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 cadence, as for something known in happier times, denied through hardship and lonely days.

But he would not ask her to sing, feeling that her heart would not be in it. The others were beginning it all over again when Malcolm Duncan came home. Texas was thankful that greetings made it necessary to suspend the din.

Duncan was a splendid figure of manhood, tall and rugged, with the health of his clean life in his eyes. His broad forehead and short gray beard gave him an appearance more suited to a chair in a university than a seat in the saddle. It was plain where the girls got their comeliness.

The Duncan girls took their strong-lunged admirers out to gabble under the moon while the master of the house had his supper, leaving Texas and Sallie to follow, pairing off as ingeniously as birds. Sallie lingered a little behind the others, answering Duncan's inquiries about her mother, and whether she had brought him the Kansas City paper. Texas waited in the hall-like passage between the two sections of the house, where a bracketlamp shone over the saddles and guns which hung along the wall.

"I thought I knew that belt," said Sallie, stopping where Texas had hung his gun. "I wonder how it came here?"

"It's mine—Uncle Boley gave it to me," he ex-

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 plained. "He told me it was carried once by the best man he ever knew."

"It was father's gun," she said softly. She had taken it down, and stood now looking at the heavy gear with her head bowed over it. Texas saw a tear fall on the chafed leather. He put out his hand as if to comfort or assure her.

"I hope I'll always be worthy of it, Miss McCoy."

"I'm sure you will," she said, in simple sincerity. "Did you have it—was this the gun you—" She faltered over the thing she wanted him to understand.

"I owe my life to it already," he said, with gratitude almost reverential.

"I didn't see Uncle Boley before I left; I didn't know. I'm glad he gave it to you; I'm glad you had it when that gang—" She lifted the holster to her lips, as if moved by a sudden emotion, and kissed the stock of the great black gun. She gave it to him then, her head thrown high, her eyes bright in the dim lamplight for the tears that hung in them unspilled.

The others were out by the gate, filling the night with laughter.

"Let's sit here," Sallie suggested, stopping where the moonlight came sowing down through the cottonwood upon a bench.

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 Youth was with them, also, but laughter seemed to have gone its way out of their hearts that night. Not much was said between them as they sat there, for the thoughts of each were busy as weaving spiders working to stretch their nets before the dawn. But in a quarter of an hour of such halfsilent communion much good or much hurt may come to a pair of young hearts all open for the writing of the Great Adventure.

When Duncan appeared in the door with his pipe and called to Sallie, they started like children out of sleep.

"Come in and sing me my song, Sallie," he requested.

She laughed a soft little protest, but rose at once.

"It sounds better from a distance, the greater the distance the better," she said, putting out her hand to stop Texas when he would have gone with her. "He never wants but that one song—his song, he always calls it. I'll come back when the agony is over."

Presently the prelude to the sweet old melody came to Texas where he waited beneath the cottonwood, his heart almost over at the window, it seemed to him, straining lest he lose one chord. The words of the song came softly:

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Texas stood up, as if he were in church. He closed his eyes and listened, and it seemed that tears were burning behind the lids, and that all the tender recollections of his life were coming back to him. Her voice was so soft, so clear in the rising notes, so appealing in the tender tribute of the heart disinherited of its love. He felt that a lonely man must have written that song, and that only a pure woman could make the rest of the indifferent world understand how deep his sincerity had been, how sweetly pathetic his constancy.

He did not know whether he breathed at all until she came to the end, and Malcolm Duncan clapped his great hands, and praised her in his great voice. But when she returned to him in the shadow of the cottonwood Texas took her hands and held them a moment in the grateful expression for which his heart could find no words.

"I'd travel many a day to hear you sing that song again, Miss McCoy," he said, his act of taking her hands so sincerely a gallant, and at once grateful, expression of his emotions that a girl more prudish than Sallie McCoy could not have taken offense. She was fine enough to feel the unusual beauty of his compliment, and thanked him for it, with no pretense of concealing her pleasure.

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 Texas went to make his bed in the haymow with the sound of dove's notes in his ears. When he should have been asleep, repairing himself against to-morrow's work, he lay speculating on what had passed that night, marveling over the additions one day can put to the long sum of a man's experiences. For above all the experiences of his life thus far, this meeting and knowing Sallie McCoy was by far the most marvelous and beautiful.

It was a refreshing interlude in the adventures of violence which had been his lot in that strange country, and it was too rare, no doubt, to come into his days again. In the morning, very likely, Dee Winch would come for him, and he would go away to ride the border trails.

That was not a situation that could last long, nor one in which he should care to continue. In a month or two, perhaps, he would be following the wavering trail of his fortunes into some other place, and Sallie McCoy would be behind him, among the dear things of this world which his hand never could hope to reach. She was not for a footless man like him, and there was nothing on the horizon to promise the speedy mending of his condition. He must ride on, and forget, or, if not quite forget, think of returning only in dreams.

He put his hand on the weapon that had been her father's, feeling a new comradeship for it.

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 Why had she kissed it with such deep emotion, and given it into his hand with such high pride? Surely not because of anything that it had done for him. The fact that it had saved his life could be nothing to her. She had caressed it for the sake of its old association. What might have been a bond between them under happier circumstances could only be a dear memento now, for a man of honor could not think of a maiden when he did not even own the horse that he rode.

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 festival." Elsewhere we find that the king is asked for the ḥetep, and Anubis for the burial, and Osiris is to give the offerings of bread, beer, and cakes, thus:--

, etc.

, etc.

But it is not said of what the ḥetep which the king is asked to give is to consist. In another text the king is called upon to give ḥetep, and Anubis to give the burial as before, and Osiris of Ṭaṭṭu to make the deceased to advance happily over the beautiful roads of the Other World, and Khenti Ȧmenti is to provide him with the funerary offerings. Still there is no explanation of what the king's ḥetep is to consist.

From many passages in texts of the Ancient Empire it is clear that offerings of food were given to the dead, chiefly by Anubis. Thus in Tetȧ, line 387, it is said, "Ȧnpu Khenti Ȧmenti giveth thee an offering, thy thousands of bread cakes, thy thousands of vessels of beer, thy thousands of vases of oil, thy thousands of oxen, thy thousands of changes of apparel, thy thousands of bulls; one cuts the throat for thee of the Smen goose, one shoots for thee the Therp goose."


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HE plan of patrolling the border against Texas cattle was at once simple and effective. Without any warrant of law for their measures of defense against the contagion of their herds, the Kansas drovers had established certain defined routes by which cattle from the Texas range could be driven to the railroad loading points within the confines of their state. For a hundred miles or more along the northern line of Indian Territory the trail-riders, of whom Texas Hartwell had become one, rode watching for the approach of Texas herds, to turn them aside from the forbidden land.

As Uncle Boley had explained to Hartwell, the ravages of Texas fever on the Kansas range had worked tremendous losses within the past few years. Proposed laws establishing a quarantine line against southern stock were before Congress, and they were passed in time, but not until the Texas drovers had spent every energy to prevent it.

True, the routes fixed by the Kansas cattlemen were through the most arid part of the State, where

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 water was scarce sometimes in the summer months, and the grazing poor. The Kansas range always has been the fattening place for Texas range cattle, for there is no grass that equals Kansas grass. The plan of Texas drovers had been to drive immense herds into that rich country, graze them slowly toward the railroad, fattening them as they walked leisurely to market. But they dropped millions of fever ticks as they went along, and the bite of one of these tiny creatures was death to a northern animal.

So they were to be kept out at all costs, even the cost of battle and the penalty of death. The trail-riders had been keeping the Texans to the prescribed routes, but there was a spirit of defiance growing below the quarantine line which indicated trouble of serious proportions. For that reason the border guards had been doubled.

A man had to come highly recommended to get a job as trail-rider. It called for courage, and a good head in an emergency, ceaseless vigilance, trustworthiness beyond a doubt. It was the highest compliment that the hardy men of that country could pay Texas Hartwell when they made him a member of that trusted band. He might have fought a score of battles in the streets of Cottonwood and come out victor in every one of them, never to draw any recognition of his capabilities

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 with a gun from them. But when he lifted his voice and hand in defense of the rights of a clansman's daughter, that was enough to pass him into the iron circle of their highest confidence.

Texas did not realize this, for he was altogether too ingenuous to suspect that a community should reward a man for discharging a gentleman's obligations. He thought that Winch had hired him because he had proved himself handy with a gun against odds, or as a personal appreciation of the thrashing he had given the mayor.

In the two weeks that he had been riding trail, nothing had happened to break the autumnal peace. At morning he met at one end of his beat the man beyond him, and at evening the man from the other side. He was responsible only for the territory that he covered, a front of not more than ten or a dozen miles. Often a wave of the hand from a hilltop to tell that all was well was the only interchange between him and his comrades of the trail for days together.

Thus the time passed in monotonous loneliness, nothing to break it except now and then some traveler in covered wagon on his way from Kansas to Texas with his family, or somebody who had tried the lure of the South and was returning, thinner of shank and more tattered and roped together than when he left.

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 fact it was impossible for me to make them understand that the law which punishes the offence against good manners is applicable to these ultra philanthropists, whenever they sin so grossly. I have not yet been able to explain why such hideous depravities were in some measure privileged; perhaps there existed a sect who, to detach itself from the world on the one hand, and to withhold itself from its most delicious influences, had sworn hatred to the loveliest half of the human species; perhaps, like the society of bonnes lettres, and that of bonnes études, they formed a society of bonnes mœurs—jesuitical manners. I know nothing of it, but in a few years the crime has made so much progress that I counsel our ladies to be on their guard; if it continue, farewell to the empire of the petticoat, the long or short gown; the jesuits only love their own.

