Genre Western. Page - 10

rade winds by the oppositeside of the court. But Susy did not seem inclined to linger therelong that morning, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for amaternal tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capriciousennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but discontentedface, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton saw a look of painpass over his wife's face as the young girl suddenly and half-laughingly broke away and fluttered off towards the old garden.

Mrs. Peyton looked up and caught her husband's eye.

"I am afraid Susy finds it more dull here every time she returns,"she said, with an apologetic smile. "I am glad she has invited oneof her school friends to come for a visit to-morrow. You know,yourself, John," she added, with a slight partisan attitude, "thatthe lonely old house and wild plain are not particularly lively foryoung people, however much they may suit YOUR ways."

"It certainly must be dull if she can't stand it for three weeks inthe year," said her husban

r, or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the consul for his signature. Once, in the case of a very young Madchen, that signature was blotted by the sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned to go; but generally there was a grave, serious business instinct and sense of responsibility in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which, equally with their sisters of France, were unknown to the English or American woman of any class.

That morning, however, there was a slight stir among those who, with their knitting, were waiting their turn in the outer office as the vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private office. He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to recover from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than that of the actual soldier.

It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been arrested in the town and identified as a military desert

vulgar, and he shrank from the word. To lessen the sting of his disappointment, he pictured her to himself and strove to forget her faults.

On the following morning he went to his school very early. The girls were not as obtrusive as they had been. Miss Jessie Stevens did not bother him by coming up every five minutes to see what he thought of her dictation, as she had been wont to do. He was rather glad of this; it saved him importunate glances and words, and the propinquity of girlish forms, which had been more trying still. But what was the cause of the change? It was evident that the girls regarded him as belonging to Miss Conklin. He disliked the assumption; his caution took alarm; he would be more careful in future. The forenoon melted into afternoon quietly, though there were traces on Jake Conklin's bench of unusual agitation and excitement. To these signs the schoolmaster paid small heed at the moment. He was absorbed in thinking of the evening before, and in trying to appraise each of Loo's w

nse of keeping herhere on account of his pride, under the thin pretext of trying to"cure" her. She knew that Sally Atherly of Rough and Ready wasn'tconsidered fit company for "Atherly of Atherly" by his fine newfriends. This and much more in a voice mingling maudlin sentimentwith bitter resentment, and with an ominous glitter in her bloodshotand glairy eyes. Peter winced with a consciousness of thehalf-truth of her reproaches, but the curiosity and excitementawakened by the revelations of her frenzy were greater than hisremorse. He said quickly:--

"You were speaking of father!--of his family--his lands andpossessions. Tell me again!"

"Wot are ye givin' us?" she ejaculated in husky suspicion, openingupon him her beady eyes, in which the film of death was alreadygathering.

"Tell me of father,--my father and his family! his great-grandfather!--the Atherlys, my relations--what you were saying.What do you know about them?"

"THAT'S all ye wanter know--is it? THAT'S what ye'r' comin'

d bolder Europeans; and they moved westward, norcould have helped that had they tried. They lived largely andblithely, and died handsomely, those old Elizabethan adventurers,and they lie today in thousands of unrecorded graves upon twocontinents, each having found out that any place is good enoughfor a man to die upon, provided that he be a man.

The American frontier was Elizabethan in its quality--childlike,simple, and savage. It has not entirely passed; for bothElizabethan folk and Elizabethan customs are yet to be found inthe United States. While the half-savage civilization of thefarther West was roaring on its way across the continent--whilethe day of the keelboatman and the plainsman, of theIndian-fighter and the miner, even the day of the cowboy, wasdawning and setting--there still was a frontier left far behindin the East, near the top of the mountain range which made thefirst great barrier across our pathway to the West. Thatfrontier, the frontier of Boone and Kenton, of Robertson a

rubbed a short, thick, stumpy beard, that bore ageneral resemblance to a badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palmof his hand, and went on, "You had a good time, Jinny?"

"Yes, father."

"They was all there?"

"Yes, Rance and York and Ryder and Jack."

"And Jack!" Mr. McClosky endeavored to throw an expression of archinquiry into his small, tremulous eyes; but meeting the unabashed,widely-opened lid of his daughter, he winked rapidly, and blushedto the roots of his hair.

