burden. The procession waded off boisterously but shudderingly. As for Jack himself, he got one youngster clinging about his neck and another perched upon each hip, and then waded off with the rest. There were left on the jumper but two more of the small children, and Jennie. That was Jack's shrewdness. He was well spent and shaky when he reached the shore this time.

He put the children down and turned to Billy. "B-b-illy," he chattered, "will you go back with me, and will you bring ashore those two kids?"

Billy looked a trifle dismal. He had just set down upon the roadway the girl he liked best, and he wanted to go to the schoolhouse with her. Added to this he was awfully cold. But he was faithful.

"On account of you've done more than your share I'll go you," he decided.

They went out again, out through that dreadful hundred yards of icy flood, and Billy marched off with the children, and then Jack reached out his hands, though hesitatingly. He was bashful still, despite the emergency his villainy had made. As for Jennie, she did not hesitate. She stepped up close to him, was taken in his arms like a baby, and the journey began. What a trip it was for Jack! There she was, clinging fast to him, and he with his arms close about her! Who said that the water was cold? It was just right—never was more delightful water! And she didn't seem to dislike the journey, either. She even seemed to cuddle a little. He wished it were a mile to land. Hooray!

And the road was reached at last, and the blushing and beaming young lady set down upon her feet. She didn't say anything but reached out her hand to Jack, and led him on a run to the schoolhouse. The fire had been kindled into roaring strength by those first to reach the place, and all the soaked ones gathered about the stove and steamed there into relative degrees of dryness. Jack steamed with the rest, but he was in a dream—one of the blissful type.

In time the teacher returned, and with him a farmer and his hired man, and a team and a wagon-load of plank, too late for aid, even had aid been practicable. There was no school that afternoon. The teacher could not accuse any one of fault, nor blame the pupils that they had hesitated when he called them; while, on the other hand, he was deterred from saying anything commendatory of the waders. He suspected something, he couldn't tell exactly what, and he didn't propose to commit himself. The most he could do was to recognize the fact that the big boys should get to their homes as soon as possible and dry their boots and stockings. He dismissed the pupils, and so that eventful day was ended. Jack's boots were full of dampness still, and his feet were chilly, but as he walked home he walked on air.

The succeeding night was one of bitter cold, and the morning saw the ice upon the flats no longer yielding, but so thick and solid that wagons might be driven upon it anywhere without a risk. Even the lately opened space about the partly submerged jumper was frozen over, and the top of the Red Revenger showed where that interesting but ill-fated craft was fixed for some time to come. "On account of she's frozen in so deep, we'd better let 'er stay there," commented Billy; and so coasting, save upon ordinary sleds, was discontinued for the season. It was pretty near spring, anyhow.

The frost-decorated windows of the schoolhouse blazed in the morning sun, and was a glory on the heads of the girls. But no head was so bright, in the opinion of Jack Burrows, as that of Jennie Orton. Her brown hair gleamed like gold, and as for the rest of her—well he thought as he looked across the room, there was nothing to improve. It seemed hardly possible that only the afternoon before he had held that creature in his arms and carried her so three hundred feet or more. It was all true, though, and Jennie had smiled across at him just now. He was more deeply in love than ever, but his timidity had somehow much abated. She was as beautiful as ever, but she seemed more human. He felt that he could speak to her, make love to her, as he might to another girl. Of course he couldn't do it very confidently, but he could venture, and he resolved to ask leave to bring her to the spelling school that very evening. He did so, pluckily, at recess, and she consented.

As they were walking home that night, they fell naturally to talking of the grewsome adventure of the day before; and Jennie asked Jack, innocently, to explain to her the method by which he and Billy were accustomed to steer the Red Revenger. He explained fluently and with some pride, and she listened with close attention. When he had done she remained silent for a few moments, and then said quietly:

"You did it on purpose."

The young man was dazed. He could say nothing at first, but managed finally to blunder out:

"How did you know that?"

"I saw you and Billy look at each other, and saw you push down hard on the stake. Why did you do it?"

Jack was truthful at least, and, furthermore, he had perception keen enough to see that in his present strait was afforded opportunity for speaking to the point on a subject he had feared to venture. He was reckless now.

"I wanted to carry you ashore in my arms," he said.

There was, as any thoughtful girl would admit, really nothing in all this for Jennie to get very angry over, and, to do her credit, it must be added that she showed no anger at all. Of the details of what more was said, information is unfortunately and absolutely lacking, but certain it is that before Jennie's home was reached Jack's arm had found a place not very far from that which it had occupied the afternoon before.

They marry young in the country, but seventeen and eighteen are ages, which, even on the farm, are not considered sufficiently advanced for such grave venture, and so, though Jack's wooing prospered famously, there was no wedding in the spring. There was the most trustful and delightful of understandings, though, and three years later Jennie came from the town to live permanently on the farm, and her name was changed to Burrows.