I have generally found that amongst the members composing the brigade, those who went heart and hand into its duties became at length tolerable members of society, that is to say, that leaving one trade to enter upon another, they pursued their path steadily. Those, on the contrary, who did not go readily to work, fell into irregular habits, which invariably 1ed to an unhappy termination. I had particularly occasion to make an observation of this nature with reference to a man named Desplanques, who was my secretary.

This Desplanques was a well-bred young fellow; he had talent, good style in writing, was a fine penman, and had several other qualifications which might have fed him to an honourable rank in the world. Unfortunately he had an addiction to robbery, and to perfect his disgrace he was most superlatively idle. He was a robber with the soul of a pick-pocket, which is tantamount to saying, that he was unfitting for anything requiring assiduity and energy. As he was not punctual, and acquitted himself very ill in his department, it happened that I frequently scolded him: "You are always complaining of my negligence," he replied, "with you one must be a slave: on my faith, I am


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 The marvelous and cheering thing about it was that he never met one of these travelers, no matter which way he was headed, who was poor in hope. In the faces of all the ragged drivers there was something like the reflection of a far-away light, in their eyes the brilliant eagerness of souls upon an endless quest. If they had missed it in Kansas they were going to hit it in Texas; if Texas had failed of the bright promise, surely back in Kansas where the grass grew they would come into their own.

So the surprise of hearing a human voice, and a woman's voice at that, raised in song in the dusk of a certain evening as he rode his way, was almost startling to Texas. The singer was riding ahead of him, not in sight, and this was her song:

Texas hurried on to overtake her, wondering why she should be riding in the same direction as he instead of across his trail. East and west travelers along the line of the Nation, as that part of Indian Territory inhabited by the Cherokees was

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 "You shall indulge yourself in that way in the streets of London, Joe. But to wind up, we are a party of three like Denham, Clapperton, and Overweg—like Barth, Richardson, and Vogel, and happier than our predecessors. All three of us are together still. But it is very important not to separate. If, during the absence of one of us on the ground, the 'Victoria' were obliged to ascend in order to avoid some sudden and unforseen danger, who knows whether we might come together again. So I tell you frankly, Kennedy, I do not wish you to go far away under the pretext of hunting."

"You must, nevertheless, allow me, my dear Samuel, to overcome this fancy; there is no great harm in renewing our stock of provisions. Besides, before our departure from home, you put before me a series of wonderful hunting exploits, and, up to this time, I have done very little in the way of Anderson or Cumming."

"Surely, my dear Dick, your memory fails you; or your modesty stands in the way of your prowess. It appears to me that, without reckoning smaller game, you have already an antelope, an elephant, and two lions on your conscience."

"Well, what is that for an African sportsman, who can have a shot at every created animal? Look here! look at this drove of giraffes!"

"Those giraffes!" cried Joe. "Why, they are only as big as my fist!"

"Because we are 1,000 feet above them," replied Kennedy; "but if you were nearer, you would see they were three times as high as you; and there are some ostriches going like the wind!"

"Ostriches!" said Joe; "they are fowls, and nothing more!"

"Cannot we get nearer to them, Samuel?"

"Yes, we can approach them, but cannot land. And what good, after all, is there in shooting animals which are of no use to us? If the question were the destruction of a lion, a tiger-cat, or a hyena, I could understand it, there would be always a dangerous beast the less; but to destroy an antelope, or a gazelle, without any profit but to satisfy the vanity of the sportsman, is not worth the trouble. However, my friend, we will keep at about 100 feet above


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 commonly called, were rare, and nobody but cowboys was ever heard to go along singing in that land. She heard him coming, and reined up on a knoll, where she stood quite clear against the last light of the west.

"Hello!" she hailed, while he was still a hundred yards away. "Oh, it's you Mr. Texas?" she said, surprise and relief mingling in her tone.

"It most surely is," said he, his wonder enlarging to discover that she was Fannie Goodnight, the girl who had saved him from the humiliation of arrest by her interference with the mayor. "I wonder what in the name of time brought you away down here into this lonesome country, Miss?"

"I guess I'm lost, Texas," she said, with a short little laugh.

He looked at her queerly, but could not make much out of her face, for it was growing dark. But he noted that she was not wearing the elegant green costume on this unaccountable excursion, miles away from any human abode. Her dress was of some dark material; she wore a handkerchief round her neck in the cowboy style.

"It's funny for you to be singin' along that way and you lost," he said, more in the manner of speculation than address.

"Oh, I wasn't worried; I knew I'd come out somewhere, and I've got a sack of grub. I've been

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 at Colby's ranch down in the Nation—you know where it is?"

"No, ma'am, I don't."

"It's twenty-five or thirty miles below the line. Colby married my cousin. She's part Indian, so am I."

"You don't tell me!"

"I guess that's why I wasn't worried when I lost the trail and got kind of turned around down there in the hills."

"Where were you headin' for, Miss?"

"Cottonwood."

"It's close on to sixty miles from here, due north. You was headin' east."

"Well, I knew I'd come out somewhere."

"Yes, I guess you would."

He didn't believe her, unsuspecting as his nature was. There was nothing at all uncommon in a woman of the range country undertaking a ride like that, through a section where there was little danger to be met, but a woman whom her relatives would trust to such an undertaking would not be the one to ride east when her road lay to the north. She interrupted his perplexing thought.

"Is there any water around here? I'm dying for a drink."

"There's a spring branch along a couple of miles. I was aimin' to camp there to-night."

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 "Do you mind if I stop there with you and cook my supper? When the moon comes up I'll ride on."

"I was just goin' to ask you to take a sup of coffee with me. But I'm afraid there won't be any moon to-night, miss; it looks like it might cloud up and rain."

"If it does I'll have to wait till daylight. Well, I've got my slicker."

"You provide yourself like a regular old-timer when you stir around."

"I am an old-timer, I used to ride after cattle down at Colby's. That's where I learnt to rope."

"You're mighty neat and handy at it, miss."

Texas felt that this compliment was due her, despite the underhanded scheme to defraud Sallie McCoy and the public in which she had borne a part. Some way he felt that she had been more of an instrument than a designer in that shameful steal. Perhaps this softening toward her came from the service she had rendered before Uncle Boley's door that evening the mayor had ordered his arrest.

"I'm not as good with a rope as I used to be, Texas," she said. But for all this modest disclaimer he could see that she was pleased by this compliment.

But what was she doing there? That was what

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 troubled Texas for an answer as he rode beside her toward the stream. For a woman who had lost her way she was mightily composed and easy of mind. Perhaps that was her nature, having been around so much, and accustomed to meeting all kinds of people. It was the way, also, of one used to the life she said she had followed once. Yet he knew very well that anybody who had ridden after cattle on the range never would get turned around and drop the road in the broad of day.

It was her own business, he concluded. If a woman wanted to go roaming around that way, let her go. This was a bold woman, with a large experience among men, larger indeed, he feared, than had been good for her. She would take care of herself in her own way, no matter where she might make her bed. But she had no honest purpose there on the border. Texas was forced to admit that belief in spite of the promptings of gratitude.

Texas gathered dry sumac for the fire, and that was as far as Fannie would allow him to go in the supper preparations. If he had doubted before that she ever had lived a cowboy's life all misgivings were dispelled at sight of her deftness with frying-pan over the little fire. She belonged to the craft; the slightest doubt of that was a slander. Of course, she couldn't jide and throw a rope to com-

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 the ground, and if you can perceive any wild animal you can send a bullet to his heart."

The "Victoria" descended by degrees, but still kept up at a safe distance. In this savage and thickly-populated country it was necessary to be on one's guard against unexpected danger.

The travelers followed the course of the Shari. The pleasant banks of this river were hidden beneath the shade of the variously tinted trees; the bind-weed and creeping plants wound in all directions, and produced curious combinations of colors. The crocodiles sported in the sun and plunged into the water with the activity of the lizard, and in their play they crossed numerous green islets, which rose amid the stream.

Thus, in the enjoyment of a luxurious and verdant natural scenery, the district of Maffatay was passed. Towards nine in the morning Ferguson and his companions at length reached the southern coast of Lake Tchad. There was the Caspian of Africa, whose existence was for a long time regarded as fabulous. This inland sea, to which only the expeditions of Denham and Barth had hitherto penetrated, lay before them.

The doctor attempted to decide its actual form, already very different from its shape in 1847; in fact, the map of this lake it is impossible to reconcile with the lake itself. It is surrounded by miry marshes which are almost impassable, and in which Barth nearly perished. From year to year these marshes, covered to a height of fifteen feet with reeds and papyrus, become absorbed into the lake, and often the towns established upon its banks are half submerged, as happened at Ngornou, in 1856, and now alligators and hippopotami swim about in the very spots where the habitations of the natives once stood.

The sun poured down his rays upon this calm sheet of water, and in the north, sky and water seemed to unite upon the horizon.

The doctor was desirous to ascertain the nature of the water, which was for a long time believed to be saline; there was no danger in approaching the surface of the lake, and the car skimmed over it like a bird, at five feet distance.

Joe plunged a bottle into it and raised it half filled; the


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 pare with Sallie McCoy, but he knew that she could have done better than she did with that old trained steer.