"Yes, Jack was there," said Jenny, without change of color, or theleast self-consciousness in her great gray eyes; "and he came homewith me." She paused a moment, locking her two hands under herhead, and assuming a more comfortable position on the pillow. "Heasked me that same question again, father, and I said, 'Yes.' It'sto be--soon. We're going to live at Four Forks, in his own house;and next winter we're going to Sacramento. I suppose it's allright, father, eh?" She emphasized the question with a slight kick

a man came cautiously out of the ravine, or rather out of its mouth. He was tall, slender, yet seemed to possess the bone and muscle of a giant. His eyes were jet black, fierce and flashing, and his face had a stern, almost classic beauty of feature, which would have made him a model in the ancient age of sculpture. He carried a repeating rifle, two revolvers, and a knife in his belt. His dress was buckskin, from head to foot.

"You are Persimmon Bill?" said Jack, in a tone of inquiry. "Yes. Who are you, and how came you by the signal that called me out?"

"A woman in town gave it to me, knowing she could trust me."

"Was her first name Addie?"

"Her last name was Neidic."

"All right. I see she has trusted you. What do you want?"

"Help in a matter of revenge."

"Good! You can have it. How much help is wanted?"

"I want one man taken from a party, alive, when he gets beyond civilized help, so that I can see him tortured. I want him to die by inches."

"Ho

g,oilcloth covered table. The food, wholesome, plain and abundant, wasalready served.

Silently each heaped his plate with the viands before him while SingPete circled the table pouring coffee into the white porcelain cups. TheQuarter Circle KT was famous for the excellence of its grub and theChink was an expert cook.

"Lordy, oh, lordy," Old Heck groaned, "it don't seem possible them womenare coming!"

"Maybe they won't," Parker sympathized. "When they get that telegramthey ought to turn around and go back--"

"Chuck's coming!" Bert Lilly exclaimed at that moment and the sound of ahorse stopping suddenly at the front of the house reached the ears ofthe group at the table.

"Go ask him if he got an answer, somebody, quick!" Old Heck cried.

As Charley Saunders sprang to his feet Chuck yelled, "They got it andsent an answer! I got one--" and rushed excitedly through the house andinto the kitchen waving an envelope, twin to the one Skinny had broughtearlier in the day. "They're on Train

e's a foot high, with white stuff a inch high all over. She'ssoft around the aidge some, for I stuck my finger intoe it just alittle. We just got it recent and we're night-herdin' it where it'scool. Cost a even ten dollars. The old lady said she'd make the priceall right, but Mac and me, we sort of sized up things and allowed we'ddrop about a ten in their recep_ti_cle when we come to pay for thatcake. This family, you see, moved intoe the cabin Hank Fogarty and JimBond left when they went away,--it's right acrost the 'royo from DanAnderson's office, where we're goin' to eat to-morrer.

"Now, how that woman could make a cake like this here in one of themnarrer, upside-down Mexican ovens--no stove at all--no nothing--say,that's some like adoptin' yourself to circumstances, ain't it? Why,man, I'd marry intoe that fam'ly if I didn't do nothing else long as Ilived. They ain't no Mexican money wrong side of the river. Nocounterfeit there regardin' a happy home--cuttin' out the bass voiceand

d Satan offered, I spurred him back from the gate and rode him hard down toward Wallingford. Of course he picked up a stone en route. Two of us held his head while Billings the blacksmith fished out the stone and tapped the shoe nails tight. After that I had time to look around.

As I did so I saw approaching a gentleman who was looking with interest at my mount. He was one of the most striking men I have ever seen, a stranger as I could see, for I knew each family on both sides the Blue Ridge as far up the valley as White Sulphur.

"A grand animal you have there, sir," said he, accosting Me. "I did not know his like existed in this country."

"As well in this as in any country," said I tartly. He smiled at this.

"You know his breeding?"

"Klingwalla out of Bonnie Waters."

"No wonder he's vicious," said the stranger, calmly.

"Ah, you know something of the English strains," said I. He shrugged his shoulders. "As much as that," he commented indifferently.

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