"On account of the Red Revenger was a pirate craft, and took to the water naturally, Jack got braced up to begin his courting, and so got married," said Billy, in explanation of the event.



A MURDERER'S ACCOMPLICE

It is part of my good fortune in life to know a beautiful and lovable woman. She is as sweet, it seems to me, as any woman can be who has come into this world. She is good. She is not very rich, but she helps the needy as far as she can from her moderate purse. I have known her to attend at the bedside of a poor dying person when the doctor had told her that the trouble might be smallpox. I should say, at a venture, that this woman will go to heaven when she dies. But she will not go to heaven unless ignorance is an excuse for wickedness. If she does go there, it must be as the savage goes who knows no better than to do things which thoughtful people, to whom what is good has been taught, count as cruel and merciless. As the savage is a murderer, so is she the accomplice of a murderer, although it is possible that by the Great Judge neither may be so classified at the end, because of their lack of knowing.

I met this lovable woman on the street the other day, and we walked and talked together. She had only good in her heart in all she was planning to do. She had taste for outlines and color, and she was very fair to look upon. Her dress—"tailor-made," I think the women call it—set off her perfect figure to advantage, and her hat was a symmetrical completion of the whole effect. It was a neat, well-proportioned whole, the woman and her toilet, which I, being a man, of course, cannot describe. One of her adornments was the head, breast, and wing of a Baltimore oriole, worn in her hat.

I met this same woman again a day or two ago in another garb not less charming and artistic. We ate luncheon together, and it made life worth living to be with a creature so fair and good. In her hat this time was a touch of the sky when it lies over a great lake. It was the wing of a bluebird.

I know—or knew—four birds, and to know a fair bird well is almost equal to knowing a fair woman well, though they have different ways. Two of these birds that I knew were orioles and two were bluebirds. The two orioles and the two bluebirds were husbands and wives. I stumbled upon them all last year. The bluebirds had a nest in a hole in a hard maple stump in a clearing in St. Clair County, Michigan. The orioles' nest was well woven in pear shape, dangling from close-swinging twigs at the end of an elm limb which hung over a creek in Orange County, Indiana. The male oriole attended faithfully to the wants of his soberer-hued wife sitting upon the four eggs in their nest. He was gorgeous all over, in his orange and black, and as faithfully and gallantly as the male bluebird did he regard his mate, and he was, if possible, even more jealous and watchful in his unwearied care of her.

They made two very happy and earnest families. Each male, in addition to caring for his mate, did good in the world for men and women. Each killed noxious worms and insects for food, and each, in the very exuberance of the flush year, and of living, gave forth at times such music that all men, women, and children who listened, though they might be dull and ignorant, somehow felt better, and were better as well as happier human beings. But there was death in the air. The male oriole and the male bluebird had each a brilliant coat!

Young were hatched in each of these two nests—vigorous, clamoring young, coming from the eggs of the beautiful bird couples. The father and mother oriole and the father and mother bluebird, each pair vain and prettily jubilant over what had happened, worked very hard to bring food to the open mouths of their offspring. The young ones were growing and flourishing, and they were all happy.

One day, in St. Clair County, Michigan, a man armed with a shotgun went out into a clearing. The shot in the gun was of the kind known as "mustard-seed." It is so fine that it will not mar the feathers of the bird it kills. On the same day, possibly, or at least very nearly at the same time, a man similarly armed strolled down beside a creek in Orange County, Indiana. The man in Michigan wanted to kill the beautiful male bluebird who was bringing food to his young ones. The man in Indiana wanted to kill the magnificent male oriole who was feeding his young birds in the nest. It was not difficult for either of these two brutes to kill the two happy bird fathers. They were business-like butchers, just of the type of man who make the dog-catchers in cities—and they had no nerves and shot well. One of them took home a beautiful dead oriole, and the other took not one but two beautiful bluebirds, for as the male bluebird came back to the nest with food for the younglings, it so chanced that the female came also, and the same charge of shot killed them both.

"She isn't quite as purty as the he-bird," said the man, as he picked up the two, "but maybe I can get a little something for her."

The man who shot the oriole would have gladly committed and profited by a similar double murder had the mother bird happened upon the scene when he shot her orange-and-black mate.

These two slayers, who carried shotguns loaded with "mustard-seed" shot, went out after the beautiful birds, because from Chicago and New York had come into their country certain men who represented great millinery furnishing houses, and these men had left word with local dealers in the country towns that they would pay money for the beautiful feathers of bluebirds and orioles and other birds. The little local dealers were promised a profit on all such spoils sent by them to the great city dealers, and they had set the men with the shotguns at work. Mating time and nesting time are the times for murdering birds, because at that season not only is their plumage finest, but the birds are more easily to be found and killed. It is then that they sing their clearest and strongest notes of joy; then, that they hover constantly near their nests; and it is very easy to stop their music.