She sat cross-legged like an Arab beside the fire, her hat on the ground, the light in her beautiful black hair, strong on the white and pink of her handsome bold face, turning the flapjacks with a flip of the pan, flashing them up like fish leaping in the sun. He stood by admiring her, for she compelled that as her due, no matter what secrets her heart carried, no matter what her adventures had been.

"Texas?" she said, not turning her eyes from her task.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Call me Fannie: they all do. Texas, where did you come from?"

"Kansas City, most recently, Miss Fannie."

"Oh, I mean where did you come from—where did you start? Here"—offering a tin plate of cakes and bacon—"sit down and begin your supper, and tell me about yourself. If you've got anything to hide, skip it. I'm pretty good on the guess."

"There isn't anything in particular to hide, Fannie," said he, thoughtfully, putting his hat down beside him as if he prepared for a ceremony. "I started in Taixas, and I come to the end of my

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 rope in Kansas City. Father had a ranch down on the Nueces, and we got smart and begun to drive cattle up to Dakota to supply the government. They butchered them for the Sioux, you know."

"And you drove one time too many, I guess, didn't you, Texas?"

Texas twisted his head in combination of assent and expression of seriousness as he reached for another cake.

"You sure are good on the guess, too, Miss Fannie."

"Fannie," she corrected, with gentle firmness.

"Fannie," he repeated, like a dutiful boy.

"Go ahead, Texas; tell me about it."

"The last trip we drove in ten thousand. The Indians met us on the way and butchered them for themselves. But we got out of it right happily, you might say."

"Did they shoot you up any, Texas?"

"Not to amount to much, Fannie."

"How much, Texas?"

"Oh, three or four times, here and there."

"Three or four—which was it, Texas?"

"Four, Fannie."

Fannie appeared to be thinking the situation over. She sat with her head bent toward the fire a little to keep the glare out of her eyes, and turned out two or three cakes before she spoke again.

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 "I guess the government paid you for the cattle. What did you do with the money?"

"The government never paid a dollar. I hope to get it some time, if I live long enough to see a bill through Congress."

"Well, what become of the ranch?"

"We sold it and invested in real estate in Kansas City, on the advice of people we thought to be friends."

"Of course they skinned you."

"The Sioux Indians are gentlemen, Fannie, compared to them sharks back there."

"They rob you without any false pretenses," she nodded.

"Yes, you know who's cleaned you out when they ride off."

"So you left your father up there and struck out to make another stake, did you, Texas?"

Texas did not answer right away. He turned his head and looked off toward the south quite a spell, as if he considered this impertinence, and going into things a little too far.

"I took him back to the old place to bury him, Fannie," he said, simply, but with such pathos that it sounded like the cry of an empty heart.

She poured herself a cup of coffee, keeping her head turned so the light would not fall on her face. Her voice was low and soft when she spoke again.

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 "Your mother and the rest of them are still in Kansas City?"

"Mother went many years before him. My married sister lives in El Paso. And so you know all about me now, Miss Fannie, from the cradle to Kansas."

She rolled a piece of bacon in a pancake and ate it like a banana.

"You're a Texas cowman, ridin' trail for the association," she said. "What would you do, Texas, if somebody you knew from down there was to come drivin' a big herd up here and wanted you to let 'em through the quarantine line?"

"It isn't likely, Fannie, that anybody I know ever will come here doin' that."

"Well, if somebody you didn't know was to come from Texas and ask you to let them slip through this gap in the line you watch?"

"You oughtn't to ask me that, Miss Fannie."

She looked at him steadily a moment, reached out, touched his arm.

"No, I oughtn't. I know what you'd do without askin'. You'd fight till you had to prop your eyes open—you'd die before you'd let them through."

Texas seemed to be very much embarrassed by this expression of confidence. He looked round at the skies, his head tilted back as if he listened.

"It sure is goin' to rain, Fannie," he said.

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 "Texas"—her hand was on his arm again—"I'm not lost. I know right where I am, I know every inch of this country. I could go to Cottonwood as straight as a bullet."

"Yes, I suspected you could, Fannie."

"Texas"—earnestly, leaning toward him a little, the firelight in her bright eyes, her voice low—"there's a big herd of Texas cattle not three miles from here, and they're goin' to drive through to-night!"

He looked at her sharply, startled a little at first by the earnestness of her voice, but recovered himself almost immediately. He smiled as he threw a few small sticks on the fire to make a light.

"Did you come down to tell me?" he asked, treating it as if he considered it a joke.

"Tell you! That gang made me come—I was to hold you here, right here by this creek, till morning, so they wouldn't run into you. Tell you, hell!"

Texas was on his feet in a flash. There was no doubting the earnestness of her word, although he doubted whether she had given him the full truth of the scheme. She was beside him, looking appealingly into his eyes.

"Where are they, do you know?" he asked.

"I expect they're drivin' across by now, west of

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 here, just far enough away to be out of hearing. There'll be somebody—"

He started for his horse, hobbled near by. Fannie stopped him, her hand on his shoulder.

"They'll kill me if they find out I told you, but I couldn't double-cross you, Texas. I like you, kid—you're clean—you're the kind of a man I'd go through hell for, clear up to the neck!"

He took her hand, with a swift look into her eyes.

"I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you've done, Fannie, nor how much I'm honored by your confidence. Hurry—get your horse! If you'll start right now you can—"

"Listen!" she whispered, her voice choked with fear.

Texas had heard the slight movement beyond the small circle of their little fire, and had sprung away from her, his hand on his gun.

"Run for your horse!" he called to her, in alarm.

She stood hesitant, the light of the fire on her face, her eyes great, fear in every feature.

"They heard me—they'll kill me!"

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REATA swished out of the dark as Fannie spoke. It caught Texas before he could draw his gun. She saw him jerked off his feet, the rope binding his arms at his sides.

In the struggle that he made to free himself, his captors dragged him across the little fire, scattering the light sticks, out of which the blaze died almost at once. Many hands laid hold of him; the rawhide lariat was wound around his legs and arms, binding him like a mummy. They threw him down, and cursed him for his fight.

A man with a whang in his voice like the high notes of a banjo was talking to Fannie over beyond the scattered brands of fire. He was railing at her, calling her unspeakable names, abusing her for her betrayal.

"No, you don't leave here—no, you don't!" he said, in answer to something that Texas could not hear. "You wouldn't double-cross him, wouldn't you? Well, you're not goin' to double-cross us again, neither. You'll go with us, and you'll stay with us till you see this thing out!"

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 water was not very drinkable, and possessed a flavor of natron.

While the doctor was noting down the result of his experience, the report of a gun resounded beside him. Kennedy had not been able to resist sending a bullet at a monstrous hippopotamus, which quietly disappeared at the sound of the discharge, and the conical bullet did not appear to have caused him the least inconvenience.

"You had better have harpooned him," said Joe.

"How?"

"With one of our grapnels. That would have been a good hook for such an animal."

"By Jove!" cried Kennedy, "Joe has really got an idea."

"Which I trust you will not put into execution," replied the doctor. "The animal would quickly hurry us where we should be helpless."

"Particularly now that you have decided upon the quality of the water of Lake Tchad."

"Is that fish good to eat, Mr. Ferguson?"

"Your fish, Joe, is a mammiferous animal of the pachyderm species; his flesh is excellent, they say, and is an article of commerce amongst the lake tribes."

"Then I regret that Mr. Dick's bullet was not more effectual."

"This animal is only vulnerable in the belly and between the thighs; the bullet did not even break the skin. But, if the ground be suitable, we shall halt, and at the southern end of the lake there Kennedy will find a full menagerie, and he can indemnify himself at his ease."

"Well, I hope that Mr. Dick will do a little hippopotamus hunting. I want to taste this amphibious animal. It is no use coming into the center of Africa if we are to live upon snipe and partridges just as if we were in England!"

arriving at Lake Tchad, the "Victoria" met a current which carried it more to the west, some clouds tempered the heat, and occasionally a breeze was felt over


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 "Yes, and if you hurt a hair of his head I'll put a bullet between your eyes if it takes me forty years!" she told him. "I did double-cross you, and I'm glad of it, and Ed do it—"

He drowned her in a volley of abuse, yelled an order to somebody, and Fannie was taken away, protesting and defying as she went. The man who had cursed her came and bent over Texas, trying his bonds from shoulders to ankles, tightening them here and there, saying nothing.

Texas was so securely tied that he could move nothing but his fingers. For a little while the fellow stood looking down at him, as if he considered some additional precaution.

"It's purty tough medicine, Bud, but you'll have to stand it," he said.

"You might loosen the slip-knot around my arms a little if you're aimin' to leave me here, pardner. It's cuttin' off the blood from my hands. I'll be paralyzed."

The man laughed. "You're too damn handy with 'em anyhow," he said, and walked away, leaving Texas staring at the clouded sky.

Texas wondered whether one of them intended to come back and release him after they had driven their herd across, or whether it was their purpose to leave him there to die. The man who had spoken to him seemed to know something about

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 him and his adventures in Cottonwood. No matter who he was or whence he came, Texas was certain that he would know him by his peculiar voice if he ever met him again. Surely there was not another voice in the world like that.

Somebody in Cottonwood must still be in the business of importing Texas cattle, perhaps with his connection in such transactions hidden from the cattlemen of that country. Fannie had said "that gang" as if she meant somebody in Cottonwood. These things Texas considered as he lay there, the pain of his tightly bound hands and feet increasing every moment.

This grew so intense in a short time as to be alarming. Texas believed that he must perish of it, in lingering agony, if somebody did not come soon and set him free. The hard, braided rawhide lariat had been pulled as tight as the strength of excited and vindictive hands could draw it; it cut into his flesh and stopped the return flow of blood from his extremities. All the time the pressure of his heart was pumping a little more blood past the bonds, but there was no force to send it back.

His hands were already swollen until he could not move his fingers. The pain was becoming maddening. He felt blood starting from beneath his finger nails; the gorged flesh ached and burned in an exaggeration of the wildest imaginings of

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 pain. It was agony such as being chained in fire, only it was more prolonged. Insensibility was a condition to be prayed for, even though it might be the end.

Texas shouted for help until his voice was only a moan; thrashed his body from side to side until he had no strength left to turn again, rebellious against this cruel punishment, frantic in his desire to burst his burning bonds. He gasped like a drowning man; his heart labored to suffocation against the poison of his stifled veins. Then in a rushing climax of pain his senses left him. His last wild, protesting thought was that he had come to the quicksands of death.

The cool plash of rain in his face woke Hartwell from his swoon on the threshold of death, and it was dawn. He was unable to believe for a while that the pain had gone out of his feet and hands, the pressure relaxed on his arms. His bonds hung loose on him, as if they had been cut. He could not believe it for a time, and had no strength to investigate, thinking, indeed, that it was only a rift in his incomparable visitation of cruelty.

It came to him quickly that his release from agony was due to the rain. The nature of dry rawhide is to stretch when wet, and the rain had come in time to ease the thongs which stifled his body

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 and choked out his life. Little by little he moved his arms, working the muscles out of their stiffness, every movement bringing back a faint reminder of his old pain. It required a long time to get one hand out of the wet rope and into his pocket for his knife, another almost hopeless spell of fumbling to open it with his swollen, numb fingers. When he stretched free of thongs at last, day was well on its way. The rain continued from the low-blowing clouds which had followed the cattle from Texas, as if to give them obscurity for their invasion of the forbidden land.

Texas found his feet and legs too tender to bear him at once. It was as if they had been frozen. Only after long chafing he was able to crawl, and crawling, he went to look for his horse, his intention being to mount and carry the alarm straight to Malcolm Duncan's ranch, almost forty miles to the north.

There was no trace of the animal near at hand; he believed the invaders had driven it away. Near the site of last night's fire he found his grub and scattered utensils where the invaders had kicked them about in the struggle. The circulation was restored to his extremities by the time he had cooked and eaten breakfast; it was possible to walk with little pain.

Further search for the horse discovered no trace

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 of it. Hours since he should have met the rider who patrolled the border to the east of him. According to orders this man would wait a reasonable time at the established meeting point, and then would ride forward into Texas's territory to find what was amiss.

Without doubt this man had discovered the herd and was now on his way to give the alarm. There was nothing left for Hartwell to do but face toward the north and tramp it to Duncan's ranch, doubly disgraced in the eyes of his employers.

Burdened by this humiliation, he started, only to run across his horse a mile or so up the creek. The animal's trail rope had become tangled in the brush, and it had wound itself up until it hadn't an inch to spare. It was nearly noon when he mounted to ride to Duncan's ranch.

They were at supper at the Duncan ranch when a man on a mud-spattered horse drew rein before the low sod house in its nest of cottonwoods. He left the panting creature standing with legs apart like a new-born colt, its head drooping, its nostrils flaring as it puffed in its fatigue. His shout brought Duncan to the door.

Dee Winch had ridden in not an hour before. He and Duncan's sons held their clatter of cutlery to listen to the report the trail-rider began to make.

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 At his first word Winch was on his feet, and in a second he had pushed past Duncan, where he stood bareheaded in the rain.

"Eight to ten thousand of 'em," the trail-rider was saying, "drove 'em through that Texas feller's beat."

Dee Winch went into the hall and took down his belt with its double holster, his hat and coat.

"How far have they come in?" Duncan inquired.

"Fifteen or twenty miles by now."

"Did you look for Hartwell?" Winch asked. He was adjusting his belt, ready in those few seconds to take the road.

"I rode over to look for him when he didn't meet me this morning, but I couldn't find hide nor hair of him anywheres. Then I run onto the trail of that herd, and follered it till I overtook 'em. I think they've got twenty-five or thirty men in the outfit, and they're as sassy as hell."

"They came expectin' a fight, and they knew right where to hit the line," Duncan said. He turned to Winch, his handsome face clouded and stern. "Do you think that stranger was in on it, Dee?"

"I think most anything of him right now," Winch returned.

"It looks to me like he was in on it, and came

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 here for the purpose of gettin' a job from us to open the gate to his friends."

"I never did like the slant of that feller's eye," the trail-rider said.

"We've got to turn that herd back before any more damage is done," Duncan said. "They've sown ticks enough by now to infect this whole range, like enough, but they've got to turn back and take the set trails if we have to kill off half of them, men and beasts, to make them do it! Boys, get your horses out!"

He gave one orders to ride to this ranch, another directions to hasten to that. The frail-rider he instructed to go in and eat his supper, then saddle a fresh horse and ride to the nearest ranch, rousing all hands to repel this insolent invasion. Dee Winch had gone for his horse. He was back for orders from Duncan while the others were getting into their slickers.

"I think you'd better take a scout down there, Dee, to find out where they are, and warn them not to come this way another mile. Tell them in plain words we meant it when we set them trails for Texas cattle, and we mean it when we say they've got to get out of here as quick as the Lord will let them!"

Winch swung into the saddle. Duncan lifted

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 his hand and stopped him as he was about to gallop away.

"If you see that man they call Texas—well, you'll know what to do; it was you that hired him."

"Yes, and by God, I'll pay him off!"

Winch's voice was down in his throat, like the growl of a dog mouthing a bone. Duncan stood looking after him a moment as he galloped into the south, then turned into the house to belt himself for the fight.

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HEN Hartwell arrived at Duncan's along in the night he found a strong party of ranchers and cowboys gathered to ride against the Texans and drive them back across the quarantine line. He had recovered fully from the hard experience of the night before, but his horse was spent, for he had not spared it in the ride of forty miles.

Nobody among the men assembled knew him as he flung himself from his heaving horse in the light of the lanterns. He knew that the news of the Texans' invasion had beaten him there by many hours when he saw the preparations going forward. A dozen men or more were gathered round a wagon into which supplies were being loaded from Duncan's warehouse, their horses hitched along the fence.

Duncan came out of the covered chuck wagon when he heard Texas inquiring for him, a lantern in his hand. He stood at the tail of the wagon, his lantern lifted high to look under it, throwing its

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 full light over Hartwell's mud-spattered figure as he hurried up to report.

"I've been a long time reachin' here, sir," said Texas, hardly knowing how to begin his tale of surprise, humiliation, and defeat.

"Yes, you have," Duncan replied, still holding the light aloft, looking sternly into the trail-rider's face.

The others drew near as Texas drove straight into his story. Out of gratitude for Fannie Goodnight's betrayal of the plot to him, although such betrayal had come too late, Texas kept her part in it to himself.

"They roped me while I was eatin' my supper by Clear Creek, sir, and tied me up so tight I almost died. I lost my senses and lay there thataway till the rain stretched the rawhide and eased it. I've come through to you, sir, as fast as I could come, but I realize I've made a mighty poor figure in the business, all the way through."

Duncan lowered the lantern, lifted it, looked again into the trail-rider's face.

"Yes, and you're either one of that Texas outfit or you sold out to them!" Duncan charged.

"That's right!" spoke a voice out of the dark.

"I felt that you might take it thataway," said Texas, almost suffocated by his great shame and the injustice of this charge which he was powerless

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THE cession of Louisiana to the United States is an event, of which the most sanguine speculative politician could scarcely have ventured to indulge a hope: When the treaty of peace in 1763, left the French nation in possession of that part, only, of its former territory in North America, it became an object with the Spanish government to possess it; probably, not from the expectation of any immediate profit to be drawn from it, but rather with a view to retain it as a barrier against the growing power of the British colonies; by interposing between them and her Mexican dominions, either the natural obstacles of a vast uncultivated wilderness, or a line of military posts, whenever the occasion might require it. This we may suppose to be one of the principal inducements to Spain to obtain it; which she did by treaty with France about the time of the conclusion of the peace, or not very long after.

So long as Louisiana appertained to Spain, whose pacific and unenterprising character promised to make her a quiet neighbour; and whose weakness and valuable possessions on the western coast of North America might be considered as a perpetual guarantee of the same line of conduct on her part; the acquisition of that immense country was by no means a desirable object to the United States, who are already possessed of more than ten times as much land as they have hands to cultivate.


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 to refute in any convincing manner by word or deed.

"What did you take the trouble to come up here for, then? Haven't you got sense enough to know you've rammed your neck right into the rope? We're not fools enough to turn a wolf loose a second time."

Duncan's manner was even more threatening than his words. It was plain that he believed Texas had betrayed his trust, and was so deeply set in that belief it would take something more than words to remove the conviction. The other men were ominously silent.

"If I'd been one of them, or even sold out to them, I wouldn't 'a' come, Mr. Duncan, sir."

Texas had expected to meet suspicion and distrust, but he had not looked for such cold prejudgment and unfair passing of sentence. There was not a spark of resentment or anger in him, even at that; only a desire that was almost frantic to save his honor and clear himself of what appeared in the eyes of the cattlemen a monstrous crime.