So there remained in the nest in the maple stump four little helpless orphan bluebirds, and in the swaying nest in the elm-tree over the brook were four young orioles with only the mother bird to care for them. The widowed oriole fluttered about and beat her wings against the bushes in vain search for her lost love—for birds love as madly, and, I have sometimes thought, more faithfully than do human beings. But her children clamored, and the oriole had the mother instinct as well as the faithful love in her, and so she went to work for them. She didn't know how to get food for them very well at first, for bird wives and husbands have in some ways the same relations that we human beings have when we are wives and husbands. The male oriole, who had been learning where the insects and worms are, where whatever is good for little birds is, all through the time while the female bird is sitting on the nest, must necessarily know much more than his wife as to where things to eat for the children may be found nearest and most easily and swiftly. That is the great lesson the male bird learns while the female is sitting on the eggs and maturing into life the new creatures whose birth and being shall make this little loving couple happy in the way the good God has designated one form of happiness shall come to His creatures, be they with or without feathers.

The forlorn mother did as best she could. She fluttered through brakes and bushes seeking food for her young, but her children did not thrive very well. She worked so hard for them—human mothers and bird mothers are very much alike in this way—that she became thin and weak, and with each day that passed she brought less food to the little ones in the wonderfully constructed nest which she and her husband had made in the spring, when the smell of the liverworts was in the air, and muskrats swam together and made love to each other in the creek below. She sometimes, in the midst of her trouble (the trouble which came because my sweet woman, must have a bird's feather in her hat) would think of that springtime homemaking, and then this poor little widow would give a little bird gasp. That was all. One day she had searched hard for food for her young, for as they grew bigger they demanded more and were more arrogantly hungry. As she perched to rest a moment upon a twig, beneath which in the grass were a few late dandelions, she felt coming over her a weakness she could not resist. As a matter of fact, the bird mother had been overworked and so killed. Birds, overpressed, die as human beings do. So the mother bird, after a few moments, fell off the twig upon which she had paused for rest, and lay, a pretty little dead thing down in the grass among the dandelions. Then, of course, her children gasped and writhed and clamored in the nest, and at last, almost together, died of starvation.

Days and days before this the history of the bluebird family had ended. The four little bluebirds, being merely helpless young birds, lone and hungry, did nothing for a few hours after their bereavement but call for food, as was a habit of theirs. But nothing came to them—neither their father nor their mother came. They didn't know much except to be hungry, these little bluebirds. They couldn't know much, of course, as young as they were, and being but bird things with stomachs, they just wanted something to eat. They did not even know that if they did not get the food they wanted so much the ants would come and the other creatures of nature, and eat them. But they cried aloud, and more and more faintly, and at last were still. And the ants came. They found four little things with blue feathers just sprouting upon them, particularly upon the wings, where the growth seemed strongest and bluest, but the four little things were dead. It was all delightful for the ants and the other small things; all good in their way, who came seeking food. The very young birds, which had died gasping, that a woman might wear bright feathers in her hat, were fine eating for the ants.

Of course, one cannot tell very well in detail how a starving young bird dies. It is but a little creature with great possibilities of song and beauty and happiness; but if something big and strong kills its father and mother, then there is nothing for it but to lie back in the nest and open its mouth in vain for food, and then it must finally, a preposterously awfully suffering little lump of flesh and starting feathers, look up at the sky and die in hungry agony. Then the ants come.

The story I have told of the two bird families and how they died is true. Worst of all it is that theirs is a tragedy repeated in reality thousands and thousands of times every year; yet the beautiful woman I tried to describe at the beginning of this account wears birds and their wings on her hat. It is because she and other women wear birds' feathers that these tragic things take place in the woods and clearings and open spaces of God's beautiful world. I say to any woman in all the world that she is wicked if she wears the feather of any of the birds which make the world happier and better for being in it. If women must wear feathers, there are enough for their adornment from birds used for food, and from the ostrich, which is not injured when its plumes are taken.

So long as my beautiful woman wears the feathers of the bluebird, the oriole, or any other of the singing creatures of God, I call her the accomplice of a murderer. I have talked to her, but somehow I cannot make her listen to the story of what lies back of the feathers on her hat. She is more accustomed to praise than blame. When this is printed I shall send it to her, and it may be that she will read it and grow earnest over it, and that her heart will be touched, and that she will never again deserve the name she merits now.

* * * * *

There are, it is said, certain savages—just barely human beings—called Dyaks. They have become famous to the world as "head-hunters." These Dyaks creep through miles of forest paths and kill as many as they can of another lot of people, and then cut off the heads of the slain and dry them, and hang them up, arranged on lines more or less artistically festooned about the place in which they live. This exhibition of dried and dead human heads seems to make these swart and murderous savages vain and glad. These people are, as we understand, or think we understand, but undeveloped, cruel, bloody-minded human creatures. They prefer dried human heads to delicate ferns showing wonderful outlines, or to brilliant leaves and fragrant flowers. They have their own ideas concerning decoration.