"We didn't expect you to," said Duncan shortly; "but now that you're here you've saved us a lot of trouble."

There was a short laugh at that. The sound ran through the little knot of men like a growl.

"I'll go wherever you say, and I'll do whatever

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 you wish, to prove to you I'm square," Texas told them earnestly.

"You can begin by handin' over that gun," Duncan suggested, reaching out his hand.

Texas stepped back. There was a quick, uneasy movement among the others as they drew away from the wagon, as if to get out of the light, for Hartwell's reputation with a gun had spread over the range from his meeting with Johnnie Mackey's gang in Cottonwood.

"I'll go with you and help you turn them southern cow-men back, sir, or I'll go alone and do my best to turn 'em, but, gentlemen, I'm goin' to keep this gun."

Duncan did not speak for a little while. The others edged back into the circle of light, and drew near to where Duncan stood, judicial and gray, as if thinking the proposal over.

"All right," said he at last, "you can go with us. There's a little man by the name of Winch that wants to see you, anyhow."

They dismissed Texas with that, and left him to his own devices while they hurried on with the freighting of the wagon. From the look of things they were preparing to make a regular campaign of it. Rations for many days were being loaded, and Duncan's camp cook was hitching in two teams to haul the heavy wagon to the front.

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 Texas changed his saddle to a fresh horse from among the number in the corral, nobody paying the slightest attention to him. Even Mrs. Duncan, who came and went between house and wagon like a laboring and anxious ant, did not speak to him when she met him face to face.

It transpired that they were not waiting on the wagon, but for one of Duncan's boys to come with an addition to the fighting force. The lad arrived an hour or so after Texas, bringing with him five men. Duncan sought Hartwell, where he sat on the very bench that he had occupied one tenderly treasured night with Sallie McCoy, his saddled horse near at hand.

"You'll ride in front with me," said he briefly, and passed on.

Long since the rain had blown by, and the stars were brilliant in the washed, clear air. Like shadows the men were mounting and gathering for the ride. Texas leaped into the saddle and followed Malcolm Duncan to the head of the party. They rode forward without a word.

It was not an occasion for words, indeed. Texas realized that as well as the deepest concerned in the crowd. The fortunes of some of these men were menaced by that approaching herd of southern cattle. Between that night and the first killing frost, still several weeks off, disease might be spread by

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 the ticks all over the range. Already miles of the finest grazing country had been infected. Grazing in the territory traversed by the Texas herd was at an end until next spring, and there would be a risk in it then. No wonder they were bitter against him, Hartwell thought.

Morning disclosed that the Texans had rushed their long-winded cattle forward with little pause. They had penetrated twenty-five miles into the forbidden country, and had come to camp now with their great herd spread wide, watched by double the number of herders usually employed to control that many cattle.

Dee Winch met the defenders of the range at sunrise, coming from his camp on the flank of the Texas herd, where he had hung like a wily old wolf waiting the arrival of his friends. He did not return Hartwell's greeting, but looked him straight in the face as he rode up to Duncan and made his report.

The Texans were defiant, he said. They held themselves to be within their rights, and they would defend such rights at any cost. So there seemed to be no way out of it but through a fight. They rode on to the place where Winch had camped, talking it over between them. Winch and Duncan had a few words apart, about him, Hartwell be-

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 lieved, for after that Winch avoided him, and did not even look his way.

Indeed, Texas felt himself as one considered of lower caste when the party dismounted at the little stream and set about getting breakfast from the emergency supplies which each man had brought behind his saddle. They ignored him so completely that he withdrew down the stream a little way and made his fire. He had no coffee, and very little flour, for the rain had penetrated his mess that night he lay bound in the Texans' thongs. But nobody inquired into his necessities, and he was too proud to make them known.

There he broiled his last few slices of bacon and cooked a wad of dough on a stick, and ate his breakfast in bitterness of heart over this unjust, if not altogether unreasonable condemnation. His tobacco had been soaked by the rain, and the bit of it that he had dried in his palm before the fire had a miserable taste. All through, life had a bad flavor to him that morning, and there was not much on the horizon to offer him cheer. He was tired and sleepy, and glad only that there was sun in place of rain. As he sat there reflecting on his uncomfortable situation all round, Winch approached.

Texas looked up at him, not forgetting the cold

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 unfriendliness that he had seen in Winch's face a little while before, nor the ignored greeting that he had given him. He was in no mood now to risk another rebuff, so he held his peace and waited for Winch to unfreight his mind.

"That's a kind of a thin story you've come in with, young feller," said Winch. He had stopped off a few feet from where Texas sat, and stood looking at him, a little twitching in his mustache as if he were about to smile. But there was no smile in his eyes, small and gray, smaller now for the frown on his sharp, thin face.

Texas drew deep on his cigarette, tossed the butt into the fire, got up deliberately, turned and looked Winch straight in the eyes.

"Yes, I admit it is a purty thin kind of a story to come into a crowd of suspicious men with, especially men that have judged before they have heard any evidence at all."

"What do you call that if it ain't evidence?"

Winch pointed to the distant herd grazing on the forbidden grass.

"It does look bad for a stranger from Taixas, I'll admit, Winch."

"I didn't take you for a man that would double-cross a friend that had done you a favor, Hartwell."

"No, you didn't, Winch. And you measured me

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 right, sir. I wouldn't double-cross a friend; I never did in my life."

"I look at this as a personal matter, Hartwell. I hired you; it all comes back to me to carry. That story of yours about bein' roped is a purty hard one for me to swaller."

"It hurts me more to confess it than it does you to hear it, Winch. It's the truth, and you can swaller it or you can spit it out, sir!"

Hartwell's slow anger was beginning to rise; the injustice of it looked bigger to him every moment. The scowl darkened on Winch's face; his big mustache twitched again as if he was about to smile.

"I'll spit it out, then!" he said.

There was a challenge in the cold glare that he gave Hartwell; he stepped back a little, shaking his shoulders like a cock.

"I didn't seek a qua'l with you, sir," said Texas, meeting him eye to eye, "nor with any man on this range. But I've got my name and honor to defend, sir, and I'll defend 'em the best way I know how to do it."

"It'll take a whole lot more than your own word to clear you, Hartwell."

"I've promised Duncan to help turn them cattle back over the line, and I'm goin' to do it. If you want to see me afterwards, I'll be at your service, sir."

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 "I'll want to see you, all right, pardner, unless this thing happens to turn out the way you tell it. If it does, I'll take off my hat to you and apologize."

"I wouldn't ask it of you, sir," Texas returned loftily, plainly conveying to the notorious gun-slinger that his opinion, one way or the other, mattered very little.

"We're goin' up there on the hill to call them fellers out for a talk and lay down the law. Duncan wants you to go along with me and him and two or three more. We'll be ready in a minute."

"I'll be on hand when wanted, sir," Texas said.

He looked after Winch as he walked away, his hairy chaparejos accentuating the curve of his ridiculous short legs until he looked more like a crab than a man. There was a feeling of hardness in him against this man Winch, more than against any other in the band. Winch knew him better than any of the others, and should be able to judge him with more justice. It looked as if prejudice had made him blind and unreasonable, or that he wanted to seize on this pretext of personal affront to add one more to his bloody toll of men.

Texas wondered what Duncan's purpose in having him go with the parleying party might be. He thought, with contempt for such smallness and distrust, that it might be to keep him under the eyes of Winch, whose name on the range was equal to

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 twenty armed men. It seemed now as if they believed he had returned to Duncan's as part of his plan to assist his supposed comrades; they did not feel it safe to allow him out of sight of their official gunner for one minute.

What a contemptible thing it was to hold a man's word so worthless! He would rather believe the tales of five rogues, and lose by his trust, than wound one honest man by calling him a liar. But all men were not alike, he reflected, looking back over his own experiences. Mainly, he had suffered by being too ready to take men at their word. He would have been a good deal richer that morning if he hadn't gone so far on the bare statements of people whom he feared to hurt by requiring of them their references.

This he turned in his mind as he went for his horse, and came leading it back to where his saddle lay. After all, he couldn't blame Duncan and the rest of them. He had no reason for flying up that way as he had done with Winch, and challenging him to fight. He stood in a bad light, and it was a great deal to ask of them that they accept him on his unsupported word.

Things began to clear for him, and the surliness began to melt out of his heart. With its going the determination to do something to retrieve himself burned with a new flame. He would prove his loy-

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 alty to the men who had hired him to guard their country if he had to do it by riding single-handed and alone against that bunch from Texas. He would do it even at the cost of his life, for life was a mighty small thing when stripped of its habiliments of honor. So he thought as he mounted and rode to join Duncan and the others, and set out for the top of the hill.

Duncan rode ahead, carrying a white handkerchief tied to a sunflower stem. At the crest of the hill, half a mile or so from the Texans' camp, he waved it in signal for a parley. In a little while three men came riding up the slope.

The Texans had drawn the wagons of their outfit in a circle, making a corral for the horses, after the manner of men who were prepared for emergencies, and were ready for a fight. This camp was fully a mile in advance of the herd, and in a position that would be difficult to take.

Hartwell looked out over the great herd from the hilltop. It was scattered over miles of the range, with a rider here and there to hold it in some semblance of form and keep it moving slowly toward the north. But it was evident from the position of the camp that the southern drovers did not expect to advance beyond that point until the question of their right had been met and settled.

Duncan told the delegation from the camp that

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 they must turn back and take the trails set by the association. He was calm and moderate in his words and manner, and made a good case, it appeared to Texas, no bluster or threat about him at all.

"The stand you Kansas fellers take might be all right in case a herd of diseased cattle come into your country," the southern invaders' leader replied; "but it don't hold water when it comes to a clean herd like this. Them cattle's as clean as any on this range. I'm sorry we can't oblige you, pardner, but we didn't drive eight hundred miles and more to turn back."

"It's unlucky for all concerned that you see it that way," Duncan told him. "We're going to protect this range; that's what we're here for."

"Yes, and we've got to ship our cattle, pardner. We've got our cars ordered, I expect some of them's in there at Cottonwood waitin' on us now. We're not goin' to turn back a head of these cattle, and we're not goin' to pay demurrage on them cars. Kansas ain't bigger than Uncle Sam. He ain't drawed no quarantine line along here and said we couldn't cross it."

"We're plenty big enough to do what we're here to do, my friend."

"Well, go on and do it." The Texan made as if the interview was at an end. He started to pull

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 his horse around and ride off. One of his companions restrained him, and Duncan took up the argument again.

"I'm not here to chaw this thing over with you and get nowhere," he said. "We've given you your marching orders, and you'll march! We've got a big bunch of men down here, and more on the way, and you'll turn that herd and start back inside of twenty-four hours or you'll bite lead. Now, that's all there is to it."

"I don't care if you've got all hell and half of Kansas down here; we're goin' on to Cottonwood to load our cattle!"

In spite of his declaration that he wasn't there for argument, Duncan went deeper into the matter, still holding himself in hand with admirable control, it appeared to Hartwell, putting the case to the Texans in the light of justice between man and man. It was evident that he desired to avoid a fight if it could be done, and equally plain that he was firm in his intention to enforce the association's quarantine.

Not until the government drew a line against Texas cattle would they observe it, the southerner replied, getting hotter every minute as he recounted the wrongs, or alleged wrongs, that Texas drovers had suffered at the Kansans' hands.

"But the way you people look at it there's nothing

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 For wealth does not consist in the possession of lands, unless we have also the means of cultivating them, and of obtaining a ready and convenient market for all our superfluities: Without these, the borders of the Nile are of no more value than the sands of Africa; population, only, can furnish them: Consequently to a people already possessing a superabundance of land, the acquisition of as much more, without any increase of population, offers no present advantage; on the contrary it would rather serve to depreciate that which they already possess; and, what is worse, may operate to diminish the national strength, by dispersing the people over an immense wilderness, instead of drawing them together, as closely as may be consistent with the fertility of our lands, and other natural advantages; a measure which sound policy will always recommend in all countries.

The re-cession of Louisiana by Spain to France, a few years past, was a measure dictated probably by constraint, rather than by choice. For it seems difficult to conceive what benefit the former could promise to herself from it; and it is equally difficult to imagine that she could not foresee the danger to be apprehended from a flourishing colony established so near to her weak and rich possessions in Mexico: to the final conquest of which such an acquisition by an ambitious, powerful, and warlike nation would seem to be almost an immediate step. And such a purchase by a government of that character, possessing at the time no other territory on the North American continent, might be considered as an indication of views by no means favourable to those already established in the neighbourhood; and which it would not very readily be brought to abandon.

The proposed establishment of a military colony in Louisiana by the French government, under such circumstances was therefore a subject of serious alarm, not only to our western brethren, but to


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 this vast expanse of water. But, towards one o'clock, the balloon having slanted across this part of the lake, advanced once more inland for a distance of seven or eight miles.

The doctor, who was first annoyed at this direction, did not complain when he perceived the town of Kouka, the celebrated capital of Bornou. He could obtain a bird's-eye view of it, surrounded by walls of white clay; some mosques of considerable size towered above the Arab houses.

In the courts of the houses, and in the public squares were palm trees, and caoutchouc plants, crowned by a dome of foliage 100 feet in extent. Joe remarked that these immense umbrellas were suited to the heat of the sun's rays, and he drew very comfortable conclusions from this dispensation of Providence.

Kouka is really composed of two distinct towns, sepa- rated by the "dendal," a wide boulevard of great length, crowded by foot-passengers and horsemen. Upon one side lay the aristocratic quarter of the town, with its high and airy houses; on the other cowered the poorer quarter, a wretched assemblage of low conical huts, where an in- digent population dragged on a mere existence—for Kouka is neither commercial nor industrial.

Kennedy found some resemblance to Edinburgh, which was built on a plain, with its two perfectly distinct towns.

But the travelers had scarcely time to observe all these details, when a contrary wind, with the changeableness which characterizes the air-currents in Africa, suddenly laid hold of them and carried the balloon forty miles across Lake Tchad.

There a novel sight awaited them; they were able to count the numerous islets in the lake, inhabited by the Biddiomahs, very notorious and sanguinary pirates, and whose vicinity was as much to be dreaded as that of the Touaregs of the Sahara. These savages bravely prepared to receive the "Victoria" with showers of arrows and stones; but the balloon had soon passed their isles, over which it appeared to hover like a gigantic winged beetle.

At this moment Joe, who was gazing at the horizon, said to Kennedy, "Faith, Mr. Dick, you are always dreaming of shooting. Here is something which will suit you!"


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 wrong in coming in here and poisoning our herds," said Duncan. "Well, boys, I suppose we might as well go back."

"Here," Winch called to the Texans who were riding away—"this man belongs to your outfit, I guess."

The Texans turned. "Which?" the spokesman asked.

"This man," said Winch, pointing to Hartwell—"I guess he strayed away from your bunch. Take him along with you if you want him."

"If that's a Kansas joke," said the Texan, in marked contempt, "it's a damn poor brand!"

They rode on with the bearing of men who believed some kind of a trick had been attempted on them, which was a reflection on their common human understanding. Now and then one of them looked back, face eloquent of the disdain in which such clumsy performers were held.

This denial of Texas by the enemy did not appear to lift him any higher in the esteem of his companions. He believed that Winch had said that of him for the mere purpose of adding to his humiliation, or in the hope of forcing a fight.

This he was determined for the present to keep clear of. He knew that it would be harder every hour to bear the indignities which they would heap on him, the insults which they would offer; but he

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 knew also that they would not shoot him in cold blood without more proof against him than they had. He would bear it until the expiration of Duncan's limit to the Texans, and then when it came to the test of turning the herd back across the line, he would show them what small-caliber people most of them were.

It came up cloudy again that afternoon, with the threat of a rainy night. A misty autumnal drizzle began a little before dusk, and through it the Texans could be seen closing up their scattered herd. Hartwell understood this move. It would require fewer men to girdle the herd, thus adding to the fighting force. The Texans were not going to turn back.

Duncan's wagon had come up with the supplies, and the camp cook had supper in abundance for all hands. Texas did not wait for an invitation, but presented himself and received his share. He had gone without dinner, and this generous hot meal was very welcome and cheering. He had caught a little sleep during the day, stretched out on his slicker, and now felt a whole lot better disposed toward the world, and all in it, even though they did not call him into the council that was going on around the camp cook's fire.

The night fell thickly, with a gentle wind blowing the warm mist. The lowing of the southern

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 herd came faintly, telling of the unrest so characteristic of those beasts, known well to Texas from many a long night watch. Winch came to him where he stood listening to the long, plaintive calls of the cattle, something in them so expressive of lonesomeness and longing for their native plains that it was almost as moving as a human appeal.

"Hartwell, we've talked over your case, and some of them think maybe there's something to that story you told about them fellers ropin' you. We're goin' to give you the benefit of the doubt, as the old man says."

"All right," said Texas, not able to warm up very readily toward Winch, speaking rather crabbed and short.

"We're goin' to give you a chance to prove you're square with us and set yourself right, kid. You're a cowman; you know Texas cattle, I guess, better than any of us."

"I wouldn't set up any such wide claims, sir."

"That herd's uneasy; you can feel it clear over here. It was the same last night—I heard them turn the point of a stampede three or four times. If you want to square yourself, you go over there to-night and stampede that herd toward the line. Start 'em tow I ard Texas once and they'll go at a blind lope till they drop. Then you can come back—clean."

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 It was a wild and unreasonable proposal, almost mocking, coming from cattlemen. Texas knew that the chance a man had of stampeding a herd like that was not a thousand in one in his favor, and even though he might start a stampede point, he would have just as much control over the direction it might take as a cyclone. He stood considering it, choking down a hot reply.

"But I give it to you straight, kid, this ain't throwin' down the bars to you to lope off yourself. If you don't go out and try to do this job you'll stand convicted in the eyes of every cattleman on this range, and it'll rest between me and you the next time we meet."

"You might dispense with reference to our future meetin's, sir, if you please," said Texas haughtily. "In most any company I feel I'm able to hold up my head, and I'll not shame your reputation, sir, if you ever feel called to sling your gun down on me. Let it stand understood between us thataway, sir."

"I'm not tryin' to force a fight on you, Hartwell. Nothing would suit me better than to see you cleared of this. But I'm responsible to the men on this range for your bein' here, and if you fail to do what I'm linin' out for you to-night, you'll have to settle with me. And that's the last word, Hartwell."

"I can stand on my own feet, Mr. Winch, sir; I

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 can carry my own blame, and take the consequences for all the wrong I do any livin' man. It's a plumb fool thing you gentlemen's set for me to do, but I'm just a big enough fool to try it, even if I lose."

Texas flung the saddle on his horse, Winch standing by making that peculiar little hissing noise through his slant teeth. It was as if he tried to whistle softly, but the slant of his teeth was too sharp to confine the steam.

"You'd better wait till it's a little later," he suggested.

"It's my expedition, sir; I'll start whenever I feel called on to start."

"And come back—when?"

"In time enough to meet you, sir, any time and place you pick."

Texas stood a moment with his toe in the stirrup, his face turned to Winch as if waiting his arrangement of the next meeting. The little bow-legged gun-slinger said nothing; only waved his hand aS if passing that along to a future time.

Hartwell rode away with the headlong suddenness of a bee striking a line for its tree. He was so indignant, so thoroughly angry, over the impossible thing they had laid out for him to do that he would have fought them all in a bunch. But he was reasonable enough to know that it was no state of mind for a man to rise up in and meet a great

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 emergency. He must ride that mood out of his blood, and consider this thing from all the angles that experience had given him.

Impossible as the cattlemen's task appeared, it would speak better for his honor to attempt it and fall at the Texans' hands than to leave the country without having tried it, or return and kill Winch. Killing Winch would not vindicate him of the present charge. It would only make men a little more afraid of him, and perhaps darken the cloud of suspicion and distrust that had so unfortunately descended upon him.

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 "What is it, Joe?"

"And this time my master will not object to your firing your gun."

"But what is it?"

"Do you see that flock of large birds over there, which are approaching us?"

"Birds?" said the doctor, seizing his telescope.

"I see them," cried Kennedy. "There are at least a dozen of them."

"Fourteen, if you have no objection," said Joe.

"Please goodness, they are sufficiently mischievous that the tender-hearted Samuel may not object to my shooting some."

"I shall not say a word," said Ferguson, "but I should very much prefer to see them at a greater distance."

"You are afraid of these birds, then?" said Joe.

"They are condors, Joe, and of the largest size, and if they do attack us"

"Well, we shall defend ourselves, Samuel. We have an arsenal ready to receive them. I do not suppose that these creatures are very formidable."

"Who can tell?" replied the doctor.

Ten minutes afterwards the flock was within range. These fourteen birds filled the air with their hoarse cries. They flew at the "Victoria " more irritated than alarmed by its appearance.

"How they scream," said Joe; "what a fearful row!"

"They probably regard us as intruders upon their domain, and think that we have no business to fly like themselves."

"Truly," replied Kennedy, "they are sufficiently formidable and quite as dangerous as if they were armed with Purdey's guns."

"They have no need of them," replied Ferguson, who had suddenly become very serious.

The condors flew round in wide circles, and their orbits gradually got smaller and smaller. They flashed through the sky with fantastic rapidity, sometimes darting down with the utmost velocity, and breaking their line with sharp angular flights.

The doctor, feeling nervous, resolved to ascend, in order to escape from such a dangerous neighborhood; he in-


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HE cowboy was directly ahead of Hartwell as he rode through the southern herd, singing in high, wavering voice to quiet the cattle, which were milling restlessly. Here and there the plaintive tenor of a steer's lowing joined the herder's doleful melody; here and there sounded a rush of hoofs as the cattle crowded, huddling together for comfort in the face of dangers which they imagined filled the night.

Over all the great herd this uneasiness was apparent. There was a sound of shuffling bodies, of clashing horns, as the beasts pressed together in confusion. The cowboy was going on with his song in his endeavor to lull the fear of his charges. Texas could picture him, young and slim as his voice indicated, riding slowly among the shadowy beasts.

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So he carried his song along; that almost interminable song that has been sung by countless cowboys from the Rio Grande to the Little Missouri, carrying Texas back with it to the days of his own boyhood when he had stood many a lonesome watch like that.

Away over to the left of him another high-pitched singer could be heard in the long pauses between the nearer cowboy's stanzas. He was too far off to catch his words, but Texas could supply them to the tune, which came across the night over the sighing herd as clear as a bugle call.

That was the way it began. The ways in which it ended were varied, according to locality, tradition, and the personal taste of the singer. Only in all of them they buried him as he longed to be laid down, and the wolves howled over him, and the snows of winter fell, all in the melancholy cadence that was sadder than any dirge when it came on the

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 night wind and the rain from the lips of some singer watching beside his straining herd.

It was plain to the schooled ear of Hartwell that the leaven of stampede was working in the dull brains of those cattle, evident that it needed but some little thing to set them off, as the shifting of a rock precipitates the avalanche. But a man on a horse was hardly the needed element in their almost complete panic, for they were accustomed to looking to men on horses for protection, assurance, guidance, through all the adventures of the long road and the range. A coyote might do it; a bat flying in the face of an animal might do it; but it was a long chance against a man on a horse.

Texas was ready and willing enough on his own account to make as much trouble for the southern drovers, and cause them as much damage as he could to balance in some measure the tortures he had suffered at their hands. The night favored any reprisal that he might be able to devise. It was so dark there was no sky-line; the cattle floundering up from their uneasy rest in front of his horse, or moving aside, almost indifferent to his presence in their steaming midst, were indistinct the length of his horse's neck, invisible a few feet away.

He rode through the herd, keeping the wind in his face to hold his direction, for without it he

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 would have been like a cat in a sack. He wanted to draw as far away from the singing cowboy as possible before starting any commotion among the cattle.

Texas was feeling his way through to find, if possible, the place where the cattle were most uneasy. He could sense this spot in the night as well as in the day the moment that he rode into it, for the cattle would be milling like a slow whirlpool. From this trampling swirl of cattle a leader would break away now and then, followed by others, and start off on the aimless run of stampede. This little offthrowing from the revolving wheel of the herd was called a "point" in the tongue of the range, and it was to turn these points back into the herd, and confuse and submerge the leaders, that the cowboys stood alert on the borders of the drove. If Texas could luckily ride into one of these incipient stampedes the cattle could be urged on in spite of the herders' efforts to turn the point.

Over there, where that young-voiced cowboy was singing his long song of the man who left his dear wife and numerous relations to go to the thorny wastes of the Rio Grande and join the Texas Rangers, the sound of the greatest disquietude came. For that spot Texas headed, the rain blowing in his face.

He could not recall ever having ridden in a

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 darker night. As he rode he felt the pressure against his legs of the bodies of cattle which he could not see. Great perils would lie ahead of and around a man riding blindly with a stampeding herd that night. Ordinarily it was a situation of aggravated dangers, but in such darkness the risks were multiplied many times. The first unseen ravine would be a trap, the first wash across the prairie—some of them with banks twenty feet deep—would mean a trampled, mangled, smothering death.

But all this had to be faced and dared, for his honor's sake. He was there to stampede that herd, or a part of it at least—he had very little hope that all of it could be drawn into the flight—and prove his loyalty to the men who had put their interests into his trust. He could hear the cowboy talking to his horse between snatches of his song, and he knew that it was an anxious hour for that lone sentinel there in that strange black land.

Here the cattle were milling in their distracted, senseless way, held back by the herder, whose voice and presence partly assured them, but could not entirely calm their fears. Texas had difficulty in forcing his way among them, his aim being to reach the outer edge.

Suddenly his horse, floundering impatiently through the dull stream of beasts, landed almost on

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 top of an animal which, through fatigue or indifference, had lain down in the midst of all the excitement and unrest. The creature came to its feet with a snort, giving Hartwell's horse such a start that it reared and squealed. Instantly there came a challenge from the cowboy, who could not have been, by the distinctness of his voice, more than ten rods away. Hartwell bent low to blot himself into the blackness of the herd, caution unnecessary, for he could not have been seen if he had stood twenty feet tall. The commotion caused by riding upon the sleeping animal almost precipitated the panic that Hartwell hoped to complete.

The cowboy, whose sharp ears told him that some enemy had entered the herd, was coming that way, shooting as he advanced. Texas could see him in imagination, his horse rearing against the surging stream of cattle as if it battled with a flooded river. He was shouting his mightiest, a cry high-pitched and tremulous, like the howl of a coyote. Others were answering him, coming to him, Hartwell knew, as fast as they could gallop.

Hartwell had no intention of discovering himself to them by replying to the cowboy's shots, for he was in no danger from that source. He could hear the bullets go splitting high over his head, and knew very well that the herder would not risk killing his own cattle to shoot at a presence only suspected. He

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 urged his horse forward, and that creature, scornful of the cattle in his superior wisdom, and out of patience with their indifference to its efforts to force a passage, bit them in the little charges that it now and then had room to make.

Adding to this stimulation, Texas began beating them with his heavy wet hat, careless now about keeping his location or his intentions concealed. The cowboy was looking for him, cursing and yelling. Near at hand others were whooping and shooting, and out of the herd the confused noise of clashing horns, hoofs beating the sodden earth, rose and grew with every breath.

There was no longer any lowing, nor that indescribable sad moaning such as they make before they lift their voices in the long plaint of homesickness. Panic was among them now; they were snorting to be away. Confusion, blackness, the scent of rain-wet, steaming beasts; a struggle, a scramble of his horse's feet as if it lunged up a steep bank, and Hartwell broke through. His horse ran on, unable to check itself under the force that it had put into its labor to get clear, and after it came the point of the stampede.

Hartwell heard the sudden change in the slow soft trampling of hoofs. It rose suddenly into a muffled roar, which grew like flood water, filling the night. He rode hard ahead of the stampede,

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 flated the balloon, which mounted at once. But the falcons mounted with him, but little disposed to let him escape.

"They appear determined to have their own way," said Kennedy, taking up a carbine. The birds continued to approach; and more than one came within fifty paces of the car, as if to brave Kennedy's carbine. "I have a great mind to fire up at them," said Kennedy.

"No, Dick; do not, do not make them angry without reason. It would only incite them to attack us."

"But I can soon polish them off!"

"You are mistaken, Dick."

"We have a bullet for each of them?"

"And if they attack the upper part of the balloon how will you reach them? You imagine that you are dealing with lions on land, or with sharks in the open sea. For aëronauts, the situation is very critical."

"Are you serious, Samuel?"

"Quite serious, Dick."

"Let us wait, then."

"Yes; be ready in the event of attack; but do not fire without my orders."

The birds then collected at a little distance; the travelers could distinguish their bare throats extended with the efforts to scream; their gristly heads adorned with violet crests, which bristled with anger. They were of large size, their bodies being more than three feet long, and the under part of their white wings glistened in the sunlight. They have been termed air "sharks," to which fish they bore some resemblance.

"They are following us," said the doctor, as they rose with the balloon. "We have ascended well, and they can fly higher than we can go."

"Well, what is to be done?" asked Kennedy.

The doctor did not answer.

"Listen, Samuel," said Kennedy; "there are fourteen of these birds, and we have seventeen shots at our disposal, if we fire them all. Are there no means by which we can destroy or disperse them. I will account for some of them, I promise you."

"I don't question your skill, Dick, and I willingly look upon those birds as dead which fly across your range; but


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 hoping that he could draw off to one side and avoid being swept away. All around him he could hear the cattle, their horns clashing as they pressed together with a sound like hail in a field of corn.

Hartwell had lost his direction. The wind was no longer his guide, for he was riding faster than any wind except a hurricane. The cattle were bearing him along like a leaf in a freshet. Behind him the roar increased as the fury of flight possessed them, the pressure of that vast body of charging beasts beyond the power of any man to check. If his horse should fall, or its endurance prove unequal to the flight, they would be crushed together, as men and horses had been trampled in stampedes of his recollection.

There was only one thing to do, and that bear ahead with the cattle in their furious blind race. They were poisoned with the great fear which the understanding of man could not compass nor sound. The sound of their own flight increased the terror which their unreasoning brains had hatched. They would run on until their tongues lolled out from thirst, their eyes glazed, their heads hung between their legs.

That horse of Duncan was a sound-winded animal. In spite of the strain he held his own with the beasts, to which panic had lent speed and endurance not ordinarily their own.

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 It seemed to Hartwell that the stampede lasted for hours. Fortunately, the prairie had not yet been crossed by a creek or gully, and now the cattle were beginning to thin around him, the sound of their running to fall away. He checked his horse and began to work his way through the straggling beasts. Dawn was breaking when he at last rode clear of them. Ahead of him was the dark fringe of timber along a stream. As far as he could see through the breaking darkness the prairie was filled with cattle. The fright outrun, these had fallen to grazing, or had dropped wearily to rest, the cause of their late panic forgotten, if it was ever known.

Hartwell believed, from the appearance of things, that the whole herd had stampeded. It must be scattered for miles by now, he knew, for the habit of the beasts was to spread as the terror wore out of them. The Texans might have weeks of work collecting the cattle again to resume the drive.

He had no idea where he was, and cared little. He had accomplished what had seemed the impossible; the herd was stampeded, the sincerity of his purpose had been proved. He unsaddled his fagged horse, hobbled it, and turned it to graze and rest, then threw himself down on the sogged turf to sleep, for he was weary to the marrow. The day then dawning would have to take care of itself in its own way, as it would do anyway, no matter for

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 all the worry that he might expend on it in advance.

It was the pleasant sensation of the sun feeling through his wet garments that woke Hartwell. He found himself on a knoll close by the creek, but the locality was strange to him. As for that, any locality in that part of the country would have been strange, except the few miles with which he had become familiar as he rode the trail. There were no cattle very near him now, and nobody in sight. He concluded that the Texans had not yet arrived, due, very likely, to having followed some other branch of their stampeding herd. He did not want to meet any of them that morning, either, for they would not be in any amicable mood.

Food was his first thought, for the need of it was insistent above all others. He hadn't a scrap with him, and he didn't know which way to face to find a habitation. He knew it would be a safe undertaking to follow the creek, in either direction. Somebody in that country of ranches would be located on it, and no matter if the cattle had run clear down into the Nation, there would be something for a hungry rider. This course he pursued, turning toward the east, for that direction lay on his right hand, and Hartwell was a right-handed man, morally as well as physically, and it was the direction that suited him best.

Cattle were spread over miles of country, and at

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 not accustomed to be so used." Desplanques had just left the Bagne, where he had passed six years.

In admitting him into the brigade, I thought I had made an admirable acquisition, but I was not slow in being convinced that he was incorrigible, and I found myself compelled to dismiss him. Being then without resource, he betook himself to the only mode of existence which in such a situation can be reconciled with the love of ease. Passing one evening through the Rue du Bac, he broke a square of glass in a money changer's shop, and ran off with a wooden bowl full of money. At the same moment he heard a cry of "stop thief," and was warmly pursued. At the words "stop, stop," officiously repeated from all quarters, Desplanques redoubled his speed, and would soon have been out of reach, but at a turning in the street, he fell completely into the arms of two agents, his old comrades: the rencontre was fatal. He tried to escape, but his efforts were useless; the agents fastened on him and dragged him to the commissary, where the positive commission was immediately sworn to. Desplanques was an old offender, and condemned to the galleys for life: he is now at Toulon, where he is undergoing his sentence.

People who judge of all without having any knowledge of individual facts, have asserted that agents who have been originally robbers, must, necessarily, have an understanding with them, or at least temporize with them as long as they are sufficiently adroit as not to expose themselves. I can attest that robbers have no more cruel enemies than the freed convicts who have assembled under the banner of the police; and that they, following the usual examples in such cases, never exert more zeal than when they are serving a friend; that is to say, seeking to apprehend an ex-comrade. In general, a robber who thinks himself reformed is without pity for his ancient comrades; the more he has been intrepid in his time, the more implacable he will be.

One day, Cerf, Macolein, and Dorlé were brought


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 last he sighted the Texans making some effort to gather them up again. But there seemed to be a sort of dazed heartlessness in their work, as of men stunned by the task that confronted them. Hartwell found a good deal of satisfaction in that. It was something, at least, on account of what he owed them for that night of torture in the rawhide rope.

He kept close to the creek, skirting along in the brush. Until midday he followed the stream, hardly out of sight of cattle all the way. That herd had stampeded to the last animal, he believed, with broadening satisfaction. The knowledge of his complete success was like the scent of broiling steak. It made him sit up in the saddle and feel rather keen and eager, in spite of the mauling in body and mind which the past three days had given him.

It began to be impressed on him about that time, dimly and not quite understood at first, that he was coming into a country where he had been before. There was something familiar in the sweep of the creek here, something—and there ahead of him, in the elbow of the stream as he rose the ridge, was Malcolm Duncan's ranch.

There it was, as peaceful to behold in the midday sun of that autumn day as a picture in a frame upon the wall. Several horses were hitched in front, and even at that distance he could tell by the way they stood that they had been ridden hard and

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 far. Around him on the prairie, grazing and lying about as if it belonged to them, were the Texas cattle, scattered far and wide.

He had stampeded them, beyond any doubt. But he had stampeded them in the wrong direction!

The humor of the situation struck him first. He leaned back in his saddle and almost laughed. They had sent him to stampede the herd, with directions that he stampede it toward Texas. He wondered how many of them ever had gone out on a dark night and stampeded a herd of eight or ten thousand half-wild cattle according to directions. The wonderful thing, as he saw it, was that he had set them off at all.

But those Kansas drovers would see neither the humor nor the marvel of it. That he understood very well. What they would say, what they would do, he could conjecture without a strain, for there was ruin standing in their very doors, delivered by his hand.

Still, his own conscience was easy. He had gone about the business honestly, and he had done as much as any man among them could have done, and more than any one of them would have attempted. He didn't owe any of them anything, and his duty lay straight ahead to report to Malcolm Duncan on the result of his night's work.

The situation was not without its satisfaction.

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 Those cattlemen had been quick to jump to his condemnation; they had planned this task for him, and the work of their own scheming had fallen and buried them. He had a sardonic pleasure in the anticipation of their various expressions of face when they should see him riding up to the corral.

Hartwell saw that they had recognized him while he was half a mile away. They came out of the house bareheaded, leaving the dinner-table he suspected, to look at him. Then they ducked in again, for their hats and vests and guns.

This picture of their preparation to receive him provoked a smile. A cow-man couldn't do anything but eat without his vest. He must have it on for any serious business, as a Freemason his ceremonial-apron. They would come out buttoning themselves up in corduroy and duck and velveteen in a minute, ready to take him right when he arrived.

But it was a serious matter for him, about as serious as a man ever faced, and he knew that, too. Yet there was that background of humor in the fact that he had stampeded the herd fifteen or twenty miles in the very direction that its owners wanted it to go, which he could not altogether dismiss. If Duncan, or even Dee Winch, could get a glimpse of it he would come out of that queer adventure without a fight.

title: Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